Iowa Discovery Educator Network

I just recently found out about this online tool. You can think of it like a giant, never ending piece of paper where you can zoom in and create a path for students or teachers to follow. You can embed pictures, text, audio, etc. Visit http://prezi.com/ and take a peek at the various ways you could incorporate DE Streaming videos, pictures, etc. in self created timelines, stories, etc. I think this will be a great teacher resource as it comes out of beta mode.

If you have never used or heard of Yaplet I would suggest giving it a try. Yaplet allows you as well as your students chat on any website at any time. If you are assigning students to find a particular DE Streaming clip they can use yaplet to chat with each other about the clip they are searching for. It allows for peer collaboration within the computer lab as well as anywhere else in the world with computer access. You can monitor your students by joining the chat or by simply watching what students are typing to one another. This is a great tool for students to use to look at and evaluate other internet resources.

I have been recommending this site for a few teachers around the school lately who want their own websites. In the past we were using publisher because it was the only web developer tool we had already loaded on our computers.With Weebly you can build your own site, upload it to the web, host it on Weebly’s servers. You can even embed video and audio clips. You can even embed web widgets with a simple copy and paste.The interface is very intuitive and easy to use. There are several templates to choose from and you can add your own pictures to add a personal touch to any template.The best part about this is that it is FREE. If you want you could upgrade to the pro version where you would have access to cool features like password protection on any page of your site. This could be a useful tool for embedding DE Streaming clips for students. They could simply go to your site, type in the class password and view the clips you would like them to watch. However, you could still create links to each clip and have them type in their Iowa AEA online password.Needless to say this is a great tool to build custom, quick, easy, and effective websites for personal or professional use.

 It was almost exactly one month ago Hall Davison from The Discovery Educator Network gave a presentation at the DEN LC Institute about the use of cell phones in the classroom. I learned a ton of really cool things you can do with a cell phone in the classroom. He then went on to say that it won’t be long before students will be able to be tracked with their cell phones while in school.This would allow us teachers to find little Timmy when he is supposed to be seated in 2nd period. Of course a student could just give his cell phone to a friend in the class to cover for him so it would look like he was there. However, he would be without his little mobile device that contains his life and that probably would not happen due to the fact that Timmy could not text anybody. He would have to have his cell phone with him to live his normal Y-generation life.This technology has appeared to already be in existence and easily accessible. The above map is a track of my cell phone that updates every 5 seconds when I have it turned on from my phone. You can view everywhere I go and everything I see anytime you want. This doesn’t mean you can watch and find out where I live (By accepting the terms of use it says you agree not to do this) but you can imagine the implications this could have on the future of cell phone technology and the classroom.

On day two of the LC Institute we had a ton of great opportunities to tap into the brains of other tech savvy DEN members.I went to five sessions and learned about green screening with Adobe Premiere Elements, Professional Networking with Twitter and Plurk, and Blogging.Hall Davison also gave an excellent Keynote to start the day off with a presentation on using cell phones in the classroom. He performed this presentation at at NECC this year and I had the opportunity to see it yesterday. After his presentation I begun to get excited about using cell phones in my classroom. When I say use I mean that I will still have rules on cell phone usage but I will not have to have such a negative attitude about them.The cell phone applications that I would strongly recommend checking out are poll anywhere. You can use this to do American Idol polls in the classroom for review sessions, etc. You can stream live video from your phone through QIK, change voice to text and upload to blogs through Jott.There were a lot of cool ideas shared yesterday and I am looking forward to the ideas to come.

 I discovered this little beauty the other day from one of the students I have. All you need is a video camera and a way to connect it to your computer. The online site (www.mogulus.com) converts the video through flash player. Once you have your account setup you are ready for live video streaming. I plan to use it when our department has a speaker come. I will broadcast the presentation to a website where other teachers can listen and watch like a TV show they can interact with. On another note we have gained two new STAR educators over the past few months. I would like to welcome Steve Linduska, Sara Fedler, and Chris Anderson to the community. Remember to keep recruiting. Not only will our community grow but their are some great prizes in it for you. 

I would like to know if there are any Iowans out there who are currently podcasting with their students or for their students. It seems to be that putting audio or video out on the internet with easy access and viewing has created an easy way for students to get excited but at the same time it seems like many teachers hit a lot of dead ends with technology available or just their own lack of knowledge.

The biggest problems I have heard are converting video files to the iPod format, putting the files out on the web, and allowing people to subscribe to a podcast.

I found a piece of software that converts any video type to the iPod format by a quick drag and drop. It is called iSquint and it works like a charm. It is only available for the Mac but there are a couple other pieces of software that will do the trick.

Creating audio is as simple as recording content as an .mp3. However getting it onto the web is harder than it may seem. If you are a STAR Educator you are fully aware of the free blog you receive but if your not then let me be the first to say, “You get a free blog site by becoming a STAR Educator.” With this blog you can attach pictures, audio, and video files and not only that you can submit it to the iTunes store.

This is a huge resource for STAR Educators because it’s free and easy to use!

Send me your thoughts on how you are or would like to use podcasting or blogs in your educational endeavors.