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 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.

Region XI (Fort Worth) is hosting a Virtual Technology Conference November 10-14, 2008. The really cool thing about it being a virtual conference is that you don’t have to be from the Fort Worth area to attend OR to present!

They are still accepting proposals for presentations. If you’d like to join Hall Davidson (keynote), David Warlick, Ewan McIntosh, and Dr. Tim Magner, by presenting at the conference, then click on over to the official website for the conference and put in your own presentation proposal! But hurry! You only have until October 1 to submit!

 At any rate, plan on attending at least part of the conference. The cost is only $20 (which is refunded to you if you present), which I’m sure is a bargain for a conference with the likes of Hall Davidson!

Whether you’ve ever been there or not, you have hopefully heard of the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) sponsored by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) every year. This annual conference is a definite must-attend, as there will be over 17,000 educators, administrators, and others interested in technology in education there to share their experiences, collaborate with, and learn from!

NECC 2009 marks the 30th year ISTE has hosted this conference, and it will be in Washington, D.C. June 28 through July 1, 2009. The call for participation is now open until October 8, so dust off your keyboard, type up a proposal and see what happens! Presenting at NECC is another great experience in itself, including the one-on-one poster sessions. Be sure to let us know if you get accepted! Click HERE for more details.

YouTube, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center has launched a new video contest that sounds interesting. This contest gives participants an opportunity to show their journalism skills and report on issues and individuals who are under-covered in today’s media. The first round of the contest requires entrants to produce a video about an individual in their community who they think the world should know about. Contest entries are due October 5. The individuals selected from those entries will have a second assignment - reporting about an issue of global importance.

 The contest is entitled Project Report. It is only open to those 18 and over, though, so only those students in high school who have reached the age of majority would be able to enter. However, I know there is a lot of great talent in the educators who are members of the DEN! Wouldn’t it be great for one of you to be the winner? For more information, click HERE.

Well, there seems to be lots of stuff going on right now and all of it is stuff that YOU should be taking advantage of! Aside from the fact that our very own account manager, Justin Karkow, is featured not once, not twice, but THREE times on the main DE page, there are several things you should be aware of. Read on . . .

First, the annual DEN Stream-a-thon is coming up very soon. For those of you who participated last year, you know that the Stream-a-thon is well worth the effort of attending, even if you only watch one session. For those of you who have not participated previously, take my word for it and plan on attending at least for a part of the day. You will be glad you did! For a list of the Stream-a-thon sessions and registration information, click HERE.

Next, Discovery Education hosted its first ever National Training Academy this summer and it was a huge success. They will be hosting another on October 26-28, so you will get another chance to attend and enhance your knowledge about technology integration. For more information and registration, click HERE.

Last, but certainly not least, is the upcoming EdTechConnect webinar on September 17 with Tim Magner, who is the Director of the US Department of Educational Technology. Yes, you read it right — the DIRECTOR. Don’t miss this opportunity to ask Tim questions about the future of technology in schools. Read more about it and find registration information HERE.

Also, be watching for details about the upcoming Fort Worth Museum tour later in September. It’ll be a change to network and have fun with area educators!

I woke up this morning and opened Twitter to see what was up in the education world and found a tweet posted by Unklar about something I thought I’d share with other Texas educators.

There is a proposal to change how GPA is calculated in Texas. The changes would include removing classes like band and fine arts from the calculation and removing the extra credit students receive for pre-AP courses. The proposal would continue allowing extra credit for AP, IB, and dual-credit courses. Take a look at the article and tell us what you think. Read the article HERE.

Check this out! The Discovery Educator Network is featured in this week’s Education Week. Several STAR Discovery Educators are featured and quoted, and the information in the article is sure to excite others to join this great networking group we all call the DEN! Read the article by clicking HERE.

Great job, DEN!

A great new initiative has been started as a result of a partnership between Discovery Communications, NSTA, and the Siemens Foundation. It is called the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge.

The initial launch of the challenge begins with middle school students competing in an environmental challenge - students identify a problem, research solutions, and offer their own idea of how to “change the world.” With this program, founders hope to promote sustainability and help students to realize they can make a difference in their world by coming up with and using ideas to live greener. Plans are to expand the program in 2009 to include all levels of K-12 students.

For more information, read the press release and/or visit the official Siemens We Can Change the World website.