Are you looking for a way to bring new technology equipment to your school or classroom? Having trouble figuring out a way to get the school to pay for it? Try Funding Factory. I have been using them for several years and love them. Here’s the deal. Ask people to donate old cell phones and used ink cartridges. You ship them in on behalf of your class or school. You earn free points for technology. Yes, shop off the CDG website. I got free scanners for my school one year. Yes, 8 for free. Can’t get much better than that.
The reason I’m blogging this is I just got a memory card for the latest Cannon digital camera we earned in June at a sale recently. I realized other DEN members might be interested in this if you haven’t already signed up. So I figured I’d take a minute to share. Maybe you are like me and looking for ideas for September while it is still August and I have “free time”. God, I love that term…
Check out: http://www.fundingfactory.com/fundraiser-2200.aspx for more information.
~Jeannine
On October 29, 2008 Nassau BOCES will be holding the 2008 Technology Summit at SUNY Farmingdale. The 2020 Vision Now! Summit will focus on global connections and showcase global projects from the local school districts of Herricks and Massepequa.
The two keynote speakers for this event will be Microsoft’s Mary Cullinane, Director of U.S. Partners in Learning and Ian Jukes, Director of the InfoSavvy Group.
Nassau and Western Suffolk teachers can register for this event here using the MyLearningPlan interface.
If your school is located elsewhere and you’d like to attend, there are many contact people on the website sidebar that you could either e-mail or phone.
Please let us know if you’ll be attending.
Our tri-state Day of Discovery with Power to Learn this past week was FABULOUS!
Here are some pictures from the day to prove it! I created this 15 second video using Animoto.
Don’t forget to visit the wiki presentation I shared with you on VoiceThread and Animoto. Have fun enjoying these two applications with your students.
For those of you who were able to attend our Day of Discovery, it was very nice meeting you.
For those of you who didn’t attend, perhaps we could meet at the Northeast Regional Conference in Troy, NY on September 27th and 28th.
Happy Teaching and Learning!
Awesome news! Animoto now has a section just for educators! Visit Animoto for Education to check it out! When I visited the site, I discovered that our own Lance Rougeux, Director of the Discovery Educator Network endorses Animoto as a great web 2.0 tool beneficial to students and teachers alike. He is right! Be sure to visit the site and register for your own educator account.
Just in case you’re new to Animoto, it is a site that turns your uploaded pictures into a video with accompanying music. I included an example I made after I attended my first mono-ski clinic through the the Professional Ski Instructors of America. There are examples of more educationally appropriate Animotos on the front page of the Animoto for Educators site, but I was not able to access the embed codes.
Alright NY DEN, it is time to save the date! TechForumNY is slated to occur October 24th, 2008! While the suggested audience [as listed on the site] does not include NY DEN Star Educators, IT SHOULD!
In a recent e-mail I received a handy dandy discount code that I thought I’d share with you. Sharing is caring after all.
REGISTER TODAY at the EARLY BIRD RATE of $195
That’s a $94 savings off the on-site registration rate!
Input Discount Code: NY8EB
Let us know if you’ll be attending.
Thanks to Ben Hazzard of the SMARTBoard Podcast at pdtogo.com for sharing this WhiteBoard Challenge Wiki with me via a conversation in Plurk. Are you new to using an interactive whiteboard (IWB)? Have you used one for ages but want some other ideas? Are you using an IWB regularly but know you could use it better? Then you are invited to join the WhiteBoard Challenge
As stated on the WhiteBoard Challenge wiki: This Interactive Whiteboard Challenge will run for 7 weeks initially, starting on Monday, August 11th. Each week there will be a new task set by someone who is an experienced whiteboard user. They will present their challenge in whatever way they like - it might be a short video, a screen cast a podcast. You then need to go and use whatever they have presented in your classroom that week. Record your efforts and write a blog post about how it went. You can also come back here to the NYDEN and post your progress. Good luck on your IWB mission!
Posted on August 6, 2008 in
IWB,
Technology by Christine Southard
Have you discovered wordle yet?
Visit the wordle site to generate beautiful word clouds from text, a blog link or a delicious username. Just like a regular tag cloud, the words that appear more frequently are given greater prominence in the wordle. I especially love how you can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.
I created this wordle using the link for NY DEN blog.
Can you tell how important Discovery Star Educators are to our blog?
Save the date! The second annual Games in Education Symposium, free to middle and high school teachers, is scheduled for Tuesday & Wednesday, August 19-20th and will take place at the Schenectady Museum & Suits-Bueche Planetarium.
The Symposium is honored to include speakers that are leaders nationwide in the area of using video games to enhance educational goals. They represent experience with award winning games that are household names, as well as real experience in application to the classroom.
Click here to register for this event.
If you’re not attending the DEN National Institute, you can always watch from home.
Video chat rooms at Ustream
Are you familiar with Flickr? Flickr is an online photo sharing space that has wonderful potential for your personal and classroom use. Flickr has two goals for it’s online service which you can read about here. You can also take a tour of Flickr here.
At the DEN Leadership event, Mike Bryant invited all DEN Leadership Council members into the DEN LC Institute 2008 Group to share the digital photos we took during the week. I created a flickr badge below for your viewing pleasure. After joining flickr, you can create your own flickr badge using this link.
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