Tennessee DEN

Just a friendly reminder that it is not too late to register for the first annual DEN Virtual Conference! Whether you are attending from the comfort of your easy chair or decide to join us for a live hosted event at Lake Forest Middle School in Cleveland, TN, this should prove to be an extremely fun event!

For our live event, registration begins at 8:30 and the first conference starts at 9:00 AM. Can you say DOOR PRIZES? You can download a PDF document with details here.

If you are attending the live event in Cleveland (and this is a little confusing), choose the Chattanooga location on the registration page. Just a little mix-up there, but the conference will be held at Lake Forest. Once registered, you should receive an email with more information about the day.

We are trying to work out the possibility of using ustream.tv to broadcast part of our live session, but currently our school filters do not allow it. Keep your fingers crossed!

OK, so 10,000 or so people paid good money to spend a few days in the heat and glamor that is Orlando for the FETC sessions.  OK, so they get to talk to others and attend fabulous parties.  OK, so I’m really jealous and must make plans to attend next year.  But none of that is stopping me from doing a little armchair attending this year.

I just finished watching Steve Dembo’s session at FETC via ustream.  Thanks to Dean Shareski and his ever present camera, Steve’s session went out live to the world. So there were only 7 of us actually watching.  How did this happen?

It started with Twitter.  A person I just started following a few days ago sent out a twit that two sessions were going to be hosted on ustream.  Unfortunately, there were going to be at the same time.  Since I know Steve (who doesn’t know Steve?), and had just finished looking at about 5 million pictures he has at Flickr thanks to PicLens (that’s another blog), I chose to attend that one.

I headed over to ustream.tv and signed up so I could enter the chat room.  While watching Steve, Dean Shareski posted a poll on the video clip asking if we thought Steve would do a live demonstration of Twitter.  It was a unannomous “yes.” We were all wrong. Steve had long ago left the topic of Twitter and had moved on to ustream!

In the chat room, I learned more about how to use Twitter and we talked briefly about what it must be like to be in the conference room and be someone who has never used these tools.  We agreed together that it must be hard to imagine, to picture in one’s head, how all these things add depth to one’s instruction or professional development.  After all, aren’t they just so we can gossip around the globe together?

Uh, no. Twitter, ustream, and chat all worked together to give me about 45 minutes of truly great professional development today.  I follow Dean Shareski on Twitter and read his blog, but I may never have an opportunity to sit down and discuss educational issues with him.  Today, in a chat room, I sat “next to him” and talked about what was going on  in the session.

So from the comfort of my armchair, I have now attended FETC.  I hope to see and hear more before it is over!

I normally teach in a computer lab all day.  7th graders are working on writing skills and 8th graders are exploring options for high school and beyond.  But I have one class, the last period of the day, that doesn’t meet in a lab.  We have 5 classes scheduled that period, but only 4 computer labs.  So I meet with these kids in another teacher’s room halfway across campus.

Since I can’t do the same lessons with them I am doing with everyone else, I decided I would transform the class to a speech and debate class complete with research and lots and lots of practice.  Because of the perfect storm of events (seeing The Great Debaters, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and Black History Month in February), I chose our first topic of discussion as racism and the quest for civil rights.

Yes, yes, I know nearly every child in my school is white and way too young to remember the 60’s.  All the more reason to have a lively debate on multi-culturalism and the continuing quest for equality in our country.

I am using several video clips from Discovery streaming.  They have brought back memories of my own childhood.  My entire elementary school life was spent at an all-white school in Indiana.  It wasn’t until 7th grade that I began attending with students of color.  At that time, it was just the luck of where you lived.  We didn’t do bussing.

Today is an exciting time.  Although I am not endorsing any one political candidate (even to my daughters!), it is exciting to see such a diverse field of well-deserving, viable candidates for the office of President.  It has pushed the subject of race back to the forefront in many circles, and I am glad to see that acceptance is winning the day.

I know you have already marked your calendar for the Discovery Educator Network Virtual Conference on February 2.  I know you are salivating waiting to hear the particulars.  Well, here is the good news!

Tennessee will host a “Live” conference at Lake Forest Middle School in Cleveland, TN from 9 AM to 2 PM.  Lunch is included.  We will join the Virtual Conference for the two keynote sessions.  Between those sessions, we will offer “Live” workshops in the computer labs.  The “Live” workshops will be listed in a later post.  For now, here is the line-up of sessions online:

KEYNOTES:

“Lost in Translation” presented by Lance Rougeux (9 to 10 AM EST) - How many of your students are bilingual? An easy way to find out is through a simple math formula.  Take the number of students in your classroom and multiply it by one.  There’s your formula.  All students today are bilingual and d 4n tongue dey knO so weL L%kz fune & cn b kind of hard 2 rED, @ lEst 4 adults.  So how do we meet the needs of our students when we’re the second language learners in the classroom?  In this kickoff session, we’ll take a look at ways we can use media and other technologies to help us get up to speed and speaking their language.

“Revenge of the Digital Immigrants: Teaching with Media Technology” presented by Hall Davidson (12 to 1 PM EST) What veteran teachers suspected, the research has finally proved: 21st Century students are different.  With different attention spans, higher IQ test scores, and social networks, their sophistication comes earlier - with a different skill set.  There is a silver lining: We can teach this “New Brain” more effectively, more efficiently, and more engagingly.  We have the technology!  Media has evolved and education must evolve to match.

OTHER ONLINE SESSIONS (Times to be Announced)

“Web 2.0: Building a Bigger Builder” presented by Matt Monjan - When teachers embraced Discovery Education streaming, they found a wealth of resources including “The Builders” (Assignment, Quiz, and Writing Prompt builders).  And now, with Web 2.0 applications, “we have the technology to rebuild the builders” (thank you Six Million Dollar Man).  During this session we’ll explore three Web 2.0 applications: Slideshare, VoiceThread, and TeacherTube, and how they can be incorporated into the DE streaming Builders.  Now, armed with this knowledge, you will return to your classroom with new cyber tools for the 21st Century.

“The Bionic Lesson: Revitalized, Redesigned, Rebuilt” presented by Mike Bryant - The pieces you know about: Flickr, GoogleEarth, GoogleDocs, VoiceThread, Discovery Education streaming, Slideshare, wikis, digital stories and cell phones integrated into your rebuilt lesson.  You have the ability to transform our standards driven lessons with the above web and hardware technologies.  Model lessons will be discussed and improved by connecting the above pieces and your collaboration.

“50 Ways to Spin a Digital Story” presented by Steve Dembo - An in-depth overview fo the digital media available in Discovery Education streaming and 50 different ways to tell digital stories using it.  DE streaming provides your classroom access to thousands of videos, images, and audio clips.  Learn how to integrate them into cutting edge Web 2.0 sites to make your students’ digital stories come alive!

Remember, these are the online sessions.  We will participate in the two Keynotes at the Lake Forest site.  If you cannot attend the “Live” sessions, you can log on from home and see all of the above virtual sessions.  Please register at this page.  We can take the first 30 registrants at the “Live” event.  Watch this post for more information!

February 2nd is the date to mark.  The Discovery Educator Network is hosting online workshops that day in an effort to get DEN members from across the country involved in professional development.  In addition, several states are hosting “live” workshops that day.  Guess what! Tennessee is hosting a workshop, too!  Watch this space for more information.  All we can say right now is that the event will be held in the Chattanooga / Cleveland area.  OK, we can also tell you that its free!  We’ll post more information in a couple of days.  For now, mark your calendar!