First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for students for the Canyons School District. A big day! We have all been working so hard to have things ready for today. I have loved being in the trenches and being part of the effort to ensure a great educational experience for our students. I love the team I work with, our department, and our district leaders. Our superintendent is a great leader - caring, intelligent, energetic - and the IT department directors are too. I feel so happy to be part of such a great team.

Now I am anxious and excited to really get to work with teachers and students. It feels good to work hard, problem solve, and really make a difference. I am working hard to earn the trust of the teachers and principals at my assigned schools. I have loved the teaching and presenting I have done so far.

First day memorable moments:

• Wearing a bright yellow district T-shirt and having everyone stare at me all day
• Sitting in the computer lab working on teacher laptops and looking up in time to see a 2nd grader making funny faces at me as she walked down the hall
• Talking with the superintendent for 20 minutes and having him genuinely enjoying conversing with me
• Being able to say hello to my former principal and coworkers as I traveled from school to school
• Helping a lost 2nd grader find her bus - and her smile when we found it
  
• "Thank you"s from teachers when their laptops were returned and ready for use
• Passionate conversations about how best to help students through good teaching practices and technology use
• Sharing in everyone's first day experiences via Twitter
• Jethro puncturing his Coke can with a plastic knife and causing it to explode
• Liz sharing her ugly stick doll with everyone
• The enthusiasm and nervousness of first-year teachers
• Hard-working, dedicated teachers, students, administrators, and district employees

I feel fortunate and excited to have my new position as an Educational Technology Specialist! I love being a part of the new district! It's going to be a great year!

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Web 2.0 Smackdown!

Firefox Personas

Rock Your Google Calendar in 18 Ways

Creative Commons

MyWebspiration

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Photo & Video in Web 2.0

Cool Tools For Schools

Images:

Flikr

Cooliris

Big Huge Labs

Cameroid
Be careful because with this one they send your images out to their gallery.
But you can also download your photo to your computer.

BeFunky

BlingEasy - may not want to use with the kids

Video Editing:

Animoto

YouTube

Publishing videos on a blog or site:

• You can download, then upload to another site but this can cause problems with file size limitations and copyright.
• You can look for the embed code on whatever site the video is on, but with YouTube this shows related videos after the video has played. You can uncheck the related videos option first, then get the embed code to get rid of this.

ScreenCasting:
Jing

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Google Tools

You have to have a google account to use these tools, but it's free and easy.

Google Forms
Create surveys

Google Maps
look at maps
get directions
street view

Google Earth

Picassa
Free online photo editor

Google SketchUp
Free
Pro Version is free in Utah because the state has purchased a license
3-D Warehouse

Google Talk
online chat

Google Voice
Get a free phone number
Control where all your calls are sent - home, cell, work, etc.

Google for Educators

Google Docs for Educators

Google Presentations

Google Spreadsheets

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Moodle

Alpine District Moodle
course management
quizzes, assignments, surveys, rubrics, peer evaluations
create groups within a course
student profiles, pictures
must have a login
students can contribute, submit assignments, etc.
chat, online discussions, wikis, blogs, all on the same site
protected environment

Educational Technology Moodle

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Educational Social Networking

ning

classroom 2.0

learncentral

Host Your Own Webinar

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Day 2

Your Online Presence
What about teachers sharing thoughts and feelings, struggles even, on blogs, etc. Is it okay for teachers to be transparent online?
They can get help, support, and suggestions from other teachers.
But what if their principal, students, parents see it?
Should that stop you from being a part of a transparent conversation online?
Maybe there is a balance between being aware and concerned about what you put out there and being too concerned to participate.
We need to teach digital citizenship. How do we do that when we don't even know exactly how to be digital citizens ourselves?
So, what about the people who are too afraid or cautious to participate?
How open should we be?

Thoughts?

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Wiki Use

What can I include on my wiki?
Course outline
Calendar of assignments and events
Discussion questions
Links to other information sources
Add widgets

• audio
• video
• slide shows
• bookmarks
• chat
• etc.

Each student could have their own wiki to post assignments and create reports, projects, presentations.
Group projects based on curriculum standards
Group projects can be edited by other groups in other classes that are studying the same content.
Display students work
Notes about what went on at school that day. Could require a student to be in charge of taking notes for a day.

Amazing Wikis!
http://kearnshigh.wikispaces.com/
http://kearnsathletics.wikispaces.com/

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Speed Demos

Classroom 2.0 Salt Lake City 2009 Wiki

Dropbox
virtual storage space

Google Desktop

Google Custom Search Engine

Destiny

Voki
A speaking avatar
Can be attached to a blog or email
See it in action!

Dowload Helper
Saving YouTube videos

Picnik
Online photo editor

Weebly
Quick, free, online website building
Weebly is planning on creating an educational version so you can have each of your students have a website that can have an online portfolio.

ChaCha
text any questions and get answers texted back to you

Twitter Back Channel

USTREAM
Live feed

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Pocasting

What is Podcasting?
Think of a podcast as a cross between a blog and a radio show

• regularly posted
• published in reverse chronological order
• focus on a particular topic or subject
• listen to on a computer, CD, ipod, mp3 player

How it works...
A podcaster (the person creating it) publishes content to a server and creates an RSS feed to that server. The listener subscribes to that RSS feed. The most popular way to do that is through iTunes.

Caution

• Don't say anything derogatory towards the community, the district, people
• Monitor content
• Listen to the full podcast before publishing
• Whatever you put out there will stay out there for a long time.

Where can you store your podcasts?

• On your school's or district's server - then ask someone who knows how to help you create the RSS feed
• iWeb has a built-in way to help you create the RSS feed.
• You could publish through iTunes U K-12
• The Internet Archive
• Anyone can post their podcasts to iTunes
• In Canyons district we are creating an easy district-wide place to publish and create your feed.
• You could also post things to YouTube and people can subscribe to you on YouTube

Producing Contenet
Audacity
GarageBand

• mp3 format will be audio only
• AAC format allows images to stay in your podcast

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Using Blogs to Teach and Learn

Link to view the Jordan School District Student Personal Information Release form

Classroom 2.0 Conference - Day 1

How is technology affecting teaching and learning?
Who is the expert? People don't necessarily become an expert through the traditional means.
Students need new literacy skills. They need to know how to sort through the overwhelming amount of information and determine what is accurate and viable.
The teacher gives control back to the students.
Give students access to the real world. They're actually participating, not just practicing.

What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 Wiki
A culture of openness.
A culture of collaboration.
Experimenting and failing are free. You can go online and create something - try it out - for free.

Steve Hargadon's Conclusions:
Students will become increasingly autonomous.
Schools will be expected to provide more customization.
The coming innovation will not be easy. We do not have a good model for computers in schools.
Computer labs? Computers in the back of the classroom? Mobile labs? 1 to 1 student computers?

What do you think?