Pennsylvania

Thanks to Tim Childers and the TN DEN for organizing this DEN social.  Here are the details from the TN DEN blog.

The National Middle Schools Association (NMSA) will host its annual national convention in Houston, TX from November 8 to 10. If you are a STAR DEN member and would like to attend a social gathering of other DEN members while attending the NMSA convention, we need your input.

Finding a space to host us (whether a few or a lot) will take a little time and effort, so we need to know something fairly soon. If you would like to participate in such a gathering, please email Tim Childers (tchilders.den at gmail dot com). Discovery Education has agreed to help us with a budget, so our goal is to make this as “free” as possible for all attendees. When you send your email, include the following information:

• Your Name, email address, and a contact phone number while in Houston
• State of Residence (this is NOT just a TN event)
• Preferred day of event (8th or 9th)
• Would you prefer a “sit down” dinner or a “drop in” session?

We need your email no later than midnight, October 31st, in order to make this happen. We will need ONE email PER ATTENDEE.

Hey, we’ll get together if there are just 2 of us able to do so, but we would love to have a whole big bunch of STAR DEN middle school teachers in attendance. Remember, this is a social gathering, not another workshop for NMSA. We hope to hear from you soon!

Get EXCITED for the 2nd annual DEN Stream-a-thon!

Enroll today for the 12-hour Discovery Education Stream-a-thon October 23 from 9 AM to 9 PM (EST).

There are exciting sessions every hour on the hour that last 45 minutes. The Discovery Education streaming and Google Earth session at 1-2 PM is geared toward students attending as well as educators. 

I received the following awesome feedback from Central Bucks elementary teacher and STAR Discovery Educator, Meg Griffin, about the DEN Meerkat Manor webinar.

On Wednesday, October 3 my fourth grade students were captivated during a Discovery Education webinar with Mick Kaczorowski, Executive Producer for the much-loved Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. Disbelievingly, my students asked questions of Mick Kaczorowski, not really expecting to have their questions answered. Their disbelief turned to wonderment as their specific questions appeared in the chat window and were subsequently answered. That morning, in Doylestown, 26 nine and ten year old kids got a glimpse into the wonders of technology as they interacted not only with a television producer and the Discovery Education pros, but, perhaps most importantly, also with their peers from within their own state to states across the country. One student summed it up when he called out, “This rocks!”

I received this information from Jannita.  Let’s all submit our vote! 

A very exciting opportunity has come up for one of our DEN members.  She is in a contest to be a torch bearer at the Olympics based on activities she is doing in her classroom!  How wonderful if she won and were able to represent all of us there!  

 Please take a moment to click on the following link and then click on LINDA BILAK.  If all of us voted today we could push her up to 1st place  

http://newthinkers.lenovo.com/

Chris Lehmann post out an all-call on Twitter for edu bloggers to publicize for Educon 2.0.

Here is the information copied from the Educon 2.0 wiki.

Educon 2.0 — January 25-27, 2008
Science Leadership Academy
Philadelphia, PA

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference.And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School 2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools.

We are looking for people to present ideas, facilitate conversations, and share best practice.

The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0:

1. Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
2. Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
3. Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4. Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5. Learning can — and must — be networked.

Cost: $50 ($80 after January 16th) — Payable to the Science Leadership Academy
Register TODAY At http://educon20.eventbrite.com

Hotel Information — The Windsor Suites — 17th and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Attendees

Join the Facebook EduCon 2.0 Group!

CALL FOR CONVERSATIONS — Proposals Due Nov. 1st

January 25th Agenda 12:00 — 3:00

Spend the afternoon at Science Leadership Academy. Meetings with teachers, students and administrators to talk about the ideas of School 2.0 and how SLA is working toward that ideal.

January 26th - 27th — EduCon 2.0

Conference / Conversation Categories:

Issue Conversation Sessions

One of the things we have seen is that more and more presentations are becoming conversations. We are looking for “Conversation Sessions” that are interactive and engaging.

One possible format: The mini-presentation — 20-30 minute lectures, with the ability to be Skype/note-chatted, where a speaker takes a position on an issue, explains something, tries to define an idea or just tries to get their head around something. Listeners note-cast the session along with a live audio feed so others can take part. After the lecture, 30-40 minutes conversation where the speaker just joins the conversation around a table, followed by 15-30 minutes where personal reflection takes place. No matter what format these take — all of these sessions must have participation built in.

Blogger Cafe

We’ve got a comfy library and we’re not afraid to use it.

Unsessions

This would be more like what we saw at the EBC, where one facilitator ran a conversation for an hour. I think these sessions would work best around ideas where many people felt a level of expertise or previous investment. Goals for sessions like these might be action oriented? If we all are walking in with a lot of expertise, can a good facilitator build consensus toward a goal?

Again, if the conversations were an hour long, I’d want to leave time for a half-hour to reflect and write afterwards. (And again, no reason not to have a Snowball mic on the table and make sure that others can take part. In fact, there’s every reason to.)

Pedagogy Sessions

Here’s what I want to see more of… specific conversations around pedagogy. Could we have some sessions where folks had agreed to read an article beforehand around constructivist teaching and then had a conversation where we looked at Web 2.0 tools with the specific agenda of looking at how to take the best of progressive pedagogy and apply it to the new word in which we live? Maybe even looking at old language and looking at its limits and where we do and don’t need new language? Again… skypecast it, chat it and give time for reflection at the end.

It would also be nice to see these discussions of pedagogy lead to more specific suggestions about how to incorporate these ideas into practice; ie, how will I apply this idea to the lesson/unit I’m starting tomorrow. How do I introduce this to students; what does it look like onscreen, and what does my “classroom” (in quotes because you can define it however you want) look like as a result? Perhaps these sessions could be followed by a series of posts/wiki pages where people brainstorm and archive ideas on using these tools in specific lessons.

Cross-Pollination Lunch

We’ll be offering spaces for folks who went to different sessions to come together and talk about what they’ve learned.

Technorati Tags: Educon2.0 ScienceLeadershipAcademy Philadelphia EducationalTechnology Teaching

Isn’t it often frustrating that your dialy schedule prevents your attending some of the awesome DEN webinars?  If so, I feel fairly confident that on Tuesday, October 23rd, you will find a wonderful webinar that fits into your schedule.  Mark your calendars because DEN is hosting the 2nd Annual DEN Stream-a-Thon! 

From the DEN National Blog . . .

It’s back! The wildly popular, full-day marathon of back-to-back, non-stop, pedagogically sound, content rich webinars return in our Second Annual DEN Stream-a-thon!

Join us on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 for a whole day’s worth of great presentations. We’ll kick things off at 9 AM and go until 9 PM (EST). Twelve hours of webinars, just for you! Drop by for one session or camp out for the entire day.

Click here to register for the Stream-a-thon. You only have to register once and you can use that information to jump in and out of the webinars all day long.

Check out the schedule:

9 AM
Tour of DE streaming
10 AM
The Builders
11 AM
The New DEN website
12 PM
Tour of DE streaming
1 PM
DE streaming and Google Earth (a great session for teachers and students)
2 PM
The Builders
3 PM
The New DEN website
4 PM
Tips for Leading a DE streaming Workshop
5 PM
Movie-making with DE streaming
6 PM
The New DEN website
7 PM
Stealing from the STARs: 10 Ways to Use DE streaming
8 PM
DEN Hall Meeting

I am passing along a quick reminder for all of the STARs among the PA DEN . . . This comes from the National Blog.

Last September we introduced a new level of membership in the DEN – STAR Discovery Educator. STAR status is used to recognize and reward the most active participants in the community. STAR Discovery Educators receive all sorts of additional benefits. They can order free training materials, set up their own blogs on our new DEN website, download resources shared by their fellow STARs, attend special events like the DEN National Institutes, participate in exclusive promotions and contests, and more!
In order to maintain this special status STAR Discovery Educators are asked to demonstrate their activity by reporting at least two events per school year.
If you became a Discovery Educator before September 1, 2006 and have not yet reported your events for the 2006-2007 school year, you will be receiving several reminders via email as well as an “old-fashioned” letter in the mail.
You will have until November 23, 2007 to get those events reported to maintain your STAR status for this year.
To report an event, just visit: http://community.discoveryeducation.com/eventreport
If you have any questions regarding your STAR status, please email us at app_den@discovery.com.

A colleague forwarded this article to me and I was really intrigued. This high school English teacher in New Jersey is assigning the parents of his students real homework - to comment on their child’s blog posts.

Spreading Homework Out So Even Parents Have Some - NY Times, Oct. 4, 2007

Fascinating . . . While I have always encouraged the parents of my students to join in the online conversation, I have never required it.

What do you think about engaging parents this way?

[Cross posted on Cliotech]

Technorati Tags: education technology blogs web2.0