DEN: Florida

I’ve had to explain it a few times and without going into too much detail, it’s been a rough couple of months with some family issues since my last post for Florida. For that I do apologize. It looks like the rough part is behind us and it’s time to move on. With the new year just starting, it’s time to start fresh. And what better way to start it then with FETC 2009 upon us.

 It’s hard to believe that we live in the state of Florida. About 50ish DEN Stars met up early yesterday morning to head out to the Central Florida Zoo for this year’s DEN pre-con event. We huddled our way out there on a VERY chilly morning, TOO chilly for me. We started our morning with a session on Voicethread with Lee Kolbert. Personally I am always forgetting about voicethread as a tool to use in my reportoire of tools. As always, Lee did a great job in sharing how best to use voicethread in the classroom.

Our new regional manager, Justin followed Lee with sharing Glogster.com . Glogster is a combination of video, graphics, hyperlinks, text and music all rolled into one.  It definitely lends to a way to create movie or book trailers with little fuss. The ability to add the video though looks to be a great way as an alternative to begin webquests.

We were able to take an icicle pop tour of the zoo. Was very hard to focus on what the zoo guide was saying to us personally as I was constantly seeking out the usually only sunny spot at each of the animal areas. As with any DEN event we were tasked with an assignment. To create using any media “My DEN Story”. Unfortunately the tech gods were not with us this lovely day, as the wifi in the room was not strong enough to handle 40 bandwith hogging DEN Stars to complete their projects.

Alls well though, the DEN team huddled and moved us along with Plan B (at least I think it was plan B). I’m not really sure what they are calling it now, but I remember it vividly being used for the first time as “Cruising with the STARS”.  Volunteers from the group were asked to share their best tool that they use with everyone else. Here are the highlights of that session.

FuturesChannel.com (Katy)
2nd-12th grade; science movies videos and activities

Discovery Education + CDWG Win a wireless lab competition

GoAnimate.com (Brad)
Web 2.0 site where you can create your own animated video using templates, DE streaming images, voiceovers, and much more.

Jing (Katy)
Jingproject.com; screen capture application.  Creates stills and videos…great for tutorials!

Gizmoz.com (Tracie)
‘The best talking characters ever!” Allows you to upload your pictures into templates, make adjustments add voice overlays.  Tracie uses this to spice up her “do now” activities for her kids each day.

Portaportal.com (Sonda)
Create collections of bookmarks to share with others.  FREE!  Groups can register for their own collection that they can manage and maintain.

Scracth.mit.edu (Melissa)
All education based movie creator.  Creations can be saved in project folders and shared.  MIT is keeping a close eye on this content to ensure that it is appropriate.  Empowers kids to create great movies!!

Wordle.net (Marcia)
Creates a visual representation of words that are pasted into Wordle (e.g. Obama speech).  Ideas shared include doing a Wordle of your school’s mission statement, doing an analysis of words used in student writing and using filters to show different representations.  Placing a ~ (tilde) between two words will keep them together!!

MovieMaking.com (Carmen)
Video tips and tricks to help you and  your students create their own movies.

Alice.org (Mary Jo)
Inspired by Randy Pausch (Last Lecture) to encourage girls to explore computer programming.

Googlelittrips.org (Mary Jo)
Collection of Google Earth files that compliment the book that you are reading with your classes.  Organized by grade level, teachers can download KMZ files that will import place marks into your Google Earth favorites.  Be sure to check out the trip or Big Anthony which was posted by Michigan STAR, Andy Losik.

In an effort to get this out in a time crunch, I will come back and add the direct links to the words. I’m heading off to my presentation on the exhibit hall floor and I’ve just plum run out of time. I’ll also get more out later today about the first full day of FETC.

Until then.

Tom.

Send a big thanks to Jillian for sending me her guest blog post via email over the weekend. I first met Jillian at the Day of Discovery last spring @ The Peabody Hotel. Full of energy she is, and how can I complain about someone who speaks my language and uses terms like ‘uber’? Thanks Jillian for sending this in to me. For all you other Floridian DEN members, please send me a guest blog post to share with all others @ thomas.turner@polk-fl.net.

I’ve attended tech for the last 4 years, and this year’s was the best yet!  I was especially excited to attend this year, and the DEN was the cause. 

      As I waited with my friend and fellow STAR Tamara for the Exhibit Hall to open, we knew our first stop would be the Discovery Education exhibit.  We knew that the DEN was a Platinum Sponsor this year, and were thrilled to be a part of it!  Once the hall opened we didn’t have to go far.  Discovery Education was in the first isle with a great set up.  A highlight of the exhibit was the presentation of Discovery Science Connection (if you have not used it- Where have you been?).  Discovery Science Connection is an old friend to DEN STARs, but it’s never too late to check it out.

      I was also excited to attend the STAR reception that evening where the food was good- as always, and the people were even better (thanks ladies).  There were several great gifts and a chance to catch up with other DEN members and leaders. 

      We learned a lot throughout the rest of FETC.  The sessions and exhibits offered some really useful tools and strategies for teachers at all levels of technology proficiency.  We’re already planning for next year, and we can’t wait to see what the DEN will do! 

Thanks again Jillian for sharing your thoughts!

Tom.

Received word from Darlene Wolfe here in the Orange County, FL area of an event that might be beneficial to some of you. If you are interested please read further on below the images.

Educators, guidance counselors and administrators may register on line at http://www.fdmec.org/registration/event_012208.htm . More information for this free program is at the registration site ( http://www.fdmec.org and select register for January 22nd event). Since we do have a cut off point due to the size of the meeting area, participants will receive an email confirmation for them to print and show as both parking pass and free entrance to the Science Center.

The program begins with optional tours of Otronicon and the Orlando Science Center . Otronicon explores gaming, simulation and digital media in education and entertainment. A networking hour with snacks follows. Then, we have presentations from educators involved in the changes, industry professionals who will share what they look for in employees, and an update on the Digital Media Banner Center to be housed at Seminole Community College and on the coming programs, and changes in secondary and PSAV digital media curriculum.

Tom.

When?
8:00 AM to 1:30 PM (January 23)

Where?
Orange County Convention Center, Discovery Education’s Corporate Room (S220F)

Why?
Professional development, networking, fun, free…need we say more?

How?
To sign up for the event, please send me Lance an email at (lance_rougeux@discovery.com) that contains the following…

* Name
* School
* District
* email

Space for the event is limited, so register asap if you are interested.

Outside of NECC, FETC to me is tops in the area for Educational Technology Conferences. Ours is only about a month and a half or so away. If you’ve not seen the program as of yet, you can check it out here at the FETC website. But what is a conference without some exciting Discovery Connection.

One of my FAVORITE shows is the Jeff Corwin Experience. No, not trying to be a gomer here because I’m the FL DEN blogger and choosing a Discovery Show. I would use as a behavioral reward for my students the chance to choose any of the Jeff Corwin Experience videos located on Discovery Streaming. Personally, I thought it would never amount to anything, but the kids really connected with the way Jeff presented everything in the episodes. So it became a hit, and between the projects we worked on in class and this incentive, my discipline problems were pretty nil.

But I digress as I usually do. Jeff Corwin will be the keynote speaker at this year’s FETC conference. I’m pretty psyched about it because I didn’t think anything could top last year’s keynote,  for those that weren’t there it was Bill Nye “The Science Guy”.  And this coming from someone who literally HATES sitting through keynotes. Being the fidgeter type that I am.

Here’s a release I received from Jannita to share with you all. As soon as I receive more information, I will share it with you all

Go Wild: Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin Talks About environmental education in the Age of technology

Join Discovery Education at the Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) Keynote Presentation on
Wednesday, January 23, featuring Animal Planet’s Emmy-Award-winning wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin for an up
close and personal conversation about his work in the environment and ecology how his experiences can be applied
in the classroom to engage students and inspire an interest in learning.

Tom.

Your FL Blogger.

I asked STAR DEN member and author Kay Teehan to shed some light with everyone else her experience from last week’s FETC Conference 2007.
Here’s what she had to say:

The Florida
Educational Technology Conference was, as usual, information overload for all
who attended. Here are some of the
highlights that I came away from the event with:

 Alan November, who
heads up November Learning which facilitates professional development for
teachers all over the world, was a featured speaker at the conference. I was
amazed at his thoughts on No Child Left Behind legislation. “If we allow NCLB to succeed, our country
will fail. We are putting our time,
resources, and energy into the lowest 25% of our student learners – those who
are unmotivated or unwilling to put forth the effort to learn. We are doing this at the expense of our best
and our brightest students. If we
continue on this course, we will soon be standing in line behind  India, China and other countries that put
their resources into their best students in order to insure their place in the
world.” Mr. November got a standing
ovation from the teachers who came to hear him. It was the first time I had heard such a distinguished educator make the
topic so clear. It is not about testing
kids—it’s about providing opportunities for kids to learn and grow.

 Another interesting
speaker was Arnie Abrams from Southern Oregon University who spoke on how
digital media and educational technology is only still at its infancy and will
continue to grow and appeal more and more to our students—who are growing up in
a very multi-media environment. He then
continued to list some of the most interesting of strategies to use in the classroom,
including “iPod-ography” which incorporates the use of student iPods in the
curriculum. He also advised teachers to
check out YouTube on the Internet, as there are some very useful videos for use
in the classroom.

All in all, FETC
was remarkable and we all came back to school with renewed enthusiasm for use
of technology in our teaching.

Thank you Kay for sharing. And thank you for your wonderful presentation and book signing on Friday morning!

Tom.

I’m going to admit, the linking of the state blogs today caught me off guard. I’ve been waiting patiently for it. I want to personally thank Steve, Scott and Lance for taking a chance with me to keep up with this thing. Some days I have a hard enough time keeping up with getting my hair ready for the day (*eg*). I will invite you to read on down below to my "official" welcome back post from back at the beginning of the month. I don’t really want to rehash those sentiments save one: This is our blog, I’m merely the facilitator in getting the information to you. If you have news you would like to pass along to the masses please feel free to email me at mithrass@gmail.com. I can also be reached on IM most evenings, so email me there and I can give that information to you. Basically, my typepad is open to you all. I look forward to many, many months of fun things to share with you all here!

Down to business, FETC 2007! Thank you Hall Davidson for this wonderful picture of the banner backdrop from the Main Assembly Hall. This was the one thing that I forgot to take a picture of during the entire 3 day conference. We all started our day bright and early on Wednesday morning at Universal Studies. The first phone call of the morning came not to long after the sun came up from Star DEN member Angela Daniell wondering if she was in the right place. As I was explaining to her where she needed to be, she started describing  a short guy wearing a Discovery jacket. I could only assume it was Lance Rougeux. It seems there was a LONG line waiting to get in to the parking area, with the majority of them being from the DEN. Once we all arrived and settled in quickly it was off with Deanna and her partners on a Backstage SFX Tour of the Universal Studios Orlando Theme Park. We were treated to a lights on tour of the Mummy Ride (not to mention the private ride prior to park opening being pretty sweet too!), a backstage look at some of the soundstages and the inner workings of a working movie studio, and were shown the acting ability of DEN’s own Scott Kinney. I so wish I had a picture of him hanging on the rope as he was trying to pull the water down on the other DEN members on the conning tower of the sub. Hopefully someone has that!!

After returning to our room, we were split into teams to work on a podcast or digital story. Groups had working lunches, racing around the park to get the pictures they needed and trying to find a corner to work quietly in. I’m still waiting for my DEN in Black teammates to get me a finalized copy (Karen’s?, Desiree? Help here please!) We did ours on the what we thought the Universal Classroom would look like. Once I can get my hands on a final copy, I will be sure to add it here. (anyone else is welcome to send me theirs and we can link it up here too!)

As for the conference itself, I walked about 10 miles for the whole 2 1/2 day event. My feet are slowly getting back to normal. The highlight of my weekend had to be meeting Kathy Schrock.
I don’t think very many people can match her energy levels (maybe Hall). But to be able to meet her truly was special. I enjoyed spending time at the booth with the DEN team and all the DEN members who stopped in to say hello.

The one SPECIAL GUEST STAR! was North Florida’s own Kay Teehan. She delighted the FETC crowd with her presentation on Digital Storytelling and unitedstreaming. After her session she spent about an hour signing free copies of her book. I can attest having worked at the booth for most of Friday that attendees were coming by hoping to get a copy of it well into the 2 PM hour! Way to go Kay.

I hope all of you that attended either event got something out of it. Conferences and workshops are a great time to get out and network with friends and colleagues, and make new friends as well. I look forward to next year’s FETC already.

Until later…

Tom.

Wow!

It’s FETC time again. Less then a week away and, well I hope you have all your plans on being there finalized. If you haven’t, it’s never too late to register for the conference. IF you want to see a good dose of me, I will be volunteering my personal time at the Discovery Booth for an hour on Thursday and Friday. The conference session list looks pretty amazing. I know that "THE" Hall Davidson will be doing 2 presentations in the regular breakout sessions. Another exciting thing not to miss is North Florida’s VERY own Kay Teehan will be on hand to autograph her book "Digital Storytelling: In and Out of the Classroom."  If you are at all interested in adding digital storytelling to your class, this is a MUST DO time while at FETC.

Calling all Bloggers!! You’re help needed!!

During FETC week, I’m looking for 2 to 3 North Florida Members to share their experiences with the rest of the DEN. If this at all interests you, please contact me via email at mithrass@gmail.com. I’m looking for experienced or inexperienced bloggers. This is a great opportunity for you to get your feet wet in the blogosphere if you haven’t done so already.

More later in the week…

Tom.

I know - you all are working your bottoms off because it’s back to school and yet I’m mentiong FETC. But Karen and I are actively planning FETC’s pre-conference. It’s going to be hard to top last year’s Spring Training. That theme is out since FETC is in January - but we’ll come up with a theme. What I want to know is what are some topics you’re interested in for FETC?

I’m trying this little quiz gadget that Steve posted on the National Blog a few days ago. However, please also leave comments wtih suggestions of what sessions you want.

In honor of March Blogness Month I asked DEN members to be guest bloggers about our FETC Events. Here is Cheryl Woolwine’s Post. Cheryl is from Putnam County.

SPRING TRAINING
Wow what a day – Wednesday, March 22, FETC Pre-conference Spring Training. Thanks so much to Danielle Abernethy and Karen Seddon, Florida DEN field managers that arranged the day.

OPENING PITCH

We started bright and early at 9:15 am. Some of us met at the TECO in Kissimmee, while others took the bus from the convention center with Danielle. We were greeted by many of the DEN staff as we arrived. A get to you know you game was presented at registration with a prize to be given later in the day.

Ron Reed the executive vice-president of school services gave us the welcome. He went over the four parts of discovery education:

• unitedstreaming digital video-on-demand service
• Discovery School videos, DVDs, and CD-ROMs
• DiscoverySchool.com free teacher resources
• Discovery Health Connection interactive health and prevention curriculum

He also mentioned a new product Cosmeo that had been announced on American Idol the night before. More information would be announced later in the day.

PLAYING THE FIELD

At 10:00 we went to our breakout sessions. Each of us had registered for three and they had tried to give us what we had requested.

I attended Left field first, with Jannita. What a powerhouse! She did an excellent job of relating to the newbie unitedstreamer and the experienced user, as well as explaining techie terms to both users.  We started with an overview of the unitedstreaming website and ways of accessing, searching, using, and anything else you may need to know.  She reviewed the resources with suggestions and tips:

• Calendar: Morning announcements, time liner, factoids
• Assignments Builder/Quiz center: Allows you to differentiate instruction for different students, copy existing ones and edit, homework   
• Teacher Feature: Rainy day activities, last minute sub plans, Project-based learning starter
• Image Library and Clip Art: Digital storytelling images, animated clips, Three sizes
• Writing Prompts: Encourages literacy, Appeals to “low-tech” users, Use with all ages

The 45 minutes flew by and we really could have sat and listened to much more. We only needed to ask her to slow down her talking a couple of times!

The second session I attended was Integrating unitedstreaming with PowerPoint (and more). Second base was moderated by Katherine from Georgia. She shared with everyone how she had used the schoolhouse rock video and audio clips, along with clips from unitedstreaming, to make an interactive site using only one PowerPoint page, reviewing the eight parts of speech (nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections) I know we all remember “Conjunction Junction”! Katherine reminded us to always give credit. She recommended we start our PowerPoint with two pages the title slide (first slide) and the credit – bibliography or whatever you wish to call it (last slide). When editing unitedstreaming videos, and creating snapshots or using images we can use up to 10 pieces of clipart per web page as along as we cite the source. She reviewed how to hyperlink to videos and how to embed videos, along with the advantages and disadvantages of both. She went over ways to use thumb drives to our advantage. Once again the time flew by, we really could have kept the discussion going and going!

The final base I went to was Right field Introducing Discovery Health Connection. Brannan gave us an excellent overview of the program. I was not at all familiar with this and I walked away wanting it for all my schools! Brannan began by asking us to step back in time to when we were in sixth grade. She then played an audio clip of about 12 min. called “shooting in three parts”. After playing the clip she broke us up into different groups to represent different characters and to answer three questions from the aspect of the different characters. The reactions and answers were awesome. What a powerful tool. She not only used the power of the program to hook us in as teachers it also made us understand the power for use as students. Brannan also shared that Discovery Health Connection is working with the Lance Armstrong foundation to develop a cancer curriculum that will be offered on the site. Again our time was gone before we were done.

From my experience at the three sessions I was fortunate to attend, I wish I could have done all 6 sessions!   

Now it is 12:30 and lunch time, also known as the seventh inning stretch! We were offered a lunch buffet catered by Perfect Occasions: Hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, coleslaw, chips, lettuce and tomato, and apple pie for dessert along with chocolates, and of course the beverage of your choice: iced tea, water, soda.  It was great!

As we finished our lunch a question and answer time was presented with a prize being offered to anyone able to stump Matt and Craig. They answered questions about copyright laws for students who use unitedstreaming clips when developing their own material. Here are some of the questions asked:
Question: How do you add new videos and remove outdated videos?
Answer: If we have a recommendation, send the title to a DEN manager and they will forward it to the correct person. Outdated materials are removed and replaced periodically, occasionally new materials are not readily available but they always try to replace any outdated material as fast as possible.
Question: “Why does Apple and quicktime downloads not include Closed Captioning?”
Answer:   “it just is not available at this time, the program engineers are trying to find a solution to the problem and hope to have it soon.”
Question: Teacher says, “I currently use a video series that includes blackline masters, quizzes and other teacher helpers, the series is available on unitedstreaming but the teacher resources are not, why not?”
Answer: I do not Know” this was the stumper and the teacher won a USB thumb drive.

Next up was Shelley from Product Development. Shelley shared program and website upgrades coming soon. The site would become more personalized and customized and even more user friendly (is that possible?). Thumbnails will be added to the search findings. Keep your eyes open for the new face of unitedstreaming!

Suddenly, we heard the Cracker Jack and peanut vendors coming out. Cracker Jack and Peanuts were passed out (thrown) by our DEN vendors, a fun time for all! (and delicious).

Scott Kinney East Coast DEN Director introduced COSMEO.  It was debuted on American Idol Tuesday evening March 21, 2006. COSMEO the online homework help tool designed to help students understand, imagine, and succeed as never before. It will be offered for $9.99 a month or $100.00 a year. You can offer your students a free 30day trial by going to www.discoveryeducator.com. Before Scott turned the program over to Steve he requested we all appear at the FETC booth at 9:15 am Thursday March 23, 2006, with 200 of our closest friends for an announcement of a lifetime! Keep checking the website I am sure the announcement will be listed here soon!

Last but not least Steve Dembo, DEN Online Community Manager, stepped up to the plate and shared with us the new DEN website. The main goal of the website is members sharing with each other. This includes sharing lesson plans, ideas, suggestions, trainings, ect… Steve reviewed the procedure to become a DEN member – so go ahead and apply! He explained how in windows XP you can upload all the files at one time if you place them in a folder - making it much easier to share lesson plans. It also brought to our attention www.discoveryeducatorabroad.com. The Discovery Educator Network is proud to announce the journey of our first Teacher Journalist to Australia,New Zealand and other parts of the Pacific Rim. Josh Wolff, a middle school teacher from New York, will be embarking on an exciting journey and sharing every step with teachers and students worldwide. Follow Josh’s travels on the website. Steve also shared how Discovery Educator is on the cutting edge of technology as it introduces Blogs to the site!

Prizes were awarded by raffle, if you completed your morning getting to know you game.  Unfortunately, I did not receive a prize, although one of my co-workers did win a Discovery Educator t-shirt. Other prizes awarded besides t-shirts, were Discovery Educator bags and USB thumb drives – a bunch were given out.

That concludes our day at Spring Training and what a day it was. I am relatively new to unitedstreaming, and I feel more than ready to share and train my fellow co-worked. I really enjoyed the day and look forward to using my new unitedstreaming skills in my training sessions.