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Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Dr. Z on Digital Portfolios - Voices of ISTE '11



I was honored to be interviewed by Wesley Fryer at the ISTE '11 conference last week. Wesley did his typical outstanding job of covering presentations at the conference, but what was most impressive was  his recording equipment which just included an iPad2, a $60 iRig mic. He recorded this interview, used iPad iMovie to edit it and insert titles, and it was posted on the web in 5 minutes.  Wes is a media genius.
Anyway, here are some comments I made on my philosophy of Digital Portfolios. You can see the rest of Wes's Voices of ISTE at his website, Speed of Creativity. He has notes and interviews with Steven Covey, Chris Lehman, Scott McLeod and others. At this point, he hasn't indexed them in a single posting so you will have to search around for them.

So what do you think?  What are your philosophical thoughts on creating portfolios for students and professional educators?

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Panoramas of the Lunar Surface

Did you know that the US landed men on the moon in 6 missions flown over 41 months (July 20, 1969 - December 11, 1972.) In 1969 we landed on the moon in July and November.  I must admit that I hadn't realized that we sent rockets to the moon with that rapidity.

During that time, 12 men walked on the moon. They walked and drove the lunar landers (are they still up there?)  A little known fact is that each astronaut was fitted with a chest camera. It was a Hasselblad EDC that was specially designed for the trip.  (I wrote about another extraordinary photography tool, the Gigapan in November, 2009)

The photographs that the astronauts took on the moon have been "sewn together" to create Interactive QuickTime VR Panoramas of the moon that are available at Panorama.dk. Not only can you scan the lunar surface while sitting in your classroom, your journey is accompanied with audio tracks of what the astronauts broadcast back to Houston. Admittedly, the scanning is a little tricky and jerky but it is something to see.

You really MUST explore the Panoramas.dk website. It has panoramas a wide variety of travel destinations including the NEW 7 Wonders of the World:  
Looks like my wife, Kathy, and I have just created a new "Bucket List."

I began this posting raving about shooting men to the moon and ended telling you about my bucket list. Looking at these places in Google Earth can be a good introduction to the locales, but panoramas like these can make it real.

Have you used or created panoramas like these before?

Z

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Wednesday, June 08, 2011

19 Digital Storytelling Tools to Explore

flickr.com/vancouverfilmschool
Looking for some innovative tools for creating your digital stories? 


Ozge Karaoglu has shared 19 Digital Storytelling Tools on the Tech & Learning Advisor blog. She shares a plethora of audio, picture and animation tools that include the familiar and the new and exciting (at least they are to me.)

You should go to her posting to see this wonderful assortment. I am quite familiar with some of the standards that she posted including VoiceThread, Voki, Vocaroo, Jing, Animoto, GoAnimate and Xtranormal. But she included a panorama of new development scenery to begin exploring. Some of these tools include DVolver, DomoAnimate, PhotoPeach, Zooburst (3D popup book), Fotobabble and BubbleJoy.  

I can tell right now that I won't be getting much done for the next few days.

I hope that you enjoy Ozge's posting and visit her blog, Ozge Karaoglu's Blog, where she has a wealth of other tools for you to explore.

Is your favorite Digital Storytelling tool included here?  Share it in the comments section below.  It would be good to round this off to an even 20 or 25 or 50 . . . 

Z

Monday, June 06, 2011

The Magical World of the Upcoming Mac iOS

Just wanted to share with you the video of magician and performance artists, Simon Pierro, sharing the "beta version of iOS 5" on his iPad.  While I don't really think that the new iOS will have ALL of these capabilities (smirk), it is fun to see his ingenuity at work.

Thank you, Simon.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Using Social Media to Enhance Your Professional/Personal Development

What a GREAT webinar we held today!!!

This was our opportunity to contribute to the  University of Northern Iowa Hot Topics in Education webinar series. Robin Galloway and I are gave this webinar on May 26, 2011 from 3:30 - 4:30.

Here's the Link to the actual hour-long webinar that you will be able to watch through Adobe Connect (You don't need Adobe Connect to watch this, however):
 
Using Social Media to Enhance Your Personal/Professional Development 

This webinar was our opportunity to explore how today's professionals need to take responsibility for their professional development. We introduced a variety of ways that people can facilitate their own professional/personal development by getting involved in educational learning communities. Some existing online communities were cited and then we shared some tools they can use to create/enhance their own personal learning networks.

Here are some of the resources:
Distributed-Learning Communities as a Model for Educating Teachers (Dede) 

Online Education Communities
Classroom 2.0 - An active education community with over 56,000 members.
1:1 Laptop Schools - An education community dedicated to connecting and inspiring educators in 1:1 schools.

Twitter
Twitter for Teachers - Terrific intro video to show how teachers can use Twitter.
Twibes - Search Twitter Groups that fit your interest.
Listorius - Lists of twitter-ers who are sorted by areas of interest. Great place to find people to follow.
How to Use Twitter to Grow Your PLN | Edutopia  - Lists of educationally focused twitter chats.
#edchat   .    #edchat website - An active Twitter chat list.
Tweetchat - This site helps you get involved in Twitter chats.

Blogging
Cited blogs:
Dr. Z Reflects - Blogging for understanding about ed tech, learning and life (Leigh Zeitz)
Cool Cat Teacher - Vicki Davis shares her life and ideas about teaching and learning.
2 Cents - David Warlick pontificates about social media, education and learning.
Angela Maiers - Angela shares her ideas and experiences about working with teachers and students.
Blogging Resources - Resource page on Dr. Z's ActiveWeb20 wiki.

Social Bookmarking
Diigo - Bookmark, share, highlight and notate your favorite places on the web
Delicious - Another bookmarking site.
Social Bookmarking in Plain English - Explained in simple terms.
Social Bookmarking Resources - Resource page on Dr. Z's ActiveWeb20 wiki.

Virtual Events
TED Talks - Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world.
Hot Topics in Education: Professional Development Webinars -
K-12 Online Conference - Online conference where presenters submit 20 minute presentations that can be watched anytime. This site has 5 years of videos.
Flat Classroom Conference - Website for the Flat Classroom Conference in Beijing this past February.

Organizing Your PLN
iGoogle in Plain English - 50 second intro to iGoogle
RSS in Plain English - Real Simple Syndication explained in simple terms.
PLN Resources - Resource page on Dr. Z's ActiveWeb20 wiki.

The webinar was attended by a number of teacher, students and life coaches from multiple states.
Please keep in touch with Robin and myself:
What additional sources to you suggest? Add them to our learning community through the comment section below.

Z

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

100 Best YouTube Videos for Teachers

Image of TV with 100 Best on the screen.
WOW!!!!

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, John Costilla shares a list of the Top 100 Videos for Teachers provided by SmartTeaching.org.

This list of videos have been divided into 9 different categories including history, arts, science, language, classroom management, How-Tos and a variety of others.


I can take a tour of the Rijksmuseum or learn sign language or get tips on classroom management.  It even includes The History of the World and The Theory of Everything. The selection is quite varied.

I must admit that some of the videos were inaccessible because they had been removed from YouTube. Some of the links weren't touch and go. I had to copy the link to paste it into a new browser window.  Anyway, it is a useful set of resources that you will enjoy.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

White House Webinar Explains Osama Bin Laden Death to Students


How do you explain cheering Bin Laden's death to students?  This is as problem that many teachers are having.  It is difficult to explain the dark world of terrorism, but how do you explain to third grade students when they see people cheering the death of a person?  

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have someone from the White House explain about the Osama Bin Laden's death?  This happened last Thursday, May 5, at noon (CST).  Ben Rhodes, Deputy Assistant to the President, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriter, gave a 10-minute presentation on what happened. It wasn't fancy but it was effective. He had a slide show filled with photos that was interspersed with this discussion.

Mr. Rhodes began by explaining the events of 9/11 and how things have progressed since then in trying to find and capture Bin Laden. The broadcaster had been part of the group who were involved in watching the invasion from the White House and was well-informed on the progression of events.

The amazing part of this event is that over 1600 viewers were involved.  While some of them might have been individuals like me in their offices I would imagine that most of them were classes of students. There is a recommendation on the site that suggests that because of the sensitive nature of the webinar, it would be best to limit viewers to middle and high school students.

The best part was the last 20 minutes where the students/viewers were actually able to ask questions. These questions asked about how Bin Laden's death will affect the threat of terrorism in the U.S.; why they buried Bin Laden at sea; how they compared the DNA and a variety of other pertinent questions from the news.

The Discussion on Bin Laden webinar archive is available for you to review.  It has a 10-minute segment of Rhodes' presentation and then they divided the students' questions into 2 10-minute segments.

I haven't been able to find any archives of other White House webinars through Discovery (or anyone else).  Do you know of any archives? This would be a valuable asset for Discovery and the White House to create.

What do you think?  Did you use this with your students?  Will you use this with your students? How do you like the way that they addressed this issue?  

How did YOU address the issue?