Pennsylvania

Wow, what a day!  I can’t thank everyone (of the three of you reading this…hi, mom) enough for all that you did to make our DEN pre-conference event at PETE&C such a big success.

We had two major keynote speakers in Kathy Schrock and Hall Davidson (seen to the left battling it out) work with us.

We had great breakout sessions and time for networking with Discovery Educators from five different states.

We met new friends and learned about ways to keep the energy and sharing going (e.g., Discovery Educator Network Online Community and Northeast Regional Event this June in Valley Forge, PA).

We had fun.  Thank you for helping make it happen!

If you want to hear more about the day and the conference as a whole, check out these other blog posts:

Died and Gone to Hershey by Jannita Demian

The DEN at PETE&C by Scott Kinney

PETE&C: A conference within a conference by Steve Dembo

Discovery Educator Network Pre-Conference Session
Sunday, February 19, 2006
9 AM to 4 PM
Hershey Lodge and Convention Center (Crystal Ballroom A)

Registration/sign-in for our pre-conference session will open at 8:15 AM in Crystal A.  A continental breakfast including coffee and chocolate-dipped croissants will be served from 8:15-9:00 AM.  We will start the day promptly at 9 AM.  Our session will end at 4 PM.

NOTE: If you are signed up for Tom Medved’s Video Editing breakout session, please try to bring a laptop.  We have 10 iBooks available, but they will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. 

Any other questions, please email me.  I can’t wait to see all of you on Sunday!

In case you haven’t seen the press release from the Governor’s office or out of the PA Department of Education, this is pretty big news for educators all across PA.  Rendell’s 2006-07 education budget includes a $200 million program, Classrooms for the Future, that focuses on placing laptops on the desks of every high school student in the Commonwealth.  In the first year, $20 million will be competitively awarded to 100 schools. 

Another interesting initiative, the New Economy Technology Scholarship, focuses on keeping Math and Science majors in PA. 

Despite the allure of free government cheese, I think that if we (and yes, I said we because it is not the governor’s or PDE’s money) are going to invest in programs like these (and yes I used to work at PDE and yes I love the idea of getting to a place where we are 1 to 1) then we should finish the connectivity job associated with Act 183 (eFund) first.  We all know that $10 million a year to ensure broadband internet connectivity across PA is not going to make it happen fast enough or at all.

But, it’s Friday and I’m rambling.  Take a look at the budget plans for yourself.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Okay, one more time…

If you are planning on attending the pre-conference session at PETE&C next Sunday, February 19 (9AM-4PM), please check the list below.  You will see the master schedule for the day as well as the three breakout sessions to which you have been assigned.  Everyone received their top three choices with only a couple exceptions who received their 1st, 2nd and 4th choices.   

If your name does not appear on the list of breakout sessions, I have never received your final registration and have therefore removed you from the list of attendees.  If I don’t hear from you by Monday morning (10 AM), it will have to stay that way as I am placing the food order.  So feel free to email or call me.

Here is the master schedule with your breakout session assignments…

Download master_schedule_den_petec.xls

I was looking for something from our various Discovery sites today and wound up spending some quality time on Discovery School.  As you know, when you visit Discovery School you have to check out the latest from Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators.  So, I did.  Then I kept exploring.  I really enjoy Kathy’s Sites of the School Days.

Sites of the School Days is where she introduces us to great websites that help you integrate technology into your daily instruction.  Some of the topics from this year include: blogs in education, educational podcasting, and online technology assessments.   

The latest site is Intel’s: The Journey Inside.

Check it out!

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in Discovery Education Day.  This is where all employees of Discovery Education meet in Silver Spring (see my picture to the left at our headquarters) to lay out this year’s goals and see how all of the many different pieces of Discovery Education can come together to keep supporting great products that help teachers and students on a daily basis. 

I had the opportunity to represent the Discovery Educator Network with a presentation to several hundred of my colleagues.  My presentation included a short video of Peggy Barger and Jim Hopton (Jefferson-Morgan School District) talking about the ART of unitedstreaming.  Another Discovery Educator, Tom Medved (Union Area School District) and his wife did an unbelievable job of putting the video together in a very restricted timeline. 

I have received so many emails and calls from my colleagues saying two things: 1) The video was awesome, inspiring and just about every other positive adjective you can think of and 2) Can I get a copy?

So, thank you to Peggy, Jim, Tom and his wife for making me (and the whole Discovery Educator Network) shine.

Check out the video.  It was converted to mpeg format so it will take a minute or two to load. 

Monday is the launch of unitedstreaming v2.3.  Here are some of the highlights:

Search Engine
Refined search results targeted to your keywords
More Boolean search criteria
Save time with faster results
Search across additional asset types like Lesson Plans, Clip Art, and Quizzes

Quiz Center
Choose from over 2,000 pre-made quizzes from the Quiz Bank or build quizzes using 16,000 individual quiz questions
Build your own individual custom quizzes

Assignment Builder
Add URLs to an assignment
Display grade levels on video clips in the assignment materials search
Add instructions for each media type

Check out the flyer below for more info…

Download us_v2.3 flyer.pdf

Well, you’ve gone and done it now.  Way more than 30 people commented on the Super Bowl predictions post and I will honor my word.  But before we get to that, a few other details.  First, Joe Phillips and Ben Smith both predicted wrong in their comments and have therefore been suspended from PA DEN until further notice (just kidding).  Next, it was great to see that many of you used the resources from Kathy Schrock’s comment.  Thanks for sharing your ideas with me.  Keep sending me emails or posting comments on the blog to let me know all the cool stuff you are doing in your classrooms.   

AND…I would like to invite Mike Cichocki and Ann Clark to dinner with Kathy Schrock on Sunday, February 19 after the DEN pre-conference event.

Okay, I promised to reveal a picture of a very young Lance Rougeux in Steelers garb holding a manly action figure.  Instead of just posting the picture, I thought I’d make it educational.  So, I downloaded Photo Story 3 (you must have XP) and then searched the unitedstreaming Image Library for pictures on Pittsburgh.  Very quickly I inserted a few pictures into the show, added some narration by reading the descriptions associated with the images in unitedstreaming, and then topped it off with a very special song.  The result is below.  Enjoy!

Download pbg_lance.wmv