Anyone interested in attending an incredible day of professional development should make sure to sign up for the fall virtual conference. There will be some amazing presentations to virtually attend. To check out the list of presentations click HERE.
To sign up for the Cedar Rapids virtual conference and partake in some refreshments and peer interaction during the day click HERE to be directed to the registration form.
We will meet at Kennedy High School in room 68 from 9-12 on the 24th to engage in the first half of the sessions. You are more than welcome to continue your day of professional development at your convenience.
We hope to see you there either in person or virtually!
The World of the Digital NativeThe 2008 Annual Educational Technology Conference at the Downtown Marriott in Des Moines this Sunday 10/19 -Tuesday 10/21. We are very fortunate to have two great keynote speakers, Hall Davidson and Alan November. If you are planning to go to the conference feel free to look at the conference program to start planning your day. There are also some handouts already published by some of our 2008 presenters on the ITEC website that you may wish to print out before or after you attend.If you would like to take a peek at our keynote speakers background feel free to do so by clicking HERE.
After I attended the DEN Leadership Conference this summer I realized how vital peer to peer connections are in the realm of growing technological “toys.” I would consider myself pretty knowledgable with up to date “toys” and software but in one week I realized how much I didn’t know. I then became more enthusiastic about showing my new knowledge than ever before.
I know that by attending the ITEC conference this year you will be just as enthusiastic as I was because the DEN will be in large presence with our Keynote speaker being Hall Davison.
The conference dates are October 19th-21st at the downtown Marriot in Des Moines. Make sure to register before September 14th to receive an early bird discount on your registration fee.If you have any other questions make sure to check out the ITEC website at http://www.itec-ia.org/
I will make sure to write more about any special DEN events when I get further information. Spread the word and lets see if we can get a large DEN presence at the conference.
On day 1 at the LC institute we had the opportunity to meet other LC members and collaborate to make a video based off of the Discovery Channel commercial many of you may have seen. The commercial has all of your favorite Discovery personalities singing a song called, “Boom de ah da.”The above commercial is a parody some of the midwest LC members made along with Mike Bryant, who is our Discovery Educator Network account manager for the midwest. So sit back and enjoy!You may be able to see other teams videos on some of the other state blogs.
Today was a very productive day in the realm of free web 2.0 tools for teachers. It started off with a video called “A Vision of Students Today” which a saw in a session and have put on this post. it was a strong and very true message and further advocates for the use of technology in the classroom.
I also learned about Voki, a program to create Avatars. If you have never heard of an avatar you need to check out the website at www.voki.com.
I am very interested in using wiki’s in my lessons and a few good free wiki creation sites I found out about today are wikispaces (www.wkispaces.com) and pbwiki (www.pbwiki.com). I plan to utilze these sites in the near future.
Poll Daddy (www.polldaddy.com) is a free tool to use if you are interested in posting polls on a website. Clustr Maps (www.clustrmaps.com) is also a cool web feature where you can visually see where people are located around the world who access your website. Podomatic is a free site to create and upload podcasts to share with students or colleagues.
I also learned about Screencasting, which is essentially taking video of what you are doing on your computer screen. I would like to utilize this technology but did not learn about any free cross platform software to do this. If you know of any please let me know so I can post it on the blog because I think this could be a valuable tool.
The conference began with Jeff Corwin’s expression of appreciation for teachers and to share his thoughts on the importance of education and it’s role in helping to better our world. He shared his journey of discovering his life goals and applauded the goals educators have given themselves throughout their educational endeavors.
Corwin told one story of his life that occurred while filming a show several years back. On an island off the coast of Hawaii he was filming a bird with physical characteristics that were not very interesting to him and did not understand the reasoning behind filming such a creature. When he asked what was so special about this bird he was told that it was the last of its kind. This was a life changing experience for him because so much time and energy is spent on what looks good or attractive and at times not what is really important.
FETC attendees took away several thoughts from Jeff’s experiences. As a science teacher it made me want to develop new ways and ideas to make students think about what they do in the classroom so they can see beyond the letter grade the get but rather how the activities or lessons they learn can play a role in bettering their future, the future of others, and the future of this planet.
The conference began with a hit for STAR Educators at the DEN Pre-conference event. The picture to the right shows a few of the STAR Educators observing some sharing from other teachers in the DEN. There were around 13 states represented at the DEN pre-conference event and 49 states represented at the conference along with several countries. Some of the things I learned at the DEN event to start the day off included embedding video into Google Earth in the notes section. You can find information about this at Brad Fountain’s blog at:
http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/Brad.Fountain
There are also some Google Earth tours already built called Google Lit Trips:
http://www.googlelittrips.com/
Hall Davidson told us how teachers can apply to get a professional version of Google Earth for free. The application process is easy and it just takes a quick e-mail. Another really cool technology tool I took away from the event was how to overlay video o a background image using Adobe Premiere Elements. It was a very productive morning and had a great ending with lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.
The conference began with a hit for STAR Educators at the DEN Pre-conference event. The picture to the right shows a few of the STAR Educators observing some sharing from other teachers in the DEN. There were around 13 states represented at the DEN pre-conference event and 49 states represented at the conference along with several countries. Some of the things I learned at the DEN event to start the day off included embedding video into Google Earth in the notes section. You can find information about this at Brad Fountain’s blog at:
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