MAHETC2007

To those who regularly read this blog: forgive me. I know that I hate it when someone blogs about all the conferences that they attend. It's like, wow, look at me and all the conferences I go to/present at - I'm amazing. I assure you, this isn't one of those posts, and I apologize in advance. :)

To Linda and those who went to my Beyond Podcasting session yesterday (and anyone else who is interested):
I think the Why Bother powerpoint (listed here) is finally up and working. If this doesn't work, I'll try to figure something else out. Please comment and let me know if you can access it.

As far as "source materials", I have listed some helpful links to the left of this page, and also on the conference wiki . The links that I showed (and many more) are on the delicious page (the direct link is here).

I hope this helps. Feel free to contact me if you would like any further information. Thank you!

We now bring you back to your regularly scheduled blog-reading...

Technorati Tags:
MAHETC2007, Beyond Podcasting

iSing?

Griffin, a company who is known to create products that are generally good for the iPod has announced the release of iKaraoke. No, I am not making this up. Apparently, it is a free-ware file that you download to your Mac or PC, and then it allows you to sing along with any song that you own.

I'm not sure of the educational ramifications - if you can think of any, please let me know. I guess for French, you could teach an "educational" song that describes the forms of a conjugated verb and then have students sing along. I'm not sure how well this would work 7-12 - I can hardly get my kids to sing "Happy Birthday". :) (They do, however, yell it quite well.)

So, have fun at your next family reunion with this new freeware. Oh yeah, and check out their site, too. They are giving away $800 of Griffin schwag (sp?). Nice.

Technorati Tags:
iPods, iTunes, Random, iKaraoke

Are we there yet?

Today was the big travel day. I had to travel from Michigan to Maryland, for the MAHETC 2007 conference. My flights went pretty well, with the exception of a 30-minute wait on the tarmac in D-town, but other than that, they were fine. I got my bags without a hitch, even found my way to the rental car terminal (which, incidentally, is NOT at the airport terminal in Baltimore). Then, it was up to the people at AAA, who had printed me a trip-tick (sp?) earlier in the week.

And that would be when the problems started.

First, AAA thought that I was leaving from the airport. Then, the names of the streets were different than what they really were. Finally, it told me to turn left onto Troopers Way from MD 13 South. Um, Troopers Way doesn't intersect MD 13 - you have to take two side roads to hit TW. Nice. That one took me all the way down 13 to the University to figure out.

Why am I writing this, you ask? Well, dear reader, you should have figured out that I am always a tad on the rant-ish side, but I assure you that I do have a point. I carry with me a cell phone and a PDA at almost all times. Both are wi-fi compatible. Both have GPS/Map-type programs on them. Did I use them? Um, no.

I will be the first to admit that I am a healthy mix of Digital Native and Digital Immigrant, to quote from Marc Prensky. I tend to be mostly immigrant when it comes to my own schoolwork. I tend to play with technology and work with paper. I believe - and have yet to be proven wrong - that this was ingrained in me from the beginning of my educational experience. I was always provided with technology at home - my parents placed it high in their priority list - but was not always provided with it at school. In fact, I can vividly remember teachers telling me not to use any online sources because books were the most reliable! When we tell students that they can't use iPods or cell phones or PDA's or whatever in school, aren't we sending the same message that some of my teachers gave me?

Which brings me back to my driving adventures...if I had been encouraged in school to use technology in as many areas as I could, would I have thought to check the two different map programs that I carry with me? I guess we'll never know...

Technorati Tags:
MAHETC2007, Education of the Future, Random

Why Bother?

Here is a powerpoint that I will be showing on Tuesday and Wednesday at MAHETC. It will be my anticipatory set (if you will) of both my podcasting and blogging sessions. I think I did a nice job, but I'd love some feedback if you have time. Thanks!

I think all you have to do is click on this powerpoint and it will open the presentation (including music) into your browser. Please let me know if you have any problems.

Technorati Tags:
MAHETC2007, Random, iPods, education

Anti-Theft that Really Works!

Finally, an iPod anti-theft device that we KNOW will work!

Check it out here!

PS Yes, I know this is a joke. Please don't email me and tell me that it is a joke and that I'm dumb. Get a sense of humor! :)

Technorati Tags:

iPods, Random

Plans for Summer, Part II

Okay, so I'm procrastinating again, so I am blogging (as per usual). I was re-reading some of my old blogs, one of which was this list of what I had planned for this summer, as of June 11 (while I was still grading and in school). Now that it is the 20th of July, and the new school year is rapidly approaching, I thought I would look at this list again, and see how much I have accomplished. Join me, won't you?

1. Sleep. I don't do enough of that during the school year. Hmm...this is a nice goal. I wish that I could say that I have done more of this, but if anything, I am sleeping less. But, one can always dream, right?
2. Family. Enough said. Yes, I have done a lot with family this summer. Both my husband and son have had surgery, so we are having a lot of family time. I mean, a LOT.
3. Tennis. I am helping with some camps this year, so I thought I'd throw that in here. Yes, I am doing a lot with tennis. Planning for the two seasons that I coach, and coaching the kids in camp. Camps end in 11 days, so I am currently playing/coaching at least 4 days a week. Yay!
4. Laptops and Lattes (or possibly other beverages that start with "L"). I'm very excited about this one. A colleague of mine came up with the idea, and I love it. We are going to get together on Wednesdays and discuss ways of integrating techology into our classrooms. We are going to discuss Web 2.0 stuff, Moodle, podcasting, Gizmoz, and much, much more. I am SO excited about it! What a great idea - and what a great thing that would have been, too! Yes, I know that we still have a lot of time left, but I don't know whether this is really going to happen or not. We'll see. There is still plenty of time left for this.
5. MAHETC. That would be the Mid-Atlantic Handheld and Emerging Technologies Conference in Salisbury, Maryland. I will be one of the many presenters there, along with the likes of Tony Vincent. It is going to be so great! I fly out for MAHETC on Tuesday, and I am nowhere near ready, but I'm excited nonetheless. I couldn't get to NECC, so I'm hoping this is a good second. I am geeked to do this - I have not yet presented outside of the state of Michigan, so this will be great!
6. (Real) Mobile Technology. As I am preparing my mobile classroom, I am trying to come up with ideas on how I can still integrate technology without having the classroom as my crutch. Right now, I have closets filled with stuff I've purchased - microphones, headphones, wires, etc, but I also haven't used it as much as I should. Now I need to reorganize myself and create more opportunities for technology while not having them in my closet for emergency I-have-five-minutes-left-let's-do-a-podcast integration. :) Ah, yes. I'm still trying to decide how best to organize myself, and I still don't know where I will be classroom-wise, so we'll see. I think that I need to re-organize no matter if I am in one room or 50 - technology needs to be planned in, not punted.
7. Psychology. Now that I am switching gears, I would like to re-vamp the old curriculum and do more online-type stuff. Any suggestions for good online resources for psych? Let me know. Yes, I am working on this, slowly but surely. I am revamping, but it is taking longer than I thought.
8. Presentations. I am drafting a new version of "Beyond Podcasting", which I am going to do at MAHETC. I am also creating a few new ones, such as "Classroom 2.0", "My Top-Ten Web 2.0: The Stuff I Can't Live Without", "Blogging 101" (unveiling at MAHETC), "Get a (Second) Life", and "Emerging Technologies: Why This Stuff Isn't Going To Go Away". Most of my presentations are about an hour long, but I can adapt them into workshops as well. Again, if you'd like to have me speak at your school/district/conference, please email me here. Yes, still working on this as well. I am redrafting BP and writing Blogging 101, which HAVE to be done by the end of this weekend (no pressure) for MAHETC. I was supposed to submit for a conference this fall, but I haven't done so yet. Let's hope I still have time!
9. Second Life. Yes, I dink around on there, but I really am doing a great amount of PD on there as well. I have met quite a few people that I consider to be good friends, and we have some great discussions on there. And yes, I want to come up with ways to use SL in my curriculum. HAHAHAHA! Yeah, not so much. Now that I have a laptop, though, I'll probably dink around a bit more. We'll see...
10. Reading. I read a lot of blogs, and I read a lot of magazines, but not a lot of books/e-books. While one of my projects for sure is to read the last Harry Potter (shut up - you know you want to read it, too), I want to read more about emerging technologies in the classroom. Please email me if you have any great suggestions. Yeah...not so much. I've read a Stephen King short story, and I've re-read the 6th Harry Potter book, in anticipation of the new one releasing tomorrow(WOOT!), but nothing tech related...yet...

So, yeah. I guess my top-ten list of what I wanted to accomplish was overly ambitious. I plan on doing a lot of research before MAHETC this week, but otherwise with two boys who are still healing, I am pretty much family-bound for awhile. I will post when I find out cool things, and my postings will probably increase around MAHETC as well. So, thanks for reading. Please comment if you can think of anything that you'd like me to talk/think/explain/write about here. And, as always, I would love to come to your school/district/meeting/book club (???) or whatever to talk about teaching. I LIVE for this!

Happy Procrastinating! (I mean, summer!)

Technorati Tags:

Summer, Random, MAHETC2007, Education

Pay Attention!

I'm sure that everyone in the world has seen this but me, but just in case you missed it, well, Pay Attention!




Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, Education of the Future, Pay Attention