Texas DEN

Awhile back, Lori Reed, of Kress ISD, was featured on this blog as a Texas STAR. Well now she has been featured by SMART in the feature article of their monthly newsletter, 21st Century Hallways. It is a great article, and Lori’s experience, both in the classroom and with a vast array of online networking tools, enhances the quality of the content. Read the entire article by clicking HERE.

The article has a lot of practical advice on how to use personal learning networks available on Web 2.0. It talks about several of the applications that many of us use on a day-to-day basis to collaborate, share, and conduct research that is helpful in our personal and professional lives. Be sure to read it, then come back here to add a comment congratulating Lori for a job well done!

I sat in on David Warlick’s session this morning at the Region XI virtual conference on “21st Century Literacy” and learned about a useful tool called TagCrowd.

TagCrowd will take text, whether it be from a website or a file, and create a visual depiction of the most commonly used words in that text. What uses could this possibly have in the classroom? Well, David showed us TagCrowds he made from presidential inaugural speeches - students can compare what was important to the country through the years. He also showed TagCrowds from various speeches made by different people about a single event - students can see what was important about an event from the perspective of different cultures or countries. Another thought I had was to have students create TagCrowds for their essays or papers - they can see what words they may have used too frequently, or they may see that their focus is different than what they intended. What a valuable and visual way to teach students the importance of the words they choose! Another participant at the session this morning suggested that students create TagCrowds on text that is written in casual language versus formal or academic language.

I used TagCrowd to evaluate an essay I wrote about leadership for a graduate school application and here was the result:

Try it out and post a comment here with ideas you see for uses in the classroom.

The Region One Education Service Center and Discovery Education will be hosting a Day of Discovery on November 15, 2008 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The day will include topics such as Streaming Overview, 50 Ways and Beyond to Integrate Discovery Education, Powerful Multimedia Presentations and Digital Storytelling.

As with every Discovery Education event, there will be lots of collaboration, food, door prizes, and fun! Seating is limited, so be sure to reserve your space by clicking HERE. Be sure to stay tuned to the blog for an update after the event.

The DENliest catch season is still upon us! I hope all of our STARs are out there recruiting new STARs so that Texas can continue to be the biggest and the best!

Please take some time to welcome these new STARs:

Keishla Ceaser-Jones
Christi Hicks
Jacqueline Mamou
Joanna Ortega
Carol Richmond
Marlene Robbins
Charlotte Solorio

Recruit new STARs and be the next King/Queen Crab while earning cool stuff from the DEN!

Virtual learning is virtually everywhere! (ok, sorry about that, just had to do it!). the Region XI ESC is hosting its first-ever virtual conference! The conference will be conducted November 10-14 and will have live sessions as well as on-demand sessions.

One of the featured keynotes is Discovery Education’s own Hall Davidson! I will have an on-demand session on digital storytelling and a live one on Second Life. There is a small fee for registering ($20), but it will be well worth it! Be sure to run over and register today, because registration closes November 9 at 9:00 a.m.

Add a comment if you will be presenting at the virtual conference so we can all plan to attend!

Hasn’t the last few days been exciting? No matter what your politics, it has actually been nice to see so many people get so excited about something. Those of us who use Twitter and Plurk know just how easy it was to get wrapped up in following what everyone had to say about the things going on in our country.

One thing that came out of the election coverage for me has a classroom application, so I thought I’d post it here. On one of her twitter posts, Jennifer Dorman (cliotech) said she was following the news the day after the election from all over the country using News Map. I went to check it out and found a great, free web tool!

What News Map does is aggregate news from all over the world in one place. It displays the headlines in a visually stimulating way — those headlines that are getting the most reads are larger than others. There are tabs to specify specific countries across the top and specific categories along the bottom. All you have to do to read a news story is click on the headline and you’ll be taken to the source.

I see this as a great tool for students who are doing current events projects and also an easy way to keep up with the news. Visit the site then come back here and add a comment to share what uses you see for this free tool.

Last Saturday, October 25, was the second Discovery Education virtual conference. The Texas Leadership Council hosted a live, in-person event throughout the day at the Notre Dame School in Dallas. Several area educators attended, watched some of the virtual presentations, enjoyed breakout sessions, and had a great breakfast and lunch from Cafe Express, courtesy of the Discovery Educator Network.

Dallas area educators now have a similar opportunity, this time hosted by Irving ISD in conjunction with the K12 Online Conference. On November 8 and November 15, The Academy of Irving ISD will be host to area educators as they participate in virtual sessions and face-to-face discussions throughout the morning. For more information, click here.

If you have never experienced the unique opportunity to participate both virtually and in person at a conference like this, you really should try it! The next DEN Virtual Conference will be held on April 25, 2009.

As many of you already know, the fabulous Discovery Educator Network is hosting its second annual Virtual Conference on October 25. What you may not know is that the Texas Leadership Council is hosting an in-person event in Dallas, to provide a venue to participate in both the virtual conference and in-person break-out sessions!

Break-out sessions will include information on MovieMaker, PhotoStory, Gimp, Second Life(tm), Voicethread, Animoto, Thinkfinity, Web 2.0, and more in addition to all the great virtual topics lined up by the DEN!  If you are near the Dallas/Fort Worth area, you will not want to miss the in-person event.

Registration will begin at 8:00 a.m. with breakfast and networking until 9:00 a.m. when the breakout sessions and virtual conference begins. Breakfast and lunch are both provided to participants free of charge - so there is another reason to attend!  Did I mention the great door prizes too???

Visit the official registration site to register for either the virtual event or the Texas in-person event. Please be sure to only check the Texas event if you are planning on attending in-person. Otherwise, just check “attending virtually”.

I know I’m a little late getting this up, but believe me, this STAR is worth waiting for! Our Texas STAR for the month of October is Lea Anne Daughrity. Lea Anne has had an interesting life and is totally dedicated to the DEN and what it stands for. Read on!

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Lea Anne Daughrity was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1973. Around the age of five, her parents moved away and thus began her travels. She went to many schools from the East coast to the West coast during her school years; finally graduating High School just outside of Washington, D.C. in 1992.

She was very active in sports, but had a passion for computers. As a child, she programmed games on her Commodore 64 and learned to build computers with the help of her father. In college, unsure of where she wanted to go, she began studying advertising. During her studies in college, the World Wide Web was born. She led many of her fellow classmates into the great era of the internet by hosting online Tetris wars day and night.

In 1996, she received her Bachelors Degree and in 1997 her Masters Degree from the University of Alabama in Advertising/Marketing and Public Relations respectively. She began her career as a Public Relations Specialist for a hospital system in Houston and then became the Director at age 26.

During this time, she met her darling husband and was married in 1999. She decided at that time to stay at home and start a family. For the next 8 years, she stayed at home with her 3 boys, while simultaneously running a small online business which she still has today.

Once her second child was in Pre-k, she decided to change her career and go into teaching. Amazingly enough, an opportunity opened up for her to be a computer teacher in an elementary school in the same district her kids attend and her husband works as the District CTO.

So in the summer of 2007, she began an alternative certification program, in order to earn her teaching certificate. As a second year and newly certified teacher, she is now the Technology Facilitator on her campus and is enjoying helping teachers learn how to utilize technology to enhance learning in the classroom.

Over the next year, Lea Anne hopes to implement her new Green 180 Project into her school and around the world. Lea Anne regularly posts on the Discovery Educator Network Blogs as Ned’s Keeper and on Twitter as LeaAnne. She looks forward to more amazing opportunities in education like the Discovery National Conference she attended last summer and can’t wait to see what awaits her in the future.

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Join me in congratulating Lea Anne. She is a great resource for the DEN and for like-minded educators!

PC Mall Gov, along with Hewlett-Packard, InFocus, and T.H.E. Journal is sponsoring a contest that encourages middle and high school students to move towards a greener future. It is an essay contest entitled “Green Light”. Students in grades 5-12 (in two categories, 5-8 and 9-12), will submit essays of 1,000 words or less describing how they and their teachers are utilizing (or could utilize) technology to protect the environment.

The grand prize is a 30-seat “green” computer lab. Two first-place winners (one from each category) will win a “green” laptop and all winners will be recognized at the popular FETC 2009.  Application deadline is December 1. You may view the entire contest rules and submission information by clicking HERE.