Tennessee DEN

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! 

Every once in a while I run across something that just shouts, “Put this on the blog!” When I ran across a link to the Rapid E-Learning Blog, I heard that shrill scream in my ear again.

How many times have you looked and looked and looked for just the right clip art to put in a PowerPoint presentation? If you are cheap like me and don’t subscribe to paid photography sites, you probably lost count a long time ago.

So here’s a little secret I didn’t know: Using the graphics in Microsoft’s Clip Art Gallery, you can actually change the clip art to suit your needs. That’s right…change it to create something totally new that only you will use. In other words, every PowerPoint presentation you do can be uniquely yours!

Here is the gist of the idea. Most of the clipart in the gallery is a series of smaller, single graphic pieces that have been grouped to form one image. You can disassemble them by right clicking the graphic and selecting “ungroup” (some images require you to do this twice).

Once ungrouped, you can remove, edit, or add anything you like. I’ve included links to 3 posts about this subject. I recommend you read them all. Each has another piece of the puzzle to share. You can look for my own unique graphics the next time you see me present!

Little Known Ways to Create Your Own Graphics

What You Need To Know When Working With Grouped Clip Art

Create Custom Characters for Your E-Learning Scenarios

You can bet I’ve put this blog on my blog reader speed dial!

Eight technology educators from Memphis City Schools won first place at the Rich Media Impact Awards in Scholastic Achievement. The awards ceremony was held in Wisconsin. This year’s awards were sponsored by Sonic Foundry.

Sonic Foundry Announces Winners for Fourth Annual Rich Media Impact Awards at User Conference via kwout

You can check out some of their personal blogs about their achievement at these sites: Scott Holcomb, Jeff Baxter, and Felicia Fowler.

You can see more of what the Memphis City Schools tech gurus do with video here.

I ran across a blog from the President and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, a publisher of Christian books and Bibles. In it, he talked about the need for people to learn how better to use PowerPoint. As I clicked on links he provided, I ran across a great example of PowerPoint in a TED Talk by Larry Lessing.

While watching the video, I realized Lessing was addressing a question raised by David Warlick in another blog post I read some weeks back. That question has to do with copyright and the way kids today are taking control of their culture through the creation of various types of mashups online.

I am including a link to the video here for two audiences. First, if you want to see the absolute best use of PowerPoint I’ve ever witnessed, you need to watch at least part of this video. If, on the other hand, you want to learn more about how our kids are changing culture and the need for laws and business to keep up with that change, then watch the whole thing (about 18 minutes).

I would love to know your thoughts about either when you are finished.

i-lighter is an interesting little tool that I am trying to decide if I really like or not.  i-light is a free download that allows you to highlight text on any webpage, add your own notes, and then save the highlighted text and notes in a file for later review.

I had a little trouble with error messages early on, and had to ask tech support exactly how to save the files (I couldn’t find them easily).  However, once on track, it is a fairly easy program to learn and use.

Their tech department told me that updates are coming at the end of the month that will make i-lighter work easier with stronger web integration.

Here is a brief slideshare to show you how it works.  Let me know what you think about it.