It has been a standing joke in my district that I am the Webinar peddler. I have tried for a few years to get people interested in using them to improve instruction and provide professional development. A "few" have inquired and a "few" less have watched them. I realize the challenge of sitting in front of your computer and participating in an event like a webinar. However, the knowledge and opportunity for collaboration is so great, I will continue to be peddle...
Archived webinars are available to BGISD Staff @ http://tinyurl.com/BGISDWebinars
The webinar today is:
Making Connections: Smithsonian American Art Museum Across the Curriculum
April 13, 2011
3:00 Central
You want great resources? We've got great resources! Join us for an engaging exploration of how accessing the Smithsonian American Art Museum's online collection energizes curriculum development, student research, and class projects.
Presenter: Adrienne Gayoso and Victoria Lichtendorf
Here are instructions to log into today's webinar.
To join the Webinar, please follow the link below. Enter as a guest by typing your name in the first field, and click “Enter Room.”
http://iste.acrobat.com/smithsonianmakingconnections/
***Please note: You will be able to enter the room 15 minutes before the Webinar begins.***
The audio portion of this Webinar will be presented over VOIP (through your computer speakers).
To ensure the best webinar experience, here are some tips:
1) Users should run the Connection wizard to make sure they have the latest version of Flash and install the Connect Add-in if possible – also note their Connection speed for the next step: https://admin.acrobat.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm.
2) Note, many folks sit on a LAN, but because of network traffic, length of cable, wi-fi (not recommended for webinars) or other factors – only get DSL or Modem speed throughput to their client.
3) Once in the room, webinar participants should go to the Meeting drop-down menu and under “Manage My Settings” select “My Connection Speed” and select Modem/DSL/LAN depending on what the Connection wizard told them.
4) Please close all other applications running in the background during the webinar, particularly web applications (email, chat, etc…). These compete for CPU and client bandwidth to the internet. In some cases, people will be running applications that are using the camera or microphone driver already which restricts Connect from using the same driver in the meeting room.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Student Email
This is for the Faculty of BGISD
All students grades 5-12 have a student email account available to them, provided they have returned the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Early on in my career, I was not all that keen on using email with students. Today's world is quite different and the necessity to allow students access to their student email accounts has increased. Students now are sharing files with teachers and other students in efforts to complete homework and/or deliver presentations. I encourag you to always use student email accounts to set up educational accounts such as Prezi or animoto. Using student accounts will often give them free access to educational tools.
I would also encourage you to have students use their email address as "the" way to log onto the computers on our network.
Student email addresses follow this pattern: firstname.lastname@stu.bgreen.kyschool.us
All students grades 5-12 have a student email account available to them, provided they have returned the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Early on in my career, I was not all that keen on using email with students. Today's world is quite different and the necessity to allow students access to their student email accounts has increased. Students now are sharing files with teachers and other students in efforts to complete homework and/or deliver presentations. I encourag you to always use student email accounts to set up educational accounts such as Prezi or animoto. Using student accounts will often give them free access to educational tools.
I would also encourage you to have students use their email address as "the" way to log onto the computers on our network.
Student email addresses follow this pattern: firstname.lastname@stu.bgreen.kyschool.us
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Trustworthy Computing: Location Services
I find it absolutely amazing that my phone has a GPS feature. My wife and I have been out of town and needed to know where to eat dinner; immediately it will map us to the restaraunt. Oh the ease of it all. I check my facebook and then notice one of my friends is at a ballgame in the same town, that is pretty cool.
However, with this cool tools comes some concern. Now anyone who has tracking software (and many do) can no track me and know that I and my friend are not home... Those guys might be criminals and now they know my house is vacant and my new plasma tv is history.
I realize it is difficult to keep up with all the privacy settings necessary on your personal devices, but I encourage you to check it out. As teachers, it is increasingly more important for us to share this information with our students. Here is a link you could download and share with your students. It should only take a few minutes to read over these tips with them.
Trustworthy Computing: Location Services
However, with this cool tools comes some concern. Now anyone who has tracking software (and many do) can no track me and know that I and my friend are not home... Those guys might be criminals and now they know my house is vacant and my new plasma tv is history.
I realize it is difficult to keep up with all the privacy settings necessary on your personal devices, but I encourage you to check it out. As teachers, it is increasingly more important for us to share this information with our students. Here is a link you could download and share with your students. It should only take a few minutes to read over these tips with them.
Trustworthy Computing: Location Services
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Nine Reasons to Twitter
It seems the concept of immediate information has resonated throughout the world. For the past three years, I have been promoting and talking about twitter and other avenues for collaboration. I remember vividly setting up my first Twitter account. I was at Parker Bennett Curry Elementary School's library and all I could think about was...would the BGISD Public Relations Director "Leslie Peek" frown on me for setting this account up. She wasn't, she actually embraced the idea and began using it in our district to get immediate information to parents, teachers and students on a variety of events, including: snow cancellations, lock down situations, calendar changes, upcoming meetings and so on. I had no idea three years later, EGYPT and other Middle Eastern countries would be using such a tool to facilitate Revolutions. Crazy times and Crazy tools. I talked to a junior high social studies teacher yesterday and he explained that he has been engaging students in discussions about the effects of social media on the political unrest in the Middle East. My hunch is the students were very engaged in the conversation.
Laura Walker, director of e-learning , from the "fantastic" book : "Web 2.0 for Educators" by Solomon and Schrum shared 9 Reasons to Twitter that I thought were pretty good.
1. Together we're better. Within seconds, parents can be notified about school cancellations or other events. Links, ideas, opininions are at your finger tip.
2. Global or Local: you choose. I like using Hoot Suite and Tweet Deck. Both allow me to organize and categorize who I follow. Sometimes I am interested in what my school twitters are talking about, sometimes educators throughout the country and sometimes just friends who say nothing. I get to choose.
3. Self awareness and reflective practice. I often like reading what good teachers reflect on after they teach a lesson or use some kind of tool. It makes me think...how should I do that.
4. Ideas workshop and sounding board. You know what they say about opinions...everybody has one. Sometimes I disagree, but sometimes I agree. It makes me think more deeply into what I need to share.
5. Newsroom and innovation showcase. Instant news... Enough said.
6. Professional development and critical friends. When I go to professional developments, I can't wait for the break to tweet what I learned or didn't learn.
7. Quality-assured searching. Since you pick who you follow, you will also learn who you can trust to provide good resources.
8. Communicate, communicate, communicate You only get 140 characters, so you h ave to say what you mean and be concise. I wish I could talk that way...
9. Getting with the times has never been so easy. It is easy to set up and easy to read. The cool thing I have found is any teacher can read about a resource or tool and then tell me about it. It makes them so happy to share something they learned.
The 9 main reasons were Laura Walker's thoughts, I summarized with my opinion about what they meant. I suggest going over this with students and or teachers, and always talk about digital citizenship when discussing social media.
Twitter
Tweetdeck
Hootsuite
Laura Walker, director of e-learning , from the "fantastic" book : "Web 2.0 for Educators" by Solomon and Schrum shared 9 Reasons to Twitter that I thought were pretty good.
1. Together we're better. Within seconds, parents can be notified about school cancellations or other events. Links, ideas, opininions are at your finger tip.
2. Global or Local: you choose. I like using Hoot Suite and Tweet Deck. Both allow me to organize and categorize who I follow. Sometimes I am interested in what my school twitters are talking about, sometimes educators throughout the country and sometimes just friends who say nothing. I get to choose.
3. Self awareness and reflective practice. I often like reading what good teachers reflect on after they teach a lesson or use some kind of tool. It makes me think...how should I do that.
4. Ideas workshop and sounding board. You know what they say about opinions...everybody has one. Sometimes I disagree, but sometimes I agree. It makes me think more deeply into what I need to share.
5. Newsroom and innovation showcase. Instant news... Enough said.
6. Professional development and critical friends. When I go to professional developments, I can't wait for the break to tweet what I learned or didn't learn.
7. Quality-assured searching. Since you pick who you follow, you will also learn who you can trust to provide good resources.
8. Communicate, communicate, communicate You only get 140 characters, so you h ave to say what you mean and be concise. I wish I could talk that way...
9. Getting with the times has never been so easy. It is easy to set up and easy to read. The cool thing I have found is any teacher can read about a resource or tool and then tell me about it. It makes them so happy to share something they learned.
The 9 main reasons were Laura Walker's thoughts, I summarized with my opinion about what they meant. I suggest going over this with students and or teachers, and always talk about digital citizenship when discussing social media.
Tweetdeck
Hootsuite
Monday, January 31, 2011
Website roulette
I am very pleased with our Schoolpointe website and I am very pleased with the way a lot of our teachers are using this tool in their classroom. Here are a few things teachers are doing with it:
- Spanish teacher collaborating with another Spanish teacher in another state and collaborating with her and her students using the built-in blogging feature.
- Elementary school teachers uploading and embedding videos in their websites so parents can view student work. I like this because now the students have a larger audience to see their work; not just the teacher viewing it.
- Video blogs
- Teacher favorites webpages with pictures
Please let me know what your are doing.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Dishman McGinnis
I am in sunny Phoenix Arizona at a conference on a new tool you may be interested in: Digital Nation. I understand there is 2 or 3 inches of snow in KY. Just so you know I am thinking of you guys...
I had a great time sharing some good information with Dishman McGinnis on Jan. 19. I love going to all the schools and appreciate Mr. Wix inviting me. As always, I would be glad to come anytime and hangout with any school.
We began our discussion about the importance of great teaching... then find some technology that helps engage the students in the lesson. I am desperately in the midst of a paradigm shift of accentuating the great teaching first and encouraging teachers to teach...then let's look at a technology tool that helps the student engage and appreciate the objective. Attached is a .pdf of the professional development I shared.
FYI. The file was created in a template from Microsoft Word. It looks great and only takes a couple of clicks to get it.
Click here to learn more about Storybird, Story Jumper, Atomic Learning or Prezi
I had a great time sharing some good information with Dishman McGinnis on Jan. 19. I love going to all the schools and appreciate Mr. Wix inviting me. As always, I would be glad to come anytime and hangout with any school.
We began our discussion about the importance of great teaching... then find some technology that helps engage the students in the lesson. I am desperately in the midst of a paradigm shift of accentuating the great teaching first and encouraging teachers to teach...then let's look at a technology tool that helps the student engage and appreciate the objective. Attached is a .pdf of the professional development I shared.
FYI. The file was created in a template from Microsoft Word. It looks great and only takes a couple of clicks to get it.
Click here to learn more about Storybird, Story Jumper, Atomic Learning or Prezi
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