Thoughts From Jen

I originally was going to make a 12 Days of Christmas from Den images — but alas, I got stuck on finding images about maids a milking….

So I started my thoughts on a different road and started to think of the holiday season in general….

and did a quick search on Christmas and — TADA — DEN has a THEME PAGE for many holidays.

The Christmas Theme page is here:  http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=e6b8dee6-927d-45c3-825b-5b7fa0f74042

The Hanukkah Theme page is here:  http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=a1275a3f-2896-4e4d-bf9c-29e93ac4255f

The Kwanzaa Theme page is here:  http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=c7f11afa-cd99-4e97-9cb3-d63becf28dd4

The Winter Weather Theme page is here:  http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=9785FC47-106C-4133-94DF-185EC75F8F1F

All put together for you in nice little packages.

A gift to you — from Discovery Education — this holiday season.

Jen

PS:  You do need to be a Den Subscriber to be able to see these theme pages.

If it is Wednesday — then it is DENSday!!

Shhh, this is a secret….but it is a little known fact…..that when I was about 8 years old…..I knew what (well who) I wanted to be when I grew up…………….

yep, I wanted to be Peggy Fleming.

Blame it on the 1968  Olympics — but yep…….I wanted to be Peggy Fleming.   And I would take my roller skates down to a big corner area we had on our block of 149th and Gerkin….and I would skate and skate and skate.   It made no difference that I did not know how to ice skate…but I could roller skate.   And there were 3 of us…..who skated daily….and we all wanted to be Peggy Fleming.   And…..we never fought…..we just accepted that we all could someday be Peggy Fleming.

What did YOU want to be when you grew up??  It might be a conversation that you have with your students someday.  Sometimes we do grow up to be what we thought we would….and other times….well, nope.

If you conduct a search in Discovery Education…..on When I Grow Up…..you will find over 30 resources to help get the conversation started and continue the conversation with your students about what they want to be when they grow up.

And be sure to check out the song “when I grow up I want to be…..” this is downloadable and your students can add their own thoughts to this song.

Grins, I thought I might render a song for you — but then realized….nah, I just shared one dark secret……having you discover I can sing might just be too much information about Jen in one day!!  (laughing)

So, check out the “when I grow up” section of Discovery Education……

Oh, and if you are interested — here is another video you just might wish to check out:   http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=FD6C9A27-3D71-4E69-88FA-8AFDFF7705E8&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US
(you do have to be logged onto Discovery to view the video)

Smiles — well we can dream, can’t we?

Jen

If it is Wednesday — then it is DENSday!!

As many of us will stop tomorrow and think of things we are grateful for……
I will share with you my “thanks for DEN” thoughts.

10.  I am thankful that Discovery Education helps keep us current with trends and opportunities to use in our classroom.
9.  I am thankful that Discovery Education offers so many FREE resources to teachers.
8.  I am thankful that Discovery Education makes is simple for me to show a SEGMENT of a video rather than just allowing me to be lazy and push PLAY for a full length video!
7.  I am thankful that Discovery Education makes it pretty understandable about what I can and cannot do with DEN content.
6.  I am thankful that Discovery Education includes citation material with all their resources so I know I follow copyright.
5.  I am thankful that Discovery Education allows teachers to be pros or be novices and everything in-between and welcomes all with open arms.
4.  I am thankful that Discovery Education wore butterfly wings one time at NECC which made me take notice and think “WHAT IS THIS?”
3.  I am thankful that Discovery Education let me on the bus once (even though I was not a member) and got to tag along with them to Dave And Busters — still one of my favorite nights EVER!!
2.  I am thankful that Discovery Education continues to push itself to be better!
and
#1.  I am thankful that Discovery Education let me be a lurker for a very long time…..without saying a word!

Please share what you are thankful for regarding Discovery.

Jen

When I taught 7th grade — a LONG time ago, each morning I would enter the classroom, pick up my chalk, and create 5 questions or reviews on the board for the students to answer when they first entered the classroom.

Sometimes it was diagramming a sentence or perhaps defining a word we were having trouble with in vocabulary or sometimes a riddle.   A little jump start to their morning.

You might probably  do this as well.

So, I was pleased as punch when I saw at Discovery Education the Brain Boosters:   http://school.discoveryeducation.com/brainboosters/?campaign=DE&CFID=46409599&CFTOKEN=58887092

Provided for you to freely use!!!

Here is an example of one from the Number and Math Play category:

Walking the Dogs
	A group of kids got together and started a dog-walking business. They got lots of clients right away, so that when they all walked their dogs together, there were twelve heads and forty legs. How many kids and how many dogs were out walking?

(and the nice thing is, DE has also provided the answer for you!)

So pick up your piece of chalk…..or keyboard…..or stylus……or whatever….and start using these brain boosters to jump start your students.

….and to jump start yourself as well.

Jen

Wednesday is Densday!!

If you are anything like me, when you are searching for videos, clips, images, etc within DE — you use the search bar and then wander your way through all the resources before finding what you want.

You might categorize down by grade or topic but still a bit too generic to really fine-tune down your search to specific results.

But…by moving your mouse button down from search — less than 1/2 inch….the advanced search option just might save you a lot of time.

When you click on advanced search, you will see (on the left)

and now you can wander through ALL your options to help you find that perfect resource you need.

One of my favorite options is the COPYRIGHT option down towards the bottom.   Showcasing current information to my students is very important.  As well, being able to give them a time-stamp of publishing is important as well.

You also can sort by grade level, subject, publisher, groups, and the services you subscribe too.

Then look to the right and you will see

all the ways to exclude and include content.    One of our foreign language teachers loves this option to quickly filter in the videos he wishes to show by choosing languages.

Once you have wandered through all your “advanced search” options, click on search — and TADA, you will have a much more precise collection of resources to choose from.

So let me show you an example of using this advanced search option:

REGULAR SEARCH:  Apples  367 results
ADVANCED SEARCH: 
Services:  DE Streaming
Media Type:  All
Subject:  Science
Grade Level:  K-2
Editable Titles:  Include
11 Results

By using advanced search, you will find that you will find the exact content you are looking for in moments.

I would love to have you try this and then share your results with me regarding regular search versus advanced search.   Choose any topic and click on search and write down the results found….then type in the same topic again in advanced search and then compare those results.  And if you wish, come back here to share your findings.

Thank you
Jen

Wednesday is Densday!!

Once you get to know me, you will quickly discover that I love to laugh and I very much enjoy having fun.

So lucky me, when wandering through DE, I found FUN-damental.
( to do this, go to advanced search and set the media type to FUN-damental)

A the time of writing this blog post, there are only 19 results so you won’t be too overwhelmed with content.

I really enjoy magnets, so please click on the Electricity and Magnetism icon.

A new window will open with a video on the left and two tabs on the right.

The far right tab is your related material.   Student Worksheets and a Teacher’s Guide!!   (woo hoo!)   If you have an interactive whiteboard or projector….just show the worksheets on your screen/board and work through them as a class!!

On the far left is what appears to be a video….but it is much more — it is an interactive lab.

Click the play button……

You can choose between Magnets and Electricity — so I will stick with Magnets (grins) and click on that.

There will be a two activities for your students to interact with.  [either with the mouse or any touchpad (including IWB)]

When you are done with the magnet activity — head over to electricity!!  The interactive activity here lets you build a circuit.  (love this)

Don’t forget to use the teacher guide and the worksheets!!

And be sure to check out all the other Fun-damentals too!

Jennifer

Wednesday is DENSday!!

I love WORDLE — yep yep yep.   If you do not know, I host a daily wordle opportunity at GuessTheWordle….feel free to use it within your classroom!

So, I started exploring how I could use both Discovery Education and Wordle together.

I clicked in SEARCH and changed the CONTENT TYPE to the Theme Page.    I was happy to see that there is a NATIONAL PARK theme (because I am hosting a project on National parks during the spring of 2011) so I clicked on that option and then looked to the right and chose Teacher’s Guide.

I scanned through the teacher’s guide for something I could create into a wordle and saw Vocabulary.   — aha, use-able!!

One of the reasons I enjoy wordles if that I feel they are very good conversation starters and they are also very good for review.

I went to wordle.net and clicked on create.  (if you have not used wordle, click here for cheat sheet)

I copy pasted the first vocabulary word, definition, and context into wordle and then copy pasted the vocabulary word 4 more times so it would be larger when the wordle was created.

And achieved this:

I then continued to create wordles for each vocabulary word and when I wanted words joined together — such as San Andreas fault — I used the ~ symbol between the words to join them together.

These wordles can now be easily used with the Teacher’s Guide to compliment the vocabulary curriculum.

If you want to get all the wordles/vocabulary to go with this teacher’s guide (in Powerpoint, GIF, and PDF format), please follow this link:  http://www.box.net/shared/g59eaoy6pjhjbgj5mu15

Just another way to extend Discovery Education with another online opportunity.

Jennifer

Wednesday is Densday!!

I very much enjoy the content I can use within Discovery Education but I always enjoy pushing my limits and merging one educational opportunity with another (whenever possible).

So, I went and read the Terms of Use with DE…..and it says:
User must include citation information, including Discovery or the applicable content provider (if identified) as the source, for all portions of the Content used in any end product.

And decided to have a go at it — and utilize a few images from DE with Animoto…..and choose the Monarch Butterfly Life Cycle.

Using search…and fine tuning it down by looking for clipart and images….I quickly found some images and downloaded them at the “Large” setting to my computer and also added them to my content.   I also copied the citation information into a word document (for later use).    And I also found a few images at http://www.monarchbutterflyusa.com/Cycle.htm.

I could have utilized the TEXT option in animoto….but I can be  “font fussy” at times…so I quickly made a title slide, the four stages together, and individually using Paint Shop Pro and my chosen font and saved them as gifs.  I also took a screen shot of my citation list and saved it as a gif as well.

Once I had my images — I opened my account at animoto and chose the theme, uploaded my images, (rearranged my images), chose the music, and asked animoto to do its magic and mix my video.

However, I really wanted my video to be within the DE portal and not the animoto portal so I downloaded the video to my computer.   (and deleted it from Animoto).

I then chose UPLOAD MANAGER in DE and uploaded my video to the media share area.   And if all went well, you should be able to see it HERE:  http://mediashare.discoveryeducation.com/mediashare/index.cfm?event=showMedia&guidAssetId=f00a148e%2D2655%2D8579%2D7683%2D59087c05a367

The merging of two resources to equal one nice educational tidbit.   Easily done…and something your students could easily do (and you too!)

Jen

Wednesday is Densday!!

I often miss the obvious……..

So, I have been taking time this last week with pushing every button I can on the Discovery Education site just to see what happens.   (in total honesty, I did this as a child as well at museums…..the science museums loved it, the art museums, uh, not as much)

One thing I always wondered about DEN was how to I find other DEN members and DEN opportunities, especially from my own state.

And lo and behold, I found out that choice was right before my eyes!!

Once you log onto Discovery Education, look to the right of the top navigation bar and you will see DEN.

When you click on that, on the left you will see your profile (make sure you keep this updated so we all can get to know each other), upcoming events (make sure you check this often so you know what learning opportunities are coming up), and right smack there in the middle is – YEP, you got it……blogs per region!!

Go ahead and click on your region and start getting acquainted with those people who probably live close enough to occasionally meet up at local events, state conferences, etc.   And, if you are nosey like me, go ahead and click on other regions as well to get some ideas of what others are doing that you might just be able to bring to your region as well.

Who knew??
– well maybe you did……but this was a happy button pushing moment for me.

Enjoy

Jennifer Wagner