Category Archives: Presentations

iHeart Devices Presentation Resources

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iHeartDevicesAs promised, here are the resources I promised during my session Thursday. I hope they help guide you through the process of utilizing your iOS devices as part of the storytelling process. Publish your work. Publish the kids’ work. Everyone can use a global audience to provide feedback and encouragement.

Using your iPad to shoot video & upload to YouTube plus QR Code

How-To: Upload your video from the iPad to YouTube & embed it in your blog

Movie Trailers on the iPad – Jim Gates

Filming with mobile devices – Royan Lee

45 Interesting ways to use your pocket camera in the classroom

Engaging Learners through Digital Storytelling: 40+ Resources & Tips

iPad Publishing in the Digital Era

HELPING STUDENTS MAKE BETTER MOVIES ON IPAD (OR ANY DEVICE)

iMovie for iPad – Storyboard help sheets for trailers

Digital Storytelling with the iPad

13 WAYS TO USE IMOVIE IN THE CLASSROOM

Creating Book Trailers with iMovie and iPads

Create an Online Radio Show with Spreaker DJ for iPad

Search Creative Commons Licensed works

Videos used in the presentation (not in above links):

Case File 13: Zombie Kid – thecdfloyd

Call Me Maybe Josh Davis – Samantha Reid

Melted crayon art – ChloeM

Three Beats for Beatbox Flute Movement I by Greg Pattillo – jeeminiii

The Shining (happy version) – Rob Miller

 

 

 

Embedding a Google Calendar in our WordPress Blogs

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I got an email during the day asking about how to embed a Google Calendar (from our Google Apps system) as a sticky post in his WordPress blog. Unfortunately, I was not near my laptop (oh the horror). Fortunately, the staff member CC’d another of our top notch staff member and TCEA‘s Educator of the Year, Pam Cranford. The following is her reply. Yeah. It’s good to have awesome faculty.

You can also find MANY other great presentations she made here.

Embed Google Calendar

View more documents from Pam Cranford.

Safe Blogging as a Class/Learning Community

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Photo Credit: Me.

Once again, we had another fabulous day in Texarkana ISD. Today we spent time discussing blogs with the elementary teachers. It looks as if this district is going to light up with WWW with elementary bloggers in the very near future. I look forward to having the kids in White Oak collaborating with the students here.

Below you will find the list of resources we discussed. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comment section.

Blogging as a Class Resources

Step by step directions for setting up an Edublogs Blog

Tips on Blogging with Students

Room 202’s Blogging Contract

Advice on Student Blogging

Acceptable Use Agreement – Digital Citizenship

Room 229’s Blogging Contract (5th Grade)

Learning to Blog the Elementary Way (includes blogging permission slip)

Blogging is Elementary

Elementary Blog Policy

Pam Cranford’s Class Blog

Any Soldier (site mentioned to find soldiers to communicate with)

Edublogs

Thank you, Texarkana ISD!

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Thank you, Texarkana ISD, for such a warm reception at your back to school, instructional technology-themed conference today. It was so nice to have a welcoming environment when I know how hard it is to listen to someone talk to you for 90 minutes to start the day. Hopefully, I was able to get you motivated for the kiddos who will be filling the halls and rooms next week.

As I mentioned in my talk, I am listing the links to the videos and sites we talked about during both the keynote and my breakout sessions. If you have any questions or I left something off, please leave a comment and I will add it in or get back with you about your questions. I look forward to working with your district again in the future. Good luck in the coming school year!

Keynote – “Instructional Technology: Who’s driving?”
Breakout Session – “Social Networking: It’s not just for kids anymore”

My Introduction video

Introducing the Book video

Joe’s Non-netbook video

PS22 Choir “Landslide” video

Kaplan “Chairs” video

A Brave New World video

RSS in Plain English video

National Technology Standards:

Star Chart info

Dr. Helen Barrett’s ePortfolio work

White Oak ISD’s ePortfolio & blog site

Voicethread site (book review samples)

Animoto

My son’s pirate story

2nd Grade teacher’s (Emily Richeson) blog

iTunes U

Edublogs (education only blogs)

Scott’s Delicious account (bookmarking)

Google Reader

Google Apps (Docs, Spreadsheet, Calendar, Presentation, Forms)

Twitter (Scott’s site)

Ten Tips for Growing Your Learning Network

NECC Conversations: from the room to the poster

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It’s a funny thing being a presenter. While I really work hard to make my own presentations engaging (and fail at times, I’m sure) I find myself more critical of others. Now, by critical, I mean both good and bad. I am always looking to see what makes one a better presenter over another and also what was the “thing” that released the crowd from the stream of thought so they would day dream instead.

With that in mind, several posts and conversations were had this year at NECC that I took notice of. While Scott McLeod and Doug Johnson do nice jobs of sharing their thoughts and even offering suggestions, one of the things that got my attention was a conversation had at the Google gathering with several others including Scott Meech and Dean Shareski.

Standard sessions have turned into sit and gets and have lost their luster. Poster sessions might be the better option. What makes one better than the other? The conversations. My presentation this year was changed from a standard session to a poster session. At first it was mixed feelings, but after having gone through my two hours of the poster session, it is all good. I was able to have deeper conversations with more people than if I had stood in front of an audience sharing the same information. The engagement for both me as a presenter and them as an audience was a far better experience than I have had in other settings. Dean noted that he felt it might be the better route to have the session conversations take place (as opposed to the unconference sessions conversations).

While many of us say the best PD takes place in the halls of the conference, maybe the poster session is the next best thing. Should that idea be expanded?

Now, let’s take ourselves from the position of teacher/learners at a conference and move into the position of learner in a school setting. Yeah, I would have preferred this type of setting in school as well.

ATPE Session – Social Networking: not just for kids anymore

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Below you will find the presentation I gave at the ATPE conference in Austin titled Social Networking: not just for kids anymore. The focus of the session was how educators can use the power of social networks to create their own personal learning networks (PLNs). We discussed Facebook and MySpace, but we did not cover them in any depth since a lot of people are already using them personally.

While most of the slides are just visual representations of what I was talking about, it might help a few in attendance to remember some of that conversation we had. I am going to add a few more items here that we did not have time for in the sessions, though. As I said in the session, feel free to call, email, or comment below. I will get back with you ASAP (and generally it is pretty quick).

Find the links below for the sites we previewed. One thing to remember: A network is only as strong as each link in it. Jump in and enjoy the ride. You will learn so much from so many that you probably will never meet, yet, it will be some of the closest bonds you could ever create professionally. Consider it your education accountability group.

I want to thank Paul R. Wood for Skyping in to share with us how PLNs have changed the way he learns and does his job. He and his posse at Bishop Dunne are absolutely top notch educators in every facet. If I could just get them to move east just a little bit…..

When Paul and I had the connection issue during the second session, one of my other buddies from Texas just happened to shoot me a Skype chat at the exact instant I needed him (that seems to be how these PLNs work for us). John Maklary accepted an invitation to have a Skype conversation. He failed to ask if it was in the middle of one of the sessions. Which it was. Which worked beautifully. Thanks, John. I owe you some Q, buddy.

Then, one of the attendees made a valid point: those guys are not in the classroom everyday, so how would it work if they were and using Skype. So, I did what every person in my PLN would do; rely on the classroom teachers in my PLN to share. Pam Cranford, the 2009 TCEA Educator of the Year and fellow classroom blogger, answered the Skype call into her classroom. She grabbed her MacBook up and walked around her room and into the hall unknowingly demonstrating the power of a laptop, wireless, and a free program like Skype. Thanks, Pam!

I thoroughly enjoyed the two 1 hour sessions I was able to present. I look forward to future ones, and maybe even a longer session where everyone can get hands-on into building their own PLNs.

Skype: free audio, video, both or chat calls online
skype.com Find me on Skype – WOScholar

Twitter Links: social networking in 140 characters or less
www.twitter.com Find me on Twitter – WOScholar

Blogs: online workspace
Edublogs.org
WordPress.com

RSS: allows subscription to bring content to you
reader.google.com
bloglines.com
feedburner.com

Delicious: social bookmarking
delicious.com – My Delicious account – Sabestian

Flickr: online photo storage
Flickr.com

My Day in Region 8

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I was fortunate enough this past week to be asked to speak at the Education Service Center in Region 8 in Mount Pleasant, TX. I had a great time with a very receptive audience. One of the attendees was even in my university program during my bachelors. It was great to see her again.

My goal with this day was to show them how White Oak ISD uses our web presence to make our classrooms and district transparent in many ways and allow our community to become a part of the school day. We use blogs from our WordPress MU server, a redesigned Joomla site, our Apple podcast server, and other web based tools like Delicious to let everyone see just what we are trying to accomplish in our students’ education.

There were a few things that struck me during the day:

  • I had several in attendance who told me during breaks that they had not heard of any of the tools I mentioned. While as a presenter that is good for me, it bothers me a bit as an educator. These have been around for awhile, so I thought I might be extending the knowledge on a few of these tools, not introducing them, per se.
  • I was struck at the statement made metaphorically by starting with the two videos that I did. While I did not intend it that way, it came across that way to the attendees. The Introduction of the Book showed early issues with lack of knowledge of its use. The latter video of Chris Lehmann’s students discussing, toungue in cheek, the lack of functionality of the book does much the same in a 21st Century context. It was cool to see they got that out of the videos.
  • Schools spend a lot of money on commercial tools when many times the opensource versions can provide more even if you have to find paid support. I will be helping one district start to rebuild their wbesite away from a paid, very limited service to Joomla. (Disclosure: I am not getting paid to help them. It is just nice to help when they have a staff member so willing to jump in on his own as well. I will be more of a guide.)
  • ESC 8 ROCKS! They either filter a LOT less than other ESCs or they opened up the lab I was in knowing I would be using several resources normally blocked. While they did not block wordpress.com, they did block Edublogs. I bet they get that resolved, though. They are sure to have several school districts requesting it, anyway.

My takeaway from this is that we all still have a lot to share with each other. While I shared tools that some might have even heard of before, several heard new uses for them for their own schools.

You will find below the Google Presentation version of what I presented to them. There are a few videos embedded for a point as well as just for fun. We did some hands-on work at different times, so the presentation might seem abrupt at times. If the embed below acts up, you can find the presentation here: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dcr4kb53_1273jnqdrc4

Feel free to leave your comments as well as questions below. I am more than happy to reply.