High Techpectations

NECC'S ISTEVision: Podcasting for the Absolute Beginner

One of the best new features of the National Educational Computing Conference this year was the addition of the ISTEvision webcasting channel. Many presentations from this conference have been posted, including Larry Anderson's Podcasting for the Absolute Beginner. I've been fortunate to be a part of this session at NECC for the last four years. We had new additions to this group this year including Anna Adams and Helen Mowers, the famous Texas Tech Chicks. I'm looking forward to following their work; they seem really absorbed in learning as much as they can from everyone around them. Many thanks to Larry Anderson for continuing to support and mentor me; he's one of the finest people I know!

Seth's Blog: You Matter

Seth's Blog: You matter.

I've been enjoying a few entries from Seth Godin's blog including this post which reminds me of many of my Apple Distinguished Educators friends. It describes many of their attributes and I hope I evolve in this direction. 

For the past few years, I've really wrestled with whether or not my work or ideas matter; it's not particularly good for one's morale to think that you don't matter. I think the bottom line is to not expect validation from one's peers or colleagues and be happy if that does happen. However, I do think supervisors should always be mindful of this when looking at the big picture within in an organization. On a personal level, think about the last time you let someone know that their work, ideas, contributions etc. matter. Pay it foward!

For more worthwhile posts by Seth Godin, check out these other two that I appreciated recently:

Textbook Rant

Learning from the MBA Program

Moviemaking Curriculum on Apple's Web Site

Just noticed this downloadable moviemaking curriculum developed by Ross Kallen and Marco Torres. Click on the picture below to sign up on Apple's web site!

Apple - Education - High School Labs - Landing via kwout

Robomance: An iStopmotion Production

Fellow ADE Dan Schmit and I attended a stop motion workshop at Macworld sponsored by Boinx software, the creators of iStopMotion. The workshop was held at the Zeum, a very cool digital technology space for kids. For pictures of how the Zeum sets up its space for visiting school groups to do stop motion animation, check out my Flickr photos.

Here's our first attempt at this type of animation. We used previously created figures from the Zeum.

Apple Learning Interchange 2007 - Field Trip 2.0 Educators Group Page

Link: Apple Learning Interchange 2007 - Field Trip 2.0 Educators Group Page.

Hi All -

We've formed a group to support our ALI exhibit from this year's institute. Our goal is to encourage conversation around kicking field trips up a notch by adding digital components.

We'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas:

http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=12021

http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/group.php?id=15100

Additionally, we are planning on hosting a group live conversation using Flashmeeting in the near future. We'll post the date and time in our ALI group space when we have that set.

Thanks!

Apple Learning Interchange 2007 - Field Trip 2.0

Link: Apple Learning Interchange 2007 - Field Trip 2.0.

Here's the team project I worked on this summer as part of the 2007 ADE Summer Institute. It was really an enjoyable experience working with a fun team of people who produced and followed through on our plans. Make sure you check out the various movies and such that were created by my teammates. The great thing about the Apple Learning Interchange is that you can add such media directly to your iTunes library with a click of a button located in the right hand column of the page.

Speaking of plans, we are plannng adding content to this site as the year rolls along. In fact, I went on my first field trip at my new school two weeks ago, and need to do something with the material I collected. I also am planning on holding a videoconference on fieldtrips as some point so that educators can discuss interesting field trips and resources. 

Please take a minute to review our content. Leave a comment or two and rate our project!

Field Trips 2.0 Project

I am part of a group of teachers working on a project that we plan on submitting to the Apple Learning Interchange. Specifically, this project focuses on the idea of reinventing field trips as we traditionally know them. We'd like to show teachers how to plan effectively for mobile learning experiences, what great excursions look like, and help them kick field trips up a notch by taking advantage of collaborative opportunities, digital tools, and web-based resources.

Interested educators are welcome to join our project. There are a couple of ways you and/or your colleagues can help:

1) Add bookmarks to our resource collection in del.icio.us by tagging any great links with the tag: Fieldtrips2.0.

2) Let us link to your educational blogs, blog posts, and Google Earth files that deal with your own field trip experiences. We also would love links to geocaching projects. We will post your name and school along with any links you send.

3) Participate in a group audio and/or video. We want to record a conversation, preferably using iChat AV, between multiple educators on how to make a field trip work, particularly when using Apple stuff and other digital equipment.

Send any of us an email indicating strands of interest if you'd like to participate. Additional details will then follow.

Thanks in advance,

Lucy Gray - University of Chicago Charter School
Judy Beaver - Punahou School
Andrew Gardner - The School at Columbia
Julene Reed - St. George's Independent Schools
Mike Searson - Kean University

Friday 5 : Integrating Popular Music Across Disciplines

Please welcome our fourth Friday 5 special mystery guest, ADE Meredith Melragon. Meredith, incidentally, is joining me at my new place of employment and will serve as tech coach at Woodlawn High School, one of the University of Chicago Charter Schools. - LG

At the recent Rock Hall Teacher Institute, I highlighted a couple of ideas to consider:  popular music illustrates cultural pheomena, cultural production, economics, intellectual property, and the science of sound just for a few ideas. 

Ark of Noise -- Baschet Brothers sculptures

First Gershwin Prize for Popular Song

Music Genome Project

Steve Jobs thoughts on music

Metacritic

ADE Frappr Map

We are all over! I'm looking forward to meeting new ADEs at next week's Apple camp.

NECC 2007 Workshop Resources

Excuse multiple crossposts -

Julene Reed and I are teaching a workshop at NECC on global collaboration, and I've set up a series of resources to demonstrate during this class. I hope that these resources will live on as people become interested in sharing resources used to teach global awareness concepts. Please consider jumping in and joining any of these groups. Some of them are already seeded with material, but others are just getting started. Feel free to pass this info on to anyone you know that also might be interested.

If you are presenting on a simliar topic at NECC, please think about "crosspollinating" material in these spaces as well.

1) Global Education Ning group
http://globaleducation.ning.com/

2) Global Education Flickr group
http://flickr.com/groups/globaleducation/

3) Global Ed Google Group
http://groups.google.com/group/globaleducation

4) Global Education Collaborative Wikispace
http://globaleducationcollaborative.wikispaces.com/

5) I'm tagging any resources I bookmark with the tag globalawareness in Furl and in del.icio.us.

6) Google Calendar for Global Education - enter your NECC global awareness events here, for instance.

If you think of other similar resources we should include, please send me suggestions.  Thanks!!!

The Global Education Collaborative

Link: The Global Education Collaborative.

Excuse the multiple cross-postings on various listservs etc....

Please consider joining a Ning community on global education: http://globaleducation.ning.com/

At the National Educational Computing Conference to be held in Atlanta, Georgia this June, fellow Apple Distinguished Educator Julene Reed and I will be hosting a workshop on global collaboration. I plan on utilizing a variety of tools and resources throughout this hands-on class, including Ning, a service that allows one to establish a custom social networking site. I am hoping to seed this site with people and content in preparation for this workshop, and I would like to invite anyone to jump in and participate.

I've made a few prior attempts at creating an online meeting space for those interested in global collaboration which included the establishment of a .Mac group and a blog. While I still plan on posting to these resources, I think this environment might be more inviting because it allows for the posting of photos, videos, and RSS feeds. Users can make their own custom personal pages, contribute to discussion forums, network with other like-minded individuals, and comment on these features. I've been inspired by the success of Steve Hargadon's Classroom 2.0 and School 2.0 Ning communities, particularly by the forum conversations in the Classroom 2.0 one.

I also hope that this will also serve as a hub for anyone who will be presenting at conferences on various global education topics. Please consider uploading any relevant files including presentation slides. You can upload slides to sites such as SlideShare and Scribd, which I think, will give you the html code to embed videos in a Ning community. If you need help with any of this, just let me know.. it's pretty easy. Of course, you can probably also save slideshows as Quicktime files and upload them directly, too.

Please let me know if you have any questions...

Friday 5: Special Mystery Guest: Astronomy

Greetings -

This week's list comes to us from the one and only Karen Thompson of Springfield, Illinois, another Apple Distinguished Educator. She is a stellar person, no pun intended!

Next week's list will feature summer professional development opportunities... send along any suggestions that you think should be included!

Thanks,

Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail.com
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The spring equinox is March 21, 2007. I started this list of websites with Stellarium. It offers so many delightful explorations for students!

1)  Stellarium

A free open source planetarium for your computer.

2)   Springfield Public Schools - Stellarium Projects

I’ve listed some of the lessons we’re using with our 6th graders.

3)  Open Astronomy Curriculum

Stellarium is great, and this will get you started in some meaningful explorations.

4)     Bad Astronomy

I know it’s going to come up, so as long as we’re talking about the equinox, let’s not forget about standing eggs on their ends. Don’t miss the Bad Astronomy website and the discussion on the eggs and the equinox.

5)  The Ceres Project

Did you see the recent lunar eclipse? Stellarium makes it very easy to preview these events. If you’re looking at the moon, let’s explore the Birthday Moons!

6) Time Exhibits

And if you’re looking for more information on the change to daylight savings time, check out this site.

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Karen Thompson started her teaching career as a middle school science teacher with a slide rule in hand. Currently she is an instructional technology facilitator in Springfield, Illinois and serves as a school board member in the consolidated school district of Tri-City in Buffalo, Illinois. Karen is currently using her vision of educational technology to help guide her district’s 1 to 1 laptop program for 800 6th graders.

Mapping Literary Journeys: Google Lit Trips

There's a new post up at the Infinite Thinking Machine that focuses on the new project of my fellow Apple Distinguished Educator and Google Certified Teacher, Jerome Burg. Jerome has instituted a project called Google Lit Trips, which are essentially guided tours of resources related to books within Google Earth. Check it out and consider making a lit trip of your own to submit to this site!

I have an idea for a collaborative Google Lit Trip that I'll post here later!

Resources Worth Mentioning

I've been audio and video chatting a great deal with fellow ADES recently, and I thought I'd pass on a couple of resources I've learned of via these conversations. First, check out Rae Niles' web site, and particularly this page. She's created simple video tutorials for basic thinks like CD burning. And, Judy Beaver recommmended a blog maintained by a colleage at the Punahou School as well as a book by Dr. Sally Shaywitz. Judy heard Dr. Shaywitz speak at this Learning and Brain conference. And, Judy and Kris Hill both discussed a reading intervention product called Fast ForWord that might be of interested to blog readers.