http://www.odeo.com/channels/1202-Teach42 no Education and Technology by Steve Dembo Education and Technology by Steve Dembo Education and Technology by Steve Dembo en 40 Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:32:34 -0700 Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:32:34 -0700 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25244667-What-can-you-do-with-a-cell-phone-in-the-classroom Matt Monjan let me know that the Simpsons spoofed cell phones in the classroom this past weekend. Yes, it’s funny, but it’s also frustrating because there’s so many hints of truth in there. Give the segment a watch before continuing. Yes, it’s a comedy, but comedies are only funny if there’s kernels of truth in there. The kids are distracted by the phones. When asked what they’re using them for, they know the stock answers and can rattle them off without thinking. But there’s a big difference between a student rattling off an answer that they think will satisfy an inquiry, and a teacher actually using a mobile device for educational purposes. And all too often, the solution is pretty similar to what you see in the clip… lock it away and pretend it doesn’t exist. Fact is, they aren’t going away. If anything, they’re only becoming more and more prevalent. School budgets are tight, and here we are with millions of dollar... Matt Monjan let me know that the Simpsons spoofed cell phones in the classroom this past weekend. Yes, it’s funny, but it’s also frustrating because there’s so many hints of truth in there. Give the segment a watch before continuing. Yes, it’s a comedy, but comedies are only funny if there’s kernels of truth in there. The kids are distracted by the phones. When asked what they’re using them for, they know the stock answers and can rattle them off without thinking. But there’s a big difference between a student rattling off an answer that they think will satisfy an inquiry, and a teacher actually using a mobile device for educational purposes. And all too often, the solution is pretty similar to what you see in the clip… lock it away and pretend it doesn’t exist. Fact is, they aren’t going away. If anything, they’re only becoming more and more prevalent. School budgets are tight, and here we are with millions of dollars in technology that’s being paid for by the parents VOLUNTARILY… and most schools refuse to leverage it because of outdated policies and teachers that don’t want to modify their own classroom management strategies. I’ve heard it thousands of times it seems, “cell phones are a distraction in class.” That’s great. So is the class pet, a window, a paper clip and pencil/paper. Isn’t teaching students to overcome these distractions part of what we do in the classroom? Heck, I used to focus on that in kindergarten! “Maybe you should put that toy behind you right now because it’s circle time. You can play with it again during choice time.” Saying that cell phones should be banned in schools because they’re ‘too distracting’ is a cop out. If your current classroom management model can’t incorporate mobile devices…. well, then it’s time to do some unlearning and relearning. When I saw Jeremy Davis recently, he told me of an educator who uses cell phones in the classroom. In fact, this teacher requires that the cell phone be out and ON the desk. In plain site. Not hidden in a pocket or backpack. So if the student is using it, the teacher KNOWS. And if the student is using it when they shouldn’t… Well, that’s when there are consequences. Phone is confiscated until the end of the week, or the parent can pay a $25 fine to get it back for their student. Sure, there were plenty of students who lost their phones, and plenty of fines paid. They used the money to pay for a field trip before the end of the year. But the point is, the students learned when it was ok to be using the phone as a learning device, and when it was inappropriate. Believe me, no student wants to go to his parents and let them know that they need $25 to get their phone back… and explain why. Sure, we can keep fighting to keep cell phones hidden or banned in schools. But it’s a battle that schools can’t win. Life progresses, things change. Like it or not, these devices are here to stay, and adoption rates are racing towards 100+%. I suggest teachers be proactive. Because there’s a tidal wave coming and you can either ride with it, or have it crash into you. Related articles by Zemanta Hi Tech Cheating – Do Your Kids Do It? (dadventure.ca) Devices locate kids, parents find peace of mind (seattletimes.nwsource.com) Matt Monjan let me know that the Simpsons spoofed cell phones in the classroom this past weekend. Yes, it’s funny, but it’s also frustrating because there’s so many hints of truth in there. Give the segment a watch before continuing. Yes, it’s a comedy, but comedies are only funny if there’s kernels of truth in there. The kids are distracted by the phones. When asked what they’re using them for, they know the stock answers and can rattle them off without thinking. But there’s a big difference between a student rattling off an answer that they think will satisfy an inquiry, and a teacher actually using a mobile device for educational purposes. And all too often, the solution is pretty similar to what you see in the clip… lock it away and pretend it doesn’t exist. Fact is, they aren’t going away. If anything, they’re only becoming more and more prevalent. School budgets are tight, and here we are with millions of dollars in technology that’s being paid for by the parents VOLUNTARILY… and most schools refuse to leverage it because of outdated policies and teachers that don’t want to modify their own classroom management strategies. I’ve heard it thousands of times it seems, “cell phones are a distraction in class.” That’s great. So is the class pet, a window, a paper clip and pencil/paper. Isn’t teaching students to overcome these distractions part of what we do in the classroom? Heck, I used to focus on that in kindergarten! “Maybe you should put that toy behind you right now because it’s circle time. You can play with it again during choice time.” Saying that cell phones should be banned in schools because they’re ‘too distracting’ is a cop out. If your current classroom management model can’t incorporate mobile devices…. well, then it’s time to do some unlearning and relearning. When I saw Jeremy Davis recently, he told me of an educator who uses cell phones in the classroom. In fact, this teacher requires that the cell phone be out and ON the desk. In plain site. Not hidden in a pocket or backpack. So if the student is using it, the teacher KNOWS. And if the student is using it when they shouldn’t… Well, that’s when there are consequences. Phone is confiscated until the end of the week, or the parent can pay a $25 fine to get it back for their student. Sure, there were plenty of students who lost their phones, and plenty of fines paid. They used the money to pay for a field trip before the end of the year. But the point is, the students learned when it was ok to be using the phone as a learning device, and when it was inappropriate. Believe me, no student wants to go to his parents and let them know that they need $25 to get their phone back… and explain why. Sure, we can keep fighting to keep cell phones hidden or banned in schools. But it’s a battle that schools can’t win. Life progresses, things change. Like it or not, these devices are here to stay, and adoption rates are racing towards 100+%. I suggest teachers be proactive. Because there’s a tidal wave coming and you can either ride with it, or have it crash into you. Related articles by Zemanta Hi Tech Cheating – Do Your Kids Do It? (dadventure.ca) Devices locate kids, parents find peace of mind (seattletimes.nwsource.com) tag:odeo.com,2009-10-06,25244667 Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:32:34 -0700 no Teach42 Education, Tech, Mobile, teacher, cell phone, classroom, mobile phone, science and technology, Classroom management http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25171189-This-is-just-a-test-for-Syracuse This is a blog post This is a blog post This is a blog post tag:odeo.com,2009-09-23,25171189 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:20:01 -0700 no Teach42 musings http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25104404-Mandatory-YouTube-Videos Image via CrunchBase I was talking to a friend of mine today about different videos on YouTube, and I was astonished by how many videos that I consider to be ‘mandatory viewing’ he hadn’t seen. I’m not talking about the video of my son’s bris (although it IS compelling), I mean some of the videos that have simply rocked me out of my chair and have caused me to spend days thinking about the implications of them. Or that I still pull out as examples during presentations or forward on to colleagues on a regular basis. So with that, I figured it’s time to share some of my favorite videos on YouTube. Not necessarily the funniest, or the most popular, but ones that I think every educator should see at least once. Ones that I feel are significant for one reason or another. Not a complete list by any means either. Consider it a starting point. Take a look through them, but also take a few minutes to consider what’s missing from this list. Are there ... Image via CrunchBase I was talking to a friend of mine today about different videos on YouTube, and I was astonished by how many videos that I consider to be ‘mandatory viewing’ he hadn’t seen. I’m not talking about the video of my son’s bris (although it IS compelling), I mean some of the videos that have simply rocked me out of my chair and have caused me to spend days thinking about the implications of them. Or that I still pull out as examples during presentations or forward on to colleagues on a regular basis. So with that, I figured it’s time to share some of my favorite videos on YouTube. Not necessarily the funniest, or the most popular, but ones that I think every educator should see at least once. Ones that I feel are significant for one reason or another. Not a complete list by any means either. Consider it a starting point. Take a look through them, but also take a few minutes to consider what’s missing from this list. Are there any that you consider to be mandatory? If so, share a link to them in the comments so we can all add them to our lists. Enjoy! Image via CrunchBase I was talking to a friend of mine today about different videos on YouTube, and I was astonished by how many videos that I consider to be ‘mandatory viewing’ he hadn’t seen. I’m not talking about the video of my son’s bris (although it IS compelling), I mean some of the videos that have simply rocked me out of my chair and have caused me to spend days thinking about the implications of them. Or that I still pull out as examples during presentations or forward on to colleagues on a regular basis. So with that, I figured it’s time to share some of my favorite videos on YouTube. Not necessarily the funniest, or the most popular, but ones that I think every educator should see at least once. Ones that I feel are significant for one reason or another. Not a complete list by any means either. Consider it a starting point. Take a look through them, but also take a few minutes to consider what’s missing from this list. Are there any that you consider to be mandatory? If so, share a link to them in the comments so we can all add them to our lists. Enjoy! tag:odeo.com,2009-09-10,25104404 Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:52:07 -0700 no Teach42 musings http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24834709-Top-10-FREE-Web-2-0-Sites-for-Educators-NECC-Edition I’ve had several requests via email for my Top 10 presentation from NECC, and realized that I should probably post it here. Of course, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing! So here’s a link to the presentation slides, such as they are. Most of the presentation is live demonstrations, so they’re only of limited value by themselves. Here’s a link to the ISTE broadcast of the session. Video looks and sounds great, but they didn’t record what I was doing on the screen until 20 minutes in. Then there’s my own personal broadcast of it using Procaster and Livestream. It has what’s happening on my screen throughout the entire presentation. However, the camera angle isn’t exactly the most flattering one I could have chosen I’ve had several requests via email for my Top 10 presentation from NECC, and realized that I should probably post it here. Of course, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing! So here’s a link to the presentation slides, such as they are. Most of the presentation is live demonstrations, so they’re only of limited value by themselves. Here’s a link to the ISTE broadcast of the session. Video looks and sounds great, but they didn’t record what I was doing on the screen until 20 minutes in. Then there’s my own personal broadcast of it using Procaster and Livestream. It has what’s happening on my screen throughout the entire presentation. However, the camera angle isn’t exactly the most flattering one I could have chosen I’ve had several requests via email for my Top 10 presentation from NECC, and realized that I should probably post it here. Of course, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing! So here’s a link to the presentation slides, such as they are. Most of the presentation is live demonstrations, so they’re only of limited value by themselves. Here’s a link to the ISTE broadcast of the session. Video looks and sounds great, but they didn’t record what I was doing on the screen until 20 minutes in. Then there’s my own personal broadcast of it using Procaster and Livestream. It has what’s happening on my screen throughout the entire presentation. However, the camera angle isn’t exactly the most flattering one I could have chosen tag:odeo.com,2009-07-20,24834709 Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:17:12 -0700 no Teach42 Podcasting, Web 2.0, free, Top 10, Education, web2.0, Presentations, teachers, educators, dembo, teach42, NECC, necc09, ISTE http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24767091-Destination-irrelevant Found via EDITing in the Dark I’ve been a Mythbusters fan, long before I started working for Discovery. What blew me away when I had the opportunity to meet them, was that I discovered there was absolutely no acting on the show. They really are as passionate about learning as they seem to be. So when I found out that Adam had a TED talk, it was no surprise to me that he focused all of his energy talking about how he focuses all his energy on his own personal learning journeys. So as you watch this video, just think about one thing… what are our students this passionate about, when do they have the opportunity to express it, and what do we do to foster it? Found via EDITing in the Dark I’ve been a Mythbusters fan, long before I started working for Discovery. What blew me away when I had the opportunity to meet them, was that I discovered there was absolutely no acting on the show. They really are as passionate about learning as they seem to be. So when I found out that Adam had a TED talk, it was no surprise to me that he focused all of his energy talking about how he focuses all his energy on his own personal learning journeys. So as you watch this video, just think about one thing… what are our students this passionate about, when do they have the opportunity to express it, and what do we do to foster it? Found via EDITing in the Dark I’ve been a Mythbusters fan, long before I started working for Discovery. What blew me away when I had the opportunity to meet them, was that I discovered there was absolutely no acting on the show. They really are as passionate about learning as they seem to be. So when I found out that Adam had a TED talk, it was no surprise to me that he focused all of his energy talking about how he focuses all his energy on his own personal learning journeys. So as you watch this video, just think about one thing… what are our students this passionate about, when do they have the opportunity to express it, and what do we do to foster it? tag:odeo.com,2009-07-07,24767091 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:10:16 -0700 no Teach42 Education, mythbusters, musings, ted, Discovery Channel, Adam Savage, Discovery Education http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24591063-Little-Red-Riding-Hood-Remixed Image by P_mod via Flickr Found this on Dan Pink’s blog: I mentioned before how much I love the idea of turning assignments into creative briefs. So what happens if you take a fairy tale that’s near and dear to all our hearts, and give it a new spin? While this wasn’t done by a student, just imagine if you allowed students to take the same story, and remix it with other genres. As film noir. As claymation. As series of commercials. As GoAnimate cartoon. As an episode of 24. As a Cloverfield/Blair Witch style movie. And so on… Watch the video and see. By the way, I highly recommend you view this one in full screen mode. Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo. Image by P_mod via Flickr Found this on Dan Pink’s blog: I mentioned before how much I love the idea of turning assignments into creative briefs. So what happens if you take a fairy tale that’s near and dear to all our hearts, and give it a new spin? While this wasn’t done by a student, just imagine if you allowed students to take the same story, and remix it with other genres. As film noir. As claymation. As series of commercials. As GoAnimate cartoon. As an episode of 24. As a Cloverfield/Blair Witch style movie. And so on… Watch the video and see. By the way, I highly recommend you view this one in full screen mode. Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo. Image by P_mod via Flickr Found this on Dan Pink’s blog: I mentioned before how much I love the idea of turning assignments into creative briefs. So what happens if you take a fairy tale that’s near and dear to all our hearts, and give it a new spin? While this wasn’t done by a student, just imagine if you allowed students to take the same story, and remix it with other genres. As film noir. As claymation. As series of commercials. As GoAnimate cartoon. As an episode of 24. As a Cloverfield/Blair Witch style movie. And so on… Watch the video and see. By the way, I highly recommend you view this one in full screen mode. Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo. tag:odeo.com,2009-05-21,24591063 Thu, 21 May 2009 08:38:46 -0700 no Teach42 fairy tale, digital storytelling, thomas nilsson, red robin hood http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24278551-Qik-vs-uStream-mobile Will be doing a series of tests comparing the recently released uStream mobile app and Qik on the Nokia N85 that I’m borrowing from WOM world. Embedded players are edited below. When I’m broadcasting, the windows below will be live. Otherwise, they’ll have the most recent videos from each respective service. Let me know what you think! Qik: uStream: Free TV : Ustream Will be doing a series of tests comparing the recently released uStream mobile app and Qik on the Nokia N85 that I’m borrowing from WOM world. Embedded players are edited below. When I’m broadcasting, the windows below will be live. Otherwise, they’ll have the most recent videos from each respective service. Let me know what you think! Qik: uStream: Free TV : Ustream Will be doing a series of tests comparing the recently released uStream mobile app and Qik on the Nokia N85 that I’m borrowing from WOM world. Embedded players are edited below. When I’m broadcasting, the windows below will be live. Otherwise, they’ll have the most recent videos from each respective service. Let me know what you think! Qik: uStream: Free TV : Ustream tag:odeo.com,2009-03-09,24278551 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:51:24 -0700 no Teach42 musings http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24241107-Wednesday-morning-video-break No specific educational tie in to this one. Unless you think there’s more to life than test scores and that art appreciation is an important part of educating well rounded students. Enjoy. No specific educational tie in to this one. Unless you think there’s more to life than test scores and that art appreciation is an important part of educating well rounded students. Enjoy. No specific educational tie in to this one. Unless you think there’s more to life than test scores and that art appreciation is an important part of educating well rounded students. Enjoy. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-04,24241107 Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:53:32 -0800 no Teach42 video, youtube, Education, art, wow tenspace http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24232381-A-few-highlights-from-ICE09 Illinois Computing Educators 2009 has come and gone! I’m too tired to write a coherant wrap up post right now, but I will say this: There was a closeness, family type of feeling there this year beyond what I’ve seen in years past. Not that it hasn’t always been a tight knit group, and a wonderful conference to attend, but this year it seemed to be a little more so than in years past. I can only attribute it to 3 things. 1) The addition of the PLN Plaza. An open lounge type area for people to network/hangout/plurk in. Scott Meech did a fantastic job putting it together and keeping it active. 2) The bar area being smoke free. In previous years, only the smokers would hang out there, and everyone else would do their best to hold their breath and race past it. This year, it was a place for anyone and everyone to congregate. And congregate they did. 3) The attendance of Kevin Honeycutt. Not to take anything away from anybody else who was a speaker or traveled many many ... Illinois Computing Educators 2009 has come and gone! I’m too tired to write a coherant wrap up post right now, but I will say this: There was a closeness, family type of feeling there this year beyond what I’ve seen in years past. Not that it hasn’t always been a tight knit group, and a wonderful conference to attend, but this year it seemed to be a little more so than in years past. I can only attribute it to 3 things. 1) The addition of the PLN Plaza. An open lounge type area for people to network/hangout/plurk in. Scott Meech did a fantastic job putting it together and keeping it active. 2) The bar area being smoke free. In previous years, only the smokers would hang out there, and everyone else would do their best to hold their breath and race past it. This year, it was a place for anyone and everyone to congregate. And congregate they did. 3) The attendance of Kevin Honeycutt. Not to take anything away from anybody else who was a speaker or traveled many many miles to come, but I must say hanging out with Kevin was like a breath of fresh air. Truly a kind and genuine human being and it was a pleasure to watch him ‘in action’. So, with that, I’ll just share two highlights. So long as we’re on the subject of good feelings, Thursday night Kevin broke out his guitar and we were treated to a fantastic jam session. Here’s just a little taste of it. The second is my ‘geekbumps’ highlight of the conference floor. The latest and greatest from SMART. Their response to the Microsoft Surface. But this thing is produced for the consumer market and ready for sale. I played around with it for about 10 minutes and was way impressed. It ain’t cheap, but it truly is a magnificent piece of technology. The vendor showing it was Bradfield’s, so if you’re interested in it feel free to drop them a line. Illinois Computing Educators 2009 has come and gone! I’m too tired to write a coherant wrap up post right now, but I will say this: There was a closeness, family type of feeling there this year beyond what I’ve seen in years past. Not that it hasn’t always been a tight knit group, and a wonderful conference to attend, but this year it seemed to be a little more so than in years past. I can only attribute it to 3 things. 1) The addition of the PLN Plaza. An open lounge type area for people to network/hangout/plurk in. Scott Meech did a fantastic job putting it together and keeping it active. 2) The bar area being smoke free. In previous years, only the smokers would hang out there, and everyone else would do their best to hold their breath and race past it. This year, it was a place for anyone and everyone to congregate. And congregate they did. 3) The attendance of Kevin Honeycutt. Not to take anything away from anybody else who was a speaker or traveled many many miles to come, but I must say hanging out with Kevin was like a breath of fresh air. Truly a kind and genuine human being and it was a pleasure to watch him ‘in action’. So, with that, I’ll just share two highlights. So long as we’re on the subject of good feelings, Thursday night Kevin broke out his guitar and we were treated to a fantastic jam session. Here’s just a little taste of it. The second is my ‘geekbumps’ highlight of the conference floor. The latest and greatest from SMART. Their response to the Microsoft Surface. But this thing is produced for the consumer market and ready for sale. I played around with it for about 10 minutes and was way impressed. It ain’t cheap, but it truly is a magnificent piece of technology. The vendor showing it was Bradfield’s, so if you’re interested in it feel free to drop them a line. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-27,24232381 Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:21:52 -0800 no Teach42 conference, Technology, Conferences, Education, ice, multitouch, illinois, microsoft surface, dembo, teach42, PLN, ICE Conference, ICE09, S.M.A.R.T., scott meech, kevin honeycutt http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24167248-Your-Digital-Dossier Andy Carvin shared this video via tweet that does in incredible job of summing up what the New Permanent Record is, in a much more succinct way than I’ve ever managed to. As you watch this video, consider what these students will look like when they enter your classroom. Honestly, will they care one whit whether you put their first and last name on the same page as their photo? Will their parents insist that you keep their identity private… or will they insist that you exhibit their learning publicly? Is your school prepared for students that will have a larger digital portfolio before they enter kindergarten, than most of us educators have as adults? Enjoy: Andy Carvin shared this video via tweet that does in incredible job of summing up what the New Permanent Record is, in a much more succinct way than I’ve ever managed to. As you watch this video, consider what these students will look like when they enter your classroom. Honestly, will they care one whit whether you put their first and last name on the same page as their photo? Will their parents insist that you keep their identity private… or will they insist that you exhibit their learning publicly? Is your school prepared for students that will have a larger digital portfolio before they enter kindergarten, than most of us educators have as adults? Enjoy: Andy Carvin shared this video via tweet that does in incredible job of summing up what the New Permanent Record is, in a much more succinct way than I’ve ever managed to. As you watch this video, consider what these students will look like when they enter your classroom. Honestly, will they care one whit whether you put their first and last name on the same page as their photo? Will their parents insist that you keep their identity private… or will they insist that you exhibit their learning publicly? Is your school prepared for students that will have a larger digital portfolio before they enter kindergarten, than most of us educators have as adults? Enjoy: tag:odeo.com,2009-02-19,24167248 Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:16:16 -0800 no Teach42 youtube, twitter, Education, Social networking, policy, musings, kindergarten, educators, dembo, teach42, new permanent record, K through 12, Andy Carvin http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24132448-Your-Digital-Dossier Andy Carvin shared this video via tweet that does in incredible job of summing up what the New Permanent Record is, in a much more succinct way than I’ve ever managed to. As you watch this video, consider what these students will look like when they enter your classroom. Honestly, will they care one whit whether you put their first and last name on the same page as their photo? Will their parents insist that you keep their identity private… or will they insist that you exhibit their learning publicly? Is your school prepared for students that will have a larger digital portfolio before they enter kindergarten, than most of us educators have as adults? Enjoy: Andy Carvin shared this video via tweet that does in incredible job of summing up what the New Permanent Record is, in a much more succinct way than I’ve ever managed to. As you watch this video, consider what these students will look like when they enter your classroom. Honestly, will they care one whit whether you put their first and last name on the same page as their photo? Will their parents insist that you keep their identity private… or will they insist that you exhibit their learning publicly? Is your school prepared for students that will have a larger digital portfolio before they enter kindergarten, than most of us educators have as adults? Enjoy: Andy Carvin shared this video via tweet that does in incredible job of summing up what the New Permanent Record is, in a much more succinct way than I’ve ever managed to. As you watch this video, consider what these students will look like when they enter your classroom. Honestly, will they care one whit whether you put their first and last name on the same page as their photo? Will their parents insist that you keep their identity private… or will they insist that you exhibit their learning publicly? Is your school prepared for students that will have a larger digital portfolio before they enter kindergarten, than most of us educators have as adults? Enjoy: tag:odeo.com,2009-02-19,24132448 Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:16:16 -0800 no Teach42 youtube, twitter, Education, Social networking, policy, musings, kindergarten, educators, dembo, teach42, new permanent record, K through 12, Andy Carvin http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24207667-It%E2%80%99s-not-an-assignment-it%E2%80%99s-a-creative-brief One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs. For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better. I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think th... One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs. For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better. I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think they’d certainly appreciate having the freedom to do some self-expression, and who knows what they might learn in the process….. in addition to the actual curriculum they were supposed to learn. Bonus perk, you aren’t wasting extra in class time on this. It’s up to them. One other example, so long as we’re on a musical kick. Check out this video Lisa Thumann shared on Twitter. You may say, “But the video doesn’t truly demonstrate their knowledge! I mean, could a student really learn anything just from this YouTube video?” I’ll let the author of the video respond, by sharing a comment he left someone asking that very question on YouTube. This video was a project to summarize trig formulas and to create a song parody. It’s not intended to be a a study guide. Here’s a suggestion for doing well in trig. Read from your textbook; don’t go on youtube to get your answers. One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs. For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better. I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think they’d certainly appreciate having the freedom to do some self-expression, and who knows what they might learn in the process….. in addition to the actual curriculum they were supposed to learn. Bonus perk, you aren’t wasting extra in class time on this. It’s up to them. One other example, so long as we’re on a musical kick. Check out this video Lisa Thumann shared on Twitter. You may say, “But the video doesn’t truly demonstrate their knowledge! I mean, could a student really learn anything just from this YouTube video?” I’ll let the author of the video respond, by sharing a comment he left someone asking that very question on YouTube. This video was a project to summarize trig formulas and to create a song parody. It’s not intended to be a a study guide. Here’s a suggestion for doing well in trig. Read from your textbook; don’t go on youtube to get your answers. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-12,24207667 Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:31:29 -0800 no Teach42 Web 2.0, youtube, Lessons, students, learning, class, creativity, digital storytelling, design brief, personal learning network, eucation, assignments, creative brief http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24167249-It%E2%80%99s-not-an-assignment-it%E2%80%99s-a-creative-brief One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs. For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better. I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think th... One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs. For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better. I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think they’d certainly appreciate having the freedom to do some self-expression, and who knows what they might learn in the process….. in addition to the actual curriculum they were supposed to learn. Bonus perk, you aren’t wasting extra in class time on this. It’s up to them. One other example, so long as we’re on a musical kick. Check out this video Lisa Thumann shared on Twitter. You may say, “But the video doesn’t truly demonstrate their knowledge! I mean, could a student really learn anything just from this YouTube video?” I’ll let the author of the video respond, by sharing a comment he left someone asking that very question on YouTube. This video was a project to summarize trig formulas and to create a song parody. It’s not intended to be a a study guide. Here’s a suggestion for doing well in trig. Read from your textbook; don’t go on youtube to get your answers. One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs. For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better. I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think they’d certainly appreciate having the freedom to do some self-expression, and who knows what they might learn in the process….. in addition to the actual curriculum they were supposed to learn. Bonus perk, you aren’t wasting extra in class time on this. It’s up to them. One other example, so long as we’re on a musical kick. Check out this video Lisa Thumann shared on Twitter. You may say, “But the video doesn’t truly demonstrate their knowledge! I mean, could a student really learn anything just from this YouTube video?” I’ll let the author of the video respond, by sharing a comment he left someone asking that very question on YouTube. This video was a project to summarize trig formulas and to create a song parody. It’s not intended to be a a study guide. Here’s a suggestion for doing well in trig. Read from your textbook; don’t go on youtube to get your answers. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-12,24167249 Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:31:29 -0800 no Teach42 Web 2.0, youtube, Lessons, students, learning, class, creativity, digital storytelling, design brief, personal learning network, eucation, assignments, creative brief http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24079976-It%E2%80%99s-not-an-assignment-it%E2%80%99s-a-creative-brief One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs. For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better. I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think th... One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs. For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better. I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think they’d certainly appreciate having the freedom to do some self-expression, and who knows what they might learn in the process….. in addition to the actual curriculum they were supposed to learn. Bonus perk, you aren’t wasting extra in class time on this. It’s up to them. One other example, so long as we’re on a musical kick. Check out this video Lisa Thumann shared on Twitter. You may say, “But the video doesn’t truly demonstrate their knowledge! I mean, could a student really learn anything just from this YouTube video?” I’ll let the author of the video respond, by sharing a comment he left someone asking that very question on YouTube. This video was a project to summarize trig formulas and to create a song parody. It’s not intended to be a a study guide. Here’s a suggestion for doing well in trig. Read from your textbook; don’t go on youtube to get your answers. One of the nuggets that stood out to me from PETE&C was a comment made during a presentation by the two EdTechInnovators, Ben Smith and Jared Mader (I listed Ben first because he was left off the poster at the conference). They were describing how technology can be seemless in the classroom, not something you teach, but something that just… is. And one thing that they mentioned (I think it was Ben), was that he doesn’t feel like he gives assignments anymore, he gives creative briefs. For example, if the students are expected to learn about different types of waves, he wouldn’t ask them to write a report, or to create a powerpoint, or to make a collage. He would ask them to demonstrate their knowledge. If they chose to create a video podcast with original music and lyrics, then so be it. If fact, so much the better. I love the idea. Make it clear what the goals are. Make it clear what you’ll be assessing them on. And then give them some freedom. I think they’d certainly appreciate having the freedom to do some self-expression, and who knows what they might learn in the process….. in addition to the actual curriculum they were supposed to learn. Bonus perk, you aren’t wasting extra in class time on this. It’s up to them. One other example, so long as we’re on a musical kick. Check out this video Lisa Thumann shared on Twitter. You may say, “But the video doesn’t truly demonstrate their knowledge! I mean, could a student really learn anything just from this YouTube video?” I’ll let the author of the video respond, by sharing a comment he left someone asking that very question on YouTube. This video was a project to summarize trig formulas and to create a song parody. It’s not intended to be a a study guide. Here’s a suggestion for doing well in trig. Read from your textbook; don’t go on youtube to get your answers. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-12,24079976 Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:31:29 -0800 no Teach42 Web 2.0, youtube, Lessons, students, learning, class, creativity, digital storytelling, design brief, personal learning network, eucation, assignments, creative brief http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24167250-Film-on-the-Fly Image by Getty Images via Daylife Janet English over at KOCE has been hard at work putting together the Film on the Fly video challenge and yesterday was the big day! Early in the day, she sent out a text message to everyone who signed up with the prompt: “Everything changed - when the box mysteriously arrived at my doorstep.” The challenge was to then grab your cell phone and create a short story (2 minutes or less) based on that prompt, filmed entirely on your cell phone. The results have already been fantastically creative. You can see the videos over at their group ning, FilmontheFly.ning.com. Two of my favorites so far were Hall Davidson’s, who actually did his while in the security line at the airport. You gotta see it to believe it. Yes, he got his phone back and the men with the rubber gloves were surprisingly gentle! My other favorite was a Dr. Seuss style incredibly creative story featuring hand drawn images. Matt Monjan and I are in Pennsylvania together... Image by Getty Images via Daylife Janet English over at KOCE has been hard at work putting together the Film on the Fly video challenge and yesterday was the big day! Early in the day, she sent out a text message to everyone who signed up with the prompt: “Everything changed - when the box mysteriously arrived at my doorstep.” The challenge was to then grab your cell phone and create a short story (2 minutes or less) based on that prompt, filmed entirely on your cell phone. The results have already been fantastically creative. You can see the videos over at their group ning, FilmontheFly.ning.com. Two of my favorites so far were Hall Davidson’s, who actually did his while in the security line at the airport. You gotta see it to believe it. Yes, he got his phone back and the men with the rubber gloves were surprisingly gentle! My other favorite was a Dr. Seuss style incredibly creative story featuring hand drawn images. Matt Monjan and I are in Pennsylvania together right now and decided to team up for it. We shot the entire thing on my Nokia N95 and then did just a touch of editing. We used iMovie 6 and pieced the entire thing together in about an hour or so. If you think this looks like fun… well, it is. And if you’d like to be a part of the next one, you can. The next Film on the Fly is going to be on 3/14: PI DAY! I can’t wait. To signup, visit FilmOnTheFly. So here’s our entry. Hope you enjoy it! Image by Getty Images via Daylife Janet English over at KOCE has been hard at work putting together the Film on the Fly video challenge and yesterday was the big day! Early in the day, she sent out a text message to everyone who signed up with the prompt: “Everything changed - when the box mysteriously arrived at my doorstep.” The challenge was to then grab your cell phone and create a short story (2 minutes or less) based on that prompt, filmed entirely on your cell phone. The results have already been fantastically creative. You can see the videos over at their group ning, FilmontheFly.ning.com. Two of my favorites so far were Hall Davidson’s, who actually did his while in the security line at the airport. You gotta see it to believe it. Yes, he got his phone back and the men with the rubber gloves were surprisingly gentle! My other favorite was a Dr. Seuss style incredibly creative story featuring hand drawn images. Matt Monjan and I are in Pennsylvania together right now and decided to team up for it. We shot the entire thing on my Nokia N95 and then did just a touch of editing. We used iMovie 6 and pieced the entire thing together in about an hour or so. If you think this looks like fun… well, it is. And if you’d like to be a part of the next one, you can. The next Film on the Fly is going to be on 3/14: PI DAY! I can’t wait. To signup, visit FilmOnTheFly. So here’s our entry. Hope you enjoy it! tag:odeo.com,2009-02-09,24167250 Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:01:40 -0800 no Teach42 video, youtube, Mobile, dembo, film on the fly, monjan, fotf, filmonthefly http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24057547-Film-on-the-Fly Image by Getty Images via Daylife Janet English over at KOCE has been hard at work putting together the Film on the Fly video challenge and yesterday was the big day! Early in the day, she sent out a text message to everyone who signed up with the prompt: “Everything changed - when the box mysteriously arrived at my doorstep.” The challenge was to then grab your cell phone and create a short story (2 minutes or less) based on that prompt, filmed entirely on your cell phone. The results have already been fantastically creative. You can see the videos over at their group ning, FilmontheFly.ning.com. Two of my favorites so far were Hall Davidson’s, who actually did his while in the security line at the airport. You gotta see it to believe it. Yes, he got his phone back and the men with the rubber gloves were surprisingly gentle! My other favorite was a Dr. Seuss style incredibly creative story featuring hand drawn images. Matt Monjan and I are in Pennsylvania together... Image by Getty Images via Daylife Janet English over at KOCE has been hard at work putting together the Film on the Fly video challenge and yesterday was the big day! Early in the day, she sent out a text message to everyone who signed up with the prompt: “Everything changed - when the box mysteriously arrived at my doorstep.” The challenge was to then grab your cell phone and create a short story (2 minutes or less) based on that prompt, filmed entirely on your cell phone. The results have already been fantastically creative. You can see the videos over at their group ning, FilmontheFly.ning.com. Two of my favorites so far were Hall Davidson’s, who actually did his while in the security line at the airport. You gotta see it to believe it. Yes, he got his phone back and the men with the rubber gloves were surprisingly gentle! My other favorite was a Dr. Seuss style incredibly creative story featuring hand drawn images. Matt Monjan and I are in Pennsylvania together right now and decided to team up for it. We shot the entire thing on my Nokia N95 and then did just a touch of editing. We used iMovie 6 and pieced the entire thing together in about an hour or so. If you think this looks like fun… well, it is. And if you’d like to be a part of the next one, you can. The next Film on the Fly is going to be on 3/14: PI DAY! I can’t wait. To signup, visit FilmOnTheFly. So here’s our entry. Hope you enjoy it! Image by Getty Images via Daylife Janet English over at KOCE has been hard at work putting together the Film on the Fly video challenge and yesterday was the big day! Early in the day, she sent out a text message to everyone who signed up with the prompt: “Everything changed - when the box mysteriously arrived at my doorstep.” The challenge was to then grab your cell phone and create a short story (2 minutes or less) based on that prompt, filmed entirely on your cell phone. The results have already been fantastically creative. You can see the videos over at their group ning, FilmontheFly.ning.com. Two of my favorites so far were Hall Davidson’s, who actually did his while in the security line at the airport. You gotta see it to believe it. Yes, he got his phone back and the men with the rubber gloves were surprisingly gentle! My other favorite was a Dr. Seuss style incredibly creative story featuring hand drawn images. Matt Monjan and I are in Pennsylvania together right now and decided to team up for it. We shot the entire thing on my Nokia N95 and then did just a touch of editing. We used iMovie 6 and pieced the entire thing together in about an hour or so. If you think this looks like fun… well, it is. And if you’d like to be a part of the next one, you can. The next Film on the Fly is going to be on 3/14: PI DAY! I can’t wait. To signup, visit FilmOnTheFly. So here’s our entry. Hope you enjoy it! tag:odeo.com,2009-02-09,24057547 Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:01:40 -0800 no Teach42 video, youtube, Mobile, dembo, film on the fly, monjan, fotf, filmonthefly http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23993386-Net-Generation-Education-Project-and-Book-Club VERY excited to share with you the latest monstrosity to come from the Davis/Lindsay labs. As you’ll see, they’ve come up with a fantastic collaborative project, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. Read, soak it in, and then apply to become a part of it…. and join the book club!! Net Generation Education Project Written by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay As announced at the Flat Classroom conference this past Monday, the Net Generation Education Project is the replacement for the Horizon Project and will include approximately 10 schools with 300 students.  The application process is now open for schools who wish to participate in the project. Last year, Don Tapscott keynoted the Horizon Project 2008 which focused on having students envision the future of education via web collaboration and video.  The reading documents include the Horizon Report 2009 from the New Media Consortium and Educause.  Don Tapscott went on to include this project in his... VERY excited to share with you the latest monstrosity to come from the Davis/Lindsay labs. As you’ll see, they’ve come up with a fantastic collaborative project, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. Read, soak it in, and then apply to become a part of it…. and join the book club!! Net Generation Education Project Written by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay As announced at the Flat Classroom conference this past Monday, the Net Generation Education Project is the replacement for the Horizon Project and will include approximately 10 schools with 300 students.  The application process is now open for schools who wish to participate in the project. Last year, Don Tapscott keynoted the Horizon Project 2008 which focused on having students envision the future of education via web collaboration and video.  The reading documents include the Horizon Report 2009 from the New Media Consortium and Educause.  Don Tapscott went on to include this project in his new Book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World . So, the next level of “flattening” is to not only have classrooms connect but to have the classrooms connect in new and more far-reaching ways with the authors of their books. Recent examples of connected classrooms and authors include Karl Fisch’s Whole New Mind Project as they work with  Dan Pink and such as Will Richardson and Anne Davis did with Sue Monk Kidd, author of the Secret Life of Bees. In the same genre students in this project will interact on a Ning jointly created with Don Tapscott. Don will post weekly questions to the Discussion forum and leave video messages to the students.  It will be a read/write project.  He will also interact LIVE via a webinar.  Don has a vision for improved educational outcomes and is reaching out to interact directly with students through his challenge and this project. Additionally, the Discovery Educators Network is going to be providing and sharing tips and information on effective video presentations and how-to’s and a book club group for educators.  Don Tapscott will keynote and the student keynotes are award winning virtual worlds educator Peggy Sheehy and her middle School students from Suffern Middle School using machinima from their Island in Second Life. We will be studying this year’s Horizon Report (released January 2009) but adding to it the intro and Chapter 5 from Don’s book, Grown Up Digital:  (Rethinking Education) to the reading assignments for students.    Students will be divided into groups to analyze some of the key trends in reworking education to create collaborative report written with other students from around the world.  Each team will have a project manager and assistant project manager to help facilitate the work on the team.  These “managers” will be students with teachers working as facilitators. Each student will cast their vision for the future of education with a video to be uploaded on our project ning.  All videos will be automatically entered into Don Tapscott’s Net Generation Education Challenge competition and could win scholarship money for future educational pursuits.  You do not HAVE to be a part of the project with Julie and I to join the Ning and participate in Don’s challenge competition - so go ahead and do that.  But if you are ready to have your students collaborate globally and follow the best practices as used in the award winning Flat Classroom, Horizon, and Digiteen projects fill out this form before February 9th and applynow!.   Our tentative timeline:    2/1- 2/9 - Application process for classrooms 2/1 - 3 pm EST - Information Meeting 2/2 - 2/7 - Selection Process (classes will be notified as soon as they are selected) 2/6 - Ning, wiki, and google group are “live” by this date 2/10 - Final announcements of Classrooms 2/11 - Greeting from Don posted to the Ning via video - this may be his “author keynote” or he may choose to have a challenge each week and have it be small pieces. Weekly- discussions posted to the forum (can we pick a day and a time for this to happen?)  Will Don have a blog on the site as well? 2/11-2/18 - “Handshake process” - Students join Ning - post introductions 2/18 - Teams announced 2/18 - 3/2 - Research phase of project 3/2 - Wikis complete 3/1 - Suffern Middle School Student Keynote Some time in March, there will be a live session with Don Tapscott 3/3 - 3/31 - Movie Artifact phase of project (note that there will be some overlap between Research and Movie Artifact)    *Storyboarding 3/3 - 3/8    *Outsourced video requests posted to the Ning by 3/10 (we would like students to be able to do this with a blog post on the Ning and tag it outsourced - we can then add a menu item for everything tagged outsource_request and students can sign up with a reply and post a link in the comments, this is a change from the last project but will work better) 3/31 - Final Deadline for All Movies to be posted 4/1 - 4/8 - Post project reflections, student summits Net Generation Education Challenge Written by Kasi Bruno A crisis is emerging in our schools and universities. Traditional, one-way broadcast models of education are out-dated. Schools have not evolved as quickly as other institutions, and students are becoming disengaged as a result. Why are connected students at home suddenly disconnected at school? How can we reinvent education for relevance and effectiveness for the 21st century? Inspired by the work of Don Tapscott and Grown Up Digital, the Net Gen Education Challenge offers everyone an outlet through which to express their ideas and opinions about their ideal model of education. The challenge community will connect engaged participants all around the world, bringing educators, students, parents and professionals together in a global dialogue on learning. In partnership with the CBC, Flat Classroom Project, the Discovery Channel’s Educator Network and Classroom 2.0, Don Tapscott invites you to share your ideas and help make education engaging, inspiring and relevant. Discovery Educator Network/Net Generation Book Club by Steve Dembo In conjunction with the Net Generation Education (NGE) project, the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) will be hosting a weekly book club for Tapscott’s work, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World.  While the NGE project will be focusing just on the Intro and Chapter 5, we will gather together weekly to discuss the ideas within the book and their implications for education.  Best of all, the author himself, Don Tapscott, will sit in on the final week to share his thoughts in a candid conversation with everyone who participates in the book club.  There will be both live and web based discussion options for participants.  The live component will take place Monday evenings, 2/9 through 3/23 at 7pm EST. We will be looking for people to lead the weekly discussions as well.  If you would be interested in volunteering to lead the discussion for one of the weekly meetings, please mark it on the registration form. If you are a DEN member and would like to be a part of the book club, please register here.  If you are not currently a DEN member and would like to learn more, please contact me ! Don’s publisher has been gracious enough to offer the book for only $18.45, a generous discount, to everybody who participates in the Book Club. There are three ways to order: Order directly from website http://www.800CEORead.com Email Aaron at and let him know you are participating in the DEN / Net Gen Book Club Aaron@800ceoread.com Call Aaron at 1.414.274.6406, ext. 204 and do the same. Schedule Part One: Meet the Net Gen      Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 – 2/9      Chapter 3 & Chapter 4 – 2/16 Part Two: Transforming Institutions      Chapter 5 – 2/23 (chapter on Education)      Chapter 6 & Chapter 7 – 3/2      Chapter 8– 3/9 Part Three: Transforming Society      Chapter 9 & Chapter 10 – 3/16    Chapter 11 – 3/23  Click here to register for the book club Net Generation Education Webinars by Steve Dembo To support teachers and students who are participating in the Net Generation Education Project, the Discovery Educator Network will be hosting four webinars with two of the country’s foremost experts on digital storytelling; Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan.  These webinars will be intended for teachers to attend WITH their students so that they may learn ways to create digital stories from the very best.  To learn more about Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan, visit the Discovery Education Speakers Bureau. Webinar 1 with Joe Brennan: Wed, March 4, 1pm EST Webinar 2 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 11, 1pm EST Webinar 3 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 18, 1pm EST Webinar 4 with Joe Brennen: Wed, March 25, 1pm EST VERY excited to share with you the latest monstrosity to come from the Davis/Lindsay labs. As you’ll see, they’ve come up with a fantastic collaborative project, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. Read, soak it in, and then apply to become a part of it…. and join the book club!! Net Generation Education Project Written by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay As announced at the Flat Classroom conference this past Monday, the Net Generation Education Project is the replacement for the Horizon Project and will include approximately 10 schools with 300 students.  The application process is now open for schools who wish to participate in the project. Last year, Don Tapscott keynoted the Horizon Project 2008 which focused on having students envision the future of education via web collaboration and video.  The reading documents include the Horizon Report 2009 from the New Media Consortium and Educause.  Don Tapscott went on to include this project in his new Book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World . So, the next level of “flattening” is to not only have classrooms connect but to have the classrooms connect in new and more far-reaching ways with the authors of their books. Recent examples of connected classrooms and authors include Karl Fisch’s Whole New Mind Project as they work with  Dan Pink and such as Will Richardson and Anne Davis did with Sue Monk Kidd, author of the Secret Life of Bees. In the same genre students in this project will interact on a Ning jointly created with Don Tapscott. Don will post weekly questions to the Discussion forum and leave video messages to the students.  It will be a read/write project.  He will also interact LIVE via a webinar.  Don has a vision for improved educational outcomes and is reaching out to interact directly with students through his challenge and this project. Additionally, the Discovery Educators Network is going to be providing and sharing tips and information on effective video presentations and how-to’s and a book club group for educators.  Don Tapscott will keynote and the student keynotes are award winning virtual worlds educator Peggy Sheehy and her middle School students from Suffern Middle School using machinima from their Island in Second Life. We will be studying this year’s Horizon Report (released January 2009) but adding to it the intro and Chapter 5 from Don’s book, Grown Up Digital:  (Rethinking Education) to the reading assignments for students.    Students will be divided into groups to analyze some of the key trends in reworking education to create collaborative report written with other students from around the world.  Each team will have a project manager and assistant project manager to help facilitate the work on the team.  These “managers” will be students with teachers working as facilitators. Each student will cast their vision for the future of education with a video to be uploaded on our project ning.  All videos will be automatically entered into Don Tapscott’s Net Generation Education Challenge competition and could win scholarship money for future educational pursuits.  You do not HAVE to be a part of the project with Julie and I to join the Ning and participate in Don’s challenge competition - so go ahead and do that.  But if you are ready to have your students collaborate globally and follow the best practices as used in the award winning Flat Classroom, Horizon, and Digiteen projects fill out this form before February 9th and applynow!.   Our tentative timeline:    2/1- 2/9 - Application process for classrooms 2/1 - 3 pm EST - Information Meeting 2/2 - 2/7 - Selection Process (classes will be notified as soon as they are selected) 2/6 - Ning, wiki, and google group are “live” by this date 2/10 - Final announcements of Classrooms 2/11 - Greeting from Don posted to the Ning via video - this may be his “author keynote” or he may choose to have a challenge each week and have it be small pieces. Weekly- discussions posted to the forum (can we pick a day and a time for this to happen?)  Will Don have a blog on the site as well? 2/11-2/18 - “Handshake process” - Students join Ning - post introductions 2/18 - Teams announced 2/18 - 3/2 - Research phase of project 3/2 - Wikis complete 3/1 - Suffern Middle School Student Keynote Some time in March, there will be a live session with Don Tapscott 3/3 - 3/31 - Movie Artifact phase of project (note that there will be some overlap between Research and Movie Artifact)    *Storyboarding 3/3 - 3/8    *Outsourced video requests posted to the Ning by 3/10 (we would like students to be able to do this with a blog post on the Ning and tag it outsourced - we can then add a menu item for everything tagged outsource_request and students can sign up with a reply and post a link in the comments, this is a change from the last project but will work better) 3/31 - Final Deadline for All Movies to be posted 4/1 - 4/8 - Post project reflections, student summits Net Generation Education Challenge Written by Kasi Bruno A crisis is emerging in our schools and universities. Traditional, one-way broadcast models of education are out-dated. Schools have not evolved as quickly as other institutions, and students are becoming disengaged as a result. Why are connected students at home suddenly disconnected at school? How can we reinvent education for relevance and effectiveness for the 21st century? Inspired by the work of Don Tapscott and Grown Up Digital, the Net Gen Education Challenge offers everyone an outlet through which to express their ideas and opinions about their ideal model of education. The challenge community will connect engaged participants all around the world, bringing educators, students, parents and professionals together in a global dialogue on learning. In partnership with the CBC, Flat Classroom Project, the Discovery Channel’s Educator Network and Classroom 2.0, Don Tapscott invites you to share your ideas and help make education engaging, inspiring and relevant. Discovery Educator Network/Net Generation Book Club by Steve Dembo In conjunction with the Net Generation Education (NGE) project, the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) will be hosting a weekly book club for Tapscott’s work, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World.  While the NGE project will be focusing just on the Intro and Chapter 5, we will gather together weekly to discuss the ideas within the book and their implications for education.  Best of all, the author himself, Don Tapscott, will sit in on the final week to share his thoughts in a candid conversation with everyone who participates in the book club.  There will be both live and web based discussion options for participants.  The live component will take place Monday evenings, 2/9 through 3/23 at 7pm EST. We will be looking for people to lead the weekly discussions as well.  If you would be interested in volunteering to lead the discussion for one of the weekly meetings, please mark it on the registration form. If you are a DEN member and would like to be a part of the book club, please register here.  If you are not currently a DEN member and would like to learn more, please contact me ! Don’s publisher has been gracious enough to offer the book for only $18.45, a generous discount, to everybody who participates in the Book Club. There are three ways to order: Order directly from website http://www.800CEORead.com Email Aaron at and let him know you are participating in the DEN / Net Gen Book Club Aaron@800ceoread.com Call Aaron at 1.414.274.6406, ext. 204 and do the same. Schedule Part One: Meet the Net Gen      Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 – 2/9      Chapter 3 & Chapter 4 – 2/16 Part Two: Transforming Institutions      Chapter 5 – 2/23 (chapter on Education)      Chapter 6 & Chapter 7 – 3/2      Chapter 8– 3/9 Part Three: Transforming Society      Chapter 9 & Chapter 10 – 3/16    Chapter 11 – 3/23  Click here to register for the book club Net Generation Education Webinars by Steve Dembo To support teachers and students who are participating in the Net Generation Education Project, the Discovery Educator Network will be hosting four webinars with two of the country’s foremost experts on digital storytelling; Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan.  These webinars will be intended for teachers to attend WITH their students so that they may learn ways to create digital stories from the very best.  To learn more about Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan, visit the Discovery Education Speakers Bureau. Webinar 1 with Joe Brennan: Wed, March 4, 1pm EST Webinar 2 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 11, 1pm EST Webinar 3 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 18, 1pm EST Webinar 4 with Joe Brennen: Wed, March 25, 1pm EST tag:odeo.com,2009-01-30,23993386 Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:51:14 -0800 no Teach42 Education, den, discovery, coolcatteacher, Current news, Webinar, new media consortium, dembo, teach42, vicki davis, Hall Davidson, julie lindsay, joe brennan, horizon project, discovery educator network, flat classroom, dontapscott http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24167251-Net-Generation-Education-Project-and-Book-Club VERY excited to share with you the latest monstrosity to come from the Davis/Lindsay labs. As you’ll see, they’ve come up with a fantastic collaborative project, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. Read, soak it in, and then apply to become a part of it…. and join the book club!! Net Generation Education Project Written by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay As announced at the Flat Classroom conference this past Monday, the Net Generation Education Project is the replacement for the Horizon Project and will include approximately 10 schools with 300 students.  The application process is now open for schools who wish to participate in the project. Last year, Don Tapscott keynoted the Horizon Project 2008 which focused on having students envision the future of education via web collaboration and video.  The reading documents include the Horizon Report 2009 from the New Media Consortium and Educause.  Don Tapscott went on to include this project in his... VERY excited to share with you the latest monstrosity to come from the Davis/Lindsay labs. As you’ll see, they’ve come up with a fantastic collaborative project, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. Read, soak it in, and then apply to become a part of it…. and join the book club!! Net Generation Education Project Written by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay As announced at the Flat Classroom conference this past Monday, the Net Generation Education Project is the replacement for the Horizon Project and will include approximately 10 schools with 300 students.  The application process is now open for schools who wish to participate in the project. Last year, Don Tapscott keynoted the Horizon Project 2008 which focused on having students envision the future of education via web collaboration and video.  The reading documents include the Horizon Report 2009 from the New Media Consortium and Educause.  Don Tapscott went on to include this project in his new Book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World . So, the next level of “flattening” is to not only have classrooms connect but to have the classrooms connect in new and more far-reaching ways with the authors of their books. Recent examples of connected classrooms and authors include Karl Fisch’s Whole New Mind Project as they work with  Dan Pink and such as Will Richardson and Anne Davis did with Sue Monk Kidd, author of the Secret Life of Bees. In the same genre students in this project will interact on a Ning jointly created with Don Tapscott. Don will post weekly questions to the Discussion forum and leave video messages to the students.  It will be a read/write project.  He will also interact LIVE via a webinar.  Don has a vision for improved educational outcomes and is reaching out to interact directly with students through his challenge and this project. Additionally, the Discovery Educators Network is going to be providing and sharing tips and information on effective video presentations and how-to’s and a book club group for educators.  Don Tapscott will keynote and the student keynotes are award winning virtual worlds educator Peggy Sheehy and her middle School students from Suffern Middle School using machinima from their Island in Second Life. We will be studying this year’s Horizon Report (released January 2009) but adding to it the intro and Chapter 5 from Don’s book, Grown Up Digital:  (Rethinking Education) to the reading assignments for students.    Students will be divided into groups to analyze some of the key trends in reworking education to create collaborative report written with other students from around the world.  Each team will have a project manager and assistant project manager to help facilitate the work on the team.  These “managers” will be students with teachers working as facilitators. Each student will cast their vision for the future of education with a video to be uploaded on our project ning.  All videos will be automatically entered into Don Tapscott’s Net Generation Education Challenge competition and could win scholarship money for future educational pursuits.  You do not HAVE to be a part of the project with Julie and I to join the Ning and participate in Don’s challenge competition - so go ahead and do that.  But if you are ready to have your students collaborate globally and follow the best practices as used in the award winning Flat Classroom, Horizon, and Digiteen projects fill out this form before February 9th and applynow!.   Our tentative timeline:    2/1- 2/9 - Application process for classrooms 2/1 - 3 pm EST - Information Meeting 2/2 - 2/7 - Selection Process (classes will be notified as soon as they are selected) 2/6 - Ning, wiki, and google group are “live” by this date 2/10 - Final announcements of Classrooms 2/11 - Greeting from Don posted to the Ning via video - this may be his “author keynote” or he may choose to have a challenge each week and have it be small pieces. Weekly- discussions posted to the forum (can we pick a day and a time for this to happen?)  Will Don have a blog on the site as well? 2/11-2/18 - “Handshake process” - Students join Ning - post introductions 2/18 - Teams announced 2/18 - 3/2 - Research phase of project 3/2 - Wikis complete 3/1 - Suffern Middle School Student Keynote Some time in March, there will be a live session with Don Tapscott 3/3 - 3/31 - Movie Artifact phase of project (note that there will be some overlap between Research and Movie Artifact)    *Storyboarding 3/3 - 3/8    *Outsourced video requests posted to the Ning by 3/10 (we would like students to be able to do this with a blog post on the Ning and tag it outsourced - we can then add a menu item for everything tagged outsource_request and students can sign up with a reply and post a link in the comments, this is a change from the last project but will work better) 3/31 - Final Deadline for All Movies to be posted 4/1 - 4/8 - Post project reflections, student summits Net Generation Education Challenge Written by Kasi Bruno A crisis is emerging in our schools and universities. Traditional, one-way broadcast models of education are out-dated. Schools have not evolved as quickly as other institutions, and students are becoming disengaged as a result. Why are connected students at home suddenly disconnected at school? How can we reinvent education for relevance and effectiveness for the 21st century? Inspired by the work of Don Tapscott and Grown Up Digital, the Net Gen Education Challenge offers everyone an outlet through which to express their ideas and opinions about their ideal model of education. The challenge community will connect engaged participants all around the world, bringing educators, students, parents and professionals together in a global dialogue on learning. In partnership with the CBC, Flat Classroom Project, the Discovery Channel’s Educator Network and Classroom 2.0, Don Tapscott invites you to share your ideas and help make education engaging, inspiring and relevant. Discovery Educator Network/Net Generation Book Club by Steve Dembo In conjunction with the Net Generation Education (NGE) project, the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) will be hosting a weekly book club for Tapscott’s work, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World.  While the NGE project will be focusing just on the Intro and Chapter 5, we will gather together weekly to discuss the ideas within the book and their implications for education.  Best of all, the author himself, Don Tapscott, will sit in on the final week to share his thoughts in a candid conversation with everyone who participates in the book club.  There will be both live and web based discussion options for participants.  The live component will take place Monday evenings, 2/9 through 3/23 at 7pm EST. We will be looking for people to lead the weekly discussions as well.  If you would be interested in volunteering to lead the discussion for one of the weekly meetings, please mark it on the registration form. If you are a DEN member and would like to be a part of the book club, please register here.  If you are not currently a DEN member and would like to learn more, please contact me ! Don’s publisher has been gracious enough to offer the book for only $18.45, a generous discount, to everybody who participates in the Book Club. There are three ways to order: Order directly from website http://www.800CEORead.com Email Aaron at and let him know you are participating in the DEN / Net Gen Book Club Aaron@800ceoread.com Call Aaron at 1.414.274.6406, ext. 204 and do the same. Schedule Part One: Meet the Net Gen      Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 – 2/9      Chapter 3 & Chapter 4 – 2/16 Part Two: Transforming Institutions      Chapter 5 – 2/23 (chapter on Education)      Chapter 6 & Chapter 7 – 3/2      Chapter 8– 3/9 Part Three: Transforming Society      Chapter 9 & Chapter 10 – 3/16    Chapter 11 – 3/23  Click here to register for the book club Net Generation Education Webinars by Steve Dembo To support teachers and students who are participating in the Net Generation Education Project, the Discovery Educator Network will be hosting four webinars with two of the country’s foremost experts on digital storytelling; Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan.  These webinars will be intended for teachers to attend WITH their students so that they may learn ways to create digital stories from the very best.  To learn more about Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan, visit the Discovery Education Speakers Bureau. Webinar 1 with Joe Brennan: Wed, March 4, 1pm EST Webinar 2 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 11, 1pm EST Webinar 3 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 18, 1pm EST Webinar 4 with Joe Brennen: Wed, March 25, 1pm EST VERY excited to share with you the latest monstrosity to come from the Davis/Lindsay labs. As you’ll see, they’ve come up with a fantastic collaborative project, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. Read, soak it in, and then apply to become a part of it…. and join the book club!! Net Generation Education Project Written by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay As announced at the Flat Classroom conference this past Monday, the Net Generation Education Project is the replacement for the Horizon Project and will include approximately 10 schools with 300 students.  The application process is now open for schools who wish to participate in the project. Last year, Don Tapscott keynoted the Horizon Project 2008 which focused on having students envision the future of education via web collaboration and video.  The reading documents include the Horizon Report 2009 from the New Media Consortium and Educause.  Don Tapscott went on to include this project in his new Book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World . So, the next level of “flattening” is to not only have classrooms connect but to have the classrooms connect in new and more far-reaching ways with the authors of their books. Recent examples of connected classrooms and authors include Karl Fisch’s Whole New Mind Project as they work with  Dan Pink and such as Will Richardson and Anne Davis did with Sue Monk Kidd, author of the Secret Life of Bees. In the same genre students in this project will interact on a Ning jointly created with Don Tapscott. Don will post weekly questions to the Discussion forum and leave video messages to the students.  It will be a read/write project.  He will also interact LIVE via a webinar.  Don has a vision for improved educational outcomes and is reaching out to interact directly with students through his challenge and this project. Additionally, the Discovery Educators Network is going to be providing and sharing tips and information on effective video presentations and how-to’s and a book club group for educators.  Don Tapscott will keynote and the student keynotes are award winning virtual worlds educator Peggy Sheehy and her middle School students from Suffern Middle School using machinima from their Island in Second Life. We will be studying this year’s Horizon Report (released January 2009) but adding to it the intro and Chapter 5 from Don’s book, Grown Up Digital:  (Rethinking Education) to the reading assignments for students.    Students will be divided into groups to analyze some of the key trends in reworking education to create collaborative report written with other students from around the world.  Each team will have a project manager and assistant project manager to help facilitate the work on the team.  These “managers” will be students with teachers working as facilitators. Each student will cast their vision for the future of education with a video to be uploaded on our project ning.  All videos will be automatically entered into Don Tapscott’s Net Generation Education Challenge competition and could win scholarship money for future educational pursuits.  You do not HAVE to be a part of the project with Julie and I to join the Ning and participate in Don’s challenge competition - so go ahead and do that.  But if you are ready to have your students collaborate globally and follow the best practices as used in the award winning Flat Classroom, Horizon, and Digiteen projects fill out this form before February 9th and applynow!.   Our tentative timeline:    2/1- 2/9 - Application process for classrooms 2/1 - 3 pm EST - Information Meeting 2/2 - 2/7 - Selection Process (classes will be notified as soon as they are selected) 2/6 - Ning, wiki, and google group are “live” by this date 2/10 - Final announcements of Classrooms 2/11 - Greeting from Don posted to the Ning via video - this may be his “author keynote” or he may choose to have a challenge each week and have it be small pieces. Weekly- discussions posted to the forum (can we pick a day and a time for this to happen?)  Will Don have a blog on the site as well? 2/11-2/18 - “Handshake process” - Students join Ning - post introductions 2/18 - Teams announced 2/18 - 3/2 - Research phase of project 3/2 - Wikis complete 3/1 - Suffern Middle School Student Keynote Some time in March, there will be a live session with Don Tapscott 3/3 - 3/31 - Movie Artifact phase of project (note that there will be some overlap between Research and Movie Artifact)    *Storyboarding 3/3 - 3/8    *Outsourced video requests posted to the Ning by 3/10 (we would like students to be able to do this with a blog post on the Ning and tag it outsourced - we can then add a menu item for everything tagged outsource_request and students can sign up with a reply and post a link in the comments, this is a change from the last project but will work better) 3/31 - Final Deadline for All Movies to be posted 4/1 - 4/8 - Post project reflections, student summits Net Generation Education Challenge Written by Kasi Bruno A crisis is emerging in our schools and universities. Traditional, one-way broadcast models of education are out-dated. Schools have not evolved as quickly as other institutions, and students are becoming disengaged as a result. Why are connected students at home suddenly disconnected at school? How can we reinvent education for relevance and effectiveness for the 21st century? Inspired by the work of Don Tapscott and Grown Up Digital, the Net Gen Education Challenge offers everyone an outlet through which to express their ideas and opinions about their ideal model of education. The challenge community will connect engaged participants all around the world, bringing educators, students, parents and professionals together in a global dialogue on learning. In partnership with the CBC, Flat Classroom Project, the Discovery Channel’s Educator Network and Classroom 2.0, Don Tapscott invites you to share your ideas and help make education engaging, inspiring and relevant. Discovery Educator Network/Net Generation Book Club by Steve Dembo In conjunction with the Net Generation Education (NGE) project, the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) will be hosting a weekly book club for Tapscott’s work, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World.  While the NGE project will be focusing just on the Intro and Chapter 5, we will gather together weekly to discuss the ideas within the book and their implications for education.  Best of all, the author himself, Don Tapscott, will sit in on the final week to share his thoughts in a candid conversation with everyone who participates in the book club.  There will be both live and web based discussion options for participants.  The live component will take place Monday evenings, 2/9 through 3/23 at 7pm EST. We will be looking for people to lead the weekly discussions as well.  If you would be interested in volunteering to lead the discussion for one of the weekly meetings, please mark it on the registration form. If you are a DEN member and would like to be a part of the book club, please register here.  If you are not currently a DEN member and would like to learn more, please contact me ! Don’s publisher has been gracious enough to offer the book for only $18.45, a generous discount, to everybody who participates in the Book Club. There are three ways to order: Order directly from website http://www.800CEORead.com Email Aaron at and let him know you are participating in the DEN / Net Gen Book Club Aaron@800ceoread.com Call Aaron at 1.414.274.6406, ext. 204 and do the same. Schedule Part One: Meet the Net Gen      Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 – 2/9      Chapter 3 & Chapter 4 – 2/16 Part Two: Transforming Institutions      Chapter 5 – 2/23 (chapter on Education)      Chapter 6 & Chapter 7 – 3/2      Chapter 8– 3/9 Part Three: Transforming Society      Chapter 9 & Chapter 10 – 3/16    Chapter 11 – 3/23  Click here to register for the book club Net Generation Education Webinars by Steve Dembo To support teachers and students who are participating in the Net Generation Education Project, the Discovery Educator Network will be hosting four webinars with two of the country’s foremost experts on digital storytelling; Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan.  These webinars will be intended for teachers to attend WITH their students so that they may learn ways to create digital stories from the very best.  To learn more about Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan, visit the Discovery Education Speakers Bureau. Webinar 1 with Joe Brennan: Wed, March 4, 1pm EST Webinar 2 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 11, 1pm EST Webinar 3 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 18, 1pm EST Webinar 4 with Joe Brennen: Wed, March 25, 1pm EST tag:odeo.com,2009-01-30,24167251 Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:51:14 -0800 no Teach42 Education, den, discovery, coolcatteacher, Current news, Webinar, new media consortium, dembo, teach42, vicki davis, Hall Davidson, julie lindsay, joe brennan, horizon project, discovery educator network, flat classroom, dontapscott http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24167252-The-Networked-Student%E2%80%A6-in-plain-English This CommonCraft inspired video does an excellent job of explaining what a truly networked student looks like. And more importantly, what the teachers role is for them. Consider it your weekend video break. This CommonCraft inspired video does an excellent job of explaining what a truly networked student looks like. And more importantly, what the teachers role is for them. Consider it your weekend video break. This CommonCraft inspired video does an excellent job of explaining what a truly networked student looks like. And more importantly, what the teachers role is for them. Consider it your weekend video break. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-06,24167252 Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:10:38 -0800 no Teach42 video, youtube, Education, connectivism, dembo, teach42, cck08, in plain english, networked student, commoncraft http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23715063-The-Networked-Student%E2%80%A6-in-plain-English This CommonCraft inspired video does an excellent job of explaining what a truly networked student looks like. And more importantly, what the teachers role is for them. Consider it your weekend video break. This CommonCraft inspired video does an excellent job of explaining what a truly networked student looks like. And more importantly, what the teachers role is for them. Consider it your weekend video break. This CommonCraft inspired video does an excellent job of explaining what a truly networked student looks like. And more importantly, what the teachers role is for them. Consider it your weekend video break. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-06,23715063 Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:10:38 -0800 no Teach42 video, youtube, Education, connectivism, dembo, teach42, cck08, in plain english, networked student, commoncraft http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23712026-Celebrate-the-Day-of-the-Ninja I always look forward to December 5th for two reasons. It happens to be my birthday, but more importantly, it’s also the Day of the Ninja! It’s the day when everybody, everywhere gets to… well… act like a ninja I guess! I’ve always been a big fan of ninjas. I watched a ton of ninja movies, including the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja, and have read quite a few books featuring ninjas. I began to wonder, what sits at the corner of EdTech Boulevard and Ninja Street? And with that, let’s take a look at some of the best Ninja resources for educators! If we’re talking about Ninja education, I think we need to start with the Dean. Dean Dad is the Dean of a community college and came up with a list of what the Pre-Ninja program would look like at his school. He also expanded that to what the pre-reqs were, graduation requirements and that’s just the beginning. A fine place to start for any budding Technology Ninja. Image via Wikipedi... I always look forward to December 5th for two reasons. It happens to be my birthday, but more importantly, it’s also the Day of the Ninja! It’s the day when everybody, everywhere gets to… well… act like a ninja I guess! I’ve always been a big fan of ninjas. I watched a ton of ninja movies, including the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja, and have read quite a few books featuring ninjas. I began to wonder, what sits at the corner of EdTech Boulevard and Ninja Street? And with that, let’s take a look at some of the best Ninja resources for educators! If we’re talking about Ninja education, I think we need to start with the Dean. Dean Dad is the Dean of a community college and came up with a list of what the Pre-Ninja program would look like at his school. He also expanded that to what the pre-reqs were, graduation requirements and that’s just the beginning. A fine place to start for any budding Technology Ninja. Image via Wikipedia Speaking of Technology Ninjas, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to the original Technology Ninja, Tom Woodward. You may know him form his layman’s blog, Bionic Teaching, which just happens to be nominated at the EduBlog Awards. But once he dons his handy Ninja mask, he becomes the Technology Ninjawho is there to silently assassinate your technology problems! Unfortunately he hasn’t posted for quite a while there, but there’s still quite a lot to learn from. I say that he’s the original, because he seems to have been supplanted by the EdTech Ninja. Who IS the EdTech Ninja? Nobody knows! Could it be Tom under a new guise? Or perhaps he’s a colleague of yours! He could be anybody because Ninjas are so stealthy and sneaky. What I do know is that there’s an incredible amount of information there for any educator, but especially those looking for Smartboard tips and tricks. Finally, I wanted to share a video that I found. Student Ninjas at Metz Middle School won an honorable mention at the Shortie awards for this video. In it, “Ninjas must use their knowledge of inequalities to know what to do when hit by a negative!” Enjoy! Hope your Day of the Ninja is full of sneaky fun! I always look forward to December 5th for two reasons. It happens to be my birthday, but more importantly, it’s also the Day of the Ninja! It’s the day when everybody, everywhere gets to… well… act like a ninja I guess! I’ve always been a big fan of ninjas. I watched a ton of ninja movies, including the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja, and have read quite a few books featuring ninjas. I began to wonder, what sits at the corner of EdTech Boulevard and Ninja Street? And with that, let’s take a look at some of the best Ninja resources for educators! If we’re talking about Ninja education, I think we need to start with the Dean. Dean Dad is the Dean of a community college and came up with a list of what the Pre-Ninja program would look like at his school. He also expanded that to what the pre-reqs were, graduation requirements and that’s just the beginning. A fine place to start for any budding Technology Ninja. Image via Wikipedia Speaking of Technology Ninjas, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to the original Technology Ninja, Tom Woodward. You may know him form his layman’s blog, Bionic Teaching, which just happens to be nominated at the EduBlog Awards. But once he dons his handy Ninja mask, he becomes the Technology Ninjawho is there to silently assassinate your technology problems! Unfortunately he hasn’t posted for quite a while there, but there’s still quite a lot to learn from. I say that he’s the original, because he seems to have been supplanted by the EdTech Ninja. Who IS the EdTech Ninja? Nobody knows! Could it be Tom under a new guise? Or perhaps he’s a colleague of yours! He could be anybody because Ninjas are so stealthy and sneaky. What I do know is that there’s an incredible amount of information there for any educator, but especially those looking for Smartboard tips and tricks. Finally, I wanted to share a video that I found. Student Ninjas at Metz Middle School won an honorable mention at the Shortie awards for this video. In it, “Ninjas must use their knowledge of inequalities to know what to do when hit by a negative!” Enjoy! Hope your Day of the Ninja is full of sneaky fun! tag:odeo.com,2008-12-05,23712026 Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:59:55 -0800 no Teach42 Technology, Education, Ninja, musings, math, edtech, dembo, teach42, day of the ninja http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24167253-Celebrate-the-Day-of-the-Ninja I always look forward to December 5th for two reasons. It happens to be my birthday, but more importantly, it’s also the Day of the Ninja! It’s the day when everybody, everywhere gets to… well… act like a ninja I guess! I’ve always been a big fan of ninjas. I watched a ton of ninja movies, including the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja, and have read quite a few books featuring ninjas. I began to wonder, what sits at the corner of EdTech Boulevard and Ninja Street? And with that, let’s take a look at some of the best Ninja resources for educators! If we’re talking about Ninja education, I think we need to start with the Dean. Dean Dad is the Dean of a community college and came up with a list of what the Pre-Ninja program would look like at his school. He also expanded that to what the pre-reqs were, graduation requirements and that’s just the beginning. A fine place to start for any budding Technology Ninja. Image via Wikipedi... I always look forward to December 5th for two reasons. It happens to be my birthday, but more importantly, it’s also the Day of the Ninja! It’s the day when everybody, everywhere gets to… well… act like a ninja I guess! I’ve always been a big fan of ninjas. I watched a ton of ninja movies, including the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja, and have read quite a few books featuring ninjas. I began to wonder, what sits at the corner of EdTech Boulevard and Ninja Street? And with that, let’s take a look at some of the best Ninja resources for educators! If we’re talking about Ninja education, I think we need to start with the Dean. Dean Dad is the Dean of a community college and came up with a list of what the Pre-Ninja program would look like at his school. He also expanded that to what the pre-reqs were, graduation requirements and that’s just the beginning. A fine place to start for any budding Technology Ninja. Image via Wikipedia Speaking of Technology Ninjas, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to the original Technology Ninja, Tom Woodward. You may know him form his layman’s blog, Bionic Teaching, which just happens to be nominated at the EduBlog Awards. But once he dons his handy Ninja mask, he becomes the Technology Ninjawho is there to silently assassinate your technology problems! Unfortunately he hasn’t posted for quite a while there, but there’s still quite a lot to learn from. I say that he’s the original, because he seems to have been supplanted by the EdTech Ninja. Who IS the EdTech Ninja? Nobody knows! Could it be Tom under a new guise? Or perhaps he’s a colleague of yours! He could be anybody because Ninjas are so stealthy and sneaky. What I do know is that there’s an incredible amount of information there for any educator, but especially those looking for Smartboard tips and tricks. Finally, I wanted to share a video that I found. Student Ninjas at Metz Middle School won an honorable mention at the Shortie awards for this video. In it, “Ninjas must use their knowledge of inequalities to know what to do when hit by a negative!” Enjoy! Hope your Day of the Ninja is full of sneaky fun! I always look forward to December 5th for two reasons. It happens to be my birthday, but more importantly, it’s also the Day of the Ninja! It’s the day when everybody, everywhere gets to… well… act like a ninja I guess! I’ve always been a big fan of ninjas. I watched a ton of ninja movies, including the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja, and have read quite a few books featuring ninjas. I began to wonder, what sits at the corner of EdTech Boulevard and Ninja Street? And with that, let’s take a look at some of the best Ninja resources for educators! If we’re talking about Ninja education, I think we need to start with the Dean. Dean Dad is the Dean of a community college and came up with a list of what the Pre-Ninja program would look like at his school. He also expanded that to what the pre-reqs were, graduation requirements and that’s just the beginning. A fine place to start for any budding Technology Ninja. Image via Wikipedia Speaking of Technology Ninjas, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to the original Technology Ninja, Tom Woodward. You may know him form his layman’s blog, Bionic Teaching, which just happens to be nominated at the EduBlog Awards. But once he dons his handy Ninja mask, he becomes the Technology Ninjawho is there to silently assassinate your technology problems! Unfortunately he hasn’t posted for quite a while there, but there’s still quite a lot to learn from. I say that he’s the original, because he seems to have been supplanted by the EdTech Ninja. Who IS the EdTech Ninja? Nobody knows! Could it be Tom under a new guise? Or perhaps he’s a colleague of yours! He could be anybody because Ninjas are so stealthy and sneaky. What I do know is that there’s an incredible amount of information there for any educator, but especially those looking for Smartboard tips and tricks. Finally, I wanted to share a video that I found. Student Ninjas at Metz Middle School won an honorable mention at the Shortie awards for this video. In it, “Ninjas must use their knowledge of inequalities to know what to do when hit by a negative!” Enjoy! Hope your Day of the Ninja is full of sneaky fun! tag:odeo.com,2008-12-05,24167253 Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:59:55 -0800 no Teach42 Technology, Education, Ninja, musings, math, edtech, dembo, teach42, day of the ninja http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23698325-Real-world-art Image by hoyasmeg via Flickr Over coffee today, somebody shared with me a website where peopled posted a creative brief for a logo or design they were looking for and how much they were willing to pay. Then people competed to win the ‘prize’. The site is called CrowdSPRING and what’s amazing about it is that people aren’t competing to win a contract to create the logo/design, they’re actually going ahead and doing the work and hoping to be the one selected as the winner. For example, Scholarship Connect is going to be a search engine for college bound students and they need a logo. They’re offering up $250 to the best design submitted to them by December 4th. So far, they have 37 entries to choose from. At first I was just way impressed at the idea of the site, and that so many professional and amateur graphic designers were participating. Then i started wondering whether any student graphic designers were jumping into the game. After all, why not... Image by hoyasmeg via Flickr Over coffee today, somebody shared with me a website where peopled posted a creative brief for a logo or design they were looking for and how much they were willing to pay. Then people competed to win the ‘prize’. The site is called CrowdSPRING and what’s amazing about it is that people aren’t competing to win a contract to create the logo/design, they’re actually going ahead and doing the work and hoping to be the one selected as the winner. For example, Scholarship Connect is going to be a search engine for college bound students and they need a logo. They’re offering up $250 to the best design submitted to them by December 4th. So far, they have 37 entries to choose from. At first I was just way impressed at the idea of the site, and that so many professional and amateur graphic designers were participating. Then i started wondering whether any student graphic designers were jumping into the game. After all, why not? If they enjoyed doing design work and wanted to practice in some real world situations, why not try their hand at some logos for real potential clients? Their creations would be competing directly with people who do it for a living (or on the side) and it’s always possible that they could win one and make a little money to put towards college! Seriously though, it really does make you think about creating authentic experiences for students. So many people are fond of blogging because students are publishing for a real world audience, not just the teacher. But what about taking it a step further? Back to the art example. Image by oddharmonic via Flickr As I mentioned, on CrowdSpring.com, students could create logos that might wind up being used in actual websites and promotional materials. If they aren’t of the digital persuasion, they could submit their art to IVoteForArt.com, a site where people can vote on the art they like and even buy it if the mood strikes. Not every artist’s work gets accepted, but a student could certainly try. Or by registering at ArtFlock, they can create their own gallery, show off their best work and set prices if they are so motivated. If they have an idea that might fall a little closer into the pop culture world, they could submit it to Threadless. If enough people dig the idea, they’d get to see their design made into a T-Shirt and receive a tidy sum. Outside of the world of capitalism, there are plenty of opportunities too. One of my favorite sites is TakingItGlobal.org, and they regularly have art challenges for people to participate in. This month the challenge is, “Submit a postcard design that illustrates what actions your government should take in hopes of building a sustainable future for us all.” With all that mind mind, it really does make me wonder just how many projects we have students working on everyday that could be modified slightly to become authentic experiences that have real world implications. UPDATE: After posting this, I returned to the CrowdSpring site and clicked through to their blog. Low and behold, the first post there was about a 16 year old student who was applying to become their community manager. Instead of submitting a traditional resume, he sent this in instead: Stop-Motion App-uh-lu-cat-ion from Judson on Vimeo Think he’ll have trouble finding a job he’s passionate about? I think it’ll be harder keeping him passionate about his school work until he moves into the real world. Pretty incredible. Image by hoyasmeg via Flickr Over coffee today, somebody shared with me a website where peopled posted a creative brief for a logo or design they were looking for and how much they were willing to pay. Then people competed to win the ‘prize’. The site is called CrowdSPRING and what’s amazing about it is that people aren’t competing to win a contract to create the logo/design, they’re actually going ahead and doing the work and hoping to be the one selected as the winner. For example, Scholarship Connect is going to be a search engine for college bound students and they need a logo. They’re offering up $250 to the best design submitted to them by December 4th. So far, they have 37 entries to choose from. At first I was just way impressed at the idea of the site, and that so many professional and amateur graphic designers were participating. Then i started wondering whether any student graphic designers were jumping into the game. After all, why not? If they enjoyed doing design work and wanted to practice in some real world situations, why not try their hand at some logos for real potential clients? Their creations would be competing directly with people who do it for a living (or on the side) and it’s always possible that they could win one and make a little money to put towards college! Seriously though, it really does make you think about creating authentic experiences for students. So many people are fond of blogging because students are publishing for a real world audience, not just the teacher. But what about taking it a step further? Back to the art example. Image by oddharmonic via Flickr As I mentioned, on CrowdSpring.com, students could create logos that might wind up being used in actual websites and promotional materials. If they aren’t of the digital persuasion, they could submit their art to IVoteForArt.com, a site where people can vote on the art they like and even buy it if the mood strikes. Not every artist’s work gets accepted, but a student could certainly try. Or by registering at ArtFlock, they can create their own gallery, show off their best work and set prices if they are so motivated. If they have an idea that might fall a little closer into the pop culture world, they could submit it to Threadless. If enough people dig the idea, they’d get to see their design made into a T-Shirt and receive a tidy sum. Outside of the world of capitalism, there are plenty of opportunities too. One of my favorite sites is TakingItGlobal.org, and they regularly have art challenges for people to participate in. This month the challenge is, “Submit a postcard design that illustrates what actions your government should take in hopes of building a sustainable future for us all.” With all that mind mind, it really does make me wonder just how many projects we have students working on everyday that could be modified slightly to become authentic experiences that have real world implications. UPDATE: After posting this, I returned to the CrowdSpring site and clicked through to their blog. Low and behold, the first post there was about a 16 year old student who was applying to become their community manager. Instead of submitting a traditional resume, he sent this in instead: Stop-Motion App-uh-lu-cat-ion from Judson on Vimeo Think he’ll have trouble finding a job he’s passionate about? I think it’ll be harder keeping him passionate about his school work until he moves into the real world. Pretty incredible. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-02,23698325 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:06:07 -0800 no Teach42 musings http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23535995-What%E2%80%99s-in-a-domain-name Shared with me by Charlene Chausis. MSAD48 is doing something rather interesting for their high school seniors. Upon entering senior year, every student is given a unique domain name to be used for “work on their resume, portfolio and communicate with their class.” I would assume that when they leave the school at the end of the year, they will be taking it with them to be used throughout their college and professional years. See the video below for more… I most definitely applaud their efforts in this, and wonder why more schools don’t do the same? In fact, taking it a step further, shouldn’t they be getting their own domain name in Freshman year? Or even in middle school? At what point is it too early to be preparing students for a life online? Shared with me by Charlene Chausis. MSAD48 is doing something rather interesting for their high school seniors. Upon entering senior year, every student is given a unique domain name to be used for “work on their resume, portfolio and communicate with their class.” I would assume that when they leave the school at the end of the year, they will be taking it with them to be used throughout their college and professional years. See the video below for more… I most definitely applaud their efforts in this, and wonder why more schools don’t do the same? In fact, taking it a step further, shouldn’t they be getting their own domain name in Freshman year? Or even in middle school? At what point is it too early to be preparing students for a life online? Shared with me by Charlene Chausis. MSAD48 is doing something rather interesting for their high school seniors. Upon entering senior year, every student is given a unique domain name to be used for “work on their resume, portfolio and communicate with their class.” I would assume that when they leave the school at the end of the year, they will be taking it with them to be used throughout their college and professional years. See the video below for more… I most definitely applaud their efforts in this, and wonder why more schools don’t do the same? In fact, taking it a step further, shouldn’t they be getting their own domain name in Freshman year? Or even in middle school? At what point is it too early to be preparing students for a life online? tag:odeo.com,2008-10-27,23535995 Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:27:48 -0700 no Teach42 domain, youtube, Education, Student, school, high school, musings, middle school, url, dembo, teach42, Twelfth grade, chausis, Education and Schools http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23402752-Google-Teacher-Academy-wrapup Been meaning to write up some quick thoughts about Google Teacher Academy: Chicago, but realize that time is fleeting and I just didn’t see myself getting to it soon. SO, I decided to go the video route and do a quick vlog wrapup about it. FYI, that’s the last time I use the camera on the front of the phone. While it’s great because I can see comments that are typed in live, and I can see myself and make sure I’m centered and such, the quality is SO much worse than the camera on the back. So from now on, I use the good camera and even if it’s a little laggy while watching it live, at least the archive will look much better. And let’s face it, thats’ much longer lasting. Been meaning to write up some quick thoughts about Google Teacher Academy: Chicago, but realize that time is fleeting and I just didn’t see myself getting to it soon. SO, I decided to go the video route and do a quick vlog wrapup about it. FYI, that’s the last time I use the camera on the front of the phone. While it’s great because I can see comments that are typed in live, and I can see myself and make sure I’m centered and such, the quality is SO much worse than the camera on the back. So from now on, I use the good camera and even if it’s a little laggy while watching it live, at least the archive will look much better. And let’s face it, thats’ much longer lasting. Been meaning to write up some quick thoughts about Google Teacher Academy: Chicago, but realize that time is fleeting and I just didn’t see myself getting to it soon. SO, I decided to go the video route and do a quick vlog wrapup about it. FYI, that’s the last time I use the camera on the front of the phone. While it’s great because I can see comments that are typed in live, and I can see myself and make sure I’m centered and such, the quality is SO much worse than the camera on the back. So from now on, I use the good camera and even if it’s a little laggy while watching it live, at least the archive will look much better. And let’s face it, thats’ much longer lasting. tag:odeo.com,2008-09-26,23402752 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:10:26 -0700 no Teach42 chicago, Conferences, google, gta, videoblog, vlog, qik, Teach42 Podcasts, dembo, teach42, google teacher academy http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23319706-My-cell-phone-can-beat-up-your-laptop Shortly before NECC, I had a tough decision to make. I was ready to upgrade my mobile phone and had narrowed it down to two choices: the iPhone 3G and the Nokia N95. Both have their pros and cons when compared to each other, but I decided to go with the N95 for two reasons. The first is that it has an incredible high quality camera that takes phenomenal video, which is definitely something I’m very interested in right now. The second reason is that having been around for about a year and running the Symbian 60 operating system, it is very well developed and had a slew of applications built for it. I know, I know, the iPhone didn’t take long to catch up, but that’s why I decided to go with the N95. The lack of keyboard was the only real buzzkill to me, and to be honest, I thought that might have been a deal breaker. But here I am, months later, and at this point I dare say that this is by far the best phone I have ever used. And when I think about how it could be us... Shortly before NECC, I had a tough decision to make. I was ready to upgrade my mobile phone and had narrowed it down to two choices: the iPhone 3G and the Nokia N95. Both have their pros and cons when compared to each other, but I decided to go with the N95 for two reasons. The first is that it has an incredible high quality camera that takes phenomenal video, which is definitely something I’m very interested in right now. The second reason is that having been around for about a year and running the Symbian 60 operating system, it is very well developed and had a slew of applications built for it. I know, I know, the iPhone didn’t take long to catch up, but that’s why I decided to go with the N95. The lack of keyboard was the only real buzzkill to me, and to be honest, I thought that might have been a deal breaker. But here I am, months later, and at this point I dare say that this is by far the best phone I have ever used. And when I think about how it could be used by teachers and students? Well, I have to admit, I get a little giddy. So let’s explore a little bit. Let’s take a look at some of the things this amazing device can do and brainstorm a bit about how it could be used educationally. Yes, I know your school has a policy against cell phones. Yes, I know they can be used to send text messages and be distracting. And yet, if we just suspend our disbelief for a few minutes and say, “What if we actually gave it a shot…” Well, I think you’ll start to see some possibilities. Specs Real quick, before we get into the details, let me give you the run down on the phone itself. It’s a Nokia N95-3, which means that it isn’t the latest version. The newest one has 8GB of memory built in, but no memory card slot. Mine has a MicroSD slot, which in theory can support up to 12GB, but I only have a 4GB card in it. It has a 5megapixel camera on it. Yes, you heard me. 5 whopping megapixels. It takes video in 640×480 which looks simply amazing on a computer. Definitely one of the high points of the camera. It also has a camera on the front of the phone, so you can see your own face in the screen while your recording/broadcasting. That camera is only 1 megapixel though. Great for video conferencing, if American cell companies would support it! It has a built in GPS, decent looking screen and a standard headphone jack that doubles as video out. It connects to… well, everything. It has a standard mini-usb port, Bluetooth, Infrared and even WiFi. It features a double slider, meaning it can slide both up and down. Sliding down reveals the standard phone keypad, sliding up reveals media buttons and switches the phone into landscape mode. In theory, it’s better that way for watching media. I’ve watched one movie so far and it was ok I guess, but I rarely put it into that mode (except for web browsing at times). Browser Obviously the phone is connected to the internet. In fact, it’s connected at 3.5G. I’m not sure if that’s .5 faster than the 3G iPhone, but it sounds neat. It comes with a browser that’s adequate, but both Opera and Firefox make mobile browsers that I like quite a bit better. I should point out that it’s a full html browser. That means you’re looking at REAL web pages, not mobile/wap versions. As you can see, it renders them pretty darn well. No, it’s not nearly as nice as the iPhone’s browser, but I have had no problem at all scrolling around pages and surfing like I normally would. Firefox loads pages quickly and is easy to navigate around in. Typically when talking about accessing the internet, I’d throw out a list of mobile websites that students could use to enhance classroom experiences. I won’t do that here. Why? Because they can go to ANY website using the N95. Sure, a few flash sites don’t work, but 99% of the sites I’ve navigated too have loaded just fine. With a flip of the slider, you can switch into landscape mode see even more real estate. Works like a charm. Google Maps Like many phones, I am able to load up a mobile version of Google Maps that rivals the online version. In fact, GMaps will tap into the phone’s GPS and use it to figure out where you are! However, what I really love is the ability to switch into satellite view. By doing that, you can really mimic Google Earth in many ways. Get a geographic perspective of whatever your studying. For example, let’s say you were discussing the Statue of Liberty and you mentioned that one of the architects also designed the Eiffel Tower. A student who didn’t know what the Eiffel Tower was could take out their cell phone, pull up Google Maps, and quickly find out that it’s a monument in France, switch to satellite view and get a good look at it in its actually setting. Check out the screencap below for an example of how it looks on the N95. While it may not be critical for eduction that it does so, it’s rather nice that Google Maps will tap into the phone’s GPS as well, getting a fix on your current location for things like regional searches and directions. Nice touch, but I’m not sure how that figures into education. Offhand, I’d say Geocacheing, but as you’ll see we can do WAY better than that. GeoCaching I hadn’t really thought of this phone as a GeoCaching device until I went to the DEN National Institute this summer. Bridget Belardi was doing some ‘caching with attendees and I realized that since the phone had a GPS, maybe I could find a map program that would work. Lucky me, I found WAY more than that. GeoCache Navigator is an incredibly well developed application that has everything you need to get rolling. Once you load up the application, you can search for caches nearby your current location, or search by address, zip code, or cache code (from GeoCaching.com). It will pull up a list of caches nearby, tell you how far away you are and what direction they’re in. Very convenient for spontaneous caching. Then, it provides you with a compass, maps, full text information about the cache, and even access to hints and logs if you need a little help. Once you find the cache, you can log it directly from your phone. I’ve done about 4 caches using this device love how easy it is to do on the fly. No prep needed, if you have the time you can do a cache. The program itself is compatible with a pretty fair number of phones and is either free or available for a low cost (depending on phone and service). Live Broadcasting Anybody who has visited this blog in the last few months knows that I’m big on live broadcasting right now. I think it’s absolutely amazing that via a mobile device I can broadcast just like I could with something like uStream.tv. Oh yeah, except no wires, no computers, no browser needed. My site of choice right now is Qik.com. It automatically archives it, announces live streams over a variety of sites, and even permits two way chat during broadcasts. It also does an incredible job of making sure the final recording is clean, even if the live connection is flaky. While there are plenty of other sites that are offering similar services, Qik has won me over for right now at least! It works with most Nokia phones, a handful of Windows Mobile devices and even supports jailbroken iPhones. So why would you want this for education? A few reasons come to mind. First of all, after the lesson is done and you’re reflecting on what the class has learned, you can share the learning with parents, the community or even the world. Students can quickly and easily present for an authentic audience, and have records of it to share on their blogs or the classroom website. When a particular student does something incredible, they can share it with their parents in real time. Assemblies, sporting events, speeches, can all be shared with people who aren’t able to be there, but AS it happens instead of days or weeks later. It could also be used to bring guests into the classroom from remote locations across virtually any distance. Student weather reporters can actually do their reports from outside! Quite simply, it opens up a new world of opportunities for us to explore with students. How will it actually be used in classrooms? I don’t know. Maybe you’ll tell me. One thing to note: Some people might say that this is pretty scary stuff. Broadcasting live video with students? What if something happens or some student abuses the privilege and does something horrible with it? In my opinion, that’s precisely WHY educators need to be leaders in this arena. Students WILL be using this technology, and likely without ethics, morality, forethought or good judgement. But where are they supposed to learn that stuff if not in school? We need to make sure that they have the skills, knowledge, and understanding to use these tools appropriately. After all, even members of Congress are using it! Music Obviously many mobile phones make great MP3 players. Most have the ability to record as well. So if a music teacher wanted to provide students with a copy of the song they’ll be playing or singing, and have students record themselves at home rehearsing, that’d be easy enough to do. Or you could even have students use their phone to record them playing so you could SEE what they’re doing as well. But then there are other applications that can support music instruction in different ways. For example, I found an application called Chords. You put in the key and the fret position you want and it’ll show you where to put your fingers on the guitar! Nothing too fancy, but it fills a need. There’s also a drum machine application that looks promising but I haven’t tried out yet. Or if you just need a little help staying on rhythm, maybe using your phone as metronome would be music to your ears (pun intended). Astronomy I’ve always been an astronomy buff, but I’ll be honest… Most of the constellations look pretty similar to me. Hard to pick them out in the sky, especially when I don’t know which are SUPPOSED to be above me at any given time. That’s why I love MicroSky so much. It’s a planetarium in your pocket! It can use the GPS to figure out where you are and based on the time and date, display to you what constellations will be directly over head. You can also look up any other celestial bodies that may be of interest to you, whether it be stars, suns, planets, or galaxies. Truly an incredible application that is a no-brainer for all star gazers, whether their unpacking their first telescopes or are seasoned astronomers. Second Life Seriously? Second Life via mobile phone? Yeah, that’s right. I wouldn’t say that it’s exactly ideal, but it seriously does work! Using an application called Vollee, you can actually log into Second Life as your avatar on your cell phone, navigate around, and even fly! Yes, you can chat with people in world, but it’s tough because you have to open up window that covers up your view of SL. Additionally, it’s a little pokey. Hardly a surprise considering the graphics that it’s funneling, but just something to be aware of. Regardless, while I’d hardly say that this is an ideal way to experience Second Life, it’s pretty darn impressive that you can. This short video was my avatar wandering around one of the locations Riptide used in his photography class. Fitness This is one of those applications that simply blows me away. Nokia Beta Labs released a program called Sports Tracker, an unbelievable application that tracks your fitness activities, both on the phone and online. You switch it on when you begin your workout and then it uses the GPS to track your speed, elevation, laps (it figures those out based on your route) and more. It’ll give you averages, charts, and just about any information you could possibly want except heart rate. Needs bluetooth heart monitor integration I guess for the next version. Once you’ve finished your workout, you can upload that data to the Sports Tracker site and review it all online. It plots out your route on a Google Map, marking off your fastest and slowest points, the elevation and more. You can take that map and link to it, print it out, or export it to Google Earth! The icing on the cake here is that if you take any movies or photos while being tracked, when you complete your workout the phone will scan your media, recognize that you took some pictures and upload them to the server. Since it geocodes everything it records,they’ll show up on the map in the correct place when you view your workout. Love that feature. Do I envision schools providing GPS enabled cell phones to their students to keep track of them during gym class? Of course not. However, if a student DOES have a GPS enable cell phone, why wouldn’t we help show them how to make the most of it? Just imagine high school track coaches having access to this? Or for physical fitness challenges? Why not create a bulletin board or website for students to share their favorite jogging/biking routes, if for no other reason than to encourage physical activity? Hey, if you think it’s cool, I’m thinking your students will too. And I sure as heck do. Mobile Hotspot I don’t know about your school, but at the school I worked at there were a few corners of the building that didn’t have WiFi. Additionally, the grounds outside the school were WiFi free. While it didn’t come up every day, there were several situations when it would have been really handy to have a few laptops with WiFi available for students to use in some of those dead zones. One situation I remember was during dress rehearsal week for the school play. Students were out of classes the entire day, but sometimes they had 20-40 minutes free to work on homework. However, no WiFi was available unless we did a crazy series of bridged routers, which was a pain to set up. Well, since the N95 has a 3.5G connection as well as WiFi, there are a couple of applications that will create mobile hotspots bridging the two together! With just a couple of clicks, you create your own WiFi network (password protected if you like) and then any computers nearby can see it and connect to it. Speed wise, it’s about comparable to a cable modem. Obviously the more people that connect to it, the slower it’ll go. But I found it plenty fast for myself. I’ve used two different programs, JoikuSpot and Walking HotSpot, but found that the latter has worked much more reliably. Either way, being able to connect a handful of laptops to the internet through your cell phone without any extra charges is a pretty sweet little trick to keep in your back pocket. Teaching with a Cell Phone Of course, as anybody who has ever done a cell phone presentation knows, it’s awfully difficult to share what’s happening on your screen with the rest of the class. That’s where applications like Mobiola Remote Control come in handy. it’s what I’ve been using to take these screenshots and create the movies. By loading up the program and connecting to my PC (Via USB, Bluetooth or even WiFi!), I can see on my computer screen everything that’s on my cell phone screen. I can take screenshots, record videos, or zoom in on the image full screen so everybody can see it easily. I’ve read that you can even load it up as a virtual webcam so you can share what’s on your cell phone screen via sites like uStream, Yahoo Chat or Skype, but I haven’t tried that just yet. It works incredibly well, and if you present with cell phones or intend to use them with your students, I highly recommend it. Well worth the cost. Wrapup I think that’s enough of a taste for right now. But what’s really amazing to me is just how much I’ve left off. For example I didn’t mention that ALL photos that you take are automatically geotagged. And that it has built in support for sites like Flickr so you can share your photos there. I also didn’t really talk about the fact that there’s a native YouTube client, so you can both watch and share videos through there. And this phone takes phenomenal videos and photos! The 5 megapixel camera on it is almost as good as my current camera! I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that you can sync it up with your Google email and calendar, or just about any other mail or calendar application you have. It makes a great media player and will also support instant messaging, like Yahoo and AIM. Seriously, the list of what I love about this phone goes on and on and on. Battery life is awful, but what’re you gonna do? Some sacrifices must be made. I bought myself a second battery to keep handy. Seriously though… The best part about this all is that while I’m thrilled with this specific phone, all of those features will be commonplace within a couple of years. None of these things will be unusual anymore, and the majority of your students will have access to them. And when that happens, will you be fighting their enthusiasm or leveraging it? I hope that you see some potential and find ways to harness it for your own educational setting. Disclaimer I bought my phone off of Craiglist. Any commercial software you see here I bought myself. No handouts, no paid endorsements. I’m just a fan and evangelist. I happen to be using the Nokia N95 and recommend it highly. However, that being said, there are many other phones that will allow you to do the exact same things. So use what ya got! I was recently invited by Nokia to participate in their Open Lab. I have no idea why they invited me, but they did not ask me to write this post, nor even know that I was doing so. In fact, they’ve loaned me a phone to try out that I didn’t even mention here because I don’t have enough time on it yet to discuss it with any authority. And that’s all I gotta say about that! Shortly before NECC, I had a tough decision to make. I was ready to upgrade my mobile phone and had narrowed it down to two choices: the iPhone 3G and the Nokia N95. Both have their pros and cons when compared to each other, but I decided to go with the N95 for two reasons. The first is that it has an incredible high quality camera that takes phenomenal video, which is definitely something I’m very interested in right now. The second reason is that having been around for about a year and running the Symbian 60 operating system, it is very well developed and had a slew of applications built for it. I know, I know, the iPhone didn’t take long to catch up, but that’s why I decided to go with the N95. The lack of keyboard was the only real buzzkill to me, and to be honest, I thought that might have been a deal breaker. But here I am, months later, and at this point I dare say that this is by far the best phone I have ever used. And when I think about how it could be used by teachers and students? Well, I have to admit, I get a little giddy. So let’s explore a little bit. Let’s take a look at some of the things this amazing device can do and brainstorm a bit about how it could be used educationally. Yes, I know your school has a policy against cell phones. Yes, I know they can be used to send text messages and be distracting. And yet, if we just suspend our disbelief for a few minutes and say, “What if we actually gave it a shot…” Well, I think you’ll start to see some possibilities. Specs Real quick, before we get into the details, let me give you the run down on the phone itself. It’s a Nokia N95-3, which means that it isn’t the latest version. The newest one has 8GB of memory built in, but no memory card slot. Mine has a MicroSD slot, which in theory can support up to 12GB, but I only have a 4GB card in it. It has a 5megapixel camera on it. Yes, you heard me. 5 whopping megapixels. It takes video in 640×480 which looks simply amazing on a computer. Definitely one of the high points of the camera. It also has a camera on the front of the phone, so you can see your own face in the screen while your recording/broadcasting. That camera is only 1 megapixel though. Great for video conferencing, if American cell companies would support it! It has a built in GPS, decent looking screen and a standard headphone jack that doubles as video out. It connects to… well, everything. It has a standard mini-usb port, Bluetooth, Infrared and even WiFi. It features a double slider, meaning it can slide both up and down. Sliding down reveals the standard phone keypad, sliding up reveals media buttons and switches the phone into landscape mode. In theory, it’s better that way for watching media. I’ve watched one movie so far and it was ok I guess, but I rarely put it into that mode (except for web browsing at times). Browser Obviously the phone is connected to the internet. In fact, it’s connected at 3.5G. I’m not sure if that’s .5 faster than the 3G iPhone, but it sounds neat. It comes with a browser that’s adequate, but both Opera and Firefox make mobile browsers that I like quite a bit better. I should point out that it’s a full html browser. That means you’re looking at REAL web pages, not mobile/wap versions. As you can see, it renders them pretty darn well. No, it’s not nearly as nice as the iPhone’s browser, but I have had no problem at all scrolling around pages and surfing like I normally would. Firefox loads pages quickly and is easy to navigate around in. Typically when talking about accessing the internet, I’d throw out a list of mobile websites that students could use to enhance classroom experiences. I won’t do that here. Why? Because they can go to ANY website using the N95. Sure, a few flash sites don’t work, but 99% of the sites I’ve navigated too have loaded just fine. With a flip of the slider, you can switch into landscape mode see even more real estate. Works like a charm. Google Maps Like many phones, I am able to load up a mobile version of Google Maps that rivals the online version. In fact, GMaps will tap into the phone’s GPS and use it to figure out where you are! However, what I really love is the ability to switch into satellite view. By doing that, you can really mimic Google Earth in many ways. Get a geographic perspective of whatever your studying. For example, let’s say you were discussing the Statue of Liberty and you mentioned that one of the architects also designed the Eiffel Tower. A student who didn’t know what the Eiffel Tower was could take out their cell phone, pull up Google Maps, and quickly find out that it’s a monument in France, switch to satellite view and get a good look at it in its actually setting. Check out the screencap below for an example of how it looks on the N95. While it may not be critical for eduction that it does so, it’s rather nice that Google Maps will tap into the phone’s GPS as well, getting a fix on your current location for things like regional searches and directions. Nice touch, but I’m not sure how that figures into education. Offhand, I’d say Geocacheing, but as you’ll see we can do WAY better than that. GeoCaching I hadn’t really thought of this phone as a GeoCaching device until I went to the DEN National Institute this summer. Bridget Belardi was doing some ‘caching with attendees and I realized that since the phone had a GPS, maybe I could find a map program that would work. Lucky me, I found WAY more than that. GeoCache Navigator is an incredibly well developed application that has everything you need to get rolling. Once you load up the application, you can search for caches nearby your current location, or search by address, zip code, or cache code (from GeoCaching.com). It will pull up a list of caches nearby, tell you how far away you are and what direction they’re in. Very convenient for spontaneous caching. Then, it provides you with a compass, maps, full text information about the cache, and even access to hints and logs if you need a little help. Once you find the cache, you can log it directly from your phone. I’ve done about 4 caches using this device love how easy it is to do on the fly. No prep needed, if you have the time you can do a cache. The program itself is compatible with a pretty fair number of phones and is either free or available for a low cost (depending on phone and service). Live Broadcasting Anybody who has visited this blog in the last few months knows that I’m big on live broadcasting right now. I think it’s absolutely amazing that via a mobile device I can broadcast just like I could with something like uStream.tv. Oh yeah, except no wires, no computers, no browser needed. My site of choice right now is Qik.com. It automatically archives it, announces live streams over a variety of sites, and even permits two way chat during broadcasts. It also does an incredible job of making sure the final recording is clean, even if the live connection is flaky. While there are plenty of other sites that are offering similar services, Qik has won me over for right now at least! It works with most Nokia phones, a handful of Windows Mobile devices and even supports jailbroken iPhones. So why would you want this for education? A few reasons come to mind. First of all, after the lesson is done and you’re reflecting on what the class has learned, you can share the learning with parents, the community or even the world. Students can quickly and easily present for an authentic audience, and have records of it to share on their blogs or the classroom website. When a particular student does something incredible, they can share it with their parents in real time. Assemblies, sporting events, speeches, can all be shared with people who aren’t able to be there, but AS it happens instead of days or weeks later. It could also be used to bring guests into the classroom from remote locations across virtually any distance. Student weather reporters can actually do their reports from outside! Quite simply, it opens up a new world of opportunities for us to explore with students. How will it actually be used in classrooms? I don’t know. Maybe you’ll tell me. One thing to note: Some people might say that this is pretty scary stuff. Broadcasting live video with students? What if something happens or some student abuses the privilege and does something horrible with it? In my opinion, that’s precisely WHY educators need to be leaders in this arena. Students WILL be using this technology, and likely without ethics, morality, forethought or good judgement. But where are they supposed to learn that stuff if not in school? We need to make sure that they have the skills, knowledge, and understanding to use these tools appropriately. After all, even members of Congress are using it! Music Obviously many mobile phones make great MP3 players. Most have the ability to record as well. So if a music teacher wanted to provide students with a copy of the song they’ll be playing or singing, and have students record themselves at home rehearsing, that’d be easy enough to do. Or you could even have students use their phone to record them playing so you could SEE what they’re doing as well. But then there are other applications that can support music instruction in different ways. For example, I found an application called Chords. You put in the key and the fret position you want and it’ll show you where to put your fingers on the guitar! Nothing too fancy, but it fills a need. There’s also a drum machine application that looks promising but I haven’t tried out yet. Or if you just need a little help staying on rhythm, maybe using your phone as metronome would be music to your ears (pun intended). Astronomy I’ve always been an astronomy buff, but I’ll be honest… Most of the constellations look pretty similar to me. Hard to pick them out in the sky, especially when I don’t know which are SUPPOSED to be above me at any given time. That’s why I love MicroSky so much. It’s a planetarium in your pocket! It can use the GPS to figure out where you are and based on the time and date, display to you what constellations will be directly over head. You can also look up any other celestial bodies that may be of interest to you, whether it be stars, suns, planets, or galaxies. Truly an incredible application that is a no-brainer for all star gazers, whether their unpacking their first telescopes or are seasoned astronomers. Second Life Seriously? Second Life via mobile phone? Yeah, that’s right. I wouldn’t say that it’s exactly ideal, but it seriously does work! Using an application called Vollee, you can actually log into Second Life as your avatar on your cell phone, navigate around, and even fly! Yes, you can chat with people in world, but it’s tough because you have to open up window that covers up your view of SL. Additionally, it’s a little pokey. Hardly a surprise considering the graphics that it’s funneling, but just something to be aware of. Regardless, while I’d hardly say that this is an ideal way to experience Second Life, it’s pretty darn impressive that you can. This short video was my avatar wandering around one of the locations Riptide used in his photography class. Fitness This is one of those applications that simply blows me away. Nokia Beta Labs released a program called Sports Tracker, an unbelievable application that tracks your fitness activities, both on the phone and online. You switch it on when you begin your workout and then it uses the GPS to track your speed, elevation, laps (it figures those out based on your route) and more. It’ll give you averages, charts, and just about any information you could possibly want except heart rate. Needs bluetooth heart monitor integration I guess for the next version. Once you’ve finished your workout, you can upload that data to the Sports Tracker site and review it all online. It plots out your route on a Google Map, marking off your fastest and slowest points, the elevation and more. You can take that map and link to it, print it out, or export it to Google Earth! The icing on the cake here is that if you take any movies or photos while being tracked, when you complete your workout the phone will scan your media, recognize that you took some pictures and upload them to the server. Since it geocodes everything it records,they’ll show up on the map in the correct place when you view your workout. Love that feature. Do I envision schools providing GPS enabled cell phones to their students to keep track of them during gym class? Of course not. However, if a student DOES have a GPS enable cell phone, why wouldn’t we help show them how to make the most of it? Just imagine high school track coaches having access to this? Or for physical fitness challenges? Why not create a bulletin board or website for students to share their favorite jogging/biking routes, if for no other reason than to encourage physical activity? Hey, if you think it’s cool, I’m thinking your students will too. And I sure as heck do. Mobile Hotspot I don’t know about your school, but at the school I worked at there were a few corners of the building that didn’t have WiFi. Additionally, the grounds outside the school were WiFi free. While it didn’t come up every day, there were several situations when it would have been really handy to have a few laptops with WiFi available for students to use in some of those dead zones. One situation I remember was during dress rehearsal week for the school play. Students were out of classes the entire day, but sometimes they had 20-40 minutes free to work on homework. However, no WiFi was available unless we did a crazy series of bridged routers, which was a pain to set up. Well, since the N95 has a 3.5G connection as well as WiFi, there are a couple of applications that will create mobile hotspots bridging the two together! With just a couple of clicks, you create your own WiFi network (password protected if you like) and then any computers nearby can see it and connect to it. Speed wise, it’s about comparable to a cable modem. Obviously the more people that connect to it, the slower it’ll go. But I found it plenty fast for myself. I’ve used two different programs, JoikuSpot and Walking HotSpot, but found that the latter has worked much more reliably. Either way, being able to connect a handful of laptops to the internet through your cell phone without any extra charges is a pretty sweet little trick to keep in your back pocket. Teaching with a Cell Phone Of course, as anybody who has ever done a cell phone presentation knows, it’s awfully difficult to share what’s happening on your screen with the rest of the class. That’s where applications like Mobiola Remote Control come in handy. it’s what I’ve been using to take these screenshots and create the movies. By loading up the program and connecting to my PC (Via USB, Bluetooth or even WiFi!), I can see on my computer screen everything that’s on my cell phone screen. I can take screenshots, record videos, or zoom in on the image full screen so everybody can see it easily. I’ve read that you can even load it up as a virtual webcam so you can share what’s on your cell phone screen via sites like uStream, Yahoo Chat or Skype, but I haven’t tried that just yet. It works incredibly well, and if you present with cell phones or intend to use them with your students, I highly recommend it. Well worth the cost. Wrapup I think that’s enough of a taste for right now. But what’s really amazing to me is just how much I’ve left off. For example I didn’t mention that ALL photos that you take are automatically geotagged. And that it has built in support for sites like Flickr so you can share your photos there. I also didn’t really talk about the fact that there’s a native YouTube client, so you can both watch and share videos through there. And this phone takes phenomenal videos and photos! The 5 megapixel camera on it is almost as good as my current camera! I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that you can sync it up with your Google email and calendar, or just about any other mail or calendar application you have. It makes a great media player and will also support instant messaging, like Yahoo and AIM. Seriously, the list of what I love about this phone goes on and on and on. Battery life is awful, but what’re you gonna do? Some sacrifices must be made. I bought myself a second battery to keep handy. Seriously though… The best part about this all is that while I’m thrilled with this specific phone, all of those features will be commonplace within a couple of years. None of these things will be unusual anymore, and the majority of your students will have access to them. And when that happens, will you be fighting their enthusiasm or leveraging it? I hope that you see some potential and find ways to harness it for your own educational setting. Disclaimer I bought my phone off of Craiglist. Any commercial software you see here I bought myself. No handouts, no paid endorsements. I’m just a fan and evangelist. I happen to be using the Nokia N95 and recommend it highly. However, that being said, there are many other phones that will allow you to do the exact same things. So use what ya got! I was recently invited by Nokia to participate in their Open Lab. I have no idea why they invited me, but they did not ask me to write this post, nor even know that I was doing so. In fact, they’ve loaned me a phone to try out that I didn’t even mention here because I don’t have enough time on it yet to discuss it with any authority. And that’s all I gotta say about that! tag:odeo.com,2008-09-08,23319706 Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:42:11 -0700 no Teach42 musings http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23241708-You-know-you%E2%80%99re-a-rock-star%E2%80%A6-Now-prove-it [simlulposted at the DEN National Blog] I can’t tell you how many people I speak to that have a ton of great information to share, but come up with one excuse or another not to bother submitting any proposals to the various state conferences. Well, let me tell you something… You’ve got experience, you’ve got ideas, and you’ve got knowledge that would be valuable to other people. Why not take the next step and share it with other educators? As I do every year, I’ve aggregated together a list of state conferences along with when their proposal dates open and/or close. I didn’t realize just how late in the year I was doing it this year and a few of them have closed already. So don’t waste any time! If you’d like to participate in any of these conferences, JUMP at the opportunities and apply immediately (if not sooner). One thing to remember, particularly if you’re an East coast resident… You aren’t restricted to ju... [simlulposted at the DEN National Blog] I can’t tell you how many people I speak to that have a ton of great information to share, but come up with one excuse or another not to bother submitting any proposals to the various state conferences. Well, let me tell you something… You’ve got experience, you’ve got ideas, and you’ve got knowledge that would be valuable to other people. Why not take the next step and share it with other educators? As I do every year, I’ve aggregated together a list of state conferences along with when their proposal dates open and/or close. I didn’t realize just how late in the year I was doing it this year and a few of them have closed already. So don’t waste any time! If you’d like to participate in any of these conferences, JUMP at the opportunities and apply immediately (if not sooner). One thing to remember, particularly if you’re an East coast resident… You aren’t restricted to just your state. Apply to present in a neighboring state and see how they run things across the border! More thank likely, there’s several conferences within driving distance that you could be presenting at. Why not apply to them all and see what happens! Florida Educational Technology Coorporation, January 21-24, 2009. Deadline is past, but you can still volunteer to support the conference. Northwest Council for Computer Education, Portland, Oregon, February 17-20, 2009. Deadline is October 3 South Carolina EdTech 2008, November 5-7, 2008. Call for proposals is past. Arizona Technology in Education Alliance, November 8 2008, January 31 2009, and May 2 2009. Call for proposals open now. Georgia Educational Technology Conference , November 5-7, 2008. Call for proposals is open now, deadline is Sept. 7th. Massachusetts Computer Using Educators , November 19-20, 2008. New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education Conference, November 23-25, 2008. North Carolina’s 18th Annual Technology Conference, December 1-4, 2008. Call for proposals is open now, deadline is September 27. Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference, New England, December 2-4, 2008. Deadline is passed, but proposals are still being accepted for Thursday Share-A-Thon Tennessee Education Technology Conference, December 10-12, 2008. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 16. Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educator’s Conference December 3-5, 2008. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 1. Virginia’s Educational Technology Leadership Conference, December 10-12, 2008. Deadline not posted. Midwest Education Technology Conference, Missouri, January 26-28, 2009. Indiana Computer Using Educators, January 27-29, 2009. Call for proposals not open yet. eTech Ohio Educational Technology Conference, February 2-4, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 8. Texas Computer Education Association Conference, February 2-6, 2009 Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference, February 8-11, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Sept.30 Virginia Society for Technology in Education, February 22-24, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 1 . Illinois Technology Conference for Educators , February 26 -29, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 1 . Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning, March 18-20, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Sept 29 Kentucky Teaching and Learning Conference, March 4-6, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is October 31st. Wisconsin Technology Education Association, March 5-6, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Dec 23 . California Computer Using Educators, March 5-7, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Sept 12. Delaware Instructional Technology Conference, April 22-23, 2009 And of course the big momma, which happens to be in Washington DC next year… National Educational Computer Conference, June 28-July 1, 2009. Call for proposals is open now, deadline is Oct 8. Did I miss any? If so, leave a comment with the info! [simlulposted at the DEN National Blog] I can’t tell you how many people I speak to that have a ton of great information to share, but come up with one excuse or another not to bother submitting any proposals to the various state conferences. Well, let me tell you something… You’ve got experience, you’ve got ideas, and you’ve got knowledge that would be valuable to other people. Why not take the next step and share it with other educators? As I do every year, I’ve aggregated together a list of state conferences along with when their proposal dates open and/or close. I didn’t realize just how late in the year I was doing it this year and a few of them have closed already. So don’t waste any time! If you’d like to participate in any of these conferences, JUMP at the opportunities and apply immediately (if not sooner). One thing to remember, particularly if you’re an East coast resident… You aren’t restricted to just your state. Apply to present in a neighboring state and see how they run things across the border! More thank likely, there’s several conferences within driving distance that you could be presenting at. Why not apply to them all and see what happens! Florida Educational Technology Coorporation, January 21-24, 2009. Deadline is past, but you can still volunteer to support the conference. Northwest Council for Computer Education, Portland, Oregon, February 17-20, 2009. Deadline is October 3 South Carolina EdTech 2008, November 5-7, 2008. Call for proposals is past. Arizona Technology in Education Alliance, November 8 2008, January 31 2009, and May 2 2009. Call for proposals open now. Georgia Educational Technology Conference , November 5-7, 2008. Call for proposals is open now, deadline is Sept. 7th. Massachusetts Computer Using Educators , November 19-20, 2008. New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education Conference, November 23-25, 2008. North Carolina’s 18th Annual Technology Conference, December 1-4, 2008. Call for proposals is open now, deadline is September 27. Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference, New England, December 2-4, 2008. Deadline is passed, but proposals are still being accepted for Thursday Share-A-Thon Tennessee Education Technology Conference, December 10-12, 2008. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 16. Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educator’s Conference December 3-5, 2008. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 1. Virginia’s Educational Technology Leadership Conference, December 10-12, 2008. Deadline not posted. Midwest Education Technology Conference, Missouri, January 26-28, 2009. Indiana Computer Using Educators, January 27-29, 2009. Call for proposals not open yet. eTech Ohio Educational Technology Conference, February 2-4, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 8. Texas Computer Education Association Conference, February 2-6, 2009 Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference, February 8-11, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Sept.30 Virginia Society for Technology in Education, February 22-24, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 1 . Illinois Technology Conference for Educators , February 26 -29, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 1 . Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning, March 18-20, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Sept 29 Kentucky Teaching and Learning Conference, March 4-6, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is October 31st. Wisconsin Technology Education Association, March 5-6, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Dec 23 . California Computer Using Educators, March 5-7, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Sept 12. Delaware Instructional Technology Conference, April 22-23, 2009 And of course the big momma, which happens to be in Washington DC next year… National Educational Computer Conference, June 28-July 1, 2009. Call for proposals is open now, deadline is Oct 8. Did I miss any? If so, leave a comment with the info! tag:odeo.com,2008-09-02,23241708 Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:21:55 -0700 no Teach42 Conferences, 2008, ice, 2009, etech, ditc, cue, macul, gaetc, dembo, teach42, NECC, VETLC, fetc, IL-TCE, KTLC, VSTE, aztea, LACUE, METC, Mcauliffe, TETC, massCUE, NYSACTE, PETE&C, WTEA, TCEA, ncce http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23228354-Across-the-Metaverse I’ve been working on a Second Life article, and part of it was spent checking out a few other virtual worlds. And while I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what was out there, this video shows that I really was just barely scratching the surface. Think you are a Virtual World Guru? Then share just how many of the worlds in this video you have avatars in! I’ve been working on a Second Life article, and part of it was spent checking out a few other virtual worlds. And while I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what was out there, this video shows that I really was just barely scratching the surface. Think you are a Virtual World Guru? Then share just how many of the worlds in this video you have avatars in! I’ve been working on a Second Life article, and part of it was spent checking out a few other virtual worlds. And while I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what was out there, this video shows that I really was just barely scratching the surface. Think you are a Virtual World Guru? Then share just how many of the worlds in this video you have avatars in! tag:odeo.com,2008-08-29,23228354 Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:29:08 -0700 no Teach42 youtube, second life, Avatar, virtual worlds, dembo, teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23225869-Do-you-believe Thanks to Justin Karkow for point out this post of Christine Southard’s on the New York DEN Blog. Just in time for the beginning of the school year, Dalton Sherman has a message that is sure to inspire anybody who has chosen to devote their lives to education. Thanks to Justin Karkow for point out this post of Christine Southard’s on the New York DEN Blog. Just in time for the beginning of the school year, Dalton Sherman has a message that is sure to inspire anybody who has chosen to devote their lives to education. Thanks to Justin Karkow for point out this post of Christine Southard’s on the New York DEN Blog. Just in time for the beginning of the school year, Dalton Sherman has a message that is sure to inspire anybody who has chosen to devote their lives to education. tag:odeo.com,2008-08-28,23225869 Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:46:18 -0700 no Teach42 youtube, Inspiration, keynote, General News, dembo, teach42, dalton sherman http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23161872-Your-thoughts-on-advertising I’ve been approached by a company that wants to advertise on Teach42. It’d be a pretty decently sized banner ad that would stay in the sidebar. Dont’ know how much it would generate, but there’s only one way to find out. So here’s what I’m thinking: 1) I display the ad, and donate the revenue that it generates from the first year to an education charity of some sort. I’m sure Beth Kanter can recommend a few 2) I display the ad and donate the revenue that it generates from a specific period of time back to the audience. For example, maybe give away a few Flickr Pro accounts, or podcasting equipment or something along those lines. Basically, give it back to the people that are generating it. 3) I keep the darn thing off the blog. What do you think? Cast your vote! I’ve been approached by a company that wants to advertise on Teach42. It’d be a pretty decently sized banner ad that would stay in the sidebar. Dont’ know how much it would generate, but there’s only one way to find out. So here’s what I’m thinking: 1) I display the ad, and donate the revenue that it generates from the first year to an education charity of some sort. I’m sure Beth Kanter can recommend a few 2) I display the ad and donate the revenue that it generates from a specific period of time back to the audience. For example, maybe give away a few Flickr Pro accounts, or podcasting equipment or something along those lines. Basically, give it back to the people that are generating it. 3) I keep the darn thing off the blog. What do you think? Cast your vote! I’ve been approached by a company that wants to advertise on Teach42. It’d be a pretty decently sized banner ad that would stay in the sidebar. Dont’ know how much it would generate, but there’s only one way to find out. So here’s what I’m thinking: 1) I display the ad, and donate the revenue that it generates from the first year to an education charity of some sort. I’m sure Beth Kanter can recommend a few 2) I display the ad and donate the revenue that it generates from a specific period of time back to the audience. For example, maybe give away a few Flickr Pro accounts, or podcasting equipment or something along those lines. Basically, give it back to the people that are generating it. 3) I keep the darn thing off the blog. What do you think? Cast your vote! tag:odeo.com,2008-08-08,23161872 Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:43:28 -0700 no Teach42 advertising, Blog, Site News, ads, banner, dembo, teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23151845-A-CarCast-a-BikeCast-and%E2%80%A6-a-GovernmentCast It’s no secret that I’m fascinated by live video streaming. I’ve never been one to do much editing, I like my media authentic, unscripted and unfiltered. And that’s the way I’ve always podcasted, well back when I used to do it on a regular basis (more often than once year). Well, in the last month I switched from the Samsung Blackjack to the Nokia N95 which has an unbelievable video camera built into it which is perfect for live streaming. Since Nokia’s happen to be compatible with just about everything, I’ve got my choice of sites to use including Qik, Flixwagon, Kyte, Seesmic and more. My favorite right now happens to be Qik, which is what I used at NECC several times over, including the incredibly fun pair of broadcasts on airplanes before they took off. However, as with with any new technology, I think the best way to figure out where it fits into my professional life is to start off playing. Try things out, experiment a bit, throw thing... It’s no secret that I’m fascinated by live video streaming. I’ve never been one to do much editing, I like my media authentic, unscripted and unfiltered. And that’s the way I’ve always podcasted, well back when I used to do it on a regular basis (more often than once year). Well, in the last month I switched from the Samsung Blackjack to the Nokia N95 which has an unbelievable video camera built into it which is perfect for live streaming. Since Nokia’s happen to be compatible with just about everything, I’ve got my choice of sites to use including Qik, Flixwagon, Kyte, Seesmic and more. My favorite right now happens to be Qik, which is what I used at NECC several times over, including the incredibly fun pair of broadcasts on airplanes before they took off. However, as with with any new technology, I think the best way to figure out where it fits into my professional life is to start off playing. Try things out, experiment a bit, throw things up against the wall and see what sticks. And that’s what I’ve been doing with Qik lately. Last week, I did my first CarCast in quite a long time. I used an old hair tie to strap my phone to my suction cup GPS mount. Then I hit broadcast and recording the commute home, talking head style. Since it as mounted, I was able to keep my eyes on the road, and just shoot glances at the camera on occasion, to make sure it was still broadcasting. Very fun. I enjoyed it so much that I’ve actually bought a mount specifically for the phone in the car. A couple of days later I rode my bike to work. On the way home, I realized that if I stuck the phone in the little pocket one of the backpack straps has, it would probably hold the phone in place well enough to do a BikeCast. And so I did. Threw on my helmet, hopped on the bike, and broadcast my ride home. Well, most of it anyway, I kinda ran out of battery before I got there. Regardless, it worked rather well for the first time! People were able to join me for the ride home in real time, and you can see the archive now. It’s a little slanty, so sit down if you get motion sickness easily. So what does all this mean for education? To be honest, I’m not sure. Would I recommend everybody start broadcasting their commutes every day? Well, no… But this seems significant to me and worth more exploration. It feels powerful. It seems like it opens up new doors. Imagine being able to share accomplishments with parents in real time. To broadcast successes, make the classroom more transparent than ever before. What do we do with it? I don’t know, but maybe we can figure it out together. However, we’re not the only ones trying to figure out what it all means. In fact, there’s a certain Representative from Texas that has been doing some rather interesting things with Qik. Last week, when the Republicans staged their protest before the House let out for a 5 week recess, the lights were shut off, the microphones were shut off, and the cameras were shut off. So was the general public blocked off? Not by a long shot. John Culberson, representative from Texas, continued the broadcast via his cell phone. He had interviews, covered a press conference, and provided the only glimpse into what was fascinating day in US politics. An integral part of the political system, it may not be. But there’s definitely some significance that bears more contemplation, exploration and innovation. Waiting for the BikeCast and CarCast to be converted by ZamZar, once they are, I’ll add links for podcasting purposes. It’s no secret that I’m fascinated by live video streaming. I’ve never been one to do much editing, I like my media authentic, unscripted and unfiltered. And that’s the way I’ve always podcasted, well back when I used to do it on a regular basis (more often than once year). Well, in the last month I switched from the Samsung Blackjack to the Nokia N95 which has an unbelievable video camera built into it which is perfect for live streaming. Since Nokia’s happen to be compatible with just about everything, I’ve got my choice of sites to use including Qik, Flixwagon, Kyte, Seesmic and more. My favorite right now happens to be Qik, which is what I used at NECC several times over, including the incredibly fun pair of broadcasts on airplanes before they took off. However, as with with any new technology, I think the best way to figure out where it fits into my professional life is to start off playing. Try things out, experiment a bit, throw things up against the wall and see what sticks. And that’s what I’ve been doing with Qik lately. Last week, I did my first CarCast in quite a long time. I used an old hair tie to strap my phone to my suction cup GPS mount. Then I hit broadcast and recording the commute home, talking head style. Since it as mounted, I was able to keep my eyes on the road, and just shoot glances at the camera on occasion, to make sure it was still broadcasting. Very fun. I enjoyed it so much that I’ve actually bought a mount specifically for the phone in the car. A couple of days later I rode my bike to work. On the way home, I realized that if I stuck the phone in the little pocket one of the backpack straps has, it would probably hold the phone in place well enough to do a BikeCast. And so I did. Threw on my helmet, hopped on the bike, and broadcast my ride home. Well, most of it anyway, I kinda ran out of battery before I got there. Regardless, it worked rather well for the first time! People were able to join me for the ride home in real time, and you can see the archive now. It’s a little slanty, so sit down if you get motion sickness easily. So what does all this mean for education? To be honest, I’m not sure. Would I recommend everybody start broadcasting their commutes every day? Well, no… But this seems significant to me and worth more exploration. It feels powerful. It seems like it opens up new doors. Imagine being able to share accomplishments with parents in real time. To broadcast successes, make the classroom more transparent than ever before. What do we do with it? I don’t know, but maybe we can figure it out together. However, we’re not the only ones trying to figure out what it all means. In fact, there’s a certain Representative from Texas that has been doing some rather interesting things with Qik. Last week, when the Republicans staged their protest before the House let out for a 5 week recess, the lights were shut off, the microphones were shut off, and the cameras were shut off. So was the general public blocked off? Not by a long shot. John Culberson, representative from Texas, continued the broadcast via his cell phone. He had interviews, covered a press conference, and provided the only glimpse into what was fascinating day in US politics. An integral part of the political system, it may not be. But there’s definitely some significance that bears more contemplation, exploration and innovation. Waiting for the BikeCast and CarCast to be converted by ZamZar, once they are, I’ll add links for podcasting purposes. tag:odeo.com,2008-08-06,23151845 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:15:24 -0700 no Teach42 podcast, Podcasting, streaming, flixwagon, qik, kyte, Live Video, Teach42 Podcasts, dembo, teach42, carcast, bikecast, culberson http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23067516-A-NECC-to-Remember I know most people have already put up their post-NECC reports, but I figure it’s never really too late and I’m glad that I had time to put some things in perspective and do a little soul searching before writing this. There’s so much to write about, both positive and negative, so I think I’m going to try to separate them into two different posts. Without question, while the sessions are phenomenal, the most memorable parts of NECC often seem to be the networking. It seemed that every ten feet there was another person on my list of “People I Need to Meet F2F” and unfortunately there was never enough time to have a proper conversation. I truly felt humbled that I met so many people who consider me a part of their learning networks, personal or professional. Additionally, there were so many people that I’ve been a fan of for so long that it was an honor to finally meet them in person. I hate to do name lists because I always forget people, but... I know most people have already put up their post-NECC reports, but I figure it’s never really too late and I’m glad that I had time to put some things in perspective and do a little soul searching before writing this. There’s so much to write about, both positive and negative, so I think I’m going to try to separate them into two different posts. Without question, while the sessions are phenomenal, the most memorable parts of NECC often seem to be the networking. It seemed that every ten feet there was another person on my list of “People I Need to Meet F2F” and unfortunately there was never enough time to have a proper conversation. I truly felt humbled that I met so many people who consider me a part of their learning networks, personal or professional. Additionally, there were so many people that I’ve been a fan of for so long that it was an honor to finally meet them in person. I hate to do name lists because I always forget people, but among the most memorable were Miguel Guhlin and Bud Hunt. These are colleagues and friends that I have known for years, but never met face to face. It was truly a pleasure to finally be able to shake their hand, give them a hug and tell them in person just how much I’ve admired their work over all these years. Of course there were so many others that I could say the same for, but this isn’t about name dropping. It’s about friendships, and making personal connections between nodes in our networks. And no matter how many names I listed, I couldn’t name them all. I can’t remember who said this, but someone at EduBloggerCon truly summed the networking side up quite eloquently: “Every single F2F conversation with someone makes the 140 characters that much more meaningful.” That’s not a direct quote, so if you said it, then let me know so I can get it right and give you credit. Without a doubt, live video streaming was (as predicted) a big topic at NECC. I’m still trying to get a grasp on how many sessions were streamed. EdStream.TV was not as successful as I’d have liked it to be, but it was a spectacular learning experience that I think has huge potential. In particular, I learned that you really need someone dedicated solely to keeping the project organized and handle the video production, whether on site or off site is irrelevant. Unfortunately I just had too many other time commitments to devote the necessary hours to make it a true success. MAJOR kudos to Jen Wagner for her incredible effort aggregating the streams together here and making sure that virtual attendees had just about as rich an experience as physical attendees. While backchannels and live streams were becoming commonplace in many sessions, the internet connectivity issues were always around to throw a monkey wrench in the works. During two of the panel discussions I participated in, I couldn’t stay connected to the backchannel to contribute there. Very aggravating. Even my cell-phone-as-a-modem solution failed me, despite the fact that we were in AT&T’s corporate home. However, most backchannels were archived and quite honestly are a wealth of information. That being said, I think it’s a bit presumptuous to assume that people know what a backchannel is, how to find it and how to participate. Vicki Davis has made it a priority to explain the fine art of backchanneling in some of her presentations, and I think she’s got the right idea. I’m going to make that a priority in future presentations. Speaking of backchannels, while Chatzy and CoverItLive seem to be the hot ones right now, my backchannel of choice has become Plurk. Why Plurk? Well, for one thing, I think it could be the best successor to Twitter that I’ve seen yet. Instead of a series of loosely related posts, you get one threaded conversation with its own RSS feed and permalink. Check out Ginger Lewman’s live blog from Ian Juke’s session. Not only that, but it has a rock solid mobile version that you can use from a cell phone, iPhone or any other mobile device. Heck, on a PC it looks alot like Twitter for those that don’t like the timeline. So while I couldn’t get online, if the backchannel had been on Plurk I could still have participated actively via mobile. On the subject of mobiles, I don’t think I’ve ever used my cell phone more at a conference before. I used it to keep up with Twitter. I used it to keep up with Plurk. I used it to check in with emails, both work and personal. I used Google Maps on there to find where I was going. I used it to read blogs and to look up people’s names and information. I used my phone as a camera and a camcorder. And as many saw in both Will’s and Hall’s sessions, I used it to do several live video streams. I broadcast solo from the airplane on the way to NECC, and interviewed Kelly Dumont, Bonnie Muir and Darren Draper (who had the misfortune of sitting next to me) on the return flight. Video of that one is embedded below. While the videos may be a little rough and got cut off before the end, I felt that they were a great proof of concept and something I will definitely continue to pursue. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I believe that live video streaming via mobile is going to play a crucial role in education within the next five years. These devices are just too powerful and diverse to blow off. I’m seriously considering upgrading from the Blackjack to a Nokia N95 just so I can improve my live streams and get a full screen browser. I was pretty busy presenting in formal sessions, panels and in the booth, so I didn’t have too much time to attend many sessions. I did attend the DEN’s Second Life Leadership Council’s panel presentation about building out their personal learning networks which was absolutely phenomenal. A classic example of how you can never be over prepared. They knew what they wanted to say, had it timed well, and really did magnificent job of sharing the fine work they’re doing in Second Life. Speaking of being over prepared, I did catch Hall Davidson’s cell phone presentation. It was easily the best presentation I saw at NECC, and I’m not just saying that because I work with him. I don’t think there’s anyone out there that understands the art of presenting better than Hall and watching him up on stage is like a magic show that you actually learn from. It was chock full of hands on demonstrations and it was a pleasure watching hundreds of educators break out their own phones and participate. If you missed it, they did record it. You can catch it at ISTE’s NECC On Demand website. Of course, then there was the DEN Pre-Conference which was an absolute blast. Where else are you going to get to see your boss get thrown in jail, a friend get hog tied, participate in an Old West scavenger hunt and STILL have time to network, share ideas, and do a little presenting? The DEN’s 3rd birthday party was a huge “overflowing” success and with STAR Discovery Educators in every corner of the room it was more like a family reunion than cocktail party. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Howl at the Moon, the piano bar where I left both my voice and my dignity. I can honestly say it’s the most interesting place I’ve ever celebrated my *ahem* birthday. All in all, it was definitely a NECC to remember. Next time I’m going to try to make a point to carve out more free time so I can actually spend more time chatting with people beyond the 10 minute, “Hello! I follow you! I read you! Thanks for all you do! Hope to see you again soon!” There were way too many of those unfortunately. SO that’s the end of part 1, The Good. More to come. I know most people have already put up their post-NECC reports, but I figure it’s never really too late and I’m glad that I had time to put some things in perspective and do a little soul searching before writing this. There’s so much to write about, both positive and negative, so I think I’m going to try to separate them into two different posts. Without question, while the sessions are phenomenal, the most memorable parts of NECC often seem to be the networking. It seemed that every ten feet there was another person on my list of “People I Need to Meet F2F” and unfortunately there was never enough time to have a proper conversation. I truly felt humbled that I met so many people who consider me a part of their learning networks, personal or professional. Additionally, there were so many people that I’ve been a fan of for so long that it was an honor to finally meet them in person. I hate to do name lists because I always forget people, but among the most memorable were Miguel Guhlin and Bud Hunt. These are colleagues and friends that I have known for years, but never met face to face. It was truly a pleasure to finally be able to shake their hand, give them a hug and tell them in person just how much I’ve admired their work over all these years. Of course there were so many others that I could say the same for, but this isn’t about name dropping. It’s about friendships, and making personal connections between nodes in our networks. And no matter how many names I listed, I couldn’t name them all. I can’t remember who said this, but someone at EduBloggerCon truly summed the networking side up quite eloquently: “Every single F2F conversation with someone makes the 140 characters that much more meaningful.” That’s not a direct quote, so if you said it, then let me know so I can get it right and give you credit. Without a doubt, live video streaming was (as predicted) a big topic at NECC. I’m still trying to get a grasp on how many sessions were streamed. EdStream.TV was not as successful as I’d have liked it to be, but it was a spectacular learning experience that I think has huge potential. In particular, I learned that you really need someone dedicated solely to keeping the project organized and handle the video production, whether on site or off site is irrelevant. Unfortunately I just had too many other time commitments to devote the necessary hours to make it a true success. MAJOR kudos to Jen Wagner for her incredible effort aggregating the streams together here and making sure that virtual attendees had just about as rich an experience as physical attendees. While backchannels and live streams were becoming commonplace in many sessions, the internet connectivity issues were always around to throw a monkey wrench in the works. During two of the panel discussions I participated in, I couldn’t stay connected to the backchannel to contribute there. Very aggravating. Even my cell-phone-as-a-modem solution failed me, despite the fact that we were in AT&T’s corporate home. However, most backchannels were archived and quite honestly are a wealth of information. That being said, I think it’s a bit presumptuous to assume that people know what a backchannel is, how to find it and how to participate. Vicki Davis has made it a priority to explain the fine art of backchanneling in some of her presentations, and I think she’s got the right idea. I’m going to make that a priority in future presentations. Speaking of backchannels, while Chatzy and CoverItLive seem to be the hot ones right now, my backchannel of choice has become Plurk. Why Plurk? Well, for one thing, I think it could be the best successor to Twitter that I’ve seen yet. Instead of a series of loosely related posts, you get one threaded conversation with its own RSS feed and permalink. Check out Ginger Lewman’s live blog from Ian Juke’s session. Not only that, but it has a rock solid mobile version that you can use from a cell phone, iPhone or any other mobile device. Heck, on a PC it looks alot like Twitter for those that don’t like the timeline. So while I couldn’t get online, if the backchannel had been on Plurk I could still have participated actively via mobile. On the subject of mobiles, I don’t think I’ve ever used my cell phone more at a conference before. I used it to keep up with Twitter. I used it to keep up with Plurk. I used it to check in with emails, both work and personal. I used Google Maps on there to find where I was going. I used it to read blogs and to look up people’s names and information. I used my phone as a camera and a camcorder. And as many saw in both Will’s and Hall’s sessions, I used it to do several live video streams. I broadcast solo from the airplane on the way to NECC, and interviewed Kelly Dumont, Bonnie Muir and Darren Draper (who had the misfortune of sitting next to me) on the return flight. Video of that one is embedded below. While the videos may be a little rough and got cut off before the end, I felt that they were a great proof of concept and something I will definitely continue to pursue. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I believe that live video streaming via mobile is going to play a crucial role in education within the next five years. These devices are just too powerful and diverse to blow off. I’m seriously considering upgrading from the Blackjack to a Nokia N95 just so I can improve my live streams and get a full screen browser. I was pretty busy presenting in formal sessions, panels and in the booth, so I didn’t have too much time to attend many sessions. I did attend the DEN’s Second Life Leadership Council’s panel presentation about building out their personal learning networks which was absolutely phenomenal. A classic example of how you can never be over prepared. They knew what they wanted to say, had it timed well, and really did magnificent job of sharing the fine work they’re doing in Second Life. Speaking of being over prepared, I did catch Hall Davidson’s cell phone presentation. It was easily the best presentation I saw at NECC, and I’m not just saying that because I work with him. I don’t think there’s anyone out there that understands the art of presenting better than Hall and watching him up on stage is like a magic show that you actually learn from. It was chock full of hands on demonstrations and it was a pleasure watching hundreds of educators break out their own phones and participate. If you missed it, they did record it. You can catch it at ISTE’s NECC On Demand website. Of course, then there was the DEN Pre-Conference which was an absolute blast. Where else are you going to get to see your boss get thrown in jail, a friend get hog tied, participate in an Old West scavenger hunt and STILL have time to network, share ideas, and do a little presenting? The DEN’s 3rd birthday party was a huge “overflowing” success and with STAR Discovery Educators in every corner of the room it was more like a family reunion than cocktail party. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Howl at the Moon, the piano bar where I left both my voice and my dignity. I can honestly say it’s the most interesting place I’ve ever celebrated my *ahem* birthday. All in all, it was definitely a NECC to remember. Next time I’m going to try to make a point to carve out more free time so I can actually spend more time chatting with people beyond the 10 minute, “Hello! I follow you! I read you! Thanks for all you do! Hope to see you again soon!” There were way too many of those unfortunately. SO that’s the end of part 1, The Good. More to come. tag:odeo.com,2008-07-10,23067516 Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:07:03 -0700 no Teach42 phones, Conferences, Education, Mobile, cell, den, streaming, ustream, backchannel, qik, discovery, dembo, teach42, Darren Draper, vicki davis, NECC, Bud Hunt, Miguel Guhlin, Discovery Education, Jen Wagner, NECC08, Kelly Dumont, Hall Davidson http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23064967-Hump-Day-Video-Break-One-Semester-of-Spanish-Spanish-Love-Song You can take this as a social commentary on the way we teach foreign languages here in the states, or just sit back and enjoy it. Either way, I think you’ll get a kick of this video Larry Anderson shared with me at NECC. You can take this as a social commentary on the way we teach foreign languages here in the states, or just sit back and enjoy it. Either way, I think you’ll get a kick of this video Larry Anderson shared with me at NECC. You can take this as a social commentary on the way we teach foreign languages here in the states, or just sit back and enjoy it. Either way, I think you’ll get a kick of this video Larry Anderson shared with me at NECC. tag:odeo.com,2008-07-09,23064967 Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:20:25 -0700 no Teach42 youtube, spanish, love song, dembo, teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22610699-GPS-for-chronic-truants I got an email alerting me to a segment on CBS News about one school using a GPS tracking device to help stop truancy. While it may have worked for the student in the video, I have to admit some skepticism regarding the ability for this to be a large scale solution. They mention that the student really does want to be in school, and this provides him an excuse to provide his friends, without losing any reputation points. However, there had to be reasons beyond just peer pressure that caused him to miss so many days int he first place. And if the school doesn’t address those issues, then why should this make any difference. Yes, we do want the student to be in his/her seat. But we also need to find new ways to motivate those students, to keep them involved in their education, to ensure that it’s relevant and valuable to their future success. While I’m not trying to imply that the school in the video is failing to do that, I do want to point out that getting them the... I got an email alerting me to a segment on CBS News about one school using a GPS tracking device to help stop truancy. While it may have worked for the student in the video, I have to admit some skepticism regarding the ability for this to be a large scale solution. They mention that the student really does want to be in school, and this provides him an excuse to provide his friends, without losing any reputation points. However, there had to be reasons beyond just peer pressure that caused him to miss so many days int he first place. And if the school doesn’t address those issues, then why should this make any difference. Yes, we do want the student to be in his/her seat. But we also need to find new ways to motivate those students, to keep them involved in their education, to ensure that it’s relevant and valuable to their future success. While I’m not trying to imply that the school in the video is failing to do that, I do want to point out that getting them there is only one part of a larger solution to the problem. And is anybody else wondering what’s to stop him from just putting the darn device into someone else’s backpack for the day? I got an email alerting me to a segment on CBS News about one school using a GPS tracking device to help stop truancy. While it may have worked for the student in the video, I have to admit some skepticism regarding the ability for this to be a large scale solution. They mention that the student really does want to be in school, and this provides him an excuse to provide his friends, without losing any reputation points. However, there had to be reasons beyond just peer pressure that caused him to miss so many days int he first place. And if the school doesn’t address those issues, then why should this make any difference. Yes, we do want the student to be in his/her seat. But we also need to find new ways to motivate those students, to keep them involved in their education, to ensure that it’s relevant and valuable to their future success. While I’m not trying to imply that the school in the video is failing to do that, I do want to point out that getting them there is only one part of a larger solution to the problem. And is anybody else wondering what’s to stop him from just putting the darn device into someone else’s backpack for the day? tag:odeo.com,2008-06-13,22610699 Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:40:12 -0700 no Teach42 General News http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22535898-Another-contest-you-should-win-Discovery-Ed-3M-Young-Scientist-Challenge As if one contest announcement isn’t enough, there’s another competition going on that you should certainly be entering. Discovery Education and 3M have partnered together for this year’s Young Scientist Challenge. YES, there is a teacher competition too, and it couldn’t be easier to enter. You can read all the details here, but essentially all you need to do is create a 1-2 minute video that demonstrates one of the following scientific concepts: Newton’s Laws of Motion, Acceleration, Aeronautics, Centrifugal & Centripetal Force, or Scope & Scale. Five finalists will be chosen, and each will be provided an all expenses paid trip to Washington DC where they will compete to become “DEN’s Science Teacher of the Year”. Time to break out those digital storytelling skills you’ve been honing all year. Have some fun and create your 1-2 minute video and get it submitted by June 15th and we just might see you in DC. Oh yeah, the ... As if one contest announcement isn’t enough, there’s another competition going on that you should certainly be entering. Discovery Education and 3M have partnered together for this year’s Young Scientist Challenge. YES, there is a teacher competition too, and it couldn’t be easier to enter. You can read all the details here, but essentially all you need to do is create a 1-2 minute video that demonstrates one of the following scientific concepts: Newton’s Laws of Motion, Acceleration, Aeronautics, Centrifugal & Centripetal Force, or Scope & Scale. Five finalists will be chosen, and each will be provided an all expenses paid trip to Washington DC where they will compete to become “DEN’s Science Teacher of the Year”. Time to break out those digital storytelling skills you’ve been honing all year. Have some fun and create your 1-2 minute video and get it submitted by June 15th and we just might see you in DC. Oh yeah, the main part of the competition is actually for students! So spend some of your last few weeks of the year helping yours students create their entries. Need a little help motivating them? Well, the Mythbusters are here to lend a hand. Just think, not only could your students win a trip to Washington, DC to compete in the YSC finals, but they also have a chance to win a $50,000 savings bond! There’s a ton of prizes to be won though. In fact, the top entry from each state will win $250, and each of the 10 student finalists will win $1000 in addition to the trip to DC. Need more resources? Check out the webinars that Hall created, one for the students and one for the teachers. You can also find a ton of links that Hall and Joe have put together by visiting here. Not only that, but they’ve recently added 40 audio files to the YSC sit. Students can use these clips to spice up their entries. Visit http://youngscientist.discoveryeducation.com/ for all the details and to submit your entry! As if one contest announcement isn’t enough, there’s another competition going on that you should certainly be entering. Discovery Education and 3M have partnered together for this year’s Young Scientist Challenge. YES, there is a teacher competition too, and it couldn’t be easier to enter. You can read all the details here, but essentially all you need to do is create a 1-2 minute video that demonstrates one of the following scientific concepts: Newton’s Laws of Motion, Acceleration, Aeronautics, Centrifugal & Centripetal Force, or Scope & Scale. Five finalists will be chosen, and each will be provided an all expenses paid trip to Washington DC where they will compete to become “DEN’s Science Teacher of the Year”. Time to break out those digital storytelling skills you’ve been honing all year. Have some fun and create your 1-2 minute video and get it submitted by June 15th and we just might see you in DC. Oh yeah, the main part of the competition is actually for students! So spend some of your last few weeks of the year helping yours students create their entries. Need a little help motivating them? Well, the Mythbusters are here to lend a hand. Just think, not only could your students win a trip to Washington, DC to compete in the YSC finals, but they also have a chance to win a $50,000 savings bond! There’s a ton of prizes to be won though. In fact, the top entry from each state will win $250, and each of the 10 student finalists will win $1000 in addition to the trip to DC. Need more resources? Check out the webinars that Hall created, one for the students and one for the teachers. You can also find a ton of links that Hall and Joe have put together by visiting here. Not only that, but they’ve recently added 40 audio files to the YSC sit. Students can use these clips to spice up their entries. Visit http://youngscientist.discoveryeducation.com/ for all the details and to submit your entry! tag:odeo.com,2008-05-22,22535898 Thu, 22 May 2008 09:30:24 -0700 no Teach42 discovery http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22487012-Mobile-phones-in-the-classroom%E2%80%A6-again Pogue shared a letter that’s got me all riled up again… I’m a high school teacher. Like all high schools, we are dealing with a problem that sucks time, energy, and resources like a black hole: cellphones. We waged a similar battle a few years back with iPods, and although stakes seem much higher now, the fundamental argument is the same. The argument is: 1] cellphones are a distraction 2] cellphones present a potential liability in terms of cheating on tests 3] cellphones are a distraction … So I’m asking for some insight on how to sell this to an administration that is overwhelmed with a hundred more important things, and to a school board that feels that two $500 computers are twice as good as one $1,000 machine. What’s the answer? I’m so fed up with these arguments. Paper clips are a distraction. Spiral notebooks are a distraction. And as we’ve seen recently, students certainly do NOT need a cell phone to cheat on an exam. So off the top of my head,... Pogue shared a letter that’s got me all riled up again… I’m a high school teacher. Like all high schools, we are dealing with a problem that sucks time, energy, and resources like a black hole: cellphones. We waged a similar battle a few years back with iPods, and although stakes seem much higher now, the fundamental argument is the same. The argument is: 1] cellphones are a distraction 2] cellphones present a potential liability in terms of cheating on tests 3] cellphones are a distraction … So I’m asking for some insight on how to sell this to an administration that is overwhelmed with a hundred more important things, and to a school board that feels that two $500 computers are twice as good as one $1,000 machine. What’s the answer? I’m so fed up with these arguments. Paper clips are a distraction. Spiral notebooks are a distraction. And as we’ve seen recently, students certainly do NOT need a cell phone to cheat on an exam. So off the top of my head, I decided to rattle off a few things that cell phones could be good for. Such as… 1) Check the spelling/definition of a word 2) Research a topic 3) Look up reference images 4) Pull up maps (even with satellite imagery) 5) Document a science lab with built in digital camera/video 6) Fact check on the fly 7) Mail questions to the teacher that they might be embarrassed to ask Classroom response system 9) Take quizzes 10) Record and/or listen to podcasts And that’s off the top of my head, spur of the moment. Give me some time and I’m sure we can come up with a much more comprehensive list. So let’s stop exerting so much energy trying to ‘bust’ students for carrying the same devices the rest of us carry. Rather, let’s start focusing on how we can use them to improve education in the classroom. You know, prepare them for the world and such… Pogue shared a letter that’s got me all riled up again… I’m a high school teacher. Like all high schools, we are dealing with a problem that sucks time, energy, and resources like a black hole: cellphones. We waged a similar battle a few years back with iPods, and although stakes seem much higher now, the fundamental argument is the same. The argument is: 1] cellphones are a distraction 2] cellphones present a potential liability in terms of cheating on tests 3] cellphones are a distraction … So I’m asking for some insight on how to sell this to an administration that is overwhelmed with a hundred more important things, and to a school board that feels that two $500 computers are twice as good as one $1,000 machine. What’s the answer? I’m so fed up with these arguments. Paper clips are a distraction. Spiral notebooks are a distraction. And as we’ve seen recently, students certainly do NOT need a cell phone to cheat on an exam. So off the top of my head, I decided to rattle off a few things that cell phones could be good for. Such as… 1) Check the spelling/definition of a word 2) Research a topic 3) Look up reference images 4) Pull up maps (even with satellite imagery) 5) Document a science lab with built in digital camera/video 6) Fact check on the fly 7) Mail questions to the teacher that they might be embarrassed to ask Classroom response system 9) Take quizzes 10) Record and/or listen to podcasts And that’s off the top of my head, spur of the moment. Give me some time and I’m sure we can come up with a much more comprehensive list. So let’s stop exerting so much energy trying to ‘bust’ students for carrying the same devices the rest of us carry. Rather, let’s start focusing on how we can use them to improve education in the classroom. You know, prepare them for the world and such… tag:odeo.com,2008-05-06,22487012 Tue, 06 May 2008 07:38:40 -0700 no Teach42 Site News, Current news, Teach42 Podcasts, Webinar, Quickies, Statistics http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22487013-Why-did-the-PowerPoint-cross-the-road Via Ewan, check out this fantastic video demonstrating how powerful PowerPoint really can be as a presenting tool. Heck, does the presenter even really need to say a word, ermmm more than one word? Via Ewan, check out this fantastic video demonstrating how powerful PowerPoint really can be as a presenting tool. Heck, does the presenter even really need to say a word, ermmm more than one word? Via Ewan, check out this fantastic video demonstrating how powerful PowerPoint really can be as a presenting tool. Heck, does the presenter even really need to say a word, ermmm more than one word? tag:odeo.com,2008-05-06,22487013 Tue, 06 May 2008 06:38:09 -0700 no Teach42 youtube, PowerPoint chicken http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22050544-24-hours-and-15-to-goal What a fantastic community to be a part of. Yesterday I announced my first online personal fundraising campaign to benefit Habitat for Humanity. A short 24 hours later, I’ve had 9 contributions and raised $150 of the $1000 I’m trying to collect before the end of the year! Unbelievable. Every person who makes a contribution will get a personal thank you on the blog along with the link to the site of their choice. Even if you can’t contribute yourself, follow these links and support the people that have stepped up to make a donation! Anne Truger - Anne is a rock STAR from Illinois. She’s a member of the DEN’s Second Life Leadership Council. In world, her name is JessieMarie Flanagan. If she isn’t in the DEN HQ, try checking various dance floors! Jennifer Orr - Jennifer is an upper elementary teacher from Virginia. Her blog, Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It has some fantastic classroom reflections. Personally, I got a kick out of List of Loves, wh... What a fantastic community to be a part of. Yesterday I announced my first online personal fundraising campaign to benefit Habitat for Humanity. A short 24 hours later, I’ve had 9 contributions and raised $150 of the $1000 I’m trying to collect before the end of the year! Unbelievable. Every person who makes a contribution will get a personal thank you on the blog along with the link to the site of their choice. Even if you can’t contribute yourself, follow these links and support the people that have stepped up to make a donation! Anne Truger - Anne is a rock STAR from Illinois. She’s a member of the DEN’s Second Life Leadership Council. In world, her name is JessieMarie Flanagan. If she isn’t in the DEN HQ, try checking various dance floors! Jennifer Orr - Jennifer is an upper elementary teacher from Virginia. Her blog, Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It has some fantastic classroom reflections. Personally, I got a kick out of List of Loves, where she discloses her love of things like, “when students ask a question I don’t know the answer to” and when “when students ask a question I don’t know the answer to”. Diana Laufenberg - Diana is a STAR Discovery Educator from Arizona who I had the pleasure of meeting at the Florida National Institute. Her wiki is chock full of juicy goodness, but what really stands out to me is the project she has entitled the Power of One. It outlines one way to address the incredibly difficult subject of genocide with middle school students. Cheryl Lykowski - Cheryl Lykowski is also a STAR, hailing from Michigan. Her blog, Web Explorer, documents her travels through the vast technology landscape. This year she was awarded a grant from MACUL to assist in a collaborative project her students are working on, entitled Global Explorers. Her students are connecting and collaborating with students in Bucaramanga, Colombia. Very cool! More thank you’s coming tomorrow! And if you’d like to contribute, it couldn’t be easier. Just click “Chip In” on the widget below and you’ll be able to donate directly from PayPal or via a credit card if you so choose. Any amount at all will help us raise the money needed to build a family a house of their own. What a fantastic community to be a part of. Yesterday I announced my first online personal fundraising campaign to benefit Habitat for Humanity. A short 24 hours later, I’ve had 9 contributions and raised $150 of the $1000 I’m trying to collect before the end of the year! Unbelievable. Every person who makes a contribution will get a personal thank you on the blog along with the link to the site of their choice. Even if you can’t contribute yourself, follow these links and support the people that have stepped up to make a donation! Anne Truger - Anne is a rock STAR from Illinois. She’s a member of the DEN’s Second Life Leadership Council. In world, her name is JessieMarie Flanagan. If she isn’t in the DEN HQ, try checking various dance floors! Jennifer Orr - Jennifer is an upper elementary teacher from Virginia. Her blog, Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It has some fantastic classroom reflections. Personally, I got a kick out of List of Loves, where she discloses her love of things like, “when students ask a question I don’t know the answer to” and when “when students ask a question I don’t know the answer to”. Diana Laufenberg - Diana is a STAR Discovery Educator from Arizona who I had the pleasure of meeting at the Florida National Institute. Her wiki is chock full of juicy goodness, but what really stands out to me is the project she has entitled the Power of One. It outlines one way to address the incredibly difficult subject of genocide with middle school students. Cheryl Lykowski - Cheryl Lykowski is also a STAR, hailing from Michigan. Her blog, Web Explorer, documents her travels through the vast technology landscape. This year she was awarded a grant from MACUL to assist in a collaborative project her students are working on, entitled Global Explorers. Her students are connecting and collaborating with students in Bucaramanga, Colombia. Very cool! More thank you’s coming tomorrow! And if you’d like to contribute, it couldn’t be easier. Just click “Chip In” on the widget below and you’ll be able to donate directly from PayPal or via a credit card if you so choose. Any amount at all will help us raise the money needed to build a family a house of their own. tag:odeo.com,2007-11-06,22050544 Tue, 06 Nov 2007 06:44:03 -0800 no Teach42 Fund Raising http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22050551-Habitat-for-Humanity-personal-fundraising-campaign If you ever visit Teach42.com, then you probably have noticed that I’ve changed the theme once again. There are two reasons for the change: 1) I never really liked the look of the sidebars in the last theme and 2) I wanted to have a spot to put in a specific new widget, Chip In. About a week ago, I saw Beth Kanter’s tweet about trying to raise money to send a Cambodian student to college. I had been about to buy a new t-shirt on Threadless, but instead made a donation to her cause. She made it as simple as possible. I just clicked “ChipIn!” and paid directly out of my PayPal account. And then I felt really good for the rest of the day. It got me thinking though… The fact that she was able to send two children to collage through raising funds on her blog, facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social sites really made a huge impression. I’ve built up a pretty decently sized social network online. How am I leveraging it to make a difference in the wor... If you ever visit Teach42.com, then you probably have noticed that I’ve changed the theme once again. There are two reasons for the change: 1) I never really liked the look of the sidebars in the last theme and 2) I wanted to have a spot to put in a specific new widget, Chip In. About a week ago, I saw Beth Kanter’s tweet about trying to raise money to send a Cambodian student to college. I had been about to buy a new t-shirt on Threadless, but instead made a donation to her cause. She made it as simple as possible. I just clicked “ChipIn!” and paid directly out of my PayPal account. And then I felt really good for the rest of the day. It got me thinking though… The fact that she was able to send two children to collage through raising funds on her blog, facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social sites really made a huge impression. I’ve built up a pretty decently sized social network online. How am I leveraging it to make a difference in the world? So I decided that I was going to follow Beth’s example and begin a personal fund raising campaign for the holiday season. After a little soul searching, I decided to adopt Habitat for Humanity as the cause. Why? There’s a few reasons. The foremost reason is that my mother-in-law, 3 sisters-in-law and brother-in-law all were the beneficiaries of a Habitat house in Iowa City, so I’ve seen first hand just how incredible an organization it is. Their work has impacted millions of families both here in the US and overseas. In the wake of Katrina, Habitat has built over 1,100 homes in just a little over two years. The only thing better than helping a family build and settle into a home that they built with their very own hands, is watching them turn around and help do the same for someone else. It truly is a special organization. This holiday season I will be collecting $1,000 to donate to Habitat for Humanity. I figure if I can just find 100 friends and family members from this blog, Twitter, Facebook and Linked In to each donate $10, it should be a breeze to hit this goal. And what’s $10? One day going out to lunch? Two coffees from Starbucks? Half a T-Shirt from Threadless? Obviously I’d be thrilled if you can donate more, but if everyone who reads this blog entry donates just $10 to Habitat for Humanity, we could help make one families dreams a reality. Chris, Heather, Mari, Carl, and Jenna break ground Dedication day at their brand new home If you ever visit Teach42.com, then you probably have noticed that I’ve changed the theme once again. There are two reasons for the change: 1) I never really liked the look of the sidebars in the last theme and 2) I wanted to have a spot to put in a specific new widget, Chip In. About a week ago, I saw Beth Kanter’s tweet about trying to raise money to send a Cambodian student to college. I had been about to buy a new t-shirt on Threadless, but instead made a donation to her cause. She made it as simple as possible. I just clicked “ChipIn!” and paid directly out of my PayPal account. And then I felt really good for the rest of the day. It got me thinking though… The fact that she was able to send two children to collage through raising funds on her blog, facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social sites really made a huge impression. I’ve built up a pretty decently sized social network online. How am I leveraging it to make a difference in the world? So I decided that I was going to follow Beth’s example and begin a personal fund raising campaign for the holiday season. After a little soul searching, I decided to adopt Habitat for Humanity as the cause. Why? There’s a few reasons. The foremost reason is that my mother-in-law, 3 sisters-in-law and brother-in-law all were the beneficiaries of a Habitat house in Iowa City, so I’ve seen first hand just how incredible an organization it is. Their work has impacted millions of families both here in the US and overseas. In the wake of Katrina, Habitat has built over 1,100 homes in just a little over two years. The only thing better than helping a family build and settle into a home that they built with their very own hands, is watching them turn around and help do the same for someone else. It truly is a special organization. This holiday season I will be collecting $1,000 to donate to Habitat for Humanity. I figure if I can just find 100 friends and family members from this blog, Twitter, Facebook and Linked In to each donate $10, it should be a breeze to hit this goal. And what’s $10? One day going out to lunch? Two coffees from Starbucks? Half a T-Shirt from Threadless? Obviously I’d be thrilled if you can donate more, but if everyone who reads this blog entry donates just $10 to Habitat for Humanity, we could help make one families dreams a reality. Chris, Heather, Mari, Carl, and Jenna break ground Dedication day at their brand new home tag:odeo.com,2007-11-05,22050551 Mon, 05 Nov 2007 07:35:47 -0800 no Teach42 Fund Raising http://www.odeo.com/episodes/11499663-Podcast-All-a%E2%80%99Twitter-about-Second-Life tag:odeo.com,2007-05-04,11499663 Fri, 04 May 2007 23:48:17 -0700 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/11499643-Guest-of-WoW2-0 tag:odeo.com,2007-04-27,11499643 Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:26:44 -0700 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/10312963-Podcast-Mothers-don%E2%80%99t-let-your-babies-grow-up-to-be-filtered tag:odeo.com,2007-03-22,10312963 Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:49:48 -0700 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/10312923-PhoneCast-Where%E2%80%99s-the-free-stuff-with-the-%E2%80%9CEduSafe%E2%80%9D-sticker tag:odeo.com,2007-03-21,10312923 Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:02:05 -0700 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/10312823-Teach42-Podcast-Unplugged tag:odeo.com,2007-03-19,10312823 Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:38:23 -0700 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/1505477-Podcast-Conference-versus-Conversation tag:odeo.com,2006-07-17,1505477 Mon, 17 Jul 2006 03:50:11 -0700 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/1464768-Podcast-Browsing-the-Library-of-Congress tag:odeo.com,2006-07-10,1464768 Mon, 10 Jul 2006 20:33:53 -0700 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/1441424-Podcast-Twas-the-night-before-NECC%E2%80%A6 tag:odeo.com,2006-07-05,1441424 Wed, 05 Jul 2006 03:06:36 -0700 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/1157356-Audio-from-the-New-Permanent-Record tag:odeo.com,2006-05-12,1157356 Fri, 12 May 2006 20:28:01 -0700 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/499522-Teach42-A-new-podcast-XP-erience tag:odeo.com,2005-12-10,499522 Sat, 10 Dec 2005 14:58:30 -0800 no Teach42 http://www.odeo.com/episodes/444206-Blawgthink-and-Open-Space tag:odeo.com,2005-11-21,444206 Mon, 21 Nov 2005 20:03:57 -0800 no Teach42