The Ideas Continue

As always with our meetings there are great ideas and discussion that come but now I begin the process of boiling the ideas down into language that all my staff will understand and be willing to try to use. I think if I look there is one small piece of plate that has room for this.

Later Days

Meetings Give Ideas

With the start of our in-school tech meetings I hear about all the good things that people are doing in other schools and it amazes me that people are so multi-talented. I would love to have the time to experiment with the tools that people have found and as always the issue of time comes up. Perhaps there is a way to find that time balance. I find myself getting energized to find new tools to play with and then I will see how I can apply them to my classroom.

Later Days

A Great Find

Hi,

Here was something I came across as I was searching for something else.

Teacher Tube: You Tube with an educational focus.

http://www.teachertube.com/

Enjoy

- A

Alec C Visits BCS and Ustream gets a first time test,

I thought on this fine winters night (Hah, it's April and it's snowing out; I LOVE living here) I'd write about the excellent visit we had with Alec Couros at Central and my experiments with digital video.

Part One: The Visit

On Tuesday April 15 we had Dr. Alec Couros visit with the students and staff at Central. He put together presentations of varying detail level for our various student groups dealing with cyber-bullying and other pitfalls of the information age. With the older group that I was in with most of them they were engaged and interested in the information that was presented. I think a lot of them sat up and paid more close attention when Alec showed a commercial on once you post it you can't get it back. Here's a YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwBz-hxjSLU. We also asked him to do a parent presentation that same night and we had a small group of parents come and listen to the same topic but the information was presented in a way that parents had the opportunity to see the wonders that are out there for their children but also some of the darker alleys that kids could go down. There were good questions and discussion had by this group. Thanks to Alec for spending the time with our staff students and parents. Hopefully we might find an opportunity to have him back again.

Part Two: Ustream Test Drive

I thought with Alec coming to the school I might have an opportunity to take advantage of some of the things that we shared at our last in-school tech inservice. I took some time to work out how to get a broadcast up on ustream and then worked with Donna and Owen to make sure we would have the ability to broadcast and chat. The only speed bump was the sound pickup that we had. The video worked really well but unfortunately the audio didn't work out too well. Oh well, live and learn for the next go around.

- A

Putting Together a Tech Plan

Hi all, (Who knows who reads this; it could be one person)

Here I am starting to think of what would be a good place to start with putting together a tech plan for our school and it's diverse staff. We have users that are technologically literate to ones that only check their e-mail once or twice a year. With the diverse resources that are now out there how do I provide the right target information to the people that need it without overwhelming them with information or making them feel like they learned something and not wasted their time.

Thanks,

- A

First Steps into a Larger World

Hi, Obi-Wan said it best there so here is the start of my personal blog where the random thoughts of someone who at one time considered themselves computer savvy is struggling to wrap their head around this next evolution of technology and what it means for me and my classroom may appear. These thoughts may appear at random times and places so don't set your watch by them.

- A