North Carolina DEN

For the past two summers I have blogged my way out west and into Canada. My friends  and family have enjoyed the daily adventures of my crazy life as I led them through the ethnic foods I tasted, people that I met and beautiful scenery that I was seeing for the first time. It started as a journal of my thoughts and then became my memories of two glorious summers with my husband of 29 years. This year my adventure will be different. I will be traveling to Boston then Washington and spending educational hours with students from around the globe. I am blogging my experiences so I can take them back to class  with me in the fall. My friend and fellow Star member Jason Parker helped me get started with blogging from my blackberry cell phone. I watched him on one of our last educational trips to Washington DC (during our Spring Break) as he would blog back to students in his classroom with questions as he was learning the answers on our trip. Here we were on Spring break and the students were eager for extra credit points. Students back home were surfing the web and looking up answers and giving a response. They responded to the blog on line as he uploaded pictures and ask historical questions.  The response was instant, unlike waiting to get to a laptop to download and upload.Do you want to learn how to do this for your own private use or to use in the classroom? If so go to www.blogger.com and set up your own mobile blog. It is really not that difficult…just follow the directions for goblogger and create your scrapbook while you travel. 

 As the last school bus pulls out of the school parking lot for the summer, many dedicated educators have been known to experience spontaneous outbursts that mimic celebrations of winning a National Championship or quiet personal sugar highs. Giggles, howlers, and high-fives are most numerous in the teacher’s parking lot around 3:29 PM. I had a principal one time that encouraged the staff to congregate in the bus parking lot as the students left for the summer. The teachers would form a kick-line and chant the chorus to that song by the artist Steam, that starts with the words–”Nah nah nah nah, hey hey, good-bye“. I do not think our parents would approve of that now. It would be considered taunting or worse.As the desiel exhaust fumes clear from the bus parking lot and the school yard littered with broken pencils and half-chewed lunch room yellow straws dot a well trampled lawn, it is difficult to not feel a little– blue. Blue from all the missed chances to help students learn those math facts, voice-mails parents left nonrespondent, passing guides, retention lists, and the thought that you will not be seeing all the smiling faces from learners that never bored of preparing for their EOGs. However, as an educator, the thoughts of a better year and a few days to refresh our minds work miracles.Celebrate the accomplishments of this school year. Reflect a little and rest a lot. The return of the first bus of a new school year is only days ahead.

Who ever said summer school isn’t fun?  Get ready for your school year with an amazing series of complimentary professional development sessions from the Discovery Educator Network (DEN). The series will run from August 3 through August 27 and will feature sessions on Digital Storytelling, School Leadership, Science and Web 2.0.  All of the sessions for the DEN Summer School Webinar Series begin at 11 AM ET.

 Register today at:Community.DiscoveryEducation.com/Webinar.

On May 30, 2009, North Carolina educators participated in the 1st DEN Geocaching Day at two locations:  Etowah and Kinston

Etowah, NC

Twelve geocachers began the day at the newly opened Etowah Public Library where they learned about how GPS satellites work, GPS devices and Geocaching.  They then spent some time looking for some small caches around the library as they learned to use their GPS devices.  They were given many examples of how to tie geocaching to any curricular area as well as time to collaborate and connect with each other.  Their adventure then took them to the Etowah Park where they found two geocaches.  The first one was found very quickly; but, the second one proved to be a bit more of an adventure.  After using the clue given to them on the geocaching.com website, the cache was found covered with ants. Their geocaching experience ended with Julie’s Sub and Sandwich Shop providing a wonderful lunch and lots of prizes from Discovery.   

Kinston, NC Twenty three cachers started the day at Golden Corral for breakfast and some general geocaching hints. Our adventure was the First Battle of Kinston Tour, which consisted of 12 new caches and a history lesson at each stop.  Included in each cache was information needed to complete a puzzle that would reveal the location of the last cache.  The travel bug was launched at the 3rd stop on the tour.  Cachers met at the Kinston Visitor’s Center and received a button proclaiming they finished The First Battle Tour of Kinston.  Our reward for a long morning of caching was the delicious lunch awaiting us at Subway.  Everyone was pleasantly surprised at the nice prizes and lunch.

On June 27th, there will be a second event:  The Battle of Wyse Fork, which will also consist of 12 new caches.  Join us if you can.

This has been a crazy week.  It all started last Thursday afternoon.  Our email system went offline because of a hard drive failure.  I knew then it would not be up the next day.  That is when my headache started.  Saturday and Sunday, our email was sporadic, but I thought the worst was over.  Monday morning rolls around, and our email is still down.  My head ache returns.

By Tuesday, our email system has been moved to a new server but we were still having issues with outbound mail.  Most of that was solved before the end of the day.  Finally on Wednesday my headache subsided and I felt that I could show my face it public again.

By now it is quite obivous I have nothing to write about.    So, I am just going to share some things that have excited me.

1. The Dell Latitude 2100 Education Netbook.  I am not a big fan of netbooks for me personally, I prefer my laptop and iPod Touch.  I see the benefits for education.  Dell has released a special netbook for education.  I want a set and it has been a long time since I have said “I want” and “dell” in the same sentence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvPb0nQEt_U

2. The Palm Pre.  Our cell phones are on the Verizon network and I am not happy with the selection.  BlackBerry is not an options.  Saturday, June 5th, Palm is releasing their newest phone the Pre.  It is only on Sprint, but Verizon already let the cat out of the bag and said they will be carrying the Pre in 6 months.

3. Apple’s WWDC.  On June 8th, Apple will most likely be talking about the new iPhone.  There have been rumors of it being available on Verizon, but I am not holding my breath.  I am still excited to see what the updates are and when I can get them on my iPod Touch.

5. Twitter:  I am a bipolar twitterer.  Sometimes I love it and think it is great, other days it is just a distraction.  Today I am liking it.  I especially like this video out of UT Dallas.  I would have loved a classroom like this growing up.  I would never raise my hand or participate in a discussion in school, but I would have participated like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8

It is a good time to be a geek.