Maine

Feb 2, 2008, in spite of the ice & sleet storm Den’s Virtual Conference in Central Maine was attended by local teachers.

Lance Rougeux presented ‘Lost in Translation’, explained how many of todays students are bilingual, their second language being text messaging. Matt Monjan presented ‘Building A Bigger Blogger’ which introduced web applications that can blend with the teacher resources in Discovery Education’. Next ‘The Bionic Lesson’ presented by Mike Bryant showed how to transform standard lessons into a more engaging presentation using a variety of programs and hardware technologies.

In between programs door prizes were awarded and teachers enjoyed sharing ideas. After a lunch of chicken and roast beef sandwiches, everyone returned to a relaxing presentation by Hall Davidson, the ‘Revenge of the Digital Immigrant’. He described the new brain of the 21st century student and how education needs to evolve to match the evolution of the media.

Following Hall Davidson Steve Dembo presented “50 Ways to Spin a Digital Story”. Steve described how to use web sites to make students’ digital stories come alive.

The 21st century student is quite a different learner than those of us that have been teaching for years — Just ask Harley, (the golden) Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Thank You Edward Little High School in Auburn, Maine  for supporting us with a meeting place and beverages!

You can win one of the 5 wireless labs, each of which will include:

• 20 notebook or tablet computers from HP, Lenovo or Toshiba
• 3 wireless access points from D-Link, Linksys or NETGEAR
• 1 Bretford mobile cart
• 1 Promethean interactive whiteboard
• 20 Promethean Activote integrated personal response system
• 1 video projector from Epson or NEC Solutions
• 1 document camera from AVerMedia
• 1 laserjet printer from Epson or HP

Just click on the enter button and register. You may register more than once.

Join us for the 1^st ever

Discovery Educator Network

Virtual Conference! Saturday, February 2^nd Central Maine/Auburn 8:30 – 3:30 Eastern time Lunch will be provided. Pre-registration at http://Community.DiscoveryEducation.Com/virtualconference.You will be notified via email with site information and confirmation of acceptance. Registration ends Thursday Jan. 31, 2008 at noon.

The DEN Virtual Conference is a national event that provides educators a unique opportunity to experience Discovery Education’s high-quality professional development. The day will feature keynote presentations from Discovery’s own Hall Davidson and Lance Rougeux that will be broadcast to each of the regional gatherings. In between the keynote presentations, participants will attend breakout sessions presented by local STAR Discovery Educators. Educators who cannot attend an in-person regional event still have the opportunity to participate virtually in the full-day conference. Special breakout sessions presented by Matt Monjan, Mike Bryant and Steve Dembo will be broadcast throughout the day.

 

Wednesday evening, April 25th, the Maine Leadership Council hosted a ‘Get to know us and learn to podcast’ evening. DEN members and fellow teachers joined together for a webinar, ‘Audacity to Podcast’ hosted by DEN. We started out with dinner, then digitally joined by Jannita and Steve from DEN for a podcasting workshop. We followed with a group get together and shared ideas that we could use in the classroom. It was a great night to get together and meet other educators in the area.

Greetings to you all,

    Spring is a time to rejuvenate and shake off the winter blues. This past week has been Spring vacation for most of the Maine schools. We started out with a snow storm followed by a devastating northeaster. We may have lost property and suffered damage but nothing can compare to the lives we lost here at home at especially those at Virginia Tech. April 20th has been declared Orange and Maroon Day and for the next few days you will see DEN paying tribute with an orange / maroon theme. Friday, April 20th, at noon bells across the country rang to honor those effected by VT’s tragedy. Maine schools were on vacation, perhaps we can all do our part this next week and ask our administration for a moment of silence and ringing of a noon bell during this next week to pay our own tribute to those that have lost heir lives, loved one or a friend this past week. We extend our deepest sympathy to all of those effected, our prayers and thoughts are with you.

Erin Towns, history teacher at Edward Little High school has become a Star DEN member and is very excited about the offerings she has had through unitedstreaming at her fingertips. She sums up her experiences here: "unitedstreaming has drastically altered the way I present information to my students.  With almost every topic I teach, and within every presentation I design - I include clips and sometimes full videos that I download from unitedstreaming.   The information is laid out in such a way that I am able to download the most significant portion of a video.  These clips have resulted in better comprehension of the material by students and go on to result in higher quiz and test scores for all levels of students.   It has made a difference not only professionally to me, but personally as well.  I am passionate again about designing lessons, something that as a teacher with a few years under the belt, needed - it provides me with the ability to be very creative while being efficient. "

Meet the Maine DEN Leadership Council.