So you want to travel the world with your students to show them the Coliseum in Rome, the pyramids in Egypt, or simply all of the Erie Canal. Obviously trips like that would not fit into the field trip budget, but what if you could use an alternative to show your students an up close view of the historical sites? Google Earth (Start ->Programs) will allow you to to fly around the world at no cost to show your students ancient ruins in Rome.

You could use Google Earth tools to determine the longitude and latitude of an area or measure the distance between two cities. You can even download Google Earth files with Haiti’s earthquake information for a science lesson.

For more Google Earth Resources, check out these sites:

• Google Earth Gallery – Search and download Google Earth files
• Google Earth Lessons – Great lesson ideas and downloadable Google Earth files
• Google Earth Tutorials – How to navigate Google Earth and use the tools available
• Model Schools Google Help – Help documentation from BOCES
• Google Lit Trips – Find corresponding Google Earth files for literature like Grapes of Wrath
• Google for Educators – Learn how other educators are using Google Earth in their classroom

Using video as a classroom resource can be a powerful tool, but can sometimes be risky if you are looking at a YouTube video. YouTube videos can be dangerous because you never know what offensive comments might be featured below the video or what related videos might be suggested to the right of the video. While you may have looked at the video a million times without ever seeing an inappropriate video, luck would have it as soon as you went to show the video to your students an inappropriate video would show up.

There is hope though! Tools like Quietube and SafeShare strip YouTube videos of all of the background noise that surrounds the video so you simply have the video. Quietube is a button that you add to your toolbar. When you go to YouTube and navigate to the video you want to watch, you simply click on the Quietube button and it removes everything but the video. In SafeShare, you paste in the URL of the YouTube video you wish to watch (you would go to YouTube before class and get the video URL) and SafeShare will give you a new link to just your video. SafeShare also gives you the option to crop the video, so you only show the portions that you want your students to see.

Quietube Video snapshot

SafeShare Video snapshot

Have you heard of the Doodle 4 Google contest? The contest is for K-12 students to redesign the Google logo. Each school can submit up to six entries for this year’s theme “If I could do anything, I Would . . .”

How could you work this contest in to your curriculum and lessons?

• This may be a project the art teacher would like to take on and have the students create their designs based off their favorite artist. Students would research the artist’s style and replicate the style in coordination with the “If I could do anything, I Would . . .” theme.
• Computer teachers may want to have the kids create their design using a new computer software. This will acquaint the students with the new software while they create their Google design.
• General Education teachers could discuss current events and how they are creating the society we know today. Students could then design their Google logo as a follow up.
• Could be posed as a writing topic. Students write a story revolving around the “What I Wish for the World” theme and create their design as a supplement to their writing.

The possibilities are endless . . . how would you work this project into a lesson?

For more information about signing up your school, visit the Doodle 4 Google page.

It is hard enough for teachers to be absent from their classroom when they are sick or have a family emergency, let alone leave the classroom for a conference. But conferences are great way to network, collect ideas for your own classroom, and most imporantly learn. But how do you balance your classroom time and your personal learning time? Virtually attend a conference.

The EduCon conference will be running from January 29-31 in Philadelphia, but will also have sessions streaming live online. To participate, create an account and look at the sessions/conversations available.

From the EduCon website:

What is Educon?

EduCon 2.2 is both a conversation and a conference.

And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the big dreams.

I know many of you have seen the emails your administrators have passed on requesting proposals for the 2010 TLT (Teaching, Learning, and Technology) Conference at Nazareth College, but many of you are probably wondering what the TLT conference actually is. The TLT conference is  three days filled with sessions about literacy, technology, etc and you get to decide what sessions you want to go to. Many sessions are presented by local teachers or instructional technology specialists and feature hands on time. Last year I went to sessions on Google Apps for Education, Moodle, Safari Montage, and Voicethread – this session was taught by one of our District’s Library Media Specialists.

You will walk away from the conference with some great ideas you will want to implement in the classroom, technology you want to try out,  and connections with local teachers that may help you in your professional network. I know many of you won’t want to present, but do think about attending, it would be great to see more Fairport faces!

I would encourage many you to think about presenting at this year’s conference. So many of you are doing amazing things from blogging, using a wiki, using audacity, etc.  in your classroom that you should share with local teachers. If any of you are considering presenting, but just not quite sure, send me an email or comment below, I would love to see what you are working on.

Upgraded NOC Room

The air conditioner is in, and tomorrow they are going to fire it up.  The old multi-mode fiber lines to the village schools are being upgraded to  single-mode fiber.  Today these new lines were terminated in the NOC and will be run out to the village schools by week’s end.  This picture shows the new racks being installed.  The electrical power is being upgraded today and we should be in business tomorrow.  On Friday we will begin our cut-over to the new network.  We have to get the NOC operational in order to have JP operating by the start of the school year.  The other schools will be brought up later this year when their capital project work is completed.  This is critical infrastructure work and is the keystone to enhancing the educational experience for our students using technology.

My good friend and colleague from Monroe #1 BOCES, Brian Smith, shared with our TVT group a recent posting from The Fischbowl which discussed the new Wolfram|Alpha release. Check out this illustrative screencast.…very cool…our paradigms are shifting!

To me this illustrates another example of how our kids have to be taught how drill through information to make good decisions….is it more important for kids to know the answers to questions or know what questions to ask?

Martha Brown teacher Ms. Maura Kerkezis and her students used Web 2.0 technology Animoto to take a public stand against bullying.  They used Animoto to produce a short video called Bullying is the War Beneath the Mask.  Ms. Kerkezis has not only successfully conveyed an important social message, she has successfully taught her students powerful lessons using media and technology for communicating….essential 21st century learning skills!

Unfortunately poor network performance and limited access to computer resources presently prevents this learning experience to occur district wide…BUT our capital projects will remedy this by 2011.

Animoto for Education

Today I had the pleasure of leading our administrative group through 50 instructional technology tools. We used Google Apps as the sandbox by which we experimented with contemporary web based tools. This included a “Jog of the Web”. We reviewed Steve Jobs Macworld 2007 address where he describes traditional smart phones as dumb-phones because they are not easy to use. This example illustrates the trend in educational technology…it has to be easy for the user…..it has to be accessible and non-denominational...in other words, easy to use and accessible over the web. The administrators really took off with it and left with lots of new possibilities for using technology. Below are some of the links we explored:

http://jogtheweb.com/jog/#/VxDdFmz92FEx/0

http://www.searchme.com/

http://www.digitalvaults.org

http://www.edublogs.tv/index.php
http://www.flowgram.com/
http://bookgoo.com

We finished with the latest Did you know? Shift Happens 3.0 video.