What a Great Video Find!

Well, folks,
I mentioned in an earlier post that I am following a few folks on Twitter. Kathy Schrock, a technology coordinator from Cape Cod in MA, who has become very famous, has allowed me to follow her. I clicked on one of her links in Twitter and was taken to a video-sharing site (much like the one Warren has introduced us to at Fliggo) called Vimeo. Here Kathy has mounted an interview she had with her superintendent over 10 years ago on the topic of technology and web sites. At this time, the recommendation was given for any parents who wanted the web address to call the school. The superintendent even asks her, "What is a website?" as if he did not know. Of course, this might have been staged so Kathy could frame her response. It is amazing how far we've come in just a decade. It's worth a look. I copied the embed code (html) and will paste it here, so you can watch the interview.

A 1997 Glimpse of Educational Technology from Kathy Schrock on Vimeo.
Kathy's site -just search on "Kathy Schrock" is a wonderful collection of resources, and you should take a look. Kathy also provides wonderful resources for teachers who want to learn more about incorporating Web2.0 technologies into their curriculum projects.
Enjoy and join the conversation.

Participating in Live Collaborative Web Casts

It's hard to believe that it's Thursday, and we've been on vacation for nearly a whole week. My foray into participating in the live webcasting community began last Thursday evening. I followed a "tweet" from Twitter to the Ed Tech Talk site, and I logged into a live discussion forum. I wasn't connected by voice, but I participated in the chat window and was blown away when the folks who were speaking started to respond to my comments in the sidebar chat panel. I am beginning to understand the whole concept of being connected with others of similar interests and collaborating on how to do our jobs - engaging our students in learning - better.
I joined in again this evening, and was welcomed warmly. In fact, one of the moderators called me on my cell phone, and I was participating live -Everyone logged in could hear what I was saying. It was a little scarey, but really engaging.

One of the topics of the show tonight concerned the live webcast that will take place on Earth Day 09. There is also a Voice Thread set up which I had contributed to last Thursday. When I typed about my participation into the chat, they immediately found my audio response and broadcast it. Amazing. I hope we can get some of our kids to add their voices to the "thread" on Earth Day next week.

Here is the link:

http://earthbridges.wikispaces.com/

Check it out!

Here is the link to the Ed Tech Talk show:

http://www.edtechtalk.com/

On Tuesday nights, there is a great show - Women of Web 2.0.

On Thursday nights Seedlings is on, usually hosted by Bob Sprankle and Cheryl Oakes, two famous educators from southern Maine. Tonight's show was on Google educators. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. EST. All of the shows are archived, both the audio and the chat.

At 9:00 p.m. EST is EdTech Brainstorm, which is the one I spoke on live.

So much to learn; so little time.

Enjoy the rest of your vacation.

Typographical Error in Movie Title

Oops! I just realized I have a typo in the title of the movie posted below- meant to type "with"- I was tired and careless. At least the experiment worked.

Playing with my Vado Hi Definition Pocket Cam

I am still at school, and it's 6:30PM. I am a crazy lady. I recently purchased a Vado high-definition pocket camcorder. It is a great little tool, and it fits comfortably in my purse. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any program other than the one that came with it to edit my movies. I really wanted to use the recorder for class projects that could be edited in Windows Movie Maker by the kids. So, I did some research on the web and figured out how to record at a lower VGA resolution of 640x480. I did a test movie, and was able to import it into Windows Movie Maker. I am psyched. Now it will be easy to capture video clips and put them together for kids projects.

Classroom Blogging-a nice presentation from a team of experts -includes a slide on students' acceptable use of tools

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Classroom Blogging

View more presentations from Michael Walker.

Professional Development Day at Amity

There were lots of technology offerings for our Professional Development Day.
Because I was teaching the Smart Board Notebook 10 software offering, I didn't get to hear about some of the other technology workshops.
Please comment here. Share what workshop you participated in and something valuable you learned at the workshop you can share with our community.

Besides the workshops, I had also signed up for a webinar from Discovery Streaming at 7:00 this evening. The featured speaker was Don Tapscott, the author of Growing Up Digital, written about 12 years ago. He has recently published Grown up Digital, about these digital natives who have now entered the workforce.
While there were some glitches in the audio, it was a pretty interesting session. There was also a team of experts on hand answering questions and responding to messages sent from participants in the "live chat" window.
Vicki Davis, who runs the "coolcatteacher" blog was on hand. She is also one of the teachers who set up the now world-famous wiki - Flat Earth Project. She responded personally to 2 or 3 of my posts to the chat - very exciting.
I must admit, I did have a hard time paying attention to the speaker and his presentation and following the chat at the same time. Others didn't seem to have the same problem; they were also on Twitter.

Anyway, go to Don's blog, "NetgenEd,grownupdigital" for more information.

http://netgened.grownupdigital.com/

Good Night!

SmartBoard Use in the Classroom is Transforming Education

I am offering a professional development workshop this morning featuring how to use Notebook10 software. There is so much to learn about this wonderful tool. I have only begun to scratch the surface of what it can do to make the classroom a more engaging place in which our students can learn.

Here are some important links for teachers to use when they need to review how to use this software.

Here is where you go to download the software. It is a free application for any teacher or student whose school uses SmartBoards:

http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Products/SMART+Board+software/default.htm

In the training center, you can watch short videos on various aspects of using SmartBoards:

http://smarttech.com/trainingcenter/tutorials.asp

Here is a hub where you can access thousands of lessons created in Notebook10 from teachers all over the world:

http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/Lesson+activities/Notebook+Activities/

As you experiment with creating lessons using SmartNotebook10 software today, please leave comments on this blog post to share your learning experience with others.

I will also set up a folder on our shared "Y" drive for teachers to share the lessons they have created.

All of the training materials for this session are located in that drive, as well.

Time Flies

I cannot believe I haven't posted since January of 2009. Many exciting technology integration things have been happening at Bethany. I wanted to post something quick just to get back to the blog.
I will make a comment on the previous post. Once I removed the toolbar with "next blog", my place to sign in to edit the blog also disappeared. I had to go to blogger.com and sign in in order to access the blog. It's worth it, I guess.

Removing the "Next Element" in Blogger

I recently participated in a webinar hosted by EdTech. The presenter was Tim Chase, a middle school teacher who teaches reading and technology. The title of the webinar was "Tim Chase - Xtreme Teamwork-Communication and Collaboration in Your Classroom and Mine." In the webinar he talked about a number of Web 2.0 tools he'd been using with his students, Blogger among them. He expressed concern about the "next blog" tab on the blogs meant for student use and how they randomly lead to other blogs that might not be appropriate. He told us he had directions on one of his blogs on how to remove the "next element" feature.
Here is the link:
http://blog.edtech2020.com/2008/01/removing-next-blog-element-in-blogger.html
I tried this in one of my older blogs that has been neglected:

http://bethanymscomputerlab.blogspot.com/


Now I will try to eliminate it from this blog.

YES! It worked.

Students Participate in Speak-Up Survey to be Shared with President Obama

The team from Project Tomorrow recently sponsored the Net Day Speak-Up Survey for 2008. They decided to add a "Special Inauguration Survey" for students only. It will be open until Tuesday, January 20. The students were asked to provide a response to the following topic:

"Imagine you are the President of the United States (or the leader of your country) and your #1 education goal is to make sure every student is prepared for the jobs and careers of the future. What is the one thing you would do to improve schools to ensure that all students receive the education and skills they need to be successful in life?"

I asked the students to copy their responses before submitting them to the survey and paste them into a word document, so I could have a printed copy. I then read through all the responses and wrote down all the responses putting checks beside similar ideas.

What was interesting was the overwhelming response asking for more career education in the schools. Here are some of the responses dealing with that issue: (Over 25 of the 100 kids polled felt that career education should be an important part of school curriculum.)

• More career education
• More career days
• Have students take tests to determine what career is best for them
• Go on field trips to see people working in various careers
• Expand curriculum to include course in learning about careers
• More mentoring by people working in different careers
• Workshops once a week hosted by people from different careers and occupations

And then there are these responses with a variety of suggestions:

• more scholarships so students can attend college
• allowances for special needs students to get a college education
• qualified teachers sent to educate children in 3rd world countries
• fund city schools so they can offer students the same educational advantages as surbaban schools
• train teachers to increase interest in subjects they teach
• students have more choice in courses they take (several responses)
• later start time for school to ensure students get enough sleep (several responses)
• more classes in life skills such a home economics ad managing money
• more tutors in schools and more opportunity for individualized help
• more courseware offered on computers so students could work at their own pace
• fund more after-school programs
• fund more field trips and provide more real-life experiences
• more assemblies
• teach through hands-on projects
• Add more access to technology such as computers and Smart Boards (several responses)
• computers for every student
• more hands-on construction projects - so students know how to build things for their homes
• learning how to work cross platform on Macs and PCs
• provide more one-on-one help for struggling students
• build more schools and equip them with books and supplies
• create interactive games to help students learn subject matter (several responses)
• more programs for special-needs students so they can be educated in regular schools and not be sent to other schools
• provide more guidance counselors who have time to give individualized attention to all students
• more time after school to complete homework so no work has to be take home
• recess for all students mandantory to help avoid obesity
• physical activity for all students every day
• make it mandatory that students learn how to work in small groups on projects
• offer more foreign language classes as well as cultural awareness classes
• smaller classes so students can get more individualized attention

We can hope that President Obama listens to our young people and makes sure that funding education is one of his top priorities.