Louisiana DEN

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February is the month of many things, but one of the most lovely things is the Webinar series!  This month’s offerings include:

EdTechConnect with Alan Levine
Wednesday, February 17 at 7 PM ET

Top Ten STEM Resources
Wednesday, February 17 at 7 PM ET

Shining STARs

Tuesday, February 23 at 7 PM ET

Register for the webinars at: http://community.discoveryeducation.com/webinar

The Louisiana Leadership Council will also be meeting to make plans for 2010 events.  The date for the Virtual Conference has been set for April 24, so mark your calendar and tell other educators.  Keep posted for more information on how you can get your web on in 2010!

As in years past, CDW-G & Discovery Education are teaming up to give us the opportunity to win a 21st Century Classroom.   And Discovery announced a partnership with SIEMENS to support Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics with teacher resources, including webinars, and the STEM Academy.   See the website for information how to apply for the STEM Academy & Institute designed for full immersion into learning best practices.  See more information here or at the hyperlinks listed above:

CDW-G and Discovery Education Announce Win a Wireless Lab 2010 Sweepstakes
CDW Government LLC (CDW-G), a leading source of Information Technology (IT) solutions to educators and governments, and Discovery Education, the leader in digital video and multimedia-based learning, today announced the opening of the eighth annual “Win a Wireless Lab” sweepstakes.  The program gives K-12 schools nationwide the opportunity to win one of three grand-prize 21st-century classrooms.  Each classroom includes tablet or notebook computers, notebook cart, interactive whiteboard, student response system, projector, printer and document camera.  CDW-G and Discovery Education also provide on-site training to all Win a Wireless Lab grand-prize winners.

Siemens STEM Academy is a premier online community designed exclusively to foster achievement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) through the collaboration of STEM educators, and sharing of “best practices.”

DEN announces the first class of DEN Gurus. Over the past few months the great folks at DEN have been reviewing the applications for the inaugural class of DEN Gurus. They had a vast talent pool from which to select,  but they were finally able to select the winners.

·  Traci Blazosky Creative Construction with Multimedia Clarion Area School District, PA

·  Tim Childers Project Based Learning Bradley County Schools, TN

·  Patricia Duncan Science Wallenpaupack School District, PA

·  Lee Kolbert Personal Learning Networks Palm Beach County, FL

·  Nancy Sharoff Visual Literacy Ellenville Central Schools, NY 

Congratulations DEN Gurus!

Martin Luther King Day is Monday, January 18^th. Since my students just returned to school from their Christmas holiday on Monday the 11^th, I didn’t get to do any lessons about this great leader. After meeting with the other 4^th grade teachers I work with, we decided to do a black history unit in February.

As part of the unit I will be using the Discovery Streaming video American Heroes: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I will also be using the blackline masters that accompany this video. I appreciated that there is a pretest and a posttest included along with some great writing prompts.

I chose to use a Web 2.0 tool I haven’t tried before as a way to integrate more technology into my lesson. I have seen examples of how other educators have used Wallwisher and decide to give it a try. I created a Wallwisher where my students can post things they learn about MLK or ask questions they might have about him. Feel free to check out our “wall” and leave a comment.

  This past Saturday, January 9, was a great learning and sharing experience. Thanks to Lance Rougeux, Brad Fountain, Patti Duncan, Mike Bryant, Steve Dembo, and Hall Davidson (and anyone else I might have forgotten) for putting together another top-notch professional development opportunity for us who attended and those who will be using the archived sessions. The keynote “Polar Bears in a Changing Climate” was delivered by Julene Reed, the Director of Academic Technology at St. George’s IndependentSchool in Collierville, TN.  Julene is a STAR Discovery Educator and Apple Distinguished Educator. Here is a great document that was started by Lance and contributed to by many as the virtual conference was being presented. It is a Google document that contains many links to websites you might want to check out. Although the focus of Saturday’s sessions were science, I think everyone will find some links on this document that can be helpful for integrating Web 2.0 tools in other subjects.I’m already looking forward to the next DEN virtual conference which will take place in April. Stay tuned for more info about lessons learned from SCICon 2010 and links to the archives.

I just show a tweet about another Top Ten List. I love these kind of lists so I opened the link and was taken to Times Online list of The 10 best educational websites. I scanned quickly down to see which websites made the list. Discovery got the nod at #4. Go Discovery. The competition is an awesome list of websites that every educator should have bookmarked. I feel very proud to be associated with the Discovery team.

Susan Tompkins, Louisiana LC Chair, did an awesome job of hosting the annual “Dining with the STARS” dinner. It was held at Shucks on Wednesday, December 2 at 7 pm. There were about 25 people in attendance and I got to meet the rest of the LALC face-to-face. Susan Tompkins, Susan Gauthier, and Cindy Wallace were very welcoming to me and it is great to be able to put faces and names together. Hopefully the guests liked what they saw and heard and will become STARS.     

Congratulations to Louisiana LC Events Coordinator Cindy Wallace for being name the Region VII LACUE Secondary Teacher nominee and to Louisiana LC Blog Coordinator Susan Gauthier for being named the Region II LACUE Special Person nominee.  Join us in celebrating their awards and to cheer them on in the State Competition at LACUE on December 3 in Baton Rouge.  We hope to see many new faces stop by the TLTC booth, attend our sessions, or attend the Dining With The STARS gathering on December 2.   Check your email for details.   Leave a comment to let Susan & Cindy know they have the support of all of our fantastic Louisiana Discovery Educators!