Deadliest Fun!

Now that I am on-line I can share how things went in Philadelphia last night.

The trip there was easy and uneventful. I was able to check in and have the afternoon to walk around and visit the historical places downtown: Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, etc.

Went to the restaurant (Samsom Street Oyster House) around 6 and checked in there. I was greeted with, “It’s the Michigan Guy!” from most of the people there already. Did not expect that. I was described as “The Michigan Guy” most of the night.

The whole event was great. The captains that came were Sig, Andy , and John. There are great people. They were friendly with everyone there and were very approachable and willing to talk with everyone. They signed pictures, books, shirts, etc. Everyone had a blast. I connected with some good DEN folks from the area. Thanks! I was even able to spend some time talking with some of the producers of the show.

I am so glad that I was able to go to this great event. Thanks DEN! Please keep up the great work!

Check out the slide show here.

Philly Here I Come!

As was posted on the national DEN blog I am one of the very lucky winners to be able to have dinner with the captains from the Deadliest Catch. I am floored that I will be attending an event with a group of interesting individuals. I can’t wait for Tuesday to be here. I’ll post pictures when I get back.

Some new harvests

The past 2 days I have been at a workshop titled "Integrating Technology in the 3-8 Classroom." Very hands-on and the instructor uses the technology in real classroom uses. For example, he showed how to use Google Earth to show the various forms of water found on Earth like oceans, lakes, and rivers. He set up placemarks at each of the examples and had definitions of each in the placemarks. Nothing earth shattering, but very usable and realistic.
In addition to his example lessons he shared some "new" tools.
One is Jott, Here you set up an account and then you call into Jott with you phone. What you say is recorded and then you get an email with a text copy of what you said. I believe that you have 45 seconds.
Others are bubble.us, mindmeister, rubistar, visualbody.

LibraryThing

OH OH OH! Mr. Catah Sir!

I have something to share that I did not find out about from someone else.

It’s called LibraryThing. I found it by chance when I was looking for information about P.D. Eastman. It is a place to list your personal library that you own and is very easy. You add just a bit about the book and the site does the rest by using The Library Of Congress, Amazon, and 669 other data banks.

You can connect with other book lovers and discuss, what else?, books. There are numerous discussion groups to join, topics to comment on , and the like.

FriendFeed

Read about this at the DEN site at the Digital Passports page
It sounded like a good idea as one way to put all my online presences at one place. So far I have this blog, my Picassa albums, Del.icio.us list, Pandora (music) page. I'll see how to add mt teachertube vids and my DEN blog too.
Here is the url for my page.
http://friendfeed.com/turtleman810

Peace

Check out the weather at Garfield...soon

Soon I should have the weather station broadcasting to the web. I hope. The station is set up and working. The receiver is connected to the computer and the "virtual weather station" is working. Now I just need to figure out how to get the data from the station uploaded to the internet. I aim to be part of the "Weather Exchange" if all works out.
Plans are to have the weather shown on one of the channel on the school's tv system and have the student broadcast use our "green screen" feature on VisCom II to do the weather during their weekly (or maybe daily) broadcast.
After our trip to the ABC 12 studios they are pumped to be able to use our technology to improve our broadcast.
Well, I'll post when our weather station is broadcasting onto the net.

What comes next?

Back from the MACUL Conference and now what? How to get these great ideas for technology integration into the hands of the staff and students? My principal, bless her heart, is very supportive of having students use technology and she wants the staff to become conversational tech literate.

I have just finished a short (35min) PD with some of the staff here at school. Had 7 attend the session on what Web 2.0 is about and some of the tools and websites that they can start to explore and use. The biggest interests were Discovery Streaming and the way to build assignments and Google Earth. I also breezed through blogging, podcasts, social bookmarking, online photo-albums (i.e. Picasa), and 2 open-source art programs (Art Rage and Tux Paint).

Now they need time to digest these tools and to explore them. I know having weekly sessions on Thursday mornings will help them to work on these tools and begin to integrate them into their classrooms.

Well it's a start and I know they will take baby steps now but should soon be running with their new found tools.

Just a few days away

In just 3 days I'll be at this year's MACUL conference in Grand Rapids.
macul.org
I am looking forward to my session on Inspiration (nervous as all get out too).
The team I am with as part of the MI Technology Champions program is excited about attending for their first time. I know they will get a ton out of the conference and the breakout sessions.

This past week our school had its science fair. It was OK. The projects were more varied then past years. After seeing the projects at my son's school I was pleasantly surprised that our students' projects were on comparatively the same quality level.
Thanks to all the teachers who worked so hard to help out their students and the projects. Thanks also to the intervention team for stepping up and helping me put on the fair and the family open house Thursday night.

new toy to try out

I just received a copy of InspireData from Inspiration Software today.
www.inspiration.com
I will be trying it out and seeing what I can do with it with my students.
I already have an idea to use it with the new weather station the school bought the other week.
The data we collect can be organized using this software.
It even has a feature to make e-surveys. THAT I would like to try out.
The students should get a kick out of it too.
We'll just have to wait and see about that.
I just hope it doesn't just collect dust sitting on the shelf like some other pieces of software and equipment.
Later all.

DEN Virtual Conference wrap up

Back from the Michigan site for the Discovery Educator Network Virtual Conference.
It was a good time. I would like to be able to have a quiet week home alone to be able to go through all the Web 2.0 tools and sites, be able to use the tools and sites to enhance my assignments and quizzes that I put together at Discovery Education Streaming. Here is just a partial list of what the virtual and in-person sessions talked about:
Voicethread.com
blabberize.com
slideshare.com
toondoo.com
moonk.com
moasickr.com
clubpenguin.com
truemedia.com
twitter.com
myplick.com

Some of the sites are not really appropriate for school use but a teacher to enhance their lessons can use the tool.

I also learned there is a way to use a "green screen" in moviemaker. I'll try that out as I use that with my student broadcast team at school for their weekly news show.

Speaking of which; my session on putting together a broadcast team and using Movie Maker to edit and publish a student broadcast went OK. I could have done more with the demonstration of the program and had the teachers there use the program and make their own short show. Oh, well. It was only my first presentation at a PD/workshop/conference that was outside my school.

Now I will begin to focus on the demo lesson that I will do at the MACUL conference in March. At least I will be sharing the stage with another teacher from Flint.

End of my time with Old Navy

IN about 2 hours Old Navy at Courtland will be closed forever. I had worked there for the past 2 and 1/2 years. I began there in the summer of 2005 as a way to earn some money to help cover a drop in pay when our school was absorded back into the district.
I really enjoyed my time there. I could have left after we became more finacialy stable but I found that I enjoyed the work and esspecially the others that worked there.
I wish the best of luck to all my co-workers as they continue with Old Navy somewhere else or at some other job.
Peace all.

Discovery Education Virtual Conference

Attend the DEN Virtual Conference, February 2.

Connect with educators from all over the country during this unique professional development experience where you can attend in-person, online or both.




The day will feature keynote presentations from Discover Education’s own Hall Davidson and Lance Rougeux that will be broadcast to each of the regional gatherings. In between the keynote presentations, participants will attend breakout sessions presented by local STAR Discovery Educators.

Learn More...

going national

I have agreed to present at a virtual conference in Feb. The Discovery Educator Network has put togther a conference for though that are a part of the DEN, and anyone who is interested in intregration of technology in education.
Now this is my first big time presentation and I am just a smidge nervous. Well, more than a bit nervous. But, I need to do presentiation as I am in a professional career and I have to start sometime.
Here is the link to the DEN post of the conference.


Went to the section conference for AYSO this past weekend. I am the coach for my son's U6 boys team in town. I learned a lot about how to run my practices...excuse me the team's training sessions. I am excited about the spring season and if I am still involved in coaching next year with the U8 team Sam will be on I am better prepared to be able to handle it.
Here is the AYSO link


Peace everyone.

my other sites

Happy new year every one!

I hope your holidays were good to you and your family. My boys had a blast and are enjoying their loot. Today’s the last day of vacation for me. My wife and Sam went back last Thursday. They had a snow day on Wed.

As I had not posted anything in a while (the whole break) I thought I would try to put something up. I have 2 websites that I put together for my EDMT (Educational Media Technology) courses at EMU. The first was my first stab at a site. It is pretty simple and has not been updated in a while.

1st website

The second is my professional site that I should be adding to as I continue along the EDMT program track and in my teaching. There are a few neat links and projects I put together at that site.

professional site

I also have a blog at Discovery Education as a part of the Discovery Educator Network.
Here is that link.
DEN blog
Well time to get back with the boys, they are just getting up and they will be hungry.

Peace.