This seemed to be one of the common themes presented at FETC this year. The DEN Day of Discovery at Sea World started with Scott Kinney’s presentation, which included the You-Tube video – Joe’s Non-Netbook. This video shows how disconnected our students are with their classroom texts.
Discovery’s very own Hall Davidson presented an eye opening key note (and not only because it took place at 7:45 am) on January 14, 2010 named Deep, Deep Dive Inside Digital: It’s Wild In there. (presentation can be downloaded at: http://www.discoveryedspeakersbureau.com/node/119) Hall’s presentation, along with the follow up discussion with Dr. Mark Edwards, Superintendant Mooresville Graded District in North Carolina and Dr. Gerald (Jerry) McLeish, Director of Secondary Curriculum Mapping, Indianapolis Public Schools, was eye opening and made me think – are my students really that disconnected with their textbooks and are we as teachers ready for the change that is about to come?States are finally changing laws about textbook adoptions – Oregon recently adopted Discovery Education in their Science Classrooms, (check out http://www.discoveryeducation.com/oregon/) and Florida is up for Science Textbook adoption this year.
But is Florida ready? Can we afford not to be ready?
Tracie Belt, a fellow DEN STAR and Florida LC, and I decided to try it out. At FETC we decided to try “going digital” for the remainder of the school year. Could we really give up our textbooks while covering our curriculum? We were about to find out. I am a 7th grade science teacher (teaching at a public school) with a new curriculum that was written to the Next Generation State Standards but doesn’t match up to my current textbook. In order to teach the standards as outlined in my curriculum, I need a class set of three different textbooks – 6th, 7th and 8th grade texts at least until the new textbooks are adopted that match to the new standards. And sending home 3 different science texts with all of my students just won’t work, so going digital for the rest of the year shouldn’t be that hard right? Well…stay tuned to find out, until then, check out the links above.
Our Day of Discovery started with an enlightening presentation from Scott Kinney. Check out the YouTube video Joe’s Netbook to see why textbooks in the classroom are becoming a thing of the past. This video was created by a student too!
Get out your calendars and save the date, FETC is January 13 - 15th in Orlando, FL! If you are planning to attend the conference, be sure to check out the Discovery Education sessions that will be held during the conference. For a complete list, visit the FETC Schedule. Ed Begley, Jr. will be the Keynote Presentation this year and many of our favorites like Scott Kinney, Hall Davidson, Steve Dembo, Brad Fountain, and Lance Rougeux will also be presenting! This is the technology event you will not want to miss! Think of it as the mother ship calling us home.
Right now I am sitting in Bradenton at an in person event of SCIcon hosted by Bekka Stasny. We are learning a lot and having fun getting to know each other and share ideas on how to make science more fun. However, it is not to late to join us either in person or virtually. You can still hear the afternoon sessions or you can go to the Discovery Science Connection blog next week and view the archieves of the sessions.
Another reminder for all of the great state of Florida is that FETC is next week. Discovery is hosting a day of Discovery at Sea World on Wednesday. If you have not signed up for the Day of Discovery you don’t know what you are missing. The event begins at 8:30 AM and ends at 4. The day of Discovery helps you connect with other great teachers, make new friends, learn new technology and have a lot of fun. The great Discovery Team will be there, and they have even set up a behind the scenes tour for us. After the Day of Discovery stick around for FETC. This is a great conference and always worth the time you spend making sub plans. We hope you will join us there.
What do you get when you mix DE streaming, DE Science and the plethora of free resources available through Discovery education? The perfect formula of a fun filled day! Also known as:
Join the DEN community for our first ever Science-themed virtual conference!
Saturday, January 9, 2010
9 AM to 4 PM ET
Drop by for an hour or stay for the whole day!
Join the dynamo DE team as they present the following webinars:
9 AM - Change the Present, Change the Future
10 AM - No Paper Left Behind: A New Age of Science Instruction
11 AM - Hands-On Digital
12 PM - Polar Bears in a Changing Climate-featuring STAR Discovery Educator Julene Reed
1 PM - Where Do Old Sneakers Go to Die? Real-World Science
2 PM - Teaching Process Skills with the Mythbusters
3 PM - Do Try This at Home: Fun, Easy and Effective Experiments for Your Students
Just think of the potential of your students as your transform your classroom in 2010. Your students will have a positive reaction to the integration of DE – come investigate all that Discovery Education has to offer!
Mark your calendars for FETC (Florida Educational Technology Conference) Jan. 13 - 15 and put a star next to Jan. 13th. Why? The infamous DEN pre-conference event will take place from 8:30 - 2:30 at Sea World Orlando. Come one and all for a fantastic day of discovery to kick off FETC. Space is limited so click on the link below and sign up today! We can’t wait to see you on Jan. 13th!
Are you looking for great resources for integrating STEM concepts? Then take a look at the new STEM connect tab in the teacher center of Discovery Streaming. It is an excellent collection of clips, lesson plans, etc. that will make it easy to integrate science, technology, engineering , and math into your science or math curriculum. If you have never heard of STEM, then STEM Connect will bring you up to speed.
The site includes clips on career choices, lessons, activities and other resources for grades 6-12. The selection of resources are interesting and should help out with your STEM lesson planning.
Do you twitter? If the answer is yes, then you can also try to win some free STEM books for your classroom. How?
“Youth Service America and Scholastic are partnering to give away 10 STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) related books a month and every month leading up to Global Youth Service Day in April. How can you win one of these great books? Just follow @semesterservice on Twitter. On the third Tuesday of each month, ,@semesterservice will ask a STEM or service related question. The first 10 to reply with the correct answer will win a free book from Scholastic that will support your own STEM-based teaching. To learn more about the book offered each month, make sure to visit the blog section at YSA.org.”
Last but not least, if any of you are into project based learning, and were fortunate enough to hear Gary Stager’s webinar on Discovery, then you might also want to use some of these STEM resources to help with one of your upcoming math, science or technology projects.
The Thanksgiving holiday is about taking the time to reflect upon what we are thankful for. One of the things that I am thankful for is the cornucopia of resources that DE has to offer. It is a virtual buffet of educational and professional resources, however it still amazes me that some of my colleagues only use discoveryeducation.com to stream videos. I feel that just using DE for streaming is like having Thanksgiving dinner and only eating turkey. Not that there is anything wrong about that, it’s just that there is so much more to DE than streaming.
I enjoy turkey, but what I really like is the side dishes. Think of all of the accompaniments that come along with DE. There are “side dishes” for all. There are images, lesson plans, articles, songs, thematic units…you name it. There is something for everyone who stops by, and there’s always enough to come back for seconds and then some!
Thanksgiving is also a time to catch up with your friends and family. In addition to your buffet of resources at DE, you get to network with educators around the world. You can share lesson plans and resources through media share or through virtual conferences and webinars or face to face during DEN events throughout the year. Thanksgiving is a yearlong celebration thanks to Discovery Education.
This holiday season, enjoy your buffet of resources along with your DEN family, all provided by DE…be sure to come back for seconds.
If you attended the Sea World Day of Discovery, you received a trial version of Nettrekker, compliments of Danielle Abernethy and Nettrekker. This is a valuable resource and our own DEN LC Member Tom Turner will be presenting a session on how to use Geocaching and Nettrekker at FETC this year. If you would like to learn more about this valuable resource and how to use it in your classroom, Danielle will be conducting two webinars on Monday, November 23rd. For those of you who are out of school that week, there is an early session at 11:00am and then a second session at 4:30pm for anyone who has to work that day. This webinar will be a how to session and should be a great learning experience. To register for the event, click on the time for your session, either 11:00am or 4:30pm, and you will be connected to the registration page. The sessions will last approximately 1 hour.
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