That’s right, well, kind of. Today I’m at One Discovery Place working with the DEN LC Symposium and learning the ropes at Discovery Education. Starting officially with Discovery Communications next Monday, I’ll be joining the DEN Team and working directly with Matt Monjan. Next week we will be at NECC sharing the new features of Discovery Education products that will come online July 3rd, and presenting in the booth with some new and exciting ways to integrate DE Products with web2.0 apps and software you may already have in your schools and classrooms. For updates, follow me on Twitter Michael_DEN
Here’s my new desk. Notice how empty and barren it is? Help me out with some decoration ideas. My last work desks have been in classrooms or planning rooms. I’m really in need of some advice for outfitting a “cube”. If you have any ideas please leave a comment below. If I use you’re idea you’ll see it here in a new post later this summer.
Thanks to the hard work and preparation of Matt Monjan and the whole group at Discovery Communications, a group of 17 FCPS teachers were all treated to a great day of presentations, keynotes, and breakout sessions from Scott Kinney, Hall Davidson, and Dennis Swain. 75+ teachers from the DC area attended the day long training which also included a pretty nice breakfast spread and lunch (there’s always good food to be had at Discovery!)
The day started with a keynote presenation by Scott Kinney about the Media Evolution. In the afternoon Hall Davidson shared his exploration of how cell phones will be used in the classroom of the future in his presenation Cell Phones in Education. The three breakout sessions we attended were PhotoStory & MovieMaker, 50 Ways to Integrate Discovery Education, and PowerPoints that Pop!
Great stuff that was shared with perfect timing - now I’m all jazzed up and ready to go back to school with a refreshed bag of tricks to share with teachers and students to make learning fun with Discovery Education Streaming.
Hall Davidson just did an amazing review of the advanced tools in Google Earth from creating tours, using layers, and pasting your own multimedia onto Google Earth.
To see the PowerPoint with instructions, visit the Streaming A to Z blog at: http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/streaming_a_to_z/de-training-academy/ or open Brad Fountain’s PowerPoint file here: Google Earth
The Professional Development area holds some very powerful resources for trainers and teachers to use as they learn how to use the DE Streaming site.
Webinars can be found on the right column, a trainer’s toolkit is available, and there are many examples of integrating DE Streaming content into instruction.
For teachers who can’t attend a training, or prefer to work on their own, try the Interactive Training feature in Professional Development. A virtual person will wall the trainee through the Discovery Education Streaming website.
http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/professionalDevelopment/InteractiveTraining.cfm
For more information about upcoming training, check out the agendas below.
workshopagenda_onehour.pdf
workshopagenda_twohour.pdf
Use Photostory3 and MovieMaker with Discovery Education to make your own media!Check out the little movie I just made in a few minutes about Sea Turtles! Sea Turtle Movie
A fun CPS activity with questions about the DE Site.
Here are some key points to remember when training teachers and staff:
Streaming is for previewing, downloading is for instruction.
To download a photo, click the preview, then right click and save target as.
Use the calendar to find material to support historical events by date, in the main subject areas.
The My Content area allows teachers to share resources and content with their school, or even at the district level.
“Thematic Focus” is a weekly unit that contains lesson plans, discussion guides, videos and activities. Each week a different thematic focus is featured, but you can also click on the folder beneath to search the archive.
Use the “Customized Home Page” to manage the information from DE Streaming to be support your account.
To set this up, click on My Account, then My Homepage, select the customized radio button and then select the checkboxes next to the features available in the list below. At the return to the DE Streaming page click “My Homepage” to see your customized page, or toggle back to see the default (great for training).
The Discovery Education Atlas is now found in the Teacher Center. Video and content is embedded into a world atlas and aggregated by country on the digital map.
To change the media settings for your downloads, go into the “My Account” area and adjust the preferences. It is in here as well that you can change whether or not your streaming video will play in the web browser or a stand along application like Windows Media Player.
Hands-on “Train the Trainer” activity about using the 3 builders in the Teacher Center: Writing Prompt Builder , Quiz Builder, and Assignment Builder. For more information and the powerpoint, visit:
http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/streaming_a_to_z/
Click on the “Resources” link on the left to see PowerPoint used by Matt Monjan.
Writing Prompt Example copied from the DE Streaming Library:
http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/studentCenter/index.cfm?cdCode=W498A-8912
Writing Prompt Example created on my own about using iPods in the classrooms:
http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/studentCenter/index.cfm?cdCode=W4993-29A7
Space Shuttle Quiz created in the Quiz Builder that is similar to a Writing Prompt with only one “Essay Question”
http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/studentCenter/index.cfm?cdCode=49A8-D339
Why should I use the Assignment Builder?
- combine all of your writing prompts and quizzes into one place
- share weblinks or create a web quest
- embedd widgets, video, and audio from other internet sources
- use the Discovery Atlas features as well
This is way too cool - a great way to help kids “launch” their summers!
http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/2008/05/29/discovery-connect-when-we-left-earth-the-nasa-missions/
Check out the new series “When We Left Earth” the day it’s released with your students in the classroom, then join the webinar with the shows producer at 1 PM.
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/manvswild/manvswild.html
Should you let your children or students watch the show “Man vs. Wild”? Absolutely, it’s the greatest show on TV, but a little supervision can’t hurt. For example, when it was time for my 8 year old son to come inside for dinner last night he replied, “No thank you, I’ve already eaten.” My wife and I were curious as to what he had eaten since he was playing outback near the woods all afternoon. His response - “I had three bugs and a handful of grass, just like Bear Grylls on the show last night.”
Moral of the story, don’t assume your kids are reading the disclaimer at the start of the show. Next time I’ll be sure to remind them that these are skills you’ll need when in a dire situation, not just when you’re playing with your friends and feeling a little hungry.
On the other hand, what a great opportunity for an elementary math lesson. What is the ratio of protein to weight with an insect compared to a cow? Don’t be surprised if the school lunch menu includes “Cricket Nuggets” next week. I nominate Bear Grylls to chair a committee on reinventing our National public school lunch system.
Greetings from Discovery Headquarters!
This evening I checked in at the headquarters building here in Silver Spring, Maryland. Tonight through Tuesday we’ll be participating in the Discovery Eduation National Training Academy (http://community.discoveryeducation.com/nta). Throughout the workshops I’ll be sharing information on this blog, so be sure to subscribe via RSS or check back from time to time for updates.
