The EduBlog Awards

In my last post, I talked about the Edublog Awards or the Eddies. An annual event since 2004, this is where the best education blogs of the year are decided by other educators. While I didn't get a chance to talk more about this before the event was over, voting ended on Saturday; I would like to talk a little bit about the blogs I voted for and some others that might be interesting for others to view. There were 16 categories overall, so if you don't want to read this long post, now's the time to get out!

For lifetime achievement, I voted for Will Richardson, "the father of blogging". I've talked about his book Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms before; I highly recommend his book and his blog if you are looking for more information on any recent technology. However, I also have to mention both the blogs of David Warlick and Nancy White. White's blog was new to me, but after viewing it I felt right at home reading her posts and felt this would be a good one to add to my Google Reader. I've been in PDS sessions with both Richardson and Warlick and they both are great educational minds and make me think about how I can better use technology with content areas.

For best class blog, I voted for Learning Area 20 from Australia. In this blog, the teacher writes about subjects or adds pictures and then asks questions. The students respond on their own blogs, which are listed in a blogroll on the side page. One of my favorite posts on this blog asks the students to come up with a list of things that are uniquely Australian. The kids came up with some great responses such as Kangaroos, Crocodile Dundee, and my favorite Koala Bears! I also liked Risley Roarer's Blog in Brian Crosby's class. There was a good post addressed to Senators McCain and Obama about the issues important to them. Then the students needed to brainstorm issues important to themselves and write a post about it.

For social network, I couldn't have voted for any other group than Classroom 2.0. I am a member of this social network and get a lot of good feedback from members when I need it. I looked at many of the other social networks and struck by how similar they all look, in most cases I felt I was looking at the same pages. However, Classroom 2.0 is more knowledgeable to me and don't see myself registering with another group.

For best wiki, I voted for eToolbox. It's actually the Wissahickon School District's wikispace in Ambler, PA. Wikis are great for storing information and research and provide a great place for collaboration and this wiki has it all! What I liked best about it was that it was very organized, didn't overwhelm me (as some wikis can do) and provided great ideas using blogs, Comic Life, and Google Earth, some software I am currently working with teachers on. But I also liked Educational Origami, which had great ideas about Bloom's Taxonomy and incorporating it with technology and Learning in Maine, which has a wealth of topics on it's wiki for both Mac and PC.

Best use of video, came down to Flickschool and TEFL Clips. Flickschool won out with my vote, but only barely. It has some great design and creativity going on here and it helps highlight some of the great ideas in the posts, especially one on GarageBand. I liked TEFL Clips because it has lesson plans on it that can help other teachers who don't have as much experience with using video in the classroom.

I wasn't as impressed with the best use of audio nominations, as I guess I was looking for more basic ways of using audio. Most of the blogs I viewed had a quick post with a link to a podcast. I was looking for more of a blog entry with a podcast playing less of a role. While these blogs are very inventive, they just weren't quite for me. So I voted for Project Xiphos, which was more to what I considered to be a traditional blog. I also liked Wicked Decent Learning as well, because it wasn't overwhelming me with the use of audio, but instead gave me a good balance between reading and audio.

Best elearning blog was a hard decision for me as there were some great nominations, but it came down to Elearning Technology and Presentation Zen. I went with the first blog as I felt that there were some great topics here and much information for anyone looking for help with educational technology. I feel the best books and now blogs, are the ones that make me do something and Elearning Technology has some challenges involved that will make me learn something. Presentation Zen had this same feeling going on, but more from a design stand point for me than from an educational stand point.

Best Tech Support Blog was a great category too! I had several blogs I liked and while I voted for Teach42 by Steve Dembo, another one of my regular subscriptions; I also enjoyed Teachers Love SmartBoards, GeekED, and Langwitches. The last one was completely new to me, but I was very impressed with it and think I might add this one to my reader as well.

The Best Librarian Blog surprised me as I figured there would be a lot of information about books and technology, but there really wasn't. I voted for the blog that best captured my idea of the category which was the one by Joyce Valenza. She had a good amount of both books and technology and I wouldn't mind catching up on what's she's doing. I also liked the Blue Skunk blog as well.

I wasn't quite so impressed by the Best Teacher Blog either. I voted for ICT in my Classroom, which has a good amount of ideas for teachers, but I also liked Clif's Notes, The Journey, and Box of Tricks. The Journey has a great post on the Top 100 Educational Tools for 2008, while Box of Tricks seemed to be for those who like to think more "outside the box". It has an unusual look to it's front page, but one that grabbed my attention and made me look further at this blog.


Most Influential Blog Post was a great addition to these awards and I really liked 10 Tips for Growing Your Learning Network, The Time is Now, and Planning to Share Versus Just Sharing, the one I voted for on the EdTechPost blog. I voted for this because it exemplifies what I've been doing most lately, planning to share instead of just sharing. I need to take the time to share my knowledge instead of saying I plan to share this. Yes, it's a tall order and I don't always have the time, but it's a necessary part of my job. The Time is Now post on the Bit by Bit blog was also very influential in this day and age. I don't want to ruin it, so briefly, the post describes the change in television and technology and how necessary it is to keep up with those changes. 10 Tips on the Power of Educational Technology blog is also a very important topic as teachers need to keep learning. With the incorporation of PLC's, PLP's, and Social Networking, it's never been more important to keep that learning up!

My vote for the Best Resource Sharing blog went to that of Larry Ferlazzo. I really liked the way that Ferlazzo presents information, so that I don't feel bogged down by all the information, instead learning in a lighthearted way. His post on his Best posts of 2008 was a great way for me to see what else he has been up to throughout the year. He also has a post for sharing your idea for the Best Education-Related Book You've Read in 2008. The deadline is December 31st if you would like to add your own. I also enjoyed reading Teach J, a blog for teachers and students of Journalism, one of my favorite subjects, and Edina Public Schools NUA Program, which has great ideas for writing.

I voted for Angela Maiers as the Best New Blogger. I've seen her name pop up more and more recently and she's got some great ideas, such as ChalkTalk. Every Friday, Maiers writes about some of the best resources on the blogosphere. She also writes about resources for 21st century literacy. However, I would be amiss without adding that Huzzah and Dkzody's Weblog were very good too.

There were several good nominations in the Best Group Blog category and while I enjoyed Scholastic News, 360 got my vote and it's a math blog! Everyone knows math is my least favorite subject, but this blog is excellent and made me want to share it with others!

Finally, for Best Individual Blog I voted for Jennifer Dorman's Cliotech. I met Jennifer at a Discovery Weekend in Valley Forge, PA in 2006 and was really impressed with her ideas and educational philosophy and have really enjoyed her blog posts and the great websites she has found. She keeps me very up to date with all the new educational websites out there! I also very much liked Mobile TAFE from Australia and The Edublogger.

Now, if you've been paying attention, that's only 15 categories, not the 16 I said there are. The last category was the Best Use of a Virtual World in a blog, like Second Life. I know very little about the Virtual World environment and feel I just don't have time to keep up with it or really the desire to either. So while I looked at the blogs, I didn't really feel I understood what these were for and decided not to vote in this category.

Here's the link to see the winners, I hope you find a blog you like and subscribe to it!

Oh Gosh!

Yes, it’s been almost two months since I last posted! The blog was never far from my thoughts, but I never really got around to it either. There were plenty of ideas, but no time to write! However, the 2008 Edublog awards have inspired me to get back to my blog and share, share, share! I will try to post a few of my thoughts from November and December and get back to posting weekly. I am in the process of writing up my picks for the Edublog awards and should have that posted soon as well.

Now for today’s topic, let’s talk about Teqsmart.org. I found this website around Halloween as a way to help me in the training of using the Smart Airliners. What a large resource of Smart Notebook files! One of the first things I found was an airliner practice file in the "How To" section. What a life saver for all of us! I had previously watched our librarian use the airliner with 6th grade students one day and while most of them did well, a few struggled with moving objects and writing and I knew we would have more people struggling as soon as the airliners became available. This file gives you the chance to practice moving objects with the stylus. You can learn to move a basketball through a hoop, hit targets, guide a whale through a maze, move rocks to rescue a trapped dog, connect the dots, and move the bones from the guy on Operation. The idea is to help with your hand/eye coordination as you learn to use the airliner. I’ve seen a few teachers around the building using it, including Ms. Ivory, who used it with her math classes before completing an exercise on proportations. The kids had fun taking turns and trying the exercises and then gained skills they needed for using the airliner with the content.



Some of the other examples I found were graphic organizers and templates for Deal or No Deal and Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? I also found an interactive map for the Electoral College, that even helped me understand it a little better! For teachers in my building, all of these are also located on the staff shared drive under Teachers Resources, Technology Resources, and then Airliner. I started reading their blog too and enjoyed the details of how teachers are using this website too. I need to subscribe to it and see the updates, as well.

A review of this website from my November 5th Technology Newsletter is located on my wiki archives page.

Enjoy!

Story Structure Rubric

Here is the other rubric I used with this lesson plan:

Rubric

Here's one of the rubrics I used for this comic life lesson. It was created in trackstar.

Comic Life Lesson Plan

A few weeks ago, I talked about the two classes I am taking in my county. I couldn't get the lesson plans to come into blogger the way I wanted then, but I think I have it figured out now. Here's the language arts lesson I created for Comic Life:

Unit/Lesson Title: Story Structure/Main Idea

Step 1: Desired Results
What important concepts, content, skills, or vocabulary will students learn in this unit? In other words, what should students KNOW by the end of this unit?
Students should know how to plot out and organize a story and understand setting, theme, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

What should students UNDERSTAND and be able TO DO by the end of the unit?
Students will understand the importance of planning and organizing their stories before beginning the writing process. By the end of the lesson, they will have completed their story.

What SOLs or competencies are addressed in the unit? Are there any cross-curricular links we can make?
Reading 8.5b, 8.5c, 7.5a, 6.4a

Step 2: Assessment of Understanding
How will you assess student learning?
Students will need to complete both parts of the comic series to receive full credit for their work. They will also need to have the setting, theme, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution for both parts and have them clearly identified in the correct place. Students will be graded on content, not artistry.

Step 3: Learning Plan
Learning Sequence:
Hook/introduction:
Students will be introduced to the concept of story structure and plot. To better help them understand this concept they will be creating a short comic series on story structure. This comic series should involve characters describing what rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution are and how the students are going to setup their own story. The next part of the comic series will have the characters describing the student’s plot points about a story they will be writing.

List instructional sequence and timeline:
1. The teacher will introduce the concepts of story structure and plot.

2. The teacher will give students a printed storyboard from one of the panels in Comic Life.
Students will fill this out for both parts of the comic series and turn in for teacher approval.
However, students will work on this one part at a time. They will need to complete the first
part on the story structure devices before writing their stories. Once the teacher has given
approval, students will be ready to fill out their panels in Comic Life.

3. Once in the computer lab, students will be introduced to Comic Life and its features.
Students will then begin filling out the story structure panel from the storyboard they created on the first part of this series only.

4. Once the students understand this concept, they can then begin working on their stories
using this structure. They will again fill out a storyboard around the characters
describing the important points of their story and then return to the computer lab to
complete their comic series.

5. Once their comic series is complete they will move on to writing and completing their
stories.

6. Students will be able to share their completed comic series with their classmates.

Glogster

This is my first attempt at creating a glog or digital poster. I am using this with my differentiation instruction workshop on Monday.

Ay Espanol!

I took some time to observe some classes today after my training class this morning (more on that later) and wandered in one of the Spanish classes. They were learning the alphabet today and I had so much fun watching the kids pronounce each letter. I was very impressed with the class and surprised at how much I remembered from my classes! One of the activities they did to learn and remember the pronunciations was "Sound Off", the rhythmic chant you hear in most military movies. Again, the kids did a great job, hitting a bump here and there, but getting it all the same. Then they each received a card with a letter on it and they learned how to spell words in Spanish. Whenever the teacher said a word, the students had to come to the front with their letter cards and spell the words. I even got in on the action and had the letter "rr", a double "r" when they spelled perro or dog. It was a great period and I hear they are using the Classroom Jeopardy game soon-our first class to do so! I can't wait to see how they use it.

Comic Life and Moodle

I have my next two assignments due soon for those PDS courses I am taking. This week, I am creating a lesson plan for Comic Life for Language Arts. I am thinking a short comic series on plot structure would be interesting to try. In my lesson plan, I have students creating characters that explain what plot structure is, making sure that students know understand the concepts before they start writing. Students should be able to have their characters explain rising action, conflict, falling action, and resolution. Once the students have done a storyboard and created this comic, they can move on to creating another plot structure and comic on their story. Again, their characters will be explaining the various plot points of their story and then the students can complete their stories.

In my online facilitator course in Moodle, I am creating an online professional development session on using Excel Spreadsheets in the classroom. This is similar to the practicum I did in graduate school, but I want to be able to go further with it. I learned a lot from that experience and realized that there were some things missing and I want to go back and have teachers know how to fully use Excel to their advantage. Some of that will time spent on graphing and more interactivity assignments.

Both assignments are due in the middle of the week, so I will be busy! I still need to come up with a rubric for my Comic Life lesson. I will also be attending a PDS session on using podcasts with macs tomorrow, which will be new for me. The last time I used a mac before this year, podcasts hadn't even been invented yet! I am quite comfortable using the PC software for podcasting, but I need to know how to use it on the macs for when our mac carts come in.

Twitter! Moodle?

After reading TekkieTeacher's blog post today, I decided I am going to give Twitter a try. Twitter is a social networking community and many teachers are using it as part of their PLC's and PLN's. I have heard of it before, but didn't think I would have time to invest in it. Many of the teachers blogs I have on my Google Reader and those in the DEN have taken to Twitter, so I guess it was only a matter of time before I broke down to try it.

I have already set up my account and found some friends. I have also already added my first "tweet"-that's Twitter speak for a post. A post on Twitter can only be 140 words or less, making a shorter post than a blog post, hence the name "tweet". I'm not quite sure how I let others know that I've created an account....need to figure that out. :)

I also went to an Online Facilitating in Moodle course tonight. I'll be doing this online for next four weeks and designing professional development classes for online learning. Tonight's class felt long (although I am very tired) and I'm not sure much was sinking in. I do agree with another classmate, that it is not the most user friendly tool. I get to do alot of reading in the first two weeks and planning my class, which I think I am going to do on spreadsheets. I did this as part of my practicum last year, but there are things I would like to change and I want to eventually put all of my PDS classes online. We'll see what happens.

Let everything recently, I'll keep updating on all the new stuff I'm learning.

Comic Life Update

I've finished my second assignment for the Comic Life Professional Development training I am going through. The first assignment was to research some comics and come up with ideas to share. I saw great examples on using the software as a graphic organizer. I also liked the idea of using dolls, clay, and other resources as characters, taking pictures of scenes and then using the bubbles for talking.

In my second assignment, I was to create a presentation. I knew I was doing Classroom Jeopardy PDS this week, so I decided to use this as my presentation. I think it came out well. Take a look and decide for yourself:

Technology Committee Meets

Today was the first meeting of my school's Technology Committee (and my first technology committee ever!), so I was a little excited and a little nervous all at the same time. The meeting went so well! I am very impressed with our members and am very excited about all of the ideas we came up with. I think it's going to be a fantastic year!

I started out with making sure we had representatives for each grade level and setting the goals up for the group. We decided that we will meet once a month face-to-face and then set up a page on our website where members could check in and post messages online, checking that once a week. So guess what's on my to do list tomorrow? Making sure that page happens! Note to self: talk with our wonderful librarian and webmaster on that!

My goals for the committee this year are this: 1) Make sure we talk about constructive technology uses, 2) keep the members up to date with technology and software, 3) Talk about mentoring programs, where more technology savvy teachers can work with not so technology savvy teachers (spreading around our knowledge and expertise), 4) work on writing grants, and 5) coming up with building technology initiatives. My 9 member team came up with amazing ideas as I talked about these. They added in modeling units and sharing professional development responsibilities, where they can present some of the technology to their teams and grade levels. I couldn't be happier with this idea. They also suggested that we come up with a list of expert areas and each member can be the "expert" for that area. For example, one of the seventh grade teachers has done a lot with the quizdom remotes, so they would be able to help show other teachers and answer questions.

We also decided as a group that our goal for this year will be to make sure that every teacher in our building uses technology at least once. That's every teacher using technology at least once this school year. With all of the new technology in my building this should not be a hard task to accomplish, but it might take some effort on everyone's part.

I think the part I am most excited about is that everyone wants to meet virtually so often! We may not meet together online at precisely the same time, but we can still be passing around ideas and collaborating to make a good technology environment and help everyone. We are definitely off to a good start!

DE Streamathon

Today, I had the unique experience of listening in on the Discovery Education Streamathon, a day filled with professional development and training sessions for using DE streaming (formally unitedstreaming, which I still refer to it as). I multi-tasked throughout the day, as I worked on finishing to put together the Smart Airliners my school bought and working on a few other projects, like my newsletter due tomorrow-(one more article to find) and listened in on the sessions.

The best one of the day by far, was presented by Steve Dembo, who talked about using DE streaming with web 2.0 tools. I got lots of great ideas and wanted to share those with you.

The first tool Steve talked about was Speechable.com. With this website, you can grab pictures out of unitedstreaming, upload them to the website and choose different speech bubbles to add to your picture. Once you've got your bubbles in the picture, you can save it as an image file (.jpeg) and use it anywhere...blog, PowerPoint, Word, etc. I thought this could be good to use with Social Studies. Take a picture of some event in history and add facts to it. Steve mentioned another great use about unitedstreaming...the pictures can be republished...no need to worry about copyright! :)

Next up is www.bighugelabs.com-what a cool site! There are so many things you can do with pictures here. Create historical trading cards (also great idea for study guides), motivational posters, like the ones from Franklin Covey. You can also choose several features, such as photo wall, billboard maker, pocket album. As I learn more about this site, I will come up with ideas for these features. I think this was the best tool featured!

Jump Cut was next. This is basically an online version of MovieMaker or iMovie, the benefit being that students can continue to work on their videos/movies after class time. I also liked that you can record audio in audacity and incorporate it into this too!

Cueprompter.com is awesome! I need to share this with my librarian, if she doesn't read it here first, but this website allows you to copy and paste text and then change the font size and then have it appear on the computer screen as if it's a teleprompter! What a great thing for morning announcements!

MovieMasher.com was next, but I feel like it might be something to Jump Cut. Some other websites suggested was onetruemedia.com and fixmymovie.com.

The last website I was able to see was glogster.com. Another great site! This one creates digital posters! Pictures can be enlarged when rolled over on by the mouse, facts can added, as well as, links and embedded videos. Saved posters can be used on blogs and wikis. Some examples shared were: thescientificshamrock.wikispaces.com, environmentalheroes.pbwiki.com/Jane+Goodall+per+1, and ktitraci.glogster.com/election.

So much to look at, but good ideas all!

Technology Poems

Check this out! Over at Dangerously Irrelevant, Scott McLeod, created a technology poem contest. He just announced the winners and there are great poems! I'm sending you to the original posting so you can look at all the entries. Go down to the comments section and you'll see them. I think my favorite one is the one with the Beatles, "Let It Be". I also liked "Digging Out of the Digital World". Good stuff! I hear a lesson in here somewhere...

Comic Life

I'm really getting into the swing of things now, so much so, I barely have time to update my blog. I have lots of stuff to add, but little time to do it. I will hopefully be posting more soon!

Today, I started a professional development session on a program called Comic Life. I have heard amazing things about this program and am glad I get the opportunity to get training on it before our mac carts arrive. I also really like the way my new county sets up PD. They use a website called mylearningplan.com and anyone doing PD can offer their classes/sessions on the site. I also get daily emails with new sessions being offered and reminders for upcoming sessions. It keeps a record of everything I have signed up for.

So I saw the Comic Life training being offered by two of my fellow TRT's and jumped at the chance to learn more. Many teachers have already asked if my school is purchasing it, which we are. So this will have me prepared before I go trudging in.

At today's session we learned about the set up of course, which partly will be done using Moodle; something else I have never used before. So lots of learning going on! I think I will like it-I will keep the blog updated with my experiences using it. Comic Life itself is really cool, at least the Mac version is. They've recently come out with a windows version too. You get to pick out templates for your pages, import pictures, play around with background colors, framing, adding panels, twisting and morphing pictures, frames, and adding in two pictures to one panel, add narration and word bubbles, and more. I also learned how to take my picture using the mac with iphoto and dragging the image straight to my pages. You can also take the photos you import and make them look more "comic like" by changing their styles and morphing them into a colored pencil look, a 70's newspaper look, or neon!

In our next face to face session on October 2nd, we will be learning more about creating lessons using Comic Life. My homework....I thought I was done with homework after grad school :) is to research some of the websites the trainers have found and look at different lessons already created. It's due Tuesday, so I'll let you know what I find.

Some Changes...

If you're following my blog, you may have noticed a few changes. The biggest being the name change. When I first started this blog it was for one of my graduate classes. I had to come up with a name pretty quickly and wasn't quite prepared for it. I chose two things close to me and threw the name together. When my parents moved into the first real home I remember, they planted a Dogwood tree in the back yard, as my tree. We've grown together over the years and sadly to say, the tree is now taller than me. (They don't get very big, but I'm not that tall either). There is also a creek that runs behind my parents house and it seems that every where I move, I'm by water. So it was my first attempt at a name for my blog.

Recently, however, I've wondering about the name and decided I needed something more professional and in tune with technology and education. So I played with some words again and came up technication, a hybrid of the words technology and education. I hope you'll enjoy some of the changes and stick with me. I plan to have a rotating picture at the top of the page and I've added a place to subscribe to posts and a blogroll of the blogs I frequently read, straight from my Google reader.

Take care!

Politics, Blogs, and Education?

Another post I've been meaning to write about for several days and just couldn't find the time...

I was surfing channels on my television recently and saw an ad for an upcoming episode of the Chris Mathews Show. In the ad, Chris Mathews is plugging away at a guest whose opinion had to do with the upcoming presidential election and what bloggers have to say about the candidates. What hit me about this ad, is that Mathews berates the guest as to not having credited sources for the topic at hand. The guest attempts to explain that the blogosphere itself and the authors of these blogs is their source, however, Mathews cuts the guest off and I for one was left feeling that we, the audience, are supposed to think these "bloggers" have no idea what they're talking about.

Now why am I blogging about this? Because I feel that bloggers do know what they're talking about and that Mathews is missing a very large picture to our nation's and our world's future. I found this ad to be ironic, especially because both presidential candidates are using the Internet and blogs and youtube in particular, in ways never imaginable before now. A few months ago, two of my friends, who are very strict democrats, showed me how celebrities were supporting Obama on youtube. I had never really done much with it before and was very surprised to see music videos dedicated to his campaign! There was even one that had cut quotes from his speeches and was put to music! I all of sudden realized that this was going to be a very different campaign. But how could I use this? My head started going into overdrive with ideas for work.

On the flip side, before school ended I had discovered McCain's daughter's blog. She wasn't blogging quite the way I've seen typical blogs, and there were more pictures than I was used to, but she was blogging on the campaign trail and spreading the word.

So basically, the idea I'm trying to get at here is...how is the Internet and bloggers, specifically, not effecting this election and why would someone say that what they are saying on the Internet has no credibility outside the Internet? These candidates are smart...they are going straight at my generation and where they are located the most...the Internet.

I do realize that he is also a journalist and that he may think of "sources" in a different way than I am. I graduated with a degree in journalism and a source had to be reliable. I could see where someone posting on the Internet would not always be reliable. We certainly didn't talk about the impact of the Internet on journalism or other topics, because this problem didn't exist six years ago. Yes, six years ago! We're on a different playing ground now, where anyone can be a journalist in a matter of seconds. I get that...but will others miss how blogs are changing things, just as Mathews seems to have?

In terms of education, we need to think about how to prepare our students for these growing changes. Could elections be completely online one day...like testing? Will they only see political ads on the Internet, instead of t.v.? What if you had the power to just skip them, similar to skipping or closing a pop up window on ads now? Would that change outcomes? What about what our students may write about future elections? Will something they say, change the course of the future?

Summer's Over, For Me!

I'm back....I didn't really mean to take the summer off from blogging, but that's just what ended up happening. Most of my summer was spent visiting with family and friends, reading (oh, how I missed you!), doing yard work, bike riding (6 miles daily now!), scrapbooking, and mentoring for the GMU online certificate program. However, I go back to work tomorrow; my first day in Stafford and it's time to get back on the bandwagon of blogging. It'll be nice to get back into a routine and see what new stuff is in store for me this year.

I've already seen the school, been inside, know where the labs are, and seen my office. It's amazing looking inside (brand new) and I can't wait. I'm assuming the next few days will be filled with setting up my office, meeting staff, and getting settled. I'll see if I can post pictures soon too.

One of the ideas I have for this year is to chronicle the year. I want to have pictures from events throughout the year and not only blog about the things that happen, but also have great stuff for my scrapbook. Hopefully, we can use some of it for a great end of the year event or something like that. So let's see if I can do this! My new challenge, I'm sure among others, for the year.

New School, New County!

It's summer time! With that being said, it's also the time of year teachers get new contracts and I certainly did. I had been looking to change schools and even counties and had two interviews before the end of the school year. The first resulted in going onto the fingerprinting process of the interview at a job fair, but alas no job openings! The second interview resulted in another interview with the same county. During my last week of school, I received a phone call that I had the job! It was a bittersweet decision, but one that I felt I had to make. So next year I will be a Technology Resource Teacher in a new county and a brand new school!

I am very much looking forward to the challenges that lay ahead of me and I have no doubt there will be some! I've already had a chance to meet my new boss and some of my colleagues and they have been very receptive and encouraging. I've also gotten to meet the principal of the school and get some ideas for the next school year.

One of the great benefits to this new job is that get the chance to work with Macintosh computers again! It's been a couple of years since I last worked with them and as always, technology advances, so I will need to study up on some of the software and tools I will be getting to use this coming school year, but I can't wait! I will be keeping the page updated and look for my new stories!

Neat Little Website

I found this several weeks ago, but just didn't have a chance to post it until now. "Crayons and Computers", was created by Carol Sabbeth, a performer and author of four books, who teaches students and teachers about art through family programs at the Portland Art Museum. Her website has several lessons that can be used to teach students (even adult students, like me!) how to create digital art in programs such as Microsoft Paint. I created cows that actually looked like cows-not stick figures, who knew?

IT'S Over!

This is a few days late, but it's official, my graduate program is over. It's been a very worthwhile two years and the amount I have learned is amazing! I graduate on Saturday at 2 p.m. and can't wait!!

Calling all Technology Integrators...

Want a fast, easy, and cheap way to have an interactive whiteboard in your room? Watch the following video clip (thanks to Mr. Brown and Dad) from TED to find out more. I already sent this link to a couple of ITRT's in the county and they were psyched! (I think psyched is my new word for the week). Anyways, enjoy!

Going Campaigning...

After reading an article entitled “Batter Up” in NEAToday, I’m thinking a little more politically this week. This article was about various NEA members and how they are making a difference in education by campaigning for candidates who they feel will best support their goals for education. The members varied from elementary to high school teachers and political parties. Some teachers were content to work in their communities supporting local candidates, while others were thinking bigger with the presidential candidates.

This article seemed to come along at a perfect time for me. As I’ve been working on a teacher leadership class this past semester, I’ve been wondering how I can make a bigger difference in my chosen profession. Campaigning will be a great summer project for me and will help me feel empowered by making others aware of important educational issues. If these teachers in the article can do it, why can’t I? The only thing the article didn’t tell me was where I can find more information about getting involved in political campaigns. I did visit the NEA website, which has some other activities related to politics, but I still didn’t find what I was for. Locally, I’m not even sure who’s up for re-election in November, so visiting candidate websites is a little pointless. As far as the presidential election goes, I’m pretty sure I know who I want to support, but I’m not positive. However, going in this route seems like the best way to get the word out about educational issues. I’m even considering talking with some of my friends and seeing if they would like to join me. So for now, my goal is to figure out who to completely support this November.

In hopes of narrowing down my candidates, I visited www.glassbooth.org, a website I heard about on a podcast from BBC5. This website allows you to take a quiz about your opinions on various issues and matches your answers to the candidate who most closely resembles the same answers. It’s a great website to inform students about and have them try. However, for me, it wasn’t much help. There was a one percent difference between the two I’m trying to choose between. At least I got the political party right! :)

Although this doesn’t completely go along with this topic, I did find a website this week that I wanted to share. It’s called freerice.com and was created by a parent of a high schooler who wanted to prepare their child for the SAT’s. This vocabulary quiz website will donate 20 grains of rice to the U.N. World Food Program for every correct answer. When I was testing it out for my Website Wednesday newsletter I got up to 220 grains of rice! I was psyched about this website and its generous goals and wanted to make sure the news got out on the web. Visit it for your chance to send rice to people who need it.

How Can We Create Change

Last week, I was at the World Color Guard Championships, which is a whole other part of my life. While there I was trying to find free time to finished up grad school stuff and continue to write reflections for my portfolio (due in two weeks-yikes!). Other than that, I didn't really see how two of the facets of my life; educational technology and color guard relate. However, as I sat watching Marian Catholic High School from Illinois, I realized I was wrong. Their show was all about change and we can be a part of it-changing the way people think, how they treat others, how the treat the environment, changing how we relate to cancer, and more. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but it made me realize how I've changed in this program and how technology has changed me.

I believe that learning about technology and educational reform has made me a better teacher, colleague, learner, and person. Although I sometimes feel overwhelmed by it all and have to stop and catch my breath and "power down", I have found more ways to learn about new things, stay involved, and keep in touch through technology. As I student I didn't have the advantages students today have. I would have loved to show off my talents and my thoughts by using video or a podcast. Even a blog-as I'm doing now. I was pretty creative growing up, but I really think this would doubled my creative energy. However, I do see where I probably would have had a problem with doing everything online, and neglecting everything else. That's why it's important to show students that while technology is great, they also need to go enjoy the sunshine and personal time with a human being outside of instant messenger.

Technology has changed us in other ways too. Just look at television, the writer's strike came out because of the increase in demand of shows and specials being available online. At TVguide.com, actors and actresses, writers, and directors are keeping blogs and answering questions and talking to fans like never before. I also keep up with my favorite shows by listening to podcasts created by fans, who interview the staff and stars. That couldn't be done ten years ago; that wouldn't have been done ten years ago.

And now in color guard, something very near and dear to my heart, the evolution has begun. Instead of using tapes and tape players to record judges' comments, the local circuit here and many others, have started using digital voice recorders. Tape and tape players are so hard to come by now and this process is so much easier. When the comments have been recorded, the comments can be burned onto a CD, copied to a flash drive, or added to your ipod. The way music is used in color guard is also changing, we've been using CD's for some time now, but will the next move be to hook up your ipod or mp3 player? Will there be a need for CD's soon? A very interesting thought.

Way Cool Review Tool

I just found a great site, thanks to Steve Dembo! I was reading his blog this morning, Teach42, and he was talking about MyStudiyo.com, a site that you can create interactive quizzes on that can be put on your website or blog. I checked it out and I'm pretty impressed with the results! What a great way to review curriculum with students. I created my own quiz using some CMS/CFA questions on 6th grade Social Studies. Check it out for yourself below:

More Learning

I was reading David Warlick's blog today, 2Cents Worth, and he was talking about PLN's or personal learning networks. This made me think about our leadership module from class and how we are working to create our own professional development and leadership plans. He made some great comments about knowing when too much technology is too much and when you need to take a break and enjoy the sunshine! That was certainly true today as I sat outside on my porch after work and caught up on the additions to my Google Reader.

In keeping with Mr. Warlick's suggestion, I think I found a great website to add my "network". In tomorrow's Website Wednesday, I feature an Instructional Technology Department from Wichita Public Schools. I found all kinds of great resources here and it's amazing to see how much they are doing. I especially like their newsletter section, called Tech Focus, where they explain in video (!) some of the projects schools within their district are doing. I watched a video on podcasting tonight and I was very impressed. It also seems appropriate since we are creating podcasts in class this week. Look under January's features.

I also recently extended my "network" when I learned more about wikis from some colleagues. We came up with a way to share our SOL resources for all middle school teachers in the county to see and use. It's called MSSOL and online SOL resources are divided into each curriculum category.

Teacher Plus Technology

Here's an update from one of my earlier posts about my wiki for my newsletters: I'm just about done with putting all of my current information on it! I'm calling the wiki Teacher Plus Technology, as I may use it for more than just my newsletters in the future. Here's the url for those interested: http://teacherplustechnology.wikispaces.com. If you would like to be a contributor, email me!

Great Ideas!

Here's a video from Teacher Tube about podcasting. Some great ideas involved!

What's a podcast?

Back from Spring Break, it's so hard to get rolling again!!

Right after I suggest podcasting to a teacher, the most frequent question I get asked is, "what's a podcast?" It's come to be a question I dread because most of the time the person I'm talking with doesn't like my answer. First, I relate it to a radio show, then I give examples of the few I've worked on. I think part of the problem comes when I start explaining about the recording process, which isn't hard! But that seems to be the point where I lose my audience.

It can be frustrating, because I know what a great tool they are! I've seen students get really creative and use their imaginations to their fullest potential. They really get into the process and start watching what they're saying, and then the recording has to be just right, and the music has to be awesome (in their opinion). This all shows me that the student wants to achieve and take the time to learn something new. What kid isn't going to love talking into a microphone? They eat it up!

Here are the benefits to podcasting:

• The students still have to do the writing process
• The student can be as creative as they want
• The student becomes instantly more engaged in the curriculum
• Students learn across curriculums

Some great stuff! So why the initial hesitation? Fear of the unknown? Fear of technology? What would make you use this tool in the classroom?

I use podcasts almost daily, both professionally and personally. I use them to continue my education. Every once in a while I will run into a website that offers a podcast of a seminar that someone did. I download it and listen at lunchtime, or on the way home, or when I'm exercising. I'm recently found out about Conference Connections, a free way to listen to speakers from educational conferences around the globe. In January I had planned to go to FETC, but I couldn't really afford it and I was already going to two others later in the year. But I didn't miss out! I type conference connections into itunes and viola! There are recordings (or podcasts!) of the speaker's presentation. I also use it to keep up on movie news. Did you know Teller of Penn and Teller is directing MacBeth at the Folger Theater in DC? Neither did I until I listened to an interview on my way to New Jersey recently. How cool is that?

Great Idea!

I was talking with two of my classmates from grad school tonight, Amie and Jen, and they came up with a great idea! I should take all of my old website wednesday newsletters and put them into a wiki to share with everyone! I love this idea. Not only can I have a viable place to hold them, I can now sort them into categories for the different subjects I've covered. In addition to this, it would be another resource for my grad school portfolio-that's due before I graduate in May. I'm so excited-I want to get started now... :) I'll post my new wiki (and the other one I joined today for SOL review) soon. Geesh, that's a lot of wikis for me, especially since I knew so little only a few weeks ago. If I could choose a song for this mood, it would definitely be "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters. Gotta go!

Some Things

I didn't realize it had been a week since my last post! So much to do and so little time... I was telling some friends about the post I saw at Danica's Random Thoughts about Meghan McCain's blog "McCainBlogette.com". I mentioned to them that I thought it would be a great site for the Civics teachers at my school to use. One of my friends mentioned another blog that might be good as well. And surprisingly, it's at Glamour.com. Their new blog, Glamocracy, is all about women sharing their ideas about politics, the candidates, and more. What I think is really great about this blog, is that it's not just one party's views-it's women from different background and different parties, all giving their opinions on the topic of politics. Check it out if you get a chance!

Another Day

I think I have finally recoverd from the VSTE conference last week. I ended up not feeling so good when I returned.

I've talked with a couple of teachers already about ideas I found at the conference. The sixth grade science teachers and I may have come up with a little something interesting about the water cycle. I'll share more as the project comes together. I also talked with some teachers about using document cameras. I was hoping this wasn't going to be an expensive venture, but I think I'm wrong. Two of the teachers I talked with said they have used them before and would give up their overhead projectors to have one of these in their rooms! That's saying something!

I stumbled across this great blog post today at the DEN and thought I would share. It would be great if we started an educational movement with unitedstreaming. Be sure to check out the comments and add your idea!

By the way, does anyone have material for professional development for blogs they would like to share? I'm developing a session now and would love ideas anyone has. I'm all about not re-inventing the wheel!

Check out this video on document cameras:

Quiet on the Set

I'm very excited to be learning about digital video in class over the next couple of weeks. So far, we have learned to create things that can be added to our vocational ed advocacy wiki. Last week, my group and I had to create an 30 second interview from 3 experts on our topic. We chose to print out pictures of our experts faces and held them in front of us while we talked. We used flip video cameras, which seemed very easy to use. You push one button to record and the same button to stop. Every time you hit record, it creates a new file. Then you use the usb drive already attached to the camera to plug into your computer. Some of their software gets installed, but then we used windows movie maker to edit our interview segment.

I can definitely see where this specific example can be used with students. They could use a little more imagination and create sets behind their experts and also make decisions about using a tv talk show personality, a roundtable discussion, etc.

This week we are in the process of creating PSA's for our advocacy wiki. We created our treatment and storyboard and should be able to start taping footage next week. What I really like about this process is that all the planning is done before hand. In the storyboard, we had to think about camera angles, placement of people, props, effects to be used in editing. It's like a low-budget movie! Each of us has a role to play, which again is a great idea for students! Give them a reason to take ownership of the project, not just get a grade. I think our PSA is going to turn out great!

Watch This!

I found this great video from youtube on Steve Dembo's Digital Passport Blog for Discovery Education. Now, I wouldn't typically go wandering on youtube, but this time I did and after I watched this video, I watched some others. I think it may be time to change some assumptions again...

Watch this: Information/Revolution

Help Wanted

I received an email from my district today which made me realize it's time to start preparing the teachers in my building for SOL reviews. In the state of Virginia, the SOL's or Standards of Learning are the state-mandated tests that are given every May. This email talked about a session for ITRT's and how we can start preparing teachers with extra resources. I think it's a great idea and wondered what I could contribute to the group. Being a second year ITRT, I didn't really realize what I needed to prepare last year, therefore I don't have many resources that I created myself.

While thinking this over, I wondered how blogs could be used as an SOL review resource. Are they even good for this sort of thing? I suppose teachers could put websites that include study guides on their blogs, but could the process of writing on their own blog help students? What about a wiki? What ideas do you have?

Problems with Slideshow

Okay, this should be easy, but of course I can't figure it out! Does anyone know how to add the slideshow function onto your blog? Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Back home

I love to travel and especially learn new things, but it's also nice to be back home. The drive home was rough with the worst fog I have ever seen with almost zero visibility in front of you.

I learned lots of great things about Google Earth such as how to create placemarks, paths, traveling journeys for students, and imbedding icons, descriptions, pictures, and websites. I can't wait to put together a workshop for staff. The presenter was Scott Meisenzahl, a Technology Resource Teacher from Loudoun County. You can find this presentation and others from Loudoun at their It's a jungle out there...get technofied site.

I also learned a few more tricks for podcasts, digital storytelling, and this thing called stop-motion animation or "claymation", which allows students to make models out of clay, take pictures of every movement, and throw the pictures into movie maker or imovie and create a short video. It sounds very similar to what we did in the ITS program during spring 2007 with adding visual effects to our movies. This type of animation can work well with any curriculum, but I liked that it would work with cycles/changes in science and math concepts. Now, that's pretty cool. There are examples of some movies at Tech4learning. The exact web page is www.tech4learning.com/claykits/samples.html. The presenter for this was Michael Butler from Botetourt County. He also did a great presentation on Google Sketchup! and how you can use it in the middle school math classroom. There's a few teachers I can think of to show this to.

I have some pictures from VSTE, as well, and I should be posting those shortly! Have a great week!

The Traveling Stories

Here's are the websites that I mentioned yesterday:

The Traveling Stories

and

Virginia Trekkers

I attended a couple more sessions yesterday. I attended one with John Hendron, which was about podcasting and using this tool more effectively in the classroom. I think I got some great ideas! 4 more sessions today.

VSTEing away

I'm at the Virginia Society for Technology Education (VSTE) Conference in Roanoke this week. I'm having a blast so far! Yesterday, I attended my first two sessions. The first one was about travelling stories through podcasts. Two schools in Henrico County will take one class or group and start a story, record it and then send the story to another group or class. That class would then have to finish it. Once the whole process was through, the two groups would get together and then listen to whole story. I'm not giving it the full justice here and I can't remember the website at the moment, but I'll give that in my update.

My best story from the conference so far is this: In the first timers session, I sat down not really paying attention to where I was sitting. Another woman engaged myself and the person sitting next to me in a conversation. The woman beside me said she was from Tazewell, VA. Before going to college, I never would have known where this was, however, I told the woman that I had been there, having gone home once with a friend of mine who lived there. We talked for a few more minutes, before I asked the woman her last name. When she told me, I couldn't help laughing! I told her, not only had I been in Tazewell, I'd been to her house! Definitely giving me a strange look, she realized I was her daughter's friend from college! We exchanged phone numbers and she updated me on her daughter. Small world, indeed! Thought I would share. I'll be back with more later.

Kwality Blogging

I found this great blog a few weeks ago, which I think really epitomizes the idea of blogs, called Kwality Blogging. The blog is written by Mr. Sill, a Video Production teacher at El Diamante High School in Visalia, CA. I didn’t have a chance until today to really go through it and read some of the posts, but I was just fascinated by the post from January 27^th. As I was reading it, my impression was that this was a professor at the collegiate level. It wasn’t until I scrolled back to the top that I saw the blog was from a high school teacher. So that right there impressed me. This teacher knew what he was talking about.

This particular post talks about ideas in documentary filmmaking and the recently released movie Cloverfield, by producer J.J. Abrams, who created Lost and Alias (two of my very favorite television shows). I liked this blog post, especially, because the author threads ideas of using technology in the classroom with that of mainstream society. It made me want to sit in his class and learn about filmmaking! I also thoroughly enjoyed the various links he has through out his post, including the one with J.J. Abrams at TED. TED is another great site if you haven’t seen it. It also made me realize that I could/should be creating links right in the text of my post, instead of waiting until the end of my post. I think I have the hang of that now.

This post of Mr. Sill’s also made me start thinking about this upcoming week of class, in which we will be learning about Windows Movie Maker, the Flip Digital Video Camera, and Public Service Announcements (PSA’s). In my journalism classes as an undergrad, I learned all about PSA’s. Then when I became a teacher, I saw them being used in a different way in the classroom. I think they are a great product for students to make and helps them understand how their voice can be heard on a variety of subjects. I also know a great deal about Windows Movie Maker so that should help in completing our group’s PSA. I’ve seen the flip video, however I have not worked with it, so I am very interested in using this tool this week.

Wiki Thoughts

After reading chapters 4, 6, and 9 in Richardson's book, I've had several thoughts come to mind about wikis. The first being one that I think most educators would think about-"How do you trust what people put on them?" This is something I know that my county and me personally have thought about, especially with wikipedia. I've followed suit with most ITRT's and have said that it can be used as a secondary source only and that students need to double check the facts that they've found on it. But is this undermining what wikipedia is all about?

My second thought about wikis is about teacher use. I've surprised by how simple they are to use and that most teachers- digital immigrant or not - could use these very easily for their classes. Why shouldn't they? It's almost as easy as putting a wiki together as it is any other group project-the only difference is the broader audience.

I think I now have some good ideas to use in my building.

It's a Wiki World

I've been wanting to create a blog for a long time now and I am very happy with the ideas that I am coming up with and the resources I am finding to share on my blog. This past week, my classes started in on wikis. Wikis are a more collaborative version of a blog, in which a group or an organization can come together and share their thoughts and ideas, instead of just an individual. While I've heard of wikis before, I've never had the opportunity to really be a part of one before. I feel slightly hesitant about having one of my own.

My group picked vocational education for our advocacy wiki. I like what we have done and I'm learning a lot more about wikis through this. I tend to wonder though, what other kinds of things wikis can be used for. I've heard of some teachers using it for their schools as a source for sharing resources, but what else could they be used for in education? In your personal life?

Here's a site I've found that describes wikis in more detail: What is a Wiki?

Lights, camera....Digital Storytelling

Right now, the Social Studies department in my school is getting ready for History Day! The students are creating documentaries, presentations, and exhibits on conflict and compromise in history. The are excited, but the teachers seem to be a little leery of the technology available to them. Several groups are doing documentaries (technically digital stories) and some teacher leaders (new word!) have done workshops on Movie Maker and PhotoStory3. Today, I found a great website with examples from a digital storytelling competition. I just had to share!

http://www.interwritelearning.com/contest/index.html

What a great resource to show our students!

So Excited

I'm so excited about blogging this semester! I have very little experience with this, but I have tried to keep a blog before...I think I only had about 4 posts. So this has to be better! I learned a lot from Will Richardson's book so far; three chapters down. I know posts should be short (not so easy for me!) and they should have links and resources of things I find interesting.

I've been trying to set up a training workshop on Google Earth and I found a site I wanted to share: http://www.google.com/educators/activities.html

I found some really great activities, like following the Presidental candidates as they stop for different primaries. I've very excited to get started!

Hi World!

This is my blog for my Instructional Technology graduate class. Check back for educational ideas, thoughts, and much more...stay tuned!