RIMS CTAP DPLC

Take a look at join.me

It is a free screen sharing site. It works on Mac and PC, and you can call a number for voice too (long distance charges may apply, use your cell)!

Check it out.

join.me

COSN CTO Clinic

MIT Open Course Ware – Highlights for High School
Second Brain
Augmented Reality - digital hologram
Skype an Author

Web 2.0 Workshop
Example of a classroom ning – 8th grade history project
Public student blogs - students.saugususd.org
zinch – marketing yourself to college recruiters, leaving a positive digital footprint
dweeber – help with homework, connect with friends. Still be smart, no full name, etc.
Dotsub.com
– any video any language. Take any video, upload or link, and will put
captions in, then you can translate. Great foreign language lesson!

English Language Learners
Digital Scavenger Hunt –
iPod + Digital Camera. Creation, Collaboration, Communication
in
groups of 3, w/iPod and Cam, students listened to a podcast with
instructions of what to take pictures of. Ex – High Point high freq.
words. Listening and speaking, differentiated instruction, high
engagement. Students took as many pics as they could. These words
became a word bank. Students used theses words in writing stories.
Students used the pictures and their stories to create a podcast.

As mentioned at the staff meeting, Temecula's EETT grant program, CASTLE, was highlighted in The Californian newspaper. This article focused on the student technology mentors that were included in the grant.

Temecula's grant, written for grades 4-5, works to incorporate technology in Science. In addition, selected students are receiving Saturday trainings to become technology mentors to assist teachers and students with applications and hardware.

The article shows CASTLE coach and teacher Donna Lione showing students how to navigate Thinkfinity. Donna is a participant in our Temecula Coaching training and also attended the Thinkfinity Train the Trainers workshop that CTAP hosted.

Our Digital Classroom participants are in the news, again!

Joe Williams and Bret Cowan’s classrooms were featured on Time Warner Cable’s So Cal News on June 1 and 2. So Cal news can be seen on CNN Headline News if you have Time Warner in the Inland Empire.
The news clip focuses on how Interwrite Pads and Student Response Systems engage students and how they allow teachers to meet the needs of learners.
Check it out at http://www.twcsocalnews.com/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&Itemid=26&id=682

Ah, CUE is over…

Used to be, as soon as CUE was over, it meant it was time to scramble to get mom a Mothers Day gift. But alas, it is only March (only?)

I focused on attending sessions regarding AB307 – copyright, fair use, cyber-safety. I did get some great ideas to include in our upcoming training, and I will be posting those in our Information Literacy forum.

Keynote – Vince Cerf. This guy was amazing. I wonder if realized how powerful and long lasting TCP/IP would be. The idea that IP would carry any packet, regardless of it’s content, makes it valuable and allows it to transform as technologies progress. Does it make you a geek if you laugh at Mr. Cerf’s T-Shirt that read, “IP on Everything?”

Booth Duty

Booth duty was amazing! I enjoyed talking with teachers and administrators from our region and others. Yes, I set several people straight; we are not those people who make that long survey they have to take. The pen-highlighter combo was a great hit, and really drew people to the booth to talk to us. I thought the experience was very energizing.

Student Showcase

Another great Showcase. The Region 10 students were great at presenting. Every group was student lead and extremely well spoken.

Small Gems of Learning along the way…

I use Google’s Picasa and picasaweb as my photos. I already geo-tag my pictures, but hadn’t noticed that I could create a Google Earth .kml file with a click of a button to see by geo-tagged pictures in Google Earth. A small a-ha!

A great plug in – PicLens. This came from a Temecula EETT coach who saw this at CUE. It takes any picture wall, such as Google Image Search, PicasaWeb, MySpace, etc. and changes it to the 3D cinematic presentation. It’s just fun!

Seasons' Greetings all.

As I am sure many of you have heard before, NORAD tracks Santa's journey. Always wondering when Santa will be reaching the Thomas household, I have followed him online for years. When I was young, I was limited to news reports on the Television.

This year, starting on December 24 at 2 a.m., NORAD will track Santa, using Google Earth! At the time of this post, they are only telling us to prepare by downloading Google Earth. You can also add the tracking information on your iGoogle home page. I can’t wait! Find more information here.

I’m not sure if anyone will actually be tracking our DPLC in time to receive this information, so I hope you all had a great Holiday and restful vacation.

~Jen

For those of you who are aftaid you missed the event, I have attached some screen shots of Santa on Google Earth.

...another Black Friday, early bird, doorbuster sale? No, not this laptop.

Now available online at http://laptop.org, you can purchase what was once referred to as the $100 Laptop, now the XO, first shown to us by Nicholas Negroponte from the MIT Media Lab. So, how did we get from $100 to $400? When you make your purchase, you actually “Give one, get one,” and are donating the “give one” to a student in a developing country.

The XO laptop runs on Linux and has a variety of open source productivity software included. Take a look at the interactive software: http://laptopgiving.org/en/software-and-interface.php

I noticed that the XO has an AC power outlet for charging, and a DC outlet to use a solar panel. The site still says that the ultra efficient battery can also be powered by hand crank or foot pedals, in line with the early reports of the computer.

The Give One, Get One program was extended until the end of this year.

So, what are the benefits of donating a laptop? One student describes their experience with the computer:

“I use my computer very carefully so that it will not spoil. I use it to type, I use it to write, I use it to draw, I use it to play games... I'm using my computer at home to type assignments.”

While in conversation with many districts of late, I have been asked about, or sometimes told about, classroom amplification systems. Several Directors of Technology have told me how wonderful these systems are, and are beginning to implement them in new or remodeled classrooms.

I have experienced amplification systems as an Assistive Technology. Obviously, they serve a great purpose when meeting a special need.

But my gut questioned the need for this in all classrooms. Is louder always better? Wouldn’t habituation of the amplified voice happen?

I asked one of the Technology Directors if he had any research on the use of these, and he sent me to http://www.lightspeed-tek.com/files/trost_study.pdf. According to this study, the most drastic difference in classrooms was a 72% decrease of teacher redirection. Obviously, we’d expect to see increased learning with a decrease of redirection.

I have found some very compelling research, including the fact that the ideal range for students to hear a teacher is 6 feet.

A problem I had with my research was the fact that most of the sites linked back to the same source: a vendor.

I’m certainly not opposed to this technology, nor opposed to the fact that a vendor is looking at putting research out there on their product. I’m just interested in looking more varied sources.  

Of course, I’d like to hear what you all think in our DPLC. Has anyone seen them in a general education classroom?  

I see a good amount of money going into these systems, and want to be sure that they are serving our students well.  

I was appreciative for the opportunity to attend the 21st Century Learners Symposium presented by CTAP Region 11. It was well worth leaving the house at 5 a.m., and enduring 3 hours in traffic on the way home. I really enjoyed the experience.

In the opening session, Alan November shared many ideas and thought provoking examples from around the world. Have you ever been to a school site in a different country? I have. From visiting Chile, to getting a look from the outside-in to a school in Quintana Roo, Mexico and in Tahiti, I try to make some sort of visit when I travel abroad. The later two countries had no visible modern technologies in use (perhaps I did not get to see them), but I remember Chile, home of my sister-in-law, a fellow educator, had some forward thinking uses of technology. Although they had an almost unusable internet connection, they certainly “got it” when it comes to using the internet for information and communication. As an aside, while in Honduras next year, we will have opportunity to meet with local students and bring school supplies to the children.

Alan November had an excellent idea that Palm Spring’s SUMMIT program, as well as any other school or program, could implement. Creating content on a DVD to send home is utilizing a technology that is found in almost all homes at this time. I could see burning math content, with use of their InterwriteTM Pads, onto a DVD to send home being a great complement to what they are already doing.

The McRell Session gave an overview of professional development targeted at school leaders. Many of the strategies that we have used in Coaching were mirrored in their programs. Their “lead teachers” go through a year of training before taking on a group of mentees.

I also attended the DV Voice session. I enjoyed seeing a cross section of teachers being represented. Some featured teachers seemed as if they have been using video for some time, while others were new to the medium, but all embraced it to empower STUDENTS to create digital videos to share their voice. These projects highlighted deep student understanding of concepts. These projects definitely demonstrated high levels of HOTS.

I was also fortunate to be present at the birth of Gregg’s idea the Spotlight Teacher. Of course, read his blog for the idea – which was all his - but I was very excited to be a sounding board for this exciting idea!

From Cheryl Lemke – UCLA has a problem solving shell, now serving grades 2-12, called IMMEX. It produces a search path map of the process.

Also, she defined Authenitic Learning projects with 3 criteria:

1. Someone who cares outside of the school
2. Deep inquiry with regards to the standards
3. Students have to do something authentic with the learning.