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. (Thanks to Lance for posting this on the National Blog!)
You must register for the Virtual Conference. This is so we may plan for breakfast and lunch. We want you to have free food! Here is our agenda for both locations:
8:30 to 9:00 - Registration and Breakfast
9:00 to 10:00 - The Benjamin Button Effect (Virtual Keynote with Lance Rougeux)
10:00 to 11:00 - 10 Websites Every Teacher Should Use Everyday (Live Session)
11:00 to 12:00 - Lunch
12:00 to 1:00 - Building School 2.0 (Virtual Keynote with Chad Lehmann)
1:00 to 2:00 - Taking Better Pictures (Live Session)
2:00 to 3:00 - Digital Storytelling (Live Session)
We invited our attendees to create a digital story with pictures from their day at the TN DEN Aquarium event. So far, two attendees have sent in videos. I’ve posted them below. Great job!
The video from Alice Sanders and Andra Griffey can be found here.
Last Saturday the TN DEN Leadership Council had the pleasure of taking 32 DEN members on an amazing trip down the TN River. It was a great day of photography training!
We began the day in the Think Tank room of the IMAX Theater. After some brief introductions, Tim did a run down on ways to improve digital photos. He highlighted the Rule of Thirds, but also spent time on 10 other ways to get better pictures out of any camera. The participants took a little time to practice shooting pictures, and then returned to learn about some really cool websites to help them with their finished products.
Tim showed them Pixlr, a free online photo editor that is quick and easy. We looked at Be Funky (which was a big hit) to see how pictures can be transformed for fun in the classroom. We also took a gander at a Make Up site which automatically applies makeup to any picture and improves the overall quality with just one mouse click.
Just before lunch, Teryl talked about all the amazing things the DEN has to offer, and went through the process of becoming a STAR in the DEN. After returning from lunch on their own, the teachers boarded the newest ride at the TN Aquarium, the River Gorge Explorer. This is a 70 seat high-speed catamaran that can do 55 mph and stop within 200 feet on the water! We know! We chased cars down the Interstate for a bit until we reached the River Gorge in the Cumberland Mountains. We got some great pictures on the trip, too!
To top off the day, we returned to the Think Tank and looked at how to put those pictures into Photo Story. Sally took them through the process from importing pictures to adding music and rendering a final movie file. We had a great time!
Here is the video to prove it! Oh, and some of the teachers are sending me their digital story so we can post some of their work online as well. I’ve looked at a couple of them so far and they are fantastic!