A Hauntingly Good Edition

With Halloween just around the corner, and Hurricane Sandy threatening to knock on our door in MD, I thought I would highlight some of the not-so-scary things that I learned at the recent Discovery Educator Network Fall Virtual Conference.

So, without further ado, here are my top five favorite treats!

Treat #1 If you didn’t get a chance to attend any or all of these sessions check out this link to the archives. By following this link you’ll will find a whole host of goodies to put in your bag including: presentation slides, videos, and more. http://www.discoveryeducation.com/DEN/virtcon2012/index.cfm

If you clicked on the link above then you might be feeling a little spooked. Much like our Halloween bowl last year you might be thinking man that’s a lot of sweet stuff...how am I going to get through all of it? Well, unlike my family’s Halloween candy, it is archived and is ready and waiting for you. I also combed some of these sessions to highlight a few of the tasty morsels. You’ll find them listed in the treats 2-5.

Treat #2Thank you Dave Tchozewski for your wonderful web 2.0 presentation, Great, But Lesser Known, Web 2.0 Tools. During Dave’s presentation he highlights many great tools with nice and easy instructions and implementation ideas. Here are three of my personal favorites:

1. www.corkboard.me. After a simple set up you can use this free interactive sticky note site as a tool for brainstorming, spelling exercises, exit tickets or whatever your imagination dictates.

2. http://drawonthe.net/. This is a collaborative drawing website. I like that you can collaboratively annotate other websites. With this in mind you could use this tool to identify different vocabulary words, key ideas/concepts, and more. You could also try comparing prices on Amazon or Supermarkets (see Dave’s example) or use this tool to find similarities and differences in the candidates’ debate transcripts!

3. http://e.ggtimer.com/ Ever need a count down timer for your activities? This free site lets you create a custom egg timer.

Matt’s Media Tips 10-29Take Teaching to the Next Level Where Microscope and Mouse Meet

Connecting to a Global Community of Educators

Treat #3Thank you Karen Ogen for your magnificent mobile presentation, iStoryTelling K-8 presentation. During Karen’s presentation she highlights how you can use the iPad/iPhone to help students write and create stories. Here are my three personal favorites:

1. Storywheel (Free) As Karen notes, this is a great tool for pre-writing exercises. Players record a story by spinning the wheel to get a picture, and then narrate a portion of the story. When done, they can listen to your story with animated pictures.

2. Morfo (Free) and Facetalk ($.99) Make your pictures come to life. Just like Blabberize you can animate the picture with movement and your voice.

3. iMotion HD (Free). This app helps you create HD (720p) stop-motion movies. You can export to iTunes, social media, and more. As Karen states, it is easy to import your work into iMovie to add music and special effects.

Thanks for the ideas and tips Karen!

Treat #4Thank you Kathy Cassidy for your awesome Primary Digital Portfolios presentation. During Kathy’s presentation she highlights how primary students, too, can have digital portfolios that allow them to reflect and record their learning. I loved how Kathy’s students present their three favorite pieces of work to parents during Student-Led Conferences. I also enjoyed how Kathy built upon the idea of leaving a good digital footprint by building a sense of a connected community among her students. To see examples of Kathy and her students’ work follow this link: http://primaryportfolios.wikispaces.com. Great work Kathy!

Treat #5This is really more of a reminder to check out the fantastic keynotes that were delivered during the day. Richard Byrne’s 10 Common Challenges We All Face, Dan Rothstein’s The Simplest and Most Powerful Learning Technology: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions, and Dennis Grice’s Finding Your Spark, presentations are guaranteed to stuff your idea bag full of good knowledge and leave you inspired to learn even more. Thank you all of sharing your information with us!

And speaking of being inspired...Discovery Education is about to celebrate something huge with you all very soon!

Discovery Education will soon be delivering our 500 millionth digital learning resource to a classroom near you. In schools across the globe, students and teachers are experiencing moments of transformation as they use Discovery Education's robust offering of digital videos, interactive techbooks, and virtual labs to make learning come alive. Help us count up to 500 million and celebrate this milestone by sharing what Discovery Education's digital resources have meant to you and your students. Tell us about how digital learning is transforming your classroom today!

Don't forget to keep integrating Discovery Education’s vast digital media resources into your classroom. The educator or student who downloads the 500 millionth object will win a 1-day Discovery Education video shoot for their school and 1 free year of Discovery Education Streaming Plus. Click here for contest rules.

Discovery Education Webinar ScheduleDiscovery Education Webinar ScheduleDiscovery Education Webinar Schedule

Dates Time (EST) Link

11/5 7pm - 8pm

Putting the E in STEM with the Discovery Education Science Techbook Part 2: Find out about the "Engineer Lab: Materials Tool" and "Engineer Lab: Data/Graph Tool" as well as instructional strategies for using these tools to help students develop key process skills.

11/5 7pm - 8pm

Discovery Education STREAMING 101: The webinar begins with the basics (logins and passwords) and moves quickly through searches, the Teacher Center and Builders, incorporating digital content with web 2.0 tools, and classroom building through our online organizational tools.

11/6 7pm - 8pm

7 Simple Ways You Can Change the World (and your classroom): From unplugging computers over the weekends to going paperless, we have tips to share. In this webinar, we’ll show you how to create a FREE Google site for your classroom. We’ll share the free resources on the Siemens We Can Change the World website.

11/7 1pm - 2pm

Game On! A Webinar for Students! In this webinar, students will hear from 10th grade game designer Robert Nay, named one of the top kid entrepreneurs to watch. Join us as he shares his story and his insights into the game design process. Explore game design so you can ultimately build and share original games.

11/8 4pm - 5pm

Techbook Admin Webinar: This training will cover: Navigation of the My Admin Site, Managing User Accounts (students and teachers), Managing Student Access, Running Usage Reports.

11/8 7pm - 8pm

What’s in your Digital Tackle Box? Building a Multimedia Presentation: Using one of the new model lessons on the Explore the Blue website, we?ll show you how to build a media-infused, non-linear presentation that hooks your students so you can reel them into the content. Tools to be covered include PowerPoint and Prezi.

I learned about this app from David Fisher during his Discovery Educator Network Fall Virt Con presentation, Hi I’m David and I’m an APPoholic!

If you have students creating movies or speeches and those students need to refer to a script than this free tool is for you!

From their iTunes page:i-Prompt Pro is a professional tele-prompting software for your iPad.Use your Apple iPad as a professional teleprompter for location reporting, corporate video productions, info-mercials, video blogs, podcasts and all types of public event speaking.

FEATURES:Smooth Scrolling – in both landscape or portrait modes, with mirrored or standard text alignments.Fast Script Download to i-Prompt software via simple email or document cut and paste text copying.Instant Script Editing and Timing – use i-Prompt’s in-built text editor for those last minute changes to content and timing.

Click here for the free IOS app download

i-Prompt ProByOurApps4U Limited

The Discovery Educator Network (DEN) is a global community of educators passionate about teaching with digital media, sharing resources, collaborating,

and networking. With over 100,000 members providing professional development to over 600,000 educators worldwide, the DEN connects teachers

both on-line and in-person. Discovery Educators have exclusive access to a wide range of resources, professional development activities, networking

opportunities, exclusive Discovery Educator events and more. Find out how you can be part of this dynamic and supportive community.

Become a DEN Star today!

What is a DEN Star Member?

Questions/Comments? I’d love to hear from you

email me at matt_monjan@discovery.com

or Tweet me at

@monjan

10/22/2012

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9/24/2012

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8/27/2012

Miss a week? Catch back up here! 2012-2013 School Year Archives

In-the-know about Infographics. This edition highlights the new 2012 election material within DE. It also dives into different ways that you and your students can evaluate and explain data by examining three different sites that create infographics. Sock Puppets, an iPad app that is animated by your voice, is also explored.

Opening up Closed Captions. Check out all of the new and enhanced ways to stream captioned content. We’ll also continue to explore the back-to-school webinars and play with EasyBib, an Android and iPad app that makes citing reference material a breeze.

Back to School Review. Check out some of the major enhancements made to Discovery Education over the summer. We'll give you a chance to weigh in, showcase a new back to school webinar series and highlight Nearpod, a very cool classroom mobile app.

Get Your Game On! Explore how to use the Discovery Education games to engage students. Robert Nay a 10th grade game designer will share his story and his insights into the game design process. Finally, we'll check out Aurasma, a free augmented reality app that works on both Droid and IOS devices.

The Digital Decoder Part two of two explores how to use Discovery Education and six other digital resources to help students predict, re-state, and make connections to the text that they are reading. We'll also explore a free mobile app called Fotobabble that lets add narration to your pictures.

The Digital Decoder. Part one of a two part series that explores how to use digital resources to assist struggling readers. We’ll also explore Audioboo, a free mobile app that turns your mobile device into a roaming podcasting machine

Getting Quizzy With It. Everything you ever wanted to know about creating a Discovery Education Quiz and more - including an easy step-by-step guide for embedding Web 2.0 content into a Quiz! We’ll explore a unique mobile app called Stack the States as well.

Five free tools from DE plus one that’s too cool for school. We’ll also explore links to even more free resources and then play with a free mobile app, Sketch Nation Studio, that provides a simple game design/creation platform.

Downloading Closed Captions Explore how to download closed captioned files and manipulate their text on both a PC and Mac. We'll also examine the TechChef4U app that links to many education apps! Finally, in this edition, I provide links to the Best of Matt's Tips and Tricks webinar resources.

Scratch.mit.edu, Popplet.com and EduTechr mobile app explored.

4/2/2012 Mi Content es Su Content. Book- marking and sharing your Discovery Education content across your school and district, two great contests, and two text-to-sign mobile apps

3/26/2012 Can You Picture it? Learn how to create a six-word story using iPiccy.com and Discovery Education. Digital Story Challenge! MeeGenius Audiobook app for mobile devices.

3/19/2012 Audio Book ‘em Dano. Eight simple steps for creating an audiobook using iTunes and any computer (Mac/PC). Molecules mobile apps.

3/12/2012 It’s All About The Sharing. Uploading, sharing and accessing your own content within Discovery Discovery Education. Cel.Ly app polling device via any device.

2/27/2012 Teacher Center Treasure Trove of Resources. Interactive Calendar Atlas, STEM Connect explored. Socrative App (student response).

2/13/2012 Special Valentines Issue - Things I love about Discovery Education. Five Minute Preps, Images,Coaches Eye App

2/6/2012 What did you say? Closed Captioning on an iPad? Getting Closed Captions to play on your iPad, GreenScreens on iPhone/iPad with GreenScreen FX app

1/30/2012 Let’s Give Them Something To Sing About Differentiated Instruction Using Songs, First Student Media Contest of the Year, ShowMe and Educreations whiteboard apps

1/23/2012 Meet the Faces of Discovery Education Get up close and personal with the Discovery Education on-air talent, special student webinar series, Story Kit app

Miss a week? Catch back up here! 2011-2012 Archives

7/19/2012 Sneak peek at the back to school enhancements. Roadshow app.

6/11/2012 Fun things to do over the summer with technology and media. Mustacheme app is featured.

5/21/2012 The ins and outs of Digital Storytelling. Digital Storytelling Web 2.0 presentation and apps

5/14/2012 Who Knew We Had News? Find an additional set of free Discovery News videos, the Video Yearbook, video almanac, and great webinar information. Roadshow App for playing back videos on-demand is reviewed.

5/7/2012 My Five Favorite Summer Resources. We explore five free interactive sites that parents, students, and teachers can use over the summer. We’ll also explore a free translation app for mobile devices.

4/30/2012 Getting Your Game On. Finding great games, simulations and more within Discovery Education. Back-to- School Sneak Peek Webinars announced. Futaba Classroom Games for Kids iPad app explored.

4/23/2012 Getting the Point with PowerPoint and Keynote. Learn how to trim audio & video in PPT and save both PPT & Keynote presentations as images to embed in Web 2.0 sites. 2 Screens and Joinme mobile presentation apps explored.

4/16/2012 It’s all about the Theme. We’ll explore several different ways to find unique thematic content. Three most voted upon stories revealed. Studyblue mobile flashcard app highlighted

4/9/2012 Scratch and Pop. Six-Word Story finalists revealed. Links between Discovery Education and

1/18/2012 In a Class of Their Own Setting up Discovery Education Classrooms, Discovery Education Live Webinars, Quizlet App.

1/9/2012 Building out the New Year Five of my favorite things you can do with the Discovery Education Builders, Rover App for DE Students

12/19/2011 Special Holiday Edition 13 Tips from Educators around the US and Canada, Videolicious App

12/12/2011 50 Ways to Use Discovery Education Tips and tricks galore iSwifter - Flash for iPads

11/28/2011 What I am Thankful for Building out your PLN Wordspree and Math Acorn Apps

11/14/2011 Things I Stole From the Community DEN Tips, Four really cool tips you can do with Google. TED and Animoto apps

11/7/2011 First Six Weeks Aggregated

11/4/2011 Creating an “iCenter" How to create an ePub using DE videos. Spirit of Innovation Challenge

10/24/2011 Spooky Edition Digital Storytelling, Web 2.0 Piqua City Community Night, Crazy Pumpkin and Halloween Card Creator Apps

10/17/2011 Stick it to IT Collaborative Note Taking Site Educator Spotlight - Jennifer Everett, ToonTastic and PuppetPals Apps

10/3/2011 Opening Up Closed-Captions Closed-Captions for Macs and PCs, 10 FAQs Customer Service Receives

9/26/2011 Common Core, Web 2.0 and DE Three cool sites that integrate nicely with Discovery Education. Administrator Spotlight - Molly Hay!

9/13/2011 Can you Hear what I’m Writing? Embedding an eReader into your Writing Prompts, Getting to know Discovery Education SCIENCE