Florida

July 14 – 18, 2008, Lee Kolbert (Palm Beach) and Cheryl Woolwine (Palatka) Florida DEN Stars, attended the DEN Leadership Council Institute, in Silver Spring MD. It was held in the Headquarters for Discovery Education. Once again Discovery out did itself. They treated us like royalty for 5 days. Food was awesome, lodging great, and the networking was the best ever. They always seem to know the right projects to get us to excel and share our techie knowledge. We started out Monday, creating our own version of the Discovery Channel commercial, Boom Di Yada – you can see our version here (South East) http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/tennessee, we only had about 2 hours to complete it. Tuesday was another busy day. Hall started us off with an awesome presentation on using cell phones. We took publicity pictures with Mr. Kinney on the 10^th floor, (for those of you that don’t know that is “SCOTT” to us).  The Den crew put on a carnival sideshow for us with prizes, cotton candy, and a beared woman. Wednesday came and we still did not stop; Steve Dembo’s presentation “Down the Rabbit Hole”, ways to communicate, ways we are doing it currently, and how we see presentations changing (streaming, back channeling, etc.), was ustreamed. Some of our own Den Star members put on presentations for us sharing new ideas, software and websites.  Discovery took us to dinner on the Potamac River – what a wonderful evening. After dinner we toured the monuments. Thursday the fun continued. We were able to visit DCTC and experience the green screen effect. Thursday evening after working all day on projects we had a screening of an upcoming discovery project on Comets. A pizza party followed then Guitar hero and other WII games on the big screen – a good time was had by all.

Friday we shared projects and were a little sad that our time together was coming to an end. We twittered and plurked and streamed and back channeled and …… and shared and shared and shared.

Oh I almost forgot they gave us stuff also. We received a T-shirt from Animal Planet, a polo leadership council shirt, USB hub (cool), and a green screen blanket.

I guess you could say it was a successful week  - it definitely did a lot to improve my Professional and Personal Learning Network.

Special Thanks to Lance, Matt, Steve, Juanita, Brad, Dennis, & Brian, and anyone else that made this week possible.

“I just got home from NY this past week….will share some of my NECC precon and NECC thoughts with you later today”

I missed this announcement from Jannita and Lance in my email 2 days ago. See what happens when I’m on summer break. I forget to look there. The webinars were yesterday, however, I’m sure she’d be happy to answer any questions you have. I will be seeing the DEN team this weekend and will post what I hear.

Discovery Education is excited to announce many new GREAT additions coming your way to streaming! This includes the long awaited and asked for Student Center where your students will have ability to log on and download media, better correlation with your state standards, more refined search, an update builders and my content, not to mention that the base package has increased to 5,000 titles!

For additional questions please contact Jannita at Jannita_Demian@discovery.com

How many of you will be going to NECC this week? I fly out tomorrow morning and will be making it over to edubloggercon at the convention center tomorrow afternoon when I get in. For those of you traveling out to San Antonio this weekend. Please be safe and see you all soon.

On a side note, how many Second Lifers are out there? Just wanting to take an informal poll.

 Dedra Stafford is seeking some help from fellow DEN members. Below is her blurb

I have been selected as one of the four candidates to run for the NMSA South Region Trustee. If you have not committed to one of the other candidates, I would be honored to have your vote and support. I am also hoping that you will help me gain more support in your area. I have attached a flyer that I have prepared for the election. Ballots were mailed from the NMSA office sometime last week in firstclass postage a white envelope the size of a tri-fold brochure. This package will contain a brochure with NMSA candidate information, the ballot, and a return envelope.  Please keep your eyes open for the ballot and cast your vote. Here is the link for info on the election: http://nmsa.org/AboutNMSA/BoardofTrustees/NMSAElections/CandidatesBallots/South/tabid/729/Default.aspx

Dedra Stafford
MPS Technology Integration
staffordd@mustangps.org

How many FL DEN Stars got into the Summer Institute up in Silver Spring? I know a few from the top of my head that are going to the LC Institute. This will be the first summer in 2 years for me not doing any DEN summer events and it has me hurting. I will miss seeing the entire DEN team along with all of the other DEN members that I like to call friend from around the country.

We’re also coming to that time of year that we call the ‘END’. Which means NECC is around the corner as well. How many will be attending NECC this summer in San Antonio. For us Floridians, we see the penultimate Tech Conference as FETC here in Orlando. My friends, please if you have NOT attended NECC, I would highly recommend saving some money in some way to get out to one at some point. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

About a year ago, I shared with everyone an addon/tool called diigo. Much to my dismay, it didn’t take off as quickly as I would have hoped for. However, the potential was always there. Over the last 3 weeks or so, the use of diigo among the edtech community has skyrocketed. Jennifer Dorman posted over on the PA blog about a DEN diigo group. Just another way to stay connected to the latest DEN information and links that are available.

Tom Turner

mithrass@gmail.com

http://tnturner.edublogs.org

Chery was very gracious enough to send me her thoughts about the recent Palm Beach County Technology Conference. I’m sorry for not getting my post conference thoughts on it as well. Had some family issues that cropped up that kept me pretty busy during spring break last week. Here’s Cheryl’s thoughts on a GREAT conference put on by Lee Kolbert and her team down there in Palm Beach County.

Palm Beach Technology Conference

I had a wonderful experience last week, Thanks to fellow Star member Lee Kolbert and her technology team   I was fortunate enough to attend the 10^th annual Palm Beach Technology Conference “ Now and Then; A Decade of Change”. When I first decide to attend I thought I would drive down in my new car, meet some friends, make some new friends and see what they were doing technology wise in another Florida county. I did that and more….

I am so impressed with what they offered. I arrived the night before so I wouldn’t miss a thing traveling on Friday. When I arrived Thursday, I met Lee at the high school to see if I could help out in any way. Yes, they could use my assistance and so I pitched in stuffing bags with materials for the next day. At around 6pm they corralled the volunteers to the cafeteria for dinner. And feed us they did chicken, ribs, pulled pork, salads, fruit, dessert and beverages. A local bakery had made two cakes one looked like a cassette tape and the other looked like an IPod (Then and Now). Then it was back to work with bag stuffing, 2000 in total. We finished our evening around 8pm. I went back to the hotel and met up with a vendor friend and went out for coffee.  So far I had driven there safely; met with friends and made some new friends everything was going great.

Friday morning started out early, it was recommended I arrive at the school at 7am in order to get a seat for the opening session.  I am not a morning person so things were not wonderful at 6:45am, then I received a call from my friend the evening before she had lost her car keys and wanted me to look in my car for them before I left for the high school.  Things were definitely going downhill! NO keys we looked and looked – decided she must have left them at the restaurant where we went for coffee. They don’t open until 3pm so she would ride with me and we would go after the conference. Except, she was supposed to drive her boss to the conference – how embarrassing – finally my brain decided to ignite and I remember she had put her keys in the bottom of her purse, so I insisted she empty the purse and look again and Viola KEYS! So we headed to the HS me in my car and she with her boss in her car.

I had received my registration the evening before so fortunately I did not have to wait on the long lines and could go straight into the auditorium to hear the keynote speaker Dr. Tim Tyson from Georgia. The auditorium filled up fast with overflow heading to the cafeteria with a video feed.  I had heard Tim the year before at NECC in Atlanta and he is always good to listen to. He talked of when his mother was a school principal and change and then of a video project at his middle school and shared examples WOW!! 

Now the problems began! When I looked at my program I couldn’t believe all the breakout sessions they had to offer. I began reading through them and they were all of quality! I couldn’t decide where to go! DO I go listen to Kathy Schrock (named one of the “Top 5 Innovators” in Educational technology) and the Second Life movement,    Alan November (an international leader in educational technology) or a session put on by a Palm Beach teacher? Decisions, decisions, decisions! It was harder than at FETC to decide.  There was no way I was going to be able to see or hear all the sessions I wanted to. I decided to go to one of the ESE sessions to see if they could share any information in my specialty area. After all I have heard Kathy and Alen before at other conferences so I want to get something I normally wouldn’t get and that I did! I thoroughly enjoyed my session; Word-Up:Using Microosft Word for Struggling Writers! for ESE students in the regular classroom by Jill McCormick and James Kniseley. After the session we talked and exchanged cards adding to my network (another goal of mine). The next session I chose to listen to Brad Fountain from Discovery as he spoke on Discovery Education Science, something I am not very familiar with.  After the session they had a lunch break – do I go eat or take a run around the vendor hall? Vendor hall won! I received information on a new listening device, software widely used by Palm Beach and some freebies given away by various vendors. After moving everything to my car I was getting hungry!

I was invited to eat lunch in the VIP Lounge! WOW such service! They offered a buffet of chicken, pasta, salad, cookies and beverages. EXCELLENT! And again a chance to network! I really enjoyed having lunch with some new friends then ran into a few Star Discovery Members also visiting the conference. After lunch it was back to sessions.

I sat in a session with Karen Seddon; Of Two Minds: Second Life, her thoughts of Second Life.  When I arrived to the room it was great see a room of DEN members, some I knew and some I was meeting for the first time! We had a wonderful discussion on Second Life.

The final session I heard was put on by THE Hall Davidson. The subjects was Building Digital Media Project for Every Classroom. Although I was familiar with the content it was very entertaining and offered new ways for me to present the information in my trainings back in Palatka, Florida.

After this session we all filed back into the auditorium for some final thoughts and door prizes. Again, with overflow in the cafeteria. They had some awesome door prizes to give away – 2 small refrigerators, desktop computer w/printer, wireless laptop setup including router & printer, and many more. I was not a winner but enjoyed watching as teacher after teacher won prize after prize. 

4pm on a Friday and to me it looked as if all 2000 had stayed until the very end! Our day is done!

I look forward to contacting some of the presenters and asking for handouts when I was unable to attend their sessions. Throughout the day there were twitter conversations on the conference, pictures taken, blogging and video feeds/Ustream, Technology in action. This was truly a technology conference.  In my opinion it was as good if not better than FETC. The only problem I experienced was an inability to attend more sessions!

Thanks Lee for the invite! Congratulations to the Palm Beach Technology Team for all their hard work. It definitely paid off.     

I want to say a HUGE thank you to STAR DEN and LC member Lee Kolbert for inviting me down for the Palm Beach County Technology Conference. Having sat through the first session and the keynote I’m so very impressed. Impressed with all the hard work that is very apparent to have gone in to pull such a HUGE event like this off, but also to Palm Beach County for funding such a GREAT learning opportunity.

I had to run out of the opening keynote by Dr. Tim Tyson to take a phone call from my wife ( sorry ) Session A I split between a session on using iPods in the Reading Curriculum. I’ve about 600 dollars from a fund raiser I just ran at my school, and I’m thinking this is a GREAT idea to start. Their total budget was through the roof, however, they were using 2 generations old iPod Nanos and insisting on needing an Apple/Mac to run iTunes. I’m pretty certain I can cut their expenditures in half by using 1g iPod Shuffles (39-59 dollars each from the Apple Store) and using hardware I already have a school.

The second 1/2 of session 1 I stopped in Lee Kolbert’s del.icio.us session. She put me on the spot to explain Twitter and diigo to the attendees. Boy did I sound like a bungling idiot there! Thank you for all in my twitterstream who said hello to everyone. For all those who know and see Lee, ask her about the dream she had last night.

For the second session I sat in on Dr. Mark Benno’s presentation titled: “Teaching and Learning Tomorrow, Today”. Impressive stuff. This was the first time I sat in on a presentation given by Dr. Benno. I left there with plenty of catch phrases and thoughts to take back and share with my administration. One of the most impressive quotes he shared was from Dr. James Dewey: “…if we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”

Will do more blogging for session 3 and 4 later. Might ask Lee or Melissa or any other DEN member that was here to share their thoughts.

Tom.

You’ve heard the buzz. You’ve read the blogs. You’ve seen the Tweets. Now, for the first time in DEN Blog history, the truth about this is revealed! The School District of Palm Beach County is hosting its 10th anniversary of what has become one of the nation’s largest school district run conferences of any kind. This year we will have over 200 breakout sessions, over 60 vendor booths and some of the biggest names in education as our keynote and featured speakers. Alan November, Kathy Schrock, Mark Benno, Kate Kemker, Tim Tyson and Hall Davidson will all be present to motivate and inspire. As DEN members we extremely proud to include Discovery Education as one of our Platinum Sponsors.

And, as if that’s not enough! The Florida DEN Leadership Council is planning a special event for the evening prior to the conference. Details will be forthcoming.

This link will take you to the conference website where you can get more information such as directions, time and you can register as a participant (space is limited, so please DEN members only).

www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/techconf

I look forward to seeing you all there

Tom and your FL Leadership Council.

If you are like me, sometimes putting something into a graphical form is helpful to get the mind flowing. I guess that is one of the reasons I like using Inspiration so much. It’s how my mind works. Needless to say, that’s how most of our student’s minds work too.

I was forwarded this webpage from a friend of mine that works at my old school. I thought it was pretty nice way to visually represent word associations for us visual types. It’s called Visuwords Online Graphical Dictionary. Here’s a screen capture for collaboration as it seems an appropriate word to use. The connections are easily adjustable to fit what you are trying to show on the screen. The only draw back is the display area does not seem to be adjustable. Other than that, my feeling is it is a great visual representation for words and meaning.

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.

Been very lack in getting my FETC post out this past week. My mind I think is FINALLY rested up and rip-roaring ready to go. I will get my FETC post out, AND please, I’m calling out anyone who was at FETC to write something up and I will post it as a guest blogger. I’d love to hear about your experiences at FETC.

Today is the 1st ever DEN Virtual Conference. If you have not signed up, please do so here.  I do not know of any events being held in Florida, as I know many of us were on FETC overload from last week. There are still plenty of great online/virtual opportunities to take part in.