Tennessee DEN

This Saturday over 100 teachers are scheduled to meet together at St. George’s Independent School located at:

1880 Wolf River Boulevard
Collierviille, TN  38017
8:30 to 3:30

There are still spaces available!  You can register here.

You can see the agenda for the workshop here as well.

This is going to be an exciting day of workshops and networking!  Don’t miss it!!

Our Punt, Pass, Kick workshop is scheduled for this Saturday, September 19th.  It is not too late to register!  We will cover DE Streaming and Web 2.0 Tools for the Classroom in the half-day session.

Don’t fear! You WILL get to see the TN vs. FL game in the afternoon!

You can register by following this link.  The training is FREE.

So let’s go Vols fans!  Let’s Punt, Pass, Kick our way to DE Streaming victory!

The DEN Virtual Conference is getting ready to launch on Saturday, April 25th.  Hey! That’s NEXT Saturday!

The Knoxville Conference will be held at the Sarah Simpson Technology and Professional Development Center.   The Cleveland Conference will be at the Bradley County Schools Board Room.

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)

Don’t get left out!   Register Today!

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!

One of the limitations of SlideShare has now been eliminated.  According to their last online newsletter, you can now embed videos into SlideShare presentations.

SlideShare Newsletter January 2009 via kwout

 Once your slideshow and YouTube video have been uploaded to SlideShare, you simply pick the spot in your presentation where you want the video to play, and SlideShare will generate an embed code for you.

Cool!

PS: Click on the link above to view a demo of the process.