Tag Archives: Training

SCASL 2.0: Experience the Journey

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Updated 3/12/08 to add additional links and photo credits that I forgot.  Forgive me, it was late and I was in a hurry to get something posted! – Heather

Today marked the beginning of the 2009 SCASL annual conference in Greenville.  I am fortunate enough to have been allowed by my principal to attend,   Many of my fellow colleagues in the library world haven’t been as lucky.

Once again, I’ll be sharing my notes and thoughts from my experiences at conference.

I drove up to Greenville yesterday – after a side trip to Charlotte, NC.  I had to stop by the Apple Store to get a replacement battery for my Macbook.  Thankfully, it was covered under my warranty!  I couldn’t attend conference without my laptop!  But it sure made for a LONG trip – a little over 4 hours in total.  Anyway, here are the sessions I attended today:

Storytelling Through Pictures – Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Presented by Donna Goldsmith, Tim Van Heule, and Cathy Arnold – This pre-conference session was an all day experience beginning with a morning ride on the trolley to the Greenville Zoo.  We were met by a zoo guide who provided a very enjoyable and informational explanation of the animals: how they came to the zoo; their care and feeding; endangered species renewal plans; mated pare matching, etc.  Throughout the tour we were given the task of taking photographs to be used in our digital storytelling session in the afternoon.  In addition to my taking photos for the session, I also agreed to be a Roving Reporter for the SCASL IT Committee – I agreed to take photos and video interviews from our group to be shared with the folks who couldn’t make it to conference this year.  We are using the SCASL Ning to share information and live streaming of some sessions from conference.

After returning to the convention center and a boxed lunch, we met back up and were introduced to various storytelling tools.  See the presenters website for the tools they discussed: Flickr, Glogster, Photostory, etc.  After uploading our photos to Flickr, we were to use one of the tools they covered and create our own digital story of out trip.  Sorry, I don’t have one to share as I didn’t get to that part – I was too busy talking and going through others photos!  I kinda got sidetracked by all of the giraffe photos everyone took.  I love the giraffe.  I don’t know if you can see it in this photo, but the female giraffe is resting her head on the male giraffe’s back.  How sweet is that?  Another highlight of the giraffe segment of our trip was watching the little kids try to throw crackers to the giraffes – not an easy feat.  We learned that a zoo worker would go out later in the day and collect all of the crackers that didn’t make it to the giraffes and then feed them to the pair.  It was interesting, if someone sad, to see how the giraffes had to contort to reach the crackers on the ground.  

Can We Work Together?  Using Collaborative Tools

Presented by Cathy Nelson and Fran Bullington – As a member of the IT Committee, I assisted Cathy, Fran and Anne Lemieux with streaming the session using UstreamTV.  This was one of our efforts to include folks who couldn’t make it to conference this year.  I was in charge of the camera and chat room (once we figured it out!)  I am by no means an expert and I apologize for the poor camera work.

The session focused on using Wikis and Google Documents to collaborate with teachers and/or students to collaborate on group projects.  If/When I get the links to the session, I’ll update this post with them.

Reflections

While I truly enjoyed both sessions – the Zoo and the picture perfect, beautiful day were wonderful and I had fun working the camera for Cathy and Fran’s session – I must say the highlight of the day was having dinner with Cathy, Fran, Anne, and Doug Johnson! Fran took us to Flat Rock where I had a tasty meal and we shared fabulous conversations and laughs together.  I bet we were the highlight of our waiter’s evening!  Doug is a HOOT and a witty fellow!  I’m looking forward to attending one or two of his sessions, as well as his keynote, tomorrow.

Well, its getting late and the first session starts at 7:45 tomorrow morning and I want to make it there on time, so gonna hit the sack.

Photo Credit:

Greetings from SCASL 2.0: Experience the Journey @ your library.

DSC01317 by Greenville Instructional Technology – FlickrCC

DSC01315 by Greenville Instructional Technology – FlickrCC

EdTech ’08 Reflections Part 2

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More from Thursday:

I forgot to mention the fun I had last night at dinner with Cathy Nelson, Jessica Donaldson, Chris Craft and Fran Bullington at the Liberty Steakhouse and Brewery – after Chris made us walk all the way around Broadway at the Beach!  Not that I minded, too much, as I don’t believe I’ve ever visited there at night.  It was neat to see the lights and walk over the bridges.  And I got a kick out of watching Chris get so excited about feeding the fish.  Those were some HUGE fish – they were even biting the ducks!  Of course, I also teased him about the idea that you’re supposed to work OFF a meal, not work up to a meal!

From the “Encouraging Reading Through Technology” session I wanted to expand more on my notes regarding the “Senior Athletes Read” program.  The READ posters/trading cards are of only senior student athletes.  The posters are displayed around the school and at the games.  Their school has a specific block/period during the school day (4th block?) for athletic practice.  During this block, the coaches have made arrangements for the athletes to read to elementary classes.  The media specialists design the posters and trading cards and photograph the students.  The posters are printed on an HP Designjet printer and are laminated.  Other items I failed to mention include banners promoting reading are paraded during pep rallies “Win, Fight, Read” or something like that.  Another program was their book club – they read The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson and invited their local coroner to participate & talk about her job. Resources on their handout:

Friday:

I did decide to sleep in an extra hour!  So there were only two sessions I attended; however, both were excellent and ended EdTech on a high note.

Reaching Out Beyond the Walls: Distance Learning for Everyone – presented by John Woodring.  Despite some technical difficulties with the Internet access, this was an interesting session using Wiziq for distance training/meetings.  I’ve been toying with learning a system (preferably free) that we can use in our district media specialist association to provide access to our meetings/workshops for folks who can’t make it in person to our meetings.  Despite the technical difficulties, I found it interesting to chat with folks he’s been collaborating with.

Using Excel for More Than Spreadsheets! – presented by Donna Goldsmith from the SC Department of Education.  She showed examples of using Excel for interactivity in the classroom.  This session was awesome and Donna was a blast.  I so would have loved to have been in her classroom as a kid (or adult!)  Since she said her materials would be on the EdTech website, I didn’t take notes; however, as of right now they are not there.  I’ve emailed her for copies and would be happy to forward them on once I get them.

I will say the items she showed were real “wow” as well as “duh” moments for me.  For example: inserting a map of the US as the background (turning off the grid lines) then using comments to enter the state name/capitals (making sure to resize the columns and rows really small).  You could also put a picture of any diagram (cell structure, disection photo, etc.) of anything you want to label and use comments and/or create a matching type worksheet.  DUH! moment for me.

I didn’t stick around for the Luncheon.  Mom and I had a nice lunch at Margaritaville and did a little more shopping and walked around The Gay Dolphin before heading back to the condo.  You can see more of the photos my Mom snapped while we were in Myrtle Beach on my Flickr Photostream.

Saturday we had an early breakfast (well early for me since I don’t usually get up unil well after 10am if I’m on vacation or weekends) and checked out of the condo.  We stopped at the 501 Tanger outlets, had lunch, and headed on home.  Since we were passing by the Sumter Outlet mall, we just had to stop – boy is it NOT worth the stop.  There were only like 8 stores, but Mom could have stayed there and spent some money at the Antiques store.  We got home after dark and couldn’t bring outselves to empty out the car.  Spent all day Sunday unpacking and getting organized for today.  Since there was no food in the house we headed into Orangeburg to the IHOP!  Pecan Coffee Cake Pancakes, YUM! So, another fall vacation has come and gone.  Time to get back to work.

PS:  Oooh, reminder for everyone to plan for the Upstate Technology Conference: “Teach Tomorrow Today,” June 23 – 25, 2009.  The Call for Presentations is open.

ETV Technology Workshops

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ETV Workshop LogoThis past week I attended technology workshops at the ETV Studios in Columbia. While I was familiar with all of the session topics I attended, my purpose in going was to gather more examples of Web 2.0 tools in practice and learn new ways of using these tools.

Session 1: Blogging and Podcasting – Presenter: Brad Fountain from Discovery Education

  • I learned that StreamlineSC (UnitedStreaming) has sound files, which I didn’t know before.
  • I learned that I may be interested in becoming a STAR Discovery Educator (some of the many perks include great training and a blog that won’t be blocked by my school district).
  • Use a blog as Classroom/Teacher web page for communicating with parents and include pages for: announcements/calendar, assignments, resources, discussion questions.
  • That if I add someone to my Frequent Contacts they shouldn’t be bounced by school email (so @cathyjo if you’re reading this, try emailing me again from gmail!)

Session 2: Google Earth Basics – Presenter: Tom Taylor (www.geopackrat.com)

  • Wow. Information overload. While I have downloaded Google Earth to my Macbook and opened it up, I had never actually used it before. There is so much to explore and the possibilities for using this in the classroom are NUMEROUS. Not just the Google Lit Trips I learned about at SCASL.

Session 3: Blogging – Presenter: LaQuita Hutchinson

  • The best thing to come out of this session is getting my email on her mailing list! She sends out lots of great resources for K-12 education, many of which I will be passing along on future Odds & Ends posts.
  • She also taught us how to create a blog using Blogger. While the service seems much simpler to use than Edublogs or WordPress, Blogger is blocked by most school districts.

Session 4: VoiceThread – Presenter: Nic Finelli

  • Again, I was already familiar with VoiceThread and had created an educator account, but I have not actually used the service yet.
  • The best thing about attending this session were the examples he shared. One idea was to use VoiceThread to document field trips. Have students take along voice recorder and/or cameras to document their trip. Then create a VoiceThread to share what they learned and allow others to comment.

Session 5: Small Wonder Cameras – Presenter: Bill Sheskey

  • While I knew the Small Wonder Cameras were similar to the Flip Video Camera I recently purchased, I knew there were a few differences. The Small Wonder has a flip out display and you can add an SD card.
  • The great thing about this session as it wasn’t about the camera, but the lessons/activities examples. One technique was to distribute a photograph to groups and the groups had 3 minutes to decide Who, What, Where and When. After the three minutes, he recorded the groups answers on the Small Wonder camera and showed how easy it was to download the clips to the computer.
  • Mr. Sheskey also showed other online tools as well. Picnik a neat photo editing site was one of these tools.

Session 6: Geotagging - Presenter: Tom Taylor (www.geopackrat.com)

  • Never heard of this before, but basically it is to place a geographical location tag to stuff: photographs, videos, blogs, etc. and in this case, then mark them on Google Earth. There is no way I can explain it in a blog post. Sorry.
  • Neat thing I didn’t know was that if you set the time stamp on your camera to to the same time that is on your GPS device, you can merge the GPS dates tracking file with your photographs and tag your photos with the geographical location right on the photo file itself. Only drawback is that the geotag is of where you were standing, not necessarily where the subject of your photograph is located.
  • Tom has some wonderful photographs up on Flickr that he’s taken. I highly recommend checking them out.

As you can see, I attended some really great sessions. I highly recommend the ETV Tech Workshops. There will be another round in July (29th – 31st) and registration opens May 6th. Register early as the sessions usually fill up fast.