Oct 24
DEN STAR-lets as photographed by the paparazzi
Saturday was the DEN Fall Virtual Conference. Thanks to everyone who came out and attended the NYDENLC’s in-person event in Portchester. Special thanks needs to go out to Andrew from Buffalo Wild Wings who helped coordinate everything at the location. Your assistance was much appreciated. And of course we have to thank our lovely waitress, Alex. She really got into the spirit of the day. Not only did she take excellent care of us, she posed as paparazzi for our DEN photo.
During the conference I was told that I won a 2011 Discovery Educator Network Membership Season MVP! The official email states: “That means you wracked up the most points in your state or province during the Membership Season and you’ve won the coveted, limited-edition 2012 DEN MVP jersey.” Did I mention I really wanted to win that T-shirt? Very happy little DEN member.
The day was fun filled. Between meeting new den members, sharing ideas, learning from the online conference, and enjoying a great meal. Thank you Discovery! Can’t wait for the archive to be posted so I can fill in the gaps in my notes. What a fabulous day! Thanks to all those that were a part of it.
Sep 28
As I struggle myself with trying to help a teacher begin to use Discovery Education with their students, I find myself learning quite a bit as well. I am so comfortable with logging in and navigating through Discovery Education resources on a frequent basis. However, we are piloting offering Discovery Education Streaming accounts to some students. This way a teacher may individualize instruction for them. Many of the learning theories suggest that students develop at various paces with various interests. So this project excites me. We have the potential to make quite a difference in the lives of these students. And if all goes well hopefully we can broaden our scope soon after.
But as I am assisting this teacher, I find myself realizing many things:
- Wow, I enjoy being in the professional development arena more than I ever thought I would.
- Teachers work very hard to reach each child in their care. The good ones go above and beyond to find what will help each find success. (I am lucky to be working with one such “good one”.)
- The import structure was easy once the customer service team assisted. They rock by the way! Reach out to them if you are struggling. So very knowledgeable.
- There are so many great resources on a single topic inside Discovery Education.
- The teacher view is definitely improved but I need to develop cheat sheets that work for us.
- We all learn something new on a good day. I have been having many good days this week with this project.
Are you using Discovery Education Streaming with individual student accounts? If so I would love to hear how you are implementing them in your classrooms. Have you learned from any oops moments? Have you enjoyed a specific success of a student? The power of the DEN is learning from each other. I would love to learn from those that are ahead of me on this learning curve.
