Yes Tech!

I was fortunate to be able to go to the Discovery Educator Network National Institute last week.  It was fantastic to be able to network and learn with like-minded technology enthusiasts!  Highlights of the week included:

• Meeting new people and forming friendships that can be maintained on-line with social networking tools.
• Going to the Discovery Studio to be videotaped in front of the green screen used by Discovery Channel stars.  We made a video to help teachers understand what the DEN is all about and to learn about the benefits of becoming a DEN STAR educator.
• Learning how easy it is to use Adobe Premier’s chromakey feature.
• Creating my own Mobulus Station that I can use to live broadcast professional developement when needed. 
• Learning about the benefits of cell phone technology for the classroom from Hall Davidson.
• Discovering the benefits of geocaching.  Now I want a hand-held GPS to try it myself!
• Becoming aware of many cool web-based tools such as Poll Everywhere, Jott, and Riffly.
• Signing up for a Plurk account, a Twitter-like social networking tool.  I lOVE IT! 
• Creating a video modeled after the Boom-de-Ya-Da commercial.  This was the opening activity.  I worked with teachers from Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Texas.  So fun!
• Spending time in a “green building.”  Water is saved by moving the toilet handle up for liquid waste, and down for solid waste.  Maybe Discovery can be highlighted during Earthcast 09! 
• Strolling the National Mall with friends before catching our flight home.
• Creating/sharing lessons & projects that use DiscoveryStreaming. 

My advice is to become a DEN STAR and apply to attend next year! 

What an awesome day! To celebrate Earth Day, a group of 10 or so of us from all over the world worked together to pull off 24 hours of non-stop programming over the entire GMT day. The webcasting team came from Canada, Germany, Australia, the UK, Portugal, and the USA. Conversations centered around preserving the Earth. Guests included scientists, environmentalists, business leaders, educators, community members, and students! We recorded the day’s events, which will be available soon for those to listen to later.

Participants filled the chat room to ask questions of the hosts and special guests - the live conversations were fun and informative. I was actively involved with about 18 of the hours either by hosting or providing behind-the-scenes support to the person hosting. This was true of the entire Earthcast team. It was the best teamwork I’ve ever been a part of!

The day was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. The pass-offs at the hour mark when webcasters passed the streaming to someone else in another part of the world were times when everyone came together - checking the sound, offering suggestions, and encouraging each other.

Student voices were heard from all over the world about important environmental matters. They were poised and proud to be broadcasting to a worldwide audience and they were invested in the subject. Their teachers report that they want to know when they can do something like this again.

I felt a great sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. I streamed both audio and video from my laptop for the first time and I didn’t mess it up. I enjoyed sharing the 6th grade blogging project done by April Warren and her students, and talking with Sue Hellman and her students about a video they created for Earth Day. I also interviewed Chris Clonen, the Project Manager of General Motors’ Education website and loved the conversation and learning about hybrid vehicles, fuel cells, no waste manufacturing plants, and more.  Click here for archived audio of the interview.

This one one of the highlights of my entire career and I look forward to future similar experiences. The possibilities are endless!

Thanks to the entire Earthcast team and everyone who participated! This event would not have been possible without the support of WorldBridges and EdTechTalk.

Oakland Schools (county in SE Michigan) hosted a technology conference today.  The opening keynoter was Lee Rainie from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.  His presentation was a timeline of when new technologies were introduced.  He eventually got to web 2.0 resources.  His presentation fit the need of the audience.   There were only four people who knew what Twitter was, and only a few that had heard of del.icio.us, to name a few of the tools that were mentioned.  A few people from my district asked me about some of what was mentioned in the keynote, so that was good! 

This is a cool story:  A teacher from my district (the wonderful John Shaw) presented about a blogging project he did with 4th graders using Blogmeister, see handout.  He showed how easy it is to embed Flickr slideshows and audio recordings.  His student teacher was there, too.  She did not have an active role in the presentation, but she chimed in with a few thoughts here and there.  After the session, a curriculum director from a local district approached her and told her that they had two teaching positions available and told her to apply, telling her that she wanted to hire teachers that did these kinds of projects.  Hooray!

I presented in teh afternoon about an 8th grade Social Studies unit that is taught using Moodle.  All of our 8th graders will be involved, as this is used as a performance assessment for technology literacy.  It was fun to share about the development of the curriculum and the teacher professional development. 

At the end of the day, Julie Evans of Project Tomorrow shared the results from the nation-wide Speak Up data, as well as specific results for Oakland County.  The results are included in her PowerPoint presentation.  “The students want to be productive in school, and want to have access to their devices… their laptop, mp3 player, Smartphones, and PDAs!”

Bruce Umpstead gave an overview of the state of Michigan’s use of technology.  He did a great job of highlighting the key points and his philosophy matches mine!  He will be the keynoter for Walled Lake’s Spice it Up Conference on August 26, and his message would be perfect for our administrators and teachers.

 
The MACUL Conference was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan last week.  The conversations, networking, and social events helped me connect with others, and spending time with others who “get me” for three days was pretty cool.

The pre-conference session with Jason Ohler on digital storytelling was a highlight, for sure.  Jason was masterful at helping everyone see that digital stories have everything to do about the story, and little to do with the technology.  By the end of the day, EVERYONE had written and produced a short digital video using either iMovie or MovieMaker, then we shared our creations with the group.  The stories were fabulous! 

I attended a wide variety of sessions, and picked up at least one thing from each of them.  I was on the MACUL blogging team, so I wrote about many of the sessions on the Conference blog.

So, now it’s time to set goals to figure out new ways of bringing the joy and effectiveness of technology into the arms of the students and teachers in the classrooms.   After much thought, I think that one of the things that needs to be done is to find ways to reach the school principals… the instructional leaders at the building level.    One principal from my district attended this year, and he has already made plans to add on-line collaborative experiences for the students at his school.  What could happen if all the principals were to attend MACUL next year in Detroit? 

So far I haven’t found a way to systemically communicate the need for keeping abreast of newer technologies that were not available even a few years ago to the building principals.  I’ve been asked to train them on using Word, PowerPoint, Excel, email, etc.  I’m  happy to do that, and learning to use these programs help them with their administrative tasks, but somehow there hasn’t been time for more meaningful types of staff development.   When I do have the opportunity to speak with the group, I have a short amount of time in their packed agenda. 

I plan to work closely with the principal who attended MACUL, and I’m banking on him having clout with his peers to ensure that we find time for doing what we need to do to prepare our students for the world they now live in.  We cannot do it without technology.

This is a cross-post from the MACUL blog and the MI DEN blog.

I’ve been off this week for mid-winter break, and have spent lots of time preparing for my MACUL presentation. I have a few book studies that I facilitate, focusing on Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works. During my session, I’ll be sharing how I structure and facilitate my book studies, along with all the materials I use.

Most everyone probably knows about Marzano’s nine instructional strategies that improve student achievement, according to thousands of research studies (Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement). This new book shows how technology can support the nine strategies. I thought about writing a similar book about a year ago… wish I had acted quicker, as the authors beat me to it!

My session will be on Thursday, March 6, from 2:30-3:30pm. I’ll be sharing some on-line and printable resources that participants can use for their own book studies. K-12 teachers may learn about some ready-to-use tips and strategies that can make a positive difference for student learning. Hope to see you there!

This is a cross post with the Michigan Discovery Educator Network blog.