Okay so in my never-ending quest to learn more about edtech, I have begun to investigate Second Life. It’s funny how I find learning this new application really overwhelming. When I was beginning to look into MUVEs over a year ago, I was so overwhelmed by Second Life that I took up residence in Kaneva. I’ve got my own apartment over there and a little coffe shop that I’m working on furnishing. I realized that life in Kaneva would be short lived when all of the edtech people had no idea where Kaneva was or even that it existed. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great place to start.
So over the summer, I took advantage of the opportunity to have help in getting acclimated to SL. The DEN has a presence in SL and offered a session on it while I was at the National Institute. Still overwhelmed and a little frustrated I realized that I still wasn’t ready. But I had to get there. The Office of Science is thinking about SL and asking questions. Someone in Instructional Technology needs to be able to help if they intend to take the school division into SL. So I’m trying.
I’ve been joining the DEN for professional development in SL on Wednesday for the last few weeks. I’ve learned a lot, but I am also learning about SL. Folks are always helpful and I pick up a new skill every time. Last week I actually was in a snowball fight! So I was feeling brave tonite and I actually decided to go to a discussion on ISTE Island. I got an email from my supervisor, Karen Streeter, with all of the details last week. Warlick was going to be talking about Personal Learning Networks. Funny ’cause that was the topic last week at the DEN session.
I was listening and learning and the all of a sudden David Warlick was talking to me in front of all of those people asking me how my network was helping me…I couldn’t type fast enough…I hadn’t set up voice chat because I intended to fly under the radar. I was ever so glad that the webnazi (he’s a great guy) had unblocked plurk today, so I was actually able to be connected. I told them about the website that I got from Alice Mercer. I didn’t remember the name of the site, but I was able to say I posted it on my blog.
Ok so What did I learn? Tons…things like:
I need to revisit building my PLN - but I knew that from last week.
Got a great idea for a class I would LOVE to teach for TEACH Academy 2, but I’m not sure our folks would be ready for it. Kinda a mix between INTRO to Web 2.0 and Advanced Blogging. Teaching teachers about the power of RSS and helping them to start finding alternate forms of professional development. I want to call it something like “Professional Development 2.0 - Learning to work the web”
I learned new things about SL - how to clap, sit and nod. Learned about notecards. Don’t know how to take the info out of SL yet though. Learned how to see the archived chat. It’s cool how the hyperlinks work when you are in the right view… Learned to take pictures - learned how slow my connection was…Then I had to learn how to get back to the DEN, because I’ve never left there before. I was in luck that one of the DEN in SL leaders was in world - she got me back to where I belonged.
Don’t laugh at my pictures. It’s the best that I could do.
This is primarily for third and fourth grade teachers. While studying the food chain, you might dissect an owl pellet with your students virtually. Those with an MCPS system or a Promethean Board could do whole group instruction in the class. You also could decide to use the computer lab for this activity so that everyone could have some “hands on” experience.
Everyone knows I am a fan of Sci Fi. If I could, I would watch Science Fiction all day every day. Back in my college days I actually watched 17 episodes of Star Trek a week. I love Star Trek especially the original, because the episodes always made some social commentary. So I was quite pleasantly suprised when I was searching Slideshare the other day and found a presentation on lessons learned from one of my favorite shows of all time.
Many of you are aware that there have been many changes to United Streaming in the past year. I’ll list them here in case you have not noticed:
They have changed their name. This was Discovery Education’s way to bring uniformity to all of their new products. So United Streaming is now DE Streaming (Discovery Education Streaming).
PPS has changed our method of access. Last school year if you were on the PPS network and navigated to the DE Streaming site, you were automattically logged in. We are no longer doing that in order to allow teachers access to the DE Streaming teacher tools while on the network.
We’ve scheduled lots of professional developmnent on use of the DE Streaming teacher tools because they are absolutely fabulous, fun and free. So we need to use them.
DE Streaming has created a student center with lots of classroom application that is due to roll out in the spring.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because DE Streaming is about to roll out another batch of changes while we are on break. As a DEN (Discovery Educator Network) STAR Educator I get updates about changes and promotions that Discovery Education is planning. The last few updates have included an invitation to a webinar about the changes that will be made in late December. Deloris and I attended this afternoon. They will be changing the login page to one that is very customizeable. They will be adding new search perameters as well. The other changes won’t effect most users. If the changes throw you for a loop, let me know.
I’m at the Craft Hospital. It’s the place they send burnt-out TRTs from Portsmouth. I’m not quite sure what they do for TRTs in other school divisions, but in Portsmouth, we’ve had this arrangement for a while. We usually get sent in groups, but in special circumstances they send us individually. So now you know why my auto responder doesn’t say why I am out or when I’ll be back. It’s really not so bad here. It’s quiet and it’s beautiful outdoors. The food is really good. I had some visitors yesterday - DD, Big K and Ms. T. They sat and watched TV with me in the lounge.
As I write this I realize that this is my first post in months. It is a definite sign that shows how bad things were before I left. But the fact that they let me have my laptop back so soon is a good sign. I know this, because I’ve been here before…here are some pictures from when the 10+2 TRTs got sent here during the summer. You’ll notice that Nancy got her laptop back before anyone else…
Apparently it’s quite the buzz. I’m so excited!! Eighteen months ago, I asked the Instructional Technology department to provide a blog portal for teachers at PPS. I just knew that if we built it, they would come. And now it’s happening…we’ve had 6 inquiries about blogs in the last 2 weeks. I’m actually redesigning my blog workshop so that I’ll be ready to give the workshop in our “Tech Tuesday” lineup this fall. There are so many ways that teachers can use blogs. My personal favorite is the virtual literature circle. Here are a couple of examples…
Here’s a remeinder about the Internet Safety curriculum. All teachers in Virginia are responsible to teach Internet Safety to their students. You can find the curriculum online here: http://pps.k12.va.us/internetsafety/default.aspx . Most teachers have a couple of lessons to teach in the fall, and a couple to teach in the spring. If you need help navigating the curriculum or teaching the lessons let me know. I will be happy to help.
Wow. There are lots of things going on to prepare us for tomorrow. Last week I did more training then I thought it was possible to squeeze into a week - we trainined all of the paraprofessionals to use Kisdpiration 3, I helped introduce the “Cookie Unit” for 6th grade English, we trained all of the teachers at the “New” Park View, and I did overvew sessions on www.thinkfinity.org at Wellness Day. I got email from some of you asking where I was and when would I be at the buildings…I’ve got training with the TRts this week, so I’m afraid I won’t be at the buildings until next week.
In the meantime, I have a couple of back to school things for you:
Teachnology has started doing YouTube videos for teachers. Here’s something on student motivation that you might want to consider as you gear up for the new year:
Have a great start to the new year, and I’ll be coming by as soon as I can.
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