Tennessee DEN

I just got this message from Scott Holcomb of the wonderful Memphis City Schools Technology Offices:

Calling all TN and surrounding area DEN educators!

Memphis City Schools is having their 14th Annual Educational Technology Conference November 6th – 7th, 2008 and we are looking for some exciting presenters and attendees! Click here to register!

We hope to see you there!Questions? Email Scott Holcomb.   And check out our Nerdy Educator Blog Site

This has been an awesome conference for Memphis City Schools and the surrounding areas.  Our DEN STARs in Memphis are doing an awesome job providing quality materials for their teachers.  If you don’t follow their blogs, head over to their blog site and RSS it right now!

Plan on going to the Virtual Conference in Nashville on October 25th ?  You can now register to attend.  Space is limited, so sign up and confirm your spot early!Fill out the form at this site.  Be sure to list Nashville as your event location.Let’s fill it up! 

Registration begins today for locally hosted Discovery Education conferences around the country to be held on October 25th.  These conferences combine live workshops conducted by local trainers with online webinars led by the Discovery Educator Network Dream Team.Even if you can’t attend the local event, you can still attend the Virtual Conference online from the comfort of your own living room.  Below is a list of the online sessions.  All times are Eastern Standard: 

DEN Blog Network » Fall Virtual Conference via kwout

 The TN Leadership Council will host an event in Nashville at the Discovery Education Assessment Headquarters.  Watch this post for more information and a link to register for that location.

Last year’s online sessions were awesome.  This year promises to be even better! 

We have finalized the plans for a June “Day of Discovery” at Woodland Middle School (thanks to Principal Fizer and her staff) in Brentwood, TN on Friday, June 20th. Our Day of Discovery is being held in conjunction with the Tennessee Association of Middle Schools (TAMS) state conference at the Cool Springs Marriott. TAMS has over 400 educators pre-registered for their event on Saturday and Sunday. We have room for 60 or more at our free event on Friday!

You don’t have to be a member of TAMS to attend the Day of Discovery. This workshop is open to elementary, middle, and high school teachers from both public and private institutions. And what an exciting day it will be!

We have Brad Fountain from the Discovery Educator Network delivering our keynote address. Brad works with the TN Leadership Council to help arrange events just like this one.

So, what will we cover? We will talk about 4 technology areas of interest to teachers in Tennessee: Digital Storytelling (for both PC and Mac), 50 Ways to use Discovery Streaming, Web 2.0 in the classroom and beyond, and Discovery Streaming basics. In addition to Brad, we will have Teryl Magee, Sally Walters, and myself providing these workshops.

The Day of Discovery will begin prompty at 10 AM and conclude at 3 PM. Lunch is provided for all attendees. And the best part? It is all free!

Watch this blog space for more detailed information, a URL to sign up, and directions to Woodland Middle School. For now, you can sign up here if you plan to attend the event. Seating is limited, so don’t delay! We’re bringing 2 van loads from Cleveland. How many can you bring with you? Oooh, that sounds like a challenge. Check back soon!

Yep, it is me again. I decided to slip away from the Discovery booth long enough to sit in on a session about Web 2.0. The presenters are Micki Daniel and Betsy Jones, both from the Knox County System.

For me, I’m learning how to use Safari on a Mac, so just picture the geeky guy from the commercials who only knows PCs and that’s me.

The website we jumped to first was here. Click on the Research link at the top of the page to find a LOT of alternative ways to search apart from Google. One of the most informative for me was Vivisimo. Vivisimo’s search results are “clustered” around sub-topics which makes it very helpful to drill down into results.

Next, the conversation jumped to wikis, blogs, and podcasts. We discussed wikipedia as a classroom research tool as well as personal and professional blogs and podcasts. They discussed free podcasts from university instructors and the need to meet students where they are. Classroom instruction is now available to download from iTunes. (While there was a lengthy discussion about the podcasts available for teachers from other sources, the need for teachers to podcast for themselves was not addressed). One specific recommendation was the Princeton Review Vocabulary Minute podcast.

Next, we turned our attention to resources that help us harness the power of Web 2.0. First up: Google Tools. Lots of questions about “why have a gmail account” and “Okay, I’m in Google Docs, now what.” This is a fantastic session for those just learning Web 2.0. The Knox County Tech department even has some in-service hours available on the web.

After Google Docs, we headed over to Go2Web20. This is one of my favorite sites ever! Our presenters demonstrated how to browse through Go2Web20 both by searches and the tag cloud.

All in all, this was a very informative session for those brand new to Web 2.0. From my history in other professional development settings, this is actually the largest group of teachers still out there.

I am truly glad I sat in on this session. I learned that Knox County has some terrific resources easily available for teachers, and the county has great teachers in the tech department ready and willing to help. They truly love what they do!Next year, Knox County will launch School Fusion allowing teachers to create their own webpages through the school tech services. Awesome! Session over. Back to the booth!

Image from WikipediaThat’s right baseball fans! Tennessee Spring training opens April. 26 at 9:30 AM and will continue until 2 PM. Our training headquarters is the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, TN (outside Knoxville).

This is your opportunity to join the Major League with Discovery Education: We will warm up with “Learn how to create your own Field of Dreams with the 3 builders”, Go Extra Innings and “Learn how to Integrate DE streaming Across the Curriculum”, and finally “Hit a Homerun when you become a STAR Educator!” You won’t want to miss this great opportunity!

Bring your Laptop, if you have one, for hands-on pitching practice!

Concessions and 7th Inning Stretch Lunch provided!

The first 30 fans to sign up will get through the gate for free!

Reply quickly to reserve your seat behind home plate! Send an email to TN.DEN.Leaders@gmail.com. Please supply us with your Name, School, Email Address and Phone Number for Confirmation.

Play Ball!

There is a fairly new website out there geared to new teachers.  It is called the New Teacher Hotline.  This is how they bill the site:

We at the New Teacher Hotline podcast know your pain, and we’ve got the aloe of veteran experience to soothe your blistered skin. Join Dr. Glen Moulton, a supervisor of instruction and lifelong teacher trainer, and Michael Kelley, the author of Rookie Teaching for Dummies, twice a month as they help you stop, drop, and roll your way through your first few years of teaching.

The site is up to ten podcasts so far.  Each podcast lists links of the topics covered.  By clicking a link, you can see all the podcasts that contain that topic.

Listeners are asked to submit questions for future shows as well.  You can subscribe via iTunes or through RSS.  Check it out and share it with the new teachers at your school!