Why should you join the DEN?
The DEN brings you in contact with teachers that have a passion to teach with integrating technology into their learning environments. Meeting teachers that are excited about life-long learning and are so willing to share with one another. I have attended many DEN social events and training events over the last three years and each one continues to help me grow in my teaching profession. DEN provides excellent professional growth opportunities for educators. I have enjoyed many of the FREE webinars right from home. (no Travel needed) I have involved my students in the Astronauts webinars during the school day. If you haven’t experienced a webinar, please make it a goal to try one in this school year.
Hall Davidson and Steve Dembo are awesome presenters that inspire you to change your teaching practices and try using new learning tools. I consider Steve Dembo the KING of Web 2.0. This is my opinion and I am sticking to it.
I am not the same teacher that I was four years ago. After meeting Jannita Demian and experiencing the first Western Regional DEN Conference at Sea World in San Diego, I returned to my classroom as a teachers that doesn’t go anywhere without a digital camera . I am always looking to capture images to create a digital story. I learned not to be afraid to put a digital camera in the hands of children to see what they would create.
Another tool that I cannot teach without is a microphone attached to the computer, there is “speech magic” that takes place with students. When I have a student record their voice and then hear it for the first time they start to giggle. This is a happy positive giggle. Many children have never heard their voices played back to them. They automatically want to self edit their work. How many times do we struggle with students to make them read or to practice their reading? When you take out a microphone they want to read into the computer and they want to edit their mistakes. There work become ready for an authentic audience and now they want it to be done well. This is why I call it “speech magic”. I have seen so many students transformed before my eyes with voice recordings. Some of the most shyest students completely change with a microphone. So I say let the magic begin!
Thank you Discovery for all the great training!
