For the next thirty (30) days teachers in the New Brighton Area School District will have access to additional features of Discovery Education’s website. Please take advantage of the added features while they last. We will still have access to the regular site after the trial period expires.We have access to Discovery Plus, which pretty much doubles the amount of content available to use, we also have a trial of Discovery Science and Discovery Math.
If you would like to create a space for your students to view materials from class, please e-mail me at dsalvucci (at) nbsd.k12.pa.us and I will assist you in this endeavor. All the still images and audio files can be used by your or your students in any project. Feel free to use, change, post, and create with any of the images. Just please be sure to copy the available citation to your creation so we do not violate copyright laws. Make the most of this opportunity and check out the site.
On Monday, October 6, 2008, we had an in-service day where we had grand plans of staff technology training. We had an audience of sixty staff members and had decided to make an afternoon of hands on staff technology work. The live streaming of our training via uStream.tv did not work, but that ordeal will be posted on my other professional blog soon.
Staff was was interested in the Discovery Education Presentation and other tools we discussed in the combined Q & A session. When we broke out into hands on groups in the labs afterward, the staff jumped into Discovery Education and United Streaming. Our school has had an account for years, but many people had forgotten about it.There were a number of new accounts created and many more restarted.
Most of the tricks or strategies were picked up at my Day of Discovery workshop the week before at IU 1 in Coal Center, PA. Embedding video into PowerPoints and creating non-linear presentations seemed to be the hit of the day. Staff members jumped on the idea and were impressed with the amount of resources available since many last used DE.
Despite the streaming snafu it appeared to be a very productive day, especially with the follow up questions I have still been receiving from the staff. Based on this interest we are planning on continuing our efforts throughout the year with formal and informal workshops several times a month for staff.
I recently attended a Day of Discovery event in Coal Center, PA. It was yesterday actually. The activities mesh well with my district’s Classrooms for the Future, (CFF) initiative. We have an account with Discovery Education, but I do not know how widely it is used throughout our school.
Of the three sessions, two can be implemented immediately. They require nothing more than utilizing our account and adding multimedia to staff lessons. We discussed best practices of using images and multimedia in existing lessons. I will present some tips on using the media in class at our upcoming in-service day on October 6, and hopefully give the staff some hand-on time to work with the site.
The third session on Geocaching is harder to work with. I do not own a GPS device, nor do I have the funds to run out an buy one any time soon, however the concept of geocaching fits in well with our local history unit. I am planning on applying for a local educational foundation grant to implement geocaching into our curriculum.
Overall, the workshop was an excellent opportunity to recharge myself with ideas to implement in my classes and to pass along to staff.
I hope to update my blog with a success story soon. Until then…
Posted on September 30, 2008 in
DEN Events by Dominic Salvucci
