I Have Been Online TOO MUCH!!!!!

 THAT'S IT!!!

IT'S BEEN TOO MUCH!!!

Today I returned to campus to sign some things and do some work. I have spent most of the last 7 months teaching from home in my basement. All of my classes have been online as well as my meetings.

Just for a change, I donned my mask and walked across campus to the Union. I purchased a chocolate milk, picked up a Northern Iowan to read, walked outside, and sat on a concrete bench.

I perused the paper along with the thumbnail articles across the top. The Derecho Relief article looked interesting and would you believe that

I "clicked" it with my thumb and wondered why it didn't show me the whole article?

I need to get back into the real world. It's not as efficient sometimes, but it can be much more fun!!

What have YOU been experiencing?

Join Us at the Online PD Community at ITEC

Are you going to the ITEC Conference on Oct 12 - 14?  

Will you be heading to Des Moines, Iowa to engage with 1500 other educators on October 12 - 14?   It will be an incredible opportunity to learn about what other educators are doing with Educational Technology in their classrooms and schools.

Can't make it physically?  Join us virtually.
Join our Online PD Community  (OPDC) virtually through your computer or phone on Monday or Tuesday.  

This is your opportunity to connect with speakers who are joining us from Shanghai, Sydney, Chicago, Atlanta and even Torrance, California. These are leaders who will be speaking on a wide range of topics including Maker Rooms, Badging, Flipped Classrooms, Coding for Kids and Digital Apps.

Here is a 7-minute video which will tell you about OPDC and how you can connect to these exciting discussions through your digital device.  The schedule of presentations follows (along with links to get there.)

	Monday - October 13	Tuesday - October 14
8:00 – 8:50		Bring Digital Badges to your School or Classroom Michael Boll - Shanghai, China
11:10 – noon	21+ Digital Learning Tools Every 21st Century Teacher Should Know! Leigh Zeitz - Cedar Falls, IA
11:00 – 11:50		Flipped Class for Administrators Jon Bergmann - Chicago, IL
1:10 – 2:00	Making the Case for Making in Schools Sylvia Martinez - Torrance, CA
1:00 – 1:50		Coding for Kids Chris Betcher - Sydney, Australia
2:50 – 3:40	20 Creation Apps in 20 Minutes David Lockhart - Atlanta, GA

NOTE to Virtual Attendees:  We will be using the Zoom.us video conferencing platform for our broadcasting.  I would suggest that you click on the Zoom link before the conference to download a small applet beforehand. 

ISTE EdTekHub Publishes MY Two Truths and a Lie

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In my last posting, Getting to Know Your Online Students Through Truths and Lies, I was telling you about an online activity that I using Google Sheets. The activity went well during our first class meeting (instead of reviewing the syllabus and all of that boring stuff) so I thought that I would share it.

I was thinking about how I could easily share this activity with other educators and I submitted it to ISTE's EdTekHub.  I worked with an editor, Andra Brichacek, and they published it with the title, Build Community Online with this Google Game.

Have you heard about ISTE's EdTekHub? It is a new online publication that ISTE is providing for educators to include the tips, how-to articles and practical guidance for members that used to be covered in Learning & Leading with Technology (L&L).

The beauty of EdTekHub is that it is completely interactive. Instead of the printed format of L&L, this online publication allows authors to augment their story lines using hyperlinks, videos, screencasts, soundtracks and an almost endless list of options. I published an article for their initial kickoff issue for the ISTE Conference, Create Collaborative Research Projects with Google Apps. This collaborative research project explained how to integrate Google Docs, Presentation, Forms, Sheets, Jing and Twitter to identify, collect, analyze and then present information on their research. This activity is really more about integrating collaborative tools than research, so I included 4 screencasts to demonstrate how these tools were used.  It added multiple dimensions to the depth of the discussion.

Another exciting aspect of EdTekHub is that it is updated weekly. The editors are an exciting lot. They readily accept your work and turn it around in a timely fashion. Would you believe that I taught the Truth and Lies assignment in the last week of August and they just published it on the last day of September. I would strongly suggest that you submit the ideas, activities, realizations and insights that make your classroom the lively learning environment that it is. You can make a change in our schools by sharing what works for you.

Voki is a FUN way to do an Intro!

Voki is a fun way to have an avatar introduction you to your class.  I have asked my students to do this, but rarely have done it myself.  I am going to do that this year.  Should be fun.  Here is the intro that I did for an INTEL course that I am taking called "Facilitating and Implementing Online Professional Development."  Should be fun.

What do you use for introductions?  Can you suggest Avatars that you can make talk?  I tried Xtranormal but it didn't work correctly.

Z

Related articles

• V is for Voki
• Playing around with Voki
• National Poetry Month: Web 2.0 Poetry~ Voki
• Communicating with Technology (our next unit of study)

Off the Grid and Lovin' It!

Blog this. Facebook that. Twitter your latest thoughts and activities . . .

Do you realize how addicted you are to your social network connections? I didn't until I had the opportunity to sever these connections for a few days.

Mid-June, I had a chance to spend 4 days mountain biking in Utah. This was no small endeavor. It involved riding about 70 miles at 8,000 - 10,000 feet elevation. May not sound like a big thing for my readers in Denver or Santa Fe. Although I ride my bike across Iowa each year along with 15,000 of my best friends (See RAGBRAI and Team Flamingo), Iowa's average elevation is only 1,100 feet. This was my first attempt at mountain biking and I found its demands to be much different than for RAGBRAI.

Utah Easy Downhill ride video

Thunder Ridge (Zion) Steep Downhill ride video


Excuse me, I digress . . .

This adventure was physically challenging but it was culturally challenging as well. I made the conscious decision not to take my laptop on this trip. No work time on the plane (I actually read a book for pleasure on my trip.)
AND believe it or not, I intentionally left my phone in our car.

This may not sound like a big move for most of you, but these were the first 4 days, in recent (and not so recent) history that I was disconnected from the net. I had an MP3 player with me, but I put it away deep into my backpack so that I wouldn't be tempted.

I loved it. It was a feeling of emancipation. I wasn't connected to anyone but the 15 people of my group. It was all about riding our bikes and enjoying the woods. I was riding with my great friend, Jay Foster, and one of his friends, Larry. There were 3 guides and 9 other guys who were out to "beat the mountain."

I don't know what to tell you, but look at the 169 unread messages that you have in your email this morning. Consider the on-going stream of Tweets, IMs and phone calls you have to deal with daily and consider "Tossing It" for a few days. The world will still be there when you come back and you will be all the better for it.

Z

P.S. I might note that I read Dan Brown's 700-page, Deception Point, on this trip as well. I had to spend some of the time in my tent while it was raining and having a great book was a good thing.

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• Palm Pre finds fan off the grid (engadget.com)
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• Grid and Area references (slideshare.net)
• Reasons to Try Mountain Biking (fitsugar.com)

50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story

Looking for a way to tell a digital story online? Alan Levine's posting 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to tell a Story on his wiki, CogDogRoo , can help.

This site is full of tools, but most importantly, Alan shares a process for creating a story. Instead of just telling you to rush off and use a cool Web 2.0 tool to create a multimedia extravaganza, he reminds you that it's a process. "As Easy as 1-2-3"

1) Outline a Story Idea. It's important to get your ideas organized before you begin creating. This page is designed to help you structure your thoughts. It is filled with writing prompts. There are thematic links to Flickr to provide you with inspirational visuals. Multiple links are suggested to additional storytelling sites on the web.

Now you have your idea, it is time to get some media.

2) Find Some Media. Gotta have multimedia but the problem is that you have to worry about licensing and copyright if you want to share it on the web. That's where you use this page. It contains multiple multiple-media sources. Take your pick: Images, Audio, Visual . . . it's all there. He says that they are all "licensed or shared with permission to re-use." This is important so you should check the sites for their specific use policies just in case they have recently decided to change their policies so that they can make money on their products. =-/

Now . . . Let's Do IT!

3) Pick a Tool to Build Your Story - This is a goldmine! This is where he is keeping
a running list of presentation websites. These tools are divided into groups including Slideshows, Timeline Creators, Mixers, Comics, Collage, Mappers, Flickr Tools, Audio Tools, Video Tools, and Presentation Tools. This is a phenomonal collection showing everything from BubbleShare to OurStory to VoiceThread to Toondoo to Prezi. It is a plethora of possibilities.

The best part about Alan's work is that this is not just a list. He has used each of the tools to create the same story about his dog, Dominoe, so that you can compare the final products.

This wiki is a great resource for those of us who want to be creative. Since it's a wiki, he wants us to use the site to share our efforts in digital storytelling that we make using these Web 2.0 tools.

Thanks, Alan!

Z

Readers: Have you used these tools? What did you do?

Quick Online Video Captures R FREE!!!

Ever want to make a quick tutorial or make quickly share some ideas or problems that involve showing what is on your computer screen? Sure, you can do this with Camtasia or SnapzPro, but I am talking about Free and Online!!! I recently found a few free online programs that will allow you to do this:

Jing is a system that will allow you to take a screen capture or create a screen video with narration and instantly upload it to share with others. This involves a small program that will download onto your Mac or Windows computer. It is quite easy to do and you can watch a Jing video about this at Jing Video.




Freescreencast is another online video capture program that makes creating and sharing short screen videos easy for you to do. Like Jing, it allows you to upload your files to the freescreencast.com website or save the file for your own personal use. It even gives you the option of embedding the video into your blog.

I am told that there are other online programs like this out there like this. Please leave a comment if you know of any of them.