My MACUL 2010 Experience – Friday Kinder-Tech Session

Janie is a kindergarten teacher in our district as well as a friend of mine; this was her first time presenting at the conference and she did an outstanding job. The conference gurus scheduled her session in a large room with about 100 chairs, in the last time slot before the closing speaker…this could have resulted in a low turnout with everyone being so tired, but NO…the room was packed SRO (standing room only)! First time presenter+packed room=nervous wreck…right? NOT! Janie kept her cool and did a fabulous job! Her presentation featured the many creative ways that she integrates technology into her kindergarten classroom on a daily basis. Congratulations Janie!

NOTE: You can find speaker handout material at: http://macul.org/conferences/2010maculconference/attendees/speakerhandoutmaterial/

My MACUL 2010 Experience – Thursday Microsoft Office Live Workshop

A friend of mine prepared a comprehensive 2-hour hands-on workshop on Microsoft Office Live which is an online storage and collaboration tool that keeps ALL of your Microsoft formatting from your Office products (Word, Excel, PPT, etc.). I’ve been using Google docs for a couple of years now, and have experienced loss of formatting when uploading certain MS Office documents (especially PowerPoint). With MS Office Live, you can upload your documents without loss of formatting…and…share them with other so they can download them, revise, re-upload, all while keeping up to eight versions in the revision history (pretty cool). Office Live offers much more than this, but unfortunately the wireless access was not cooperating and we had to end the session early. I will say that Windee was doing a fabulous job presenting and answering questions adeptly despite pitiful Internet connectivity!

NOTE: You can find speaker handout material at: http://macul.org/conferences/2010maculconference/attendees/speakerhandoutmaterial/

My MACUL 2010 Experience – Thursday Google Earth Workshop

Google Earth (GE) is basically a geographic browser, much like Internet Explorer is an information browser (I like this analogy). Because computers have IP addresses and can be located, basically anything that is posted to the Internet has a geographic location…find the IP address, find the information source (a bit scary if you over think it). Aiden (the presenter from Google), showed us tips on using the navigational tool bar…the biggie is if you press the “r” key GE will reorient your view to directly above your map position, with north in the upward position. I learned that you can actually zoom below the ocean and see the terrain on the ocean floor. And you can “record” as you build your map/journey/tour, etc. and play it back in sequence. This would be a great feature to evaluate the logical nature (or lack thereof) of student work. The presenter was great, but the wireless connection was terrible; we ended the session watching as Aiden demonstrated…so much for “hands-on”!

NOTE: You can find speaker handout material at: http://macul.org/conferences/2010maculconference/attendees/speakerhandoutmaterial/

My MACUL 2010 Experience – Wednesday Discovery Education Workshop

I started my conference on Wednesday with a 3-1/2 hour hands-on preconference workshop on Discovery Education Network (DEN) (previously United Streaming). Well, I was on information overload by 4:00; I learned so much…DEN is much more than video streaming! Last spring I went through the process to become a DEN Star Educator in order to reap the benefits of full membership so I was eager to learn more about their offerings (check it out at http://www.discoveryeducation.com). DEN offers a wealth of free resources as well. Here are the keypoints that I noted:

· Multi URL - collections of websites that display one at a time. http://www.multiurl.com/g/1ul

· Audacity files for digital portfolios to exhibit fluency or language arts skills.

· Polleverywhere – on-the-spot audience polling

· Assessment w/in DEN

· Digital stories - include script writing and research that went into creation, not just the end product.

· VARK - Visual.... Aural/Auditory.... Read/Write.... Kinesthetic

· Visual - Google Earth (PRO free to educators)

· [Book: Stand and Deliver]

· Stephen Hawkin The Universe Series (check this out when it comes out soon)

· Life - 11-part series about multiple species on Earth comes out in 2 weeks

You can create a “course” within Discovery Education (DE): Adding to content is basically bookmarking; can use folders; can share content to school and district level (collaboration) can be open or controlled sharing; DEN is SOOOO much more than video streaming; it's total media integration and working with web tools; appears that you can do an import of student data (user name and password) from SMS.

You really should check it out!

NOTE: You can find speaker handout material at: http://macul.org/conferences/2010maculconference/attendees/speakerhandoutmaterial/