In anticipation of #ISTE2015

As I begin my journey to Philladelphia my head is swimming. ISTE has long been a conference I've wanted to attend but never could. In the past it always seemed to fall during the last week of school, a week I could never miss. This year it comes immediately as the school year ends.

 

A lot of my students go away to sleep-away summer camp. I never did as a child. The past few weeks I've heard countless tales of the bus rides, the cabins, the friendships, the excitement, tha anticipation. The fun. As ISTE has approached I started to feel much the same way. Eagerly awaiting the moment my train pulls away from Penn Station headed to Philly...

Live streaming 1st grade egg hatchings!

Every year the 1st Graders get eggs and learn about the process of chickens hatching.

We are live streaming the eggs and the hatching process!

For the technically inclined here is how I set it up:

• MacBook "late 2009"
• 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4 GB 1067 MHZ DR3
• OSX 10.9.4
• these are old, stripped down, refurbished systems
• no battery
• few apps
• essentially solely running the encoder
• Used my lab's YouTube channel to set up a Live Event
• YouTube has a great setup tutorial
• Encoder setup FAQ
• I did not use Google Hangouts because they have an 8 hour stream limit and we were looking for a 7-10 day continuous, 24/7 stream
• Installed Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder
• required for YouTube Live Events not using Hangouts - allows for 24/7 feeds
• Set up my stream specifics
• YouTube walks you through it
• Preview the feed
• Started streaming
• Emailed links to teachers to share with parents & posted feeds on lab blog

A couple a quirks:

ASCD 2015 - Day 2

Day 2 began early.

First session 8:00am...

I was fortunate to be on a panel with Elana Leoni of Edutopia.org and Joe Manko an awesome principal from Baltimore. Our panel was "Creating a 140 Character Culture: Schoolwide Twitter Adoption." We've spent a lot of time over the last few months prepping for this and it was a great experience to work with Elana and Joe. Being able to present with them was opportunitiy I was very fortunate to have. If you don't know Elana or Joe, connect with them. They are both doing amazing things with social media in education (keep an eye out for us at ISTE too). They are pretty awesome people.

ASCD 2015 - Day 1

This is my third year coming to ASCD. I love this conference. It's not just tech. It's not just curriculum. It's not just teachers. Of all the conferences I've been too I think ASCD is always the most varied in terms of session topics, featured speakers, and overall coverage of education. It's always a great few days.

Is my ED not as meaningful as an MD or JD?

A colleague has diplomas up in his classroom. It looks great. And not just diplomas, but awards, accolades, and certificates as well. A former administrator of his said, "if doctors and lawyers do it, why shouldn't teachers?"

Great point, got me thinking...

... all of my stuff is in boxes in the basement. I think. Honestly, I'm not sure. Maybe I don't care. Maybe that's the point...

My snow day. And a new perspective

I had a snow day today. What makes this somewhat different from past snow days is that I no longer teach in the district in which I live. That means while I had a snow day, my kids did not.

http://media.nbcnewyork.com/

It got me thinking. Thinking about what today afforded me that I rarely, if ever, get to experience.

Where's Jack?

I loved "On the Road"

It was a definitive tome for me. It was the first book that ended up folded from days spent in my back pocket. It was the story to made me want to wander. I never did wander the way Jack and the boys did, but I was never inspired to, or since, to wander in the way they did.

It was months on a bus.

It was a typewriter.

Chrome's multiple users update

Yesterday Google updated Chrome.

One of the best features of Chrome is the ability to multiple Google accounts logged in simultaneously (previous tutorial post here)

The feature is still there, Google just tweaked the visual...

You no longer see the icons like this:

It now looks like this:

iMovies on paper with Aurasma

One of my pet peeves is the traditional bulletin board. As a technology teacher I feel the traditional paper stapled to cork board is counter intuitive to what students do in the lab.

Paper bulletin board are fine for certain things, but if students are creating animations or layered presentations or movies how do you do their work justice by printing a still image and putting it on a board. How do you honor and celebrate their work beyond simply unloading to YouTube or blogging about it? How do you showcase their work in the hallway without losing any of their awesome?

Augmented reality...

The only 2 things on the internet

I have long told my students there are only 2 things on the internet.

Two.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I use this, especially with elementary school students, as a way to explain, simply, the tenets of safe web use.

The only two things on the internet are