Yes Tech!

Last weekend, the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) hosted their annual Virtual Conference. In Michigan, we host a face-to-face event in conjunction with the online presentations. I’m on the DEN Event Team and was one of the face-to-face session facilitators along with several other inspiring educators across the state. One disadvantage to being involved in facilitating the face-to-face event, is not being able to attend many of the sessions. I was pleased to learn this morning that the virtual breakout sessions are not available, so I can attend whenever I have a free moment. If any of the following topics interest you, I encourage you to do the same:

• Students as collaborators, creators, and directors
• Podcasting
• Making your PowerPoint presentations more interesting
• Using Discovery Education’s teacher tools (assignment builder, quiz builder, etc)
• Gloggle
• Sharing your multimedia projects with the world

Access all of these presentations on the DEN Blog Virtual Conference  page.  Enjoy!

The Spring DEN Virtual Conference is coming up soon! 

When?
Saturday, April 25, 2009
9 AM to 3 PM EDT

Where?
Online

How much?
Free.

The day will feature a special presentation from Chris Lehmann, Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in the School District of Philadelphia as well as a great lineup of sessions from STAR Discovery Educators and the DEN team.

Registration is open now so check the blog for all the updates.  The schedule of presentations is available and they sound fantastic!

Register to attend here.  You can attend for one hour or all day! 

I have kicked the nasty pneumonia that kept me from attending the MACUL Conference this year. Thanks for all the get well wishes that so many of you sent during the conference. Since I was not able to attend, I’ve been hounding everyone in my district who attended to share their experiences with me. The feedback from people in my district who did attend was overly positive as you will see by their comments below.

The first person I bumped into told me that the MACUL Conference was the best conference she has ever attended. She told me that the Alan November keynote was the perfect start to a fantastic conference. Last weekend, she spent some time exploring some of the new tools she was introduced to at the conference and shared a video she made with GoAnimate (a very cute invitation to her son’s birthday party).

Many people in my district were only able to attend the pre-conference. They appreciated the in-depth hands on approach. Several were wowed by Jason Ohler’s digital storytelling session. One teacher stated “I was impressed with his focus on story over glitz. His framework offers a boost to teachers who believe they do not have the time, money or skills needed to encourage students to create stories of their own.” Someone else said “His story mapping models are a great way to help kids organize ideas into something with meaning.” Teachers from one of our middle schools have already scheduled a digital storytelling workshop to offer teachers at their building. Another teacher has plans to transform a poetry unit into a poetry digital storytelling unit.

Several people were introduced to Google Docs. “I think that GoogleDocs has lots of possibilities for the classroom. Its ability to have users revise the same document in real time is incredible. Peer editing will be so much fun!” 

“Steve Dembo had tons of cool things to share. His energy and knowledge are inspiring. The most important thing I came away with from his presentations is a better idea of how fast the tool kit is growing and the idea that the educational applications of the new web need to be developed and then shared with others.”

 One teacher used a clever metaphor. She said, “I learned about many web 2.0 tools which I liken to snorkeling: I have seen the surface of the web, but there is so much more underwater.” My advice is to pick one and give it a try; soon you’ll be swimming for more!

I’m on the MACUL Conference blogging team; this entry will soon be posted there as well.

I attended my first MACUL Conference in 2002 and have attended each year since.  I went the first year as a participant only; I got the feel for MACUL and benefited greatly from what I experienced and learned.  The following year, and each year thereafter, I have come to the conference as a presenter.  I like sharing and helping others learn and grow, and having a “presenter mindset” keeps me always on the hunt for new ways of using technology for teaching and learning. 

Some of the most important MACUL experiences that have shaped me professionally include:

• Purchasing a Snagit/Camtasia bundle from the vendor area in 2002.  I began screencasting long before it became a fad.  People still come up to me and tell me they recognize my voice from the CD I published back in 2003!  I’m still using Camtasia (and Jing) on a regular basis. 
• Receiving a MACUL grant in 2004 for a digital storytelling project.  I presented at the MACUL conference with a teacher from my district to share what we did and how digital storytelling positively impacts student writing.  I developed a website to go with it, and people from all over the world still visit and use the teaching materials, especially to show the student examples. 
• Hearing about the power of blogging from Will Richardson and David Warlick at Macul 2005.  I created my own blog, Yes Tech! in Nov 2006 and have found that it helps me to be a reflective practitioner.
• Attending a Steve Dembo “Top 10 Web 2.0 Tools” session in 2007 opened my eyes to many new tools: Twitter, Wikispaces, and Flickr, to name a few.
• Getting to know & networking with other like-minded educators at social events on Thursday nights!  The face-to-face meetings have continued, thanks to MACUL Space. 

What are your favorite MACUL memories?