Update Flash - a NYCDOE centric tutorial

The below tutorial was created with the New York City Department of Education computers and network in mind. That said, however, the idea behind finding a way to easily batch-update Flash on student computers carries over to users and networks beyond the NYCDOE.

So, while the tutorial may be NYCDOE centric, if you are in a Mac environment you can most likely follow the steps to push out Flash updates in your lab setting as well.

Hope this helps folks out...

School Technology Summit 2014 presentations - #NYCSTS14

Welcome to my portion of the School Technology Summit 2014, presented by the Division of Instructional & Information Technology of the New York City Department of Education!

This is the second year for the Tech Summit. My materials from last year can be found here. Just like last year I have created this post for my session slide decks. Once again, the day looks to be an amazing day of learning with a lot of great session opportunities. I am putting all my presentation resources here, in this one post, to make it easy for everyone to have access to my content, even if you are unable to attend in person.

I hope you find my material & presentation valuable.

Enjoy the conference!

"Corporation" doesn't have to be a dirty word

This is a cross-post from Lisa Nielsen on her Innovative Educator blog. She turned one of my Facebook comments on professional development into a blog post. I've re-posted her post here (unedited)...

I have had the pleasure to be involved with creating partnerships between innovative educators and the companies that provide them with resources. This currently includes companies like PBS, Common Sense Media, Google, and, Microsoft, SMART, and Edmodo. 

Unfortunately, for some, when the word corporation comes up, there is immediate distrust. This is a big PR problem that corporations need to take seriously. Fortunately, many corporations are excited about the opportunity to provide support to those who use their products and the teachers are benefiting in many ways.  

Don't blame social media if students are distracted...

Note: This post started as a comment on “Filtering social media in schools because it’s a ‘distraction’” which appeared on Scott McLeod’s Dangerously Irrelevant blog and then first appeared as a guest post on Lisa Nielsen's blog, The Innovative Educator.

Social media is no different than pencil and paper. I doodled a lot in the margins of my physics book. It wasn’t Twitter and Facebook that made me doodle but I doodled nonetheless.

Social media can serve as the new platform for distraction but not a new cause for it. Doodles, passing notes, sleeping in class, all of the “analog” forms of distraction, have just morphed into branded platforms.

The difference?