Pennsylvania

We had a Leadership Council webinar last evening, so I would like to share some of the important reminders and information from Lance.

Without a doubt, the DEN Tech or Trear Fall Virtual Conference was an astounding success. We held the same numbers of attendees as we had last year. But–and here’s the good news–we grew our Live Event sites and numbers.

In addition, we were global in our outreach and welcomed a world of participants from abroad. Speaking for our PA Live Event at IU 21 in Schnecksville, I would like to echo Meg Griffin, our LC President’s sentiments in thanking all the people who made this event possible–Michael Cichocki, Patti Duncan, Tracey McGrath, Jennifer Brinson, and of course, Meg herself. Thanks to everyone behind the scenes who logged on and supported PA. Great job!!

Want to be a DEN GURU? That would step you up to Level 4 in DEN. You ask, what are the “levels.” And the answer is:

1. DEN
2. DEN STAR
3. DEN LC
4. DEN GURU.

There are advantages at any level, but if you step up to GURU (up to 5 people will be chosen this first year), you will have noticeable benefits that set you apart. Perhaps the largest benefit is that Discovery will take you, free of charge, to a national convention. Application deadline: November 15, 2009

This brings me to the big event I really want to push because completing this one is easy and a lot of fun. You can make a podcast or a video telling how you use Discovery Education resources in your classroom. Doesn’t have to be a big deal project–keep it short and simple (the KISS philosophy) and then upload it. Fun, fast, and a FREE Discovery hoodie, limited edition is in the mail to you. And just in case the idea of uploading to Media Share daunts you, this upload is to a simple spot where Discovery will mine your golden uses. Do it today, because the deadline is November 15.

Some of my best friends are actively engaged in pursuing the MS in Instructional Media offered by Discovery Education and Wilkes University. I remember the kick-off two years ago at the National Institute. We were even offered 3 credits for a minimal fee to begin the degree work with our week’s intense completion of learning. Although I am not one to regret decisions, I often wish I had made the choice to study for this degree. Keeping in touch with my friends who were the first class to begin this program, I can tell you that the subject matter is extremely engaging, timely and worthwhile.

This summer I had the good fortune to follow the China Adventure. What an amazing trip this was, packed with singular experiences that only could be found in a Discovery Education adventure. Nothing beats repeating a good thing, so the China and Australia trips are encores. New to the venue are the Arctic, Anarctica, Costa Rica, and Ecudor/Galapagos Islands. You will definitely need to have your prospective students fund raise, but if you get 5 students to sign on, you as their teacher travels free.

Not exactly Fast Five, but there you have it, a synopsis of some of the best and time-sensitive offers from Discovery.

Cross-posted from DEN blog.

The voting was fierce, as the ranks shifted several times over the last few days.  But when the dust settled, three winners emerged!  Congrats to all the winners, a brand new HD Flip Cam is going to be in the mail to you.  And many thanks to everybody who participated, it truly put the ‘treat’ in Tech or Treat!

Best Discovery themed costume:

Christie Berrier, as the MythBusters!

Bekka Stasny as The Deadliest Catch!

Vasantha Rayman as the DEN STAR!

 

Saturday, October 24, 2009
9 AM to 4 PM ET

About the DEN’s Fall Virtual Conference

Thousands of educators online and in-person congregated together, as the DEN team went house to ‘house to house’ to explore the many digital treats available to educators today.  During this unique professional development event, attendees had the flexibility to attend online or in-person at one of many regional events hosted by the DEN Leadership Councils.

9 AM
Can I Help You With That?  The Student as Collaborator, Creator and Director
with Justin Karkow

10 AM
Do You Have the Audacity to Podcast?
with Jennifer Dorman
11 AM
Thinking Outside the Slide
with Mike Bryant
12 PM
Putting the Bling in Your Builders
with Steve Dembo
1 PM
What on Earth is a Gloggle?
with Traci Blozoski
2 PM
Be Nice and Share: Publishing Your Media-Infused Projects for the World to See
with Steve Dembo
3 PM
Can I Help You With That? The Student as Collaborator, Creator and Director
encore presentation with Justin Karkow

Virtual Conference Archive links and embedded code can be found in Media Share.

I came to Justin Karkow’s presentation late from blogging our live event with Patti Duncan, so I missed the intro.  But his message soon became apparent: we often ask students to check how they learn best when they enter our classrooms.  He showed us the old job wheel, contrasted by the 21st century job wheel.  His first new job that he would add is a scribe.  Blogs, glogs, gloggles, wikis, podcasts, are among the tools that Justin suggests we employ in our classroom.  We also can create non-linear PowerPoints/Keynotes like Mike Bryant showed us earlier today in his presentation, Thinking Outside the Slide.

Second on Justin’s new job list is the fact checker.  We used to say,”Ask 3, then me.” Now we say, “Google it.” Another resource is Wikipedia, a global social comunity site, not as strict as Discovery Education, but we have begun to embrace the collaborative nature of the site.  Students now need to submit original resources to the site, or verify/debunk articles in the fact checker job list.  Best of all, however, is Discovery Education’s Student Center.  This job is about verification, of using resources wisely to authenticate texts.

Another job Justin would implement “In Buddy’s Terms.”  Restatement of something in simple terms, reteach Buddy by simplifying what you just said.  This job creates a buddy system, study with a buddy, and in a sense, teaches collaboration, especially to those students who travel, by preference or not, as loners.  This job category creates team players.  The power of the voiceover with editable clips is another way to do “in Buddy’s terms” using DEs clips.  Another great resource is the flip camera or a digital camera.  Have students redo pictures they took by drawing what they captured digitally.  Another resource from Kentucky is GreatSummary.  Put information into this site and get bullet points that encapsules the content into a more digestible form.

Next job: Timeliner.  Justin notes that these jobs are the jobs in a future classroom, but in reality, we can all implement these 6 new jobs now.  Great tools to use: xtimeline has a csv file that can be downloaded to populate a spreadsheet to populate resources.  Timetoast offers image uploads but no csv file.  Discoverystreaming offers a Calendar that lists daily historical celebrations.

Next job: Rear View Mirror: look at where we have been.  Map on the wall, Google Earth.  To show us where we have been, academically.  Try DE Streaming with Google Earth or Google Maps, or make a Glogster to share out where we’ve been.  Try Discovery Atlas, a great tool that has been around for a while but not often used.  Have you ever said if only I had a map…if only I were a history teacher I’d have a map… well, now you can give your students a geographical context.

Next job: Bring It Home: make a connection back to somewhere.  What was the impact of WWII on North Canton, Ohio time frame and how the Hoover factory played a large role.  Voicethread is a great collaborative tool.  One teacher did a triangle Voicethread–what a clever use outside the box that is global and interdisciplinary.  Phone.io gives you a digital drop box for audio files. You get a minute to create an mp3 file about a subject that can be added to a community project.

Despite the number of computers in a classroom, Justin claims that we can pull all this together and put it into our classroom today, our new classroom job wheel.  And he is absolutely right.  What he’s just created by putting tools back into students’ hands is student engagement.

Justin suggests that we start small, begin with one tool and see successful completion.  They need to see what each of these jobs look like by the end of the year.  Work collaboratively; make lists; be consistent with your expectations.  Use the same rubric and have the students help create the rubric.  Let them determine what they need to be successful.  And have a lot of fun.  Gotcha, Justin.

If anyone can keep me from eating lunch, it would be Steve Dembo, who can hold a virtual or real audience word by word.  Trying to capture any of Steve’s presentations is an exercise in rapid writing and fast screen shots.  Steve was number four on the Top Ten Reasons To Attend the Fall Virtual Conference on October 24:

4.  Any time Steve Dembo uses the word “bling” in a presentation, watch out!
Putting the Bling in Your Builders (12 PM ET) 

So, here goes no lunch, and I can tell you in advance, it will be worth foregoing.  Although the Builders are wonderful, an untapped resource in Discoverystreaming, there are untapped resources in the Builders, and this presentation aims to mine that untapped gold.

Writing Builder lets you use your own prompts or ones already embedded.  Several Steps: Create a folder to organize your work, add subject level and grade, select media, use keyword search in all services, and explore your results, which include audio, video, and images.  You click “add” to your writing prompt, customize the text, choose font, color, border.  This is the place where Steve says “the magic comes in.” The Assign page, as well as everything else in the builders, was upgraded this summer, so now you can include your classes and assign prompts and quizzes directly to your students by url or code.  If you manually enter your students (as opposed to Discovery batch entering them for you), you can get individual aggregate data.

If students are too young to read text, teachers can speak the directions by integrating different Web 2.0 tools.  Steve’s go-to tool is Blabberize, because of its universal appeal, especially to primary school students.  Find your Discoverystreaming image, save it to desktop, and then add your voice by clicking “make” (very intuitive and super simple for first-time users with embeddable code–love it!). Check out Blabberize from Dembo’s Web 2.0 Tuesday Webinar two weeks ago.  Bottom line here: the Builders are accessible to students of all ages if you think outside-the-box with Web 2.0 tools.  The net result is a wonderful product for learners of all ages.  Steve reminds us that Blabberize will not raise test scores, but it will engage our digital natives in learning the way they like it: Student 2.0.

Yet another tool is Slideshare where you can upload your PowerPoint presentations and let you share them online. Steve reminds us that Slideshare works on simple linear presentations, not the multimedia Keynotes that Mike Bryant made in the last session.  These non-linear slide shows will not upload to Slideshare.  The beauty of Slideshare: embeddable code (and url too, plus typical sharing potential to social networks with ease of one-click).

If you want to add students to Discoverystreaming, go to Classroom Manager, and My Classes.  You set up your class by setting up your class with a name and and start and end date (make it for whole year).  Select and add your students to your class. If you district has imported in your students, you just select them from the roster by name and grade level.  If your students are not listed there, add them on the fly by typing in their information in the “Create/Edit a New Student.”  You can assign individual or group passwords, and then students can personalize them. However, Steve warns that this particular add feature will disappear in a week or two.  You cannot overall remove a student, but you can delete one from your class (almost the same thing). You can also duplicate classes.  Assigning is simple; you can do this by individual student or a group, a great feature for differentiated instruction.

When students complete an assignment, they move from “My Assignments” to “Completed Assignments.”  You get a date/time stamp, so as teachers you can access when work was begun and completed. As a teacher, you create accounts for your students, assignments, and then students login to the Student Center, where they see what resources their teachers have uploaded, as well as assignments and assessments. Students can bookmark content and download videos, 24/7.  For districts that want more filtering, the administrator for the account can choose what students view.

How else can we add bling?  Try meebo.com which allows you to create your own chat room.  You can have students view something and then run a back channel (similar to adults using CoverItLive) but it will be private, embedded to an Assignment Builder.   Love this feature, because you have created a private chat room for participation within your classroom.  Yet another bling to Builders if Voicethread, and again you keep it private within the Builders and grab embeddable code for the instructional stream. What you get is a live stream with event journals and authentic assessment on how students learn best, showing us what they really know.

MyPlick (already discussed by Mike and Steve in his 50 Ways to Do Digital Storytelling webinar) and VoiceMeMe.  Both create embeddable code for widgetizing an assigment within a Builder.  VoiceMeMe (What’s the most horrifying technology story you have?) creates an audio file, 100% free, reminding me of Gcast, before it went to a paid version only.

Finally, a teacher can log out as a teacher and log in as a student so you can check your work.  Steve’s mantra: Baby steps–build on your successes.

Tech or Treat continues, live in the Learners Lab, but for this time slot, we turn our blogging to Mike Bryant’s multimedia presentation.

When you begin thinking about slides, think outside the slide, from a flat still image to what goes beyond the image. So, using Shakespeare’s birthplace and highlighting the window, you can push out to an image of the Bard himself, dissecting him to see what made him tick.  Not sure what Mike’s using to make the cuts, but you open the brain to a Romeo and Juliet viewers guide with plot points and viewing questions, along with a character analysis.  Moving into the eyes, the windows to the soul, we dissect Shakespeare’s vision. What we find is a series of videos that move beyond the screen.  I was certain Mike was going to Blabberize Will, but this goes way beyond the capacities of that tool.

Moving to the speech of the period, we dissect Shakespeare’s language and hear iambic pentameter in the vernacular.  Still wondering, however, how you actually create this type of beyond-the-box-presentation.  Going back to Shakespeare’s home, we integrate sound, image, and video in a non-linear fashion.  Imagine the possibilities with MyPlick, a tool Dembo previewed two weeks ago on Web 2.0 Tuesday’s webinar.  MyPlick allows you to sync slides to audio.  Easy to use, fast, fun, and free, this tools allows students (and teachers) to integrate sound and video seamlessly. Mike’s mantra: if you do not know how to do something, you have a DEN family, live, virtual, and professional development that is awesome.

Dissecting the process, you create most of what you use by hyperlinking. Dafont is one website to use.  Then Mike goes to his Discoverystreaming, and he uses the resources by searching the drill-down Content feature.  He grabs two images of Shakespeare’s home in 3 format sizes from which to choose and then downloads.  In a Mac or Firefox, it will download to desktop, but a PC will allow you options for end point (Firefox allows you to select download destination).  Using Discoverystreaming, you can pull audio, speech, songs, charts, maps, graphs, virtually (pardon the pun) anything you want to build your out-of-the-box slide show, including your choice of MLA, Chicago Style, or APA citations for your selected media.  A best practice for sure, the citations are dynamic within Keynote properties as well.

Just discovered that the tools Mike used early in the presentation to “dissect” Shakespeare are in the toolkit within PowerPoint or Keynote’s toolbox.  You actually cutout the areas using the shapes in the formatting toolkit.  Once you select the area you will highlight, you allow for the media to open by hyperlinking to those selected areas.

Clearly, Mike’s presentation is a lot to digest, even with slow dissection, and I see in our future offerings, a back-to-basics-version of Mike’s presentation offfered, maybe spring?

From Patti Duncan, PA LCs Event Chair

Are you excited? Your Leadership Council is and we can almost not wait until our DEN Virtual Conference Live Event this Saturday October 24th! Tech or Treat is shaping up to be an awesome event! Your Leadership Council has been working very hard to provide you with some excellent professional development this weekend and get you psyched for using technology in the classroom!

Just a few reminders:
1) We will start at 8:30am… We will end at 4:00pm. Try to plan to stay to the end… THAT is when we will be giving out the door prizes
2) Bring your laptop, power strip, and a flash drive
3) If you can not bring your laptop… don’t worry.. there will be computers in the lab for you to use. (But not a laptop)
4) Bring your appetite! We will be serving continental breakfast AND an awesome lunch!
5) Dress like your favorite Discovery Personality to be eligible for the Flip HD Camera
6) If you have any examples of class projects that you wish to share with others… bring them along!
We have added a session to our agenda… “The Star Showcase”… If you are a DEN Star and wish to share a project idea, Discovery integration idea, or even a special Web 2.0 tool… bring along anything that you might need to do that. From 2:00 - 3:00 PM we will have those Stars interested in sharing set up in stations that people can visit to discover the great things that you do with your students. There will be a sign up sheet at the door when you arrive for you to let us know that you plan on sharing…

Here’s the day’s schedule you’ve been waiting for:

Time	Virtual Agenda	Presenter	Live Agenda
8:30am			Sign In
9:00am	“Can I Help You With That?”	Justin	Getting Started With DE (Beginners Session)
10:00am	“..Audacity to Podcast?”	Matt
11:00am	“Thinking Outside… Slide”	Mike
12:00pm	“…Bling in Builders”	Steve	None
1:00pm	“What on Earth… Google”		Back to Basics
			10 Things I Bet You Did Not Know You Could Do With DE
2:00pm	“Be Nice and Share…”		“Star Showcase”
3:00pm	“Can I Help You With That?”	Justin	None

Hope to see you there! Tech or Treat! Woot!!

Thanks to Tracey Maurer McGrath, Pennsylvania’s Leadership Council’s fun free full day of events and professional development at IU 21 is now part of the global network on Facebook.

Please take a moment to check out our event and let us know if you will be attending live, or if distance is a factor, virtually. You can click the radio button to indicate your RSVP status, or leave a comment on The Wall.

Special thanks to our LC President and Events Chairs and Team for bringing this wonderful day of learning to northeast PA. Join us if you can, for as always with Discovery Education, there will be many sur/prizes, free food, and great learning and fun.

When Rosie said she was coming, it just became “the event.” Thank you, Tracey, for Facebook.

 

Saturday, October 24, 2009
9 AM to 4 PM ET
Click here to register for the virtual sessions.

OR register for one of the many in-person events hosted by our DEN Leadership Councils.

Mobile, AL

Hot Springs, AR

Pleasant Plains, AR

Springdale, AR

Wichita, KS

Shreveport, LA

Silver Spring, MD

Battle Creek, MI

Schnecksville, PA

Cleveland, TN

Cordova, TN 

Knoxville, TN

Dallas, TX

McKinney, TX

Join thousands of educators online and in-person as the DEN team goes house to house to explore the many digital treats available to educators today.  During this unique professional development event you have the flexibility to attend online or in-person at one of many regional events hosted by the DEN Leadership Councils.

The day will feature special presentations from Justin Karkow and Steve Dembo along with a host of other great sessions guaranteed to satisfy your digital sweet tooth.

To register for the virtual sessions visit: http://LINKS.discoveryeducation.com/virtualcon

Schedule
(All times ET)

9 AM
Can I Help You With That?  The Student as Collaborator, Creator and Director
with Justin Karkow

10 AM
Do You Have the Audacity to Podcast?

11 AM
Thinking Outside the Slide

12 PM
Putting the Bling in Your Builders
with Steve Dembo

1 PM
What on Earth is a Gloggle?

2 PM
Be Nice and Share: Publishing Your Media-Infused Projects for the World to See

3 PM
Can I Help You With That?  The Student as Collaborator, Creator and Director
encore presentation with Justin Karkow

Cross-posted from our National Blog

On Saturday, October 24, 2009 join thousands of educators online and in-person as the DEN team goes house to house to explore the many digital treats available to educators today. During this unique professional development event, you have the flexibility to attend online or in-person at CLIU 21 (8:30 - 4 PM) hosted by the DEN Leadership Councils (Breakfast and lunch will be provided – PLUS FREE GIVEAWAYS). The day will feature special presentations from Justin Karkow and Steve Dembo along with a host of other great sessions guaranteed to satisfy your digital sweet tooth. Join us and register today!