DEN: Florida

In January I was fortunate enough to attend two (2) awesome conferences in Orlando FETC and ATIA.  FETC Florida Educational Technology Conference is Florida’s official State Tech Conference but it is really much more. FETC is attended by people internationally with speakers as well known as Ed Begley Jr., Hall Davidson , Gail Lovely  and Scott Kinney to name a few.  Many of you attended FETC and had a great experience. I am sure you came away with valuable information on technologies and strategies that you will use to increase relevancy and efficiency in your classrooms and districts.  FETC 2010 was an outstanding success!

ATIA was also held in Orlando, although in a smaller venue, Caribe Royale. The Assistive Technology Industry Association, ATIA was also a huge success! The ATIA Conference features the latest products and services, showcasing more than 125 exhibitors in one of the most comprehensive exhibitions in the industry. We met with leading AT suppliers to get our questions answered and get hands-on experience with the most up-to-date AT technologies. 

I am sure many of you are asking: What is Assistive Technology?

Assistive Technology (or AT) is any item, piece of equipment, product or system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of persons with disabilities.

 The goal of AT is to provide technologies to enhance learning, working and independent living for people with disabilities. ATIA helps people with disabilities and those who serve them identify the best products and services for assistive technology users to achieve more independence and improve the quality of their lives.

Some of the areas AT looks at are Augmentative and Alternative Communication, Physical access and Mobility, & sensory impairment in addition to education and learning.  Differentiated instruction & UDL (Universal Design for Learning )are buzz words when discussing Disabled students.  When working with a student with disabilities and AT we must teach to the students’ strength.

Many of the teachers I work with use Discovery Streaming and the builders to assist them in their lesson plans for individual students.  Discovery Streaming allows students to be independent yet also work on the same content as others.  It allows for differentiated instruction and UDL - one lesson for all students. Thank you to Discovery for making my job easier! 

I am not sure if you have noticed the theme lately, but “Go Green” is the new buzzword for the year 2010.  Some of you may have noticed it a few years ago, when the world was reminding you to turn your water off while you are brushing your teeth or to recycle your cans and bottles to be reused.  Some of you may have even noticed the new email way of sending important documents rather than printing and mailing.

The main question I want to ask you is where are you heading as an educator to make a difference in the world?  How have you Gone Green in your classroom? Do you recycle?  Do you print class sets of worksheets?  Do you use digital textbooks? Do you use clickers for testing?

There are so many ways to ‘Go Green’ and one great resource for this is the DEN resource library where you can find several lesson, websites, and other materials on recycling in your classrooms. Check out this valuable resource: http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/sci-tech/scien.html

Another way is to follow the track of two of our Florida DEN LC members in their journey of going digital with the textbooks.  They have decided to stop using the paperback books and go totally digital with interactive textbooks online.  Watch for more exciting news from these two members.

Please share with us here some of the many ways you have recycled, saved trees, worked on the environment, or ‘Gone Green’ in your classroom.

Why go digital? Good question! The response is easy: up to date resources, flexibility, differentiation for students, high interest, greener, and cheaper.  Why now? Many districts (like mine)will be adopting new textbooks next year, which makes it a great time to make the switch. If your school is serious about keeping costs down, but making scores go up then digital is a great solution.

Are you like me and need proof it is a great solution?  If that is the case read last week’s blog, where Bekka Stasny  told you about the pact she and I made to try to go digital for the rest of the year. The rest of the year we are keeping  a log of our experiences and doing research on the fly, that will give you an “in the trenches view” of going digital. We hope you will find it useful. This week I am going to give you some websites that you can look at that should be helpful in investigating if you would be interested in going digital. If you are going digital, add a comment on what you are up to digitally, and we can share the journey.

Going digital sites to check out:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/education/09textbook.html

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.

Are you ready to go digital?

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!

It’s virtual and it’s FREE!
Register at:
http://links.discoveryeducation.com/denscicon
to attend the virtual conference
or
https://lrougeux.wufoo.com/forms/den-scicon-2010-bradenton-fl/
to attend the in person event at Electa A. Lee Magnet Middle School in Bradenton.

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!

FETC Pre-Conference Registration Link 

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.