Simple, yet Great Sites – Vol. 2

Sometimes - we all run across websites we think are simply great. They can be very simplistic in nature but achieve huge things! Well... here are a few educational sites that I want to share with you.

Curriculum: Art

#1. renaissanceconnection.org

This site allows students to travel 500 years into the past and look at the many art innovations. You can also create/add your own innovation ideas! Great add-in to any art class!

Curriculum: History

#2. nationalgeographic.com/railroad

This site is an interactive time-travel back into the days of slavery and the underground railroad. It is a mixture of story-telling about the journey but also gives you opportunities to make decisions as if you were in the story!

#3. history.com

So much to choose from on this site. “This Day in History” is my personal favorite part of the entire site. Being an unofficial (and self-proclaimed) history buff (of sorts) it is very interesting to read the dated historical tidbits. There are several educational/history games on the site as well! Example…there is a “History of Ireland Quiz” and a “Declaration of Independence Quiz”.

#4. biography.com

This site is self-explanatory! Need your students to do biography research? This is the gold mind of all sites to start with. Simply type in the person’s name and voila – you have their biography at your finger tips. This is a sister site to history.com, by the way.

Curriculums: Science and Art

#5. exploratorium.edu

This site (for the museum of science, art and human perception) is a mixture of student activities, teaching tips and special emphasis on the revolving exhibits within the science museum. There are tons of hands-on activities/directions and even a digital library of podcasts, etc.

A Calculator by any other Name Is still a Calculator

A calculator by any other name is still a calculator. Or is it? A lot has changed since the invention of one of the first counting machines, the abacus. The abacus once provided solutions to complex calculations. Then there was Blaise Pascal's invention in 1642, a machine that could be used to add and subtract. Over time newer calculators were and continue to be introduced thus categorized based on functionalities that make them unique from others. For example there are basic calculators, scientific calculators and financial calculators. In addition, there are graphical calculators. Graphical calculators are used quite a bit by both middle school and high school students for use in classes such as geometry, algebra, trigonometry, calculus and physics. Among the list of graphical calculators are a myriad of choices to select from which include the following: TI83, TI84 and the TI-NSprie, HP Calculators, Casio Graphing Calculators , Texas Instruments Graphing Calculators. To truly understand the bells and whistles of each calculator count (plan) on spending a few minutes visiting their websites.

References:
See for definitions: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
Photos: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx

Eight Ways to Use School Wikis

With school just around the corner teachers are beginning to plan for next school year. One way that teachers can increase collaboration among their students is to use Wikis. Wikispaces can also be used to store digital materials, screencasts, presentations, PDFs and other content. Wikis are also a great way for teachers to collaborate and share within a school or school district. Let’s look at the eight ways to use wikis in your school.

1. Decrease disruptions of instructional time
   a. Instead of everyone listening to all the announcements for an entire school, teachers can read over the principal created wiki and read only the announcements that apply to their students.
2. Make meetings more efficient
   a. Team meetings and planning can be collaborated thru a wiki
   b. Each team can have their own team meeting page on the wiki site
3. Collaborate on important documents
   a. Wikis are a great place to create, revise, and update the school education plan
4. Enhance professional development
   a. All materials needed for professional development workshops can be housed in a wiki for the school
   b. Discussions can be created for each professional development workshops for teachers to extend their learning of the materials
5. Share and collaborate on curriculum maps
   a. Teachers can collaborate and plan out their curriculum maps by subject, grade level or by school thru a wiki
6. Save trees and time
   a. Many documents for the school can be housed in a wiki and teachers can access from the wiki printing only what they need
7. A portal for all your lessons
   a. All lessons for a particular subject can be uploaded to a wiki where teachers can discuss, create and collaborate on the lesson plans throughout the school year
8. How to get started
   a. Go to http://pbworks.com/ to learn more about creating a wiki for yourself, other teachers or for your school
   b. Do a search for Educational Wikis on the internet to see all the ways schools, teachers and students are using wikis
   

Article from Tech & Learning July 21, 2009
Eight Ways to Use School Wikis by Lisa Nielsen
http://www.techlearning.com/article/22064

Morning Announcements

Do you remember morning announcements when you were in school? Not very exciting but times have changed with audio and video communication technologies. Many schools have learning stations, interactive boards, on-demand resources and Kiosk viewers in the halls. With all of this technology what is the best way to do the morning announcements?

Let’s look at three examples –

Formal Model

Some schools use a journalistic organizational approach with news meetings where the group discusses past, present and future stories for the morning announcements. The teachers who work with these students usually have a strong journalistic background. These high school students are producers, directors, reporters and anchors who were trained in middle schools. Many of these schools have production studios with students learning skills that can transfer to television and journalism jobs.

Informal Model

Each student has a job and usually rotates through the jobs to learn each position. Rather than a journalistic model these students produce a more expressive, democratic model. Students collect news from various sources including the Internet and present a more personal style to the morning news. These schools usually have a designated place to broadcast each morning using the computer, some type of camera and they show videos clips from earlier events. Somewhat scripted but certainly open to creativity and flexibility.

Morning Announcements as “Local News”

At some schools morning announcements are a unique blend of local news by students for students keeping them informed. It’s a presentation that meets the needs for that day. Throughout the school year many students will be involved with the morning news learning how to speak to the camera and present information to the school. These segments can be recorded that morning and presented as a short clip along with the principal's morning announcements for that day. Short, impromptu segments videoed by the teacher or other students for the next day's announcements.

Whatever style your school chooses it’s important for teachers to spend time teaching students how to create and present the morning news building their skills, confidence and understanding of how to use technology to create a presentation that best serves the school community. This is one way that schools and teachers can incorporate technology into the morning news and create opportunities for students to be involved in the learning process of creating and producing short informational presentations.

Article title: Morning Announcements – Reflections on a Timeless K-12 Ritual written by Michael Schoonmaker:http://www.school-video-news.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=490:morning-announcements-reflections-on-a-timeless-k-12-ritual&catid=24:concepts&Itemid=39

From School Video News: http://www.school-video-news.com/ the For Teachers section.

West Virginia Unplugged

I spent the last several days camping in West Virginia with family and friends. Three and a half days of being completely cut-off from technology and the information it provides. Very little blackberry or cell phone signal. No wireless, no email, no RSS feeds, no twitter, no TV. No DVR or DVDs. No electricity of any sort on the campsite.

Now I really enjoy technology and all the information that can be accessed using it. And although I enjoy being connected, I was fine with being unplugged for a few days. My wife and I have introduced our young children to the concept of balance. We want to be sure their activities are not overly-spent in front of a screen. We allow them to enjoy watching certain TV programs and play games on the computer and iPod, but we try to balance that "screen" time with activities both outside and inside that don't involve the use of digital technology. This weekend was an opportunity for me to practice what I preach and completely shutdown for a few days - which really wasn't that hard to do.

Tonight I'm plugging back in and rebooting for the week.

The ABC's of your OS

2000. XP. Vista. Snow Leopard. What do all of these have in common? They are absolutely necessary for your computer to even function! Operating Systems (commonly referred to as simply “OS” provide the backbone structure for your desktop, laptop, or notebook computer.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, an operating system is a “program that manages a computer’s resources, especially the allocation of those resources among other programs. Typical resources include the central processing unit (CPU), computer memory, file storage, input/output (I/O) devices, and network connections. Management tasks include scheduling resource use to avoid conflicts and interference between programs. Unlike most programs, which complete a task and terminate, an operating system runs indefinitely and terminates only when the computer is turned off.”

So, what’s the latest and greatest in OS’s on the market today?

Windows 7 is the newest operating system for the PC. Check out this introductory video.

If you are a Mac lover, then Snow Leopard is sure to peak your curiosity as the latest OS to hit the scene for the Apple.

The Unix OS is a multi-user system that allows multiple users to take advantage of different resources all at one time! Nice thing about Unix? It is open-source (free) and runs on a variety of computer platforms!

Quite like Unix, Linux is another type of OS that is also open-source and runs on a PC. Who uses Linux? According to howstuffworks.com, typically the folks most interested in going against the norm of Windows and Mac operating systems…

· People who already know UNIX and want to run it on PC-type hardware;

· People who want to experiment with operating system principles;

· People who need or want a great deal of control over their operating system; and

· People who have personal problems with Microsoft

What's on the OS horizon? Google's newest arrival... the Google Chrome OS. It is in the works and is supposed to change how we look at the OS altogether... Stay tuned for its release...

So, after all is said and done, are you still using Windows 2000 or XP? Don’t feel bad. As long as your computer is performing up to par and your tasks and goals are met – all is well.

*Disclaimer – This post is for educational and information purposes only. Please do not attempt to upgrade any of the district and/or school-owned desktops or laptops. As with all processes and protocols, the Technology Department will handle upgrades, etc. when appropriate.

Using Colors and Layers In ActivInspire To Reveal Hidden Answers

You can use colors and layers in ActivInspire to reveal hidden answers. This works on the same principle that some people mistakenly use with the text on their PowerPoint slides. Have you ever been to a conference where the presenter has used blue text on a blue background! You hear mummers around the room such as, “can you read that”? Let’s say you have a white background on one half of your ActivInspire page. The other half let’s say is a blue rectangle you draw to represent a blue background on the right side of the page. Now, the purpose of this page for example is dividing numbers in half. Type the number 12 in blue text. Type the number 6 in white text. Place them side by side about an inch or two apart and group them. If you want to have a visual effect going, place a picture of a knife vertically on the dividing line between your white and blue backgrounds. Place your grouped numbers (12 and 6) on the white background. Have the students come up to the board to answer the question, what is half of 12? After they answer the question, they drag the 12 through the knife and onto the blue background to see the answer. The knife by the way should be on a layer above the white and blue backgrounds. The blue and the white numbers should be below the knife so that it disappears behind the knife as the student drags the number through the knife to cut it in half but above the blue rectangle.

Reading with eBooks

I was posed with the challenge of finding books for my granddaughter to read. Naturally we went to the local library first. After picking several that interested her, we looked at each other and thought, "OK, which one of us is going to carry out this arm load full of books." I can fully understand why doctors are worried about how carrying around all that weight, either for recreational or school-related subjects, is causing damage to students. Along with the weight of so many books came the fact that we really didn't have a place to store them as she read.

Angie helps keep me in check with the way children are different from a few years ago. She does love to hold a book and read, but is also a true "digital" child. We got to talking about other ways to read books and magazines. The eBook, an electronic version of a book, was one of our other solutions.

I have an account with Free-ebooks and was able to find some fiction and nonfiction titles from their thousands of offerings for her to downloaded to our PDA. The titles were available immediately and we transferred them to our desktop machine for her to be able to read later and not lose her place in the book. Manybooks is another good site with over 21,000 eBooks available as free downloads. They take donations to help keep the site up and running.

All of the eBooks we downloaded use the free software, Microsoft Reader that works on PC desktops, laptops, Tablet PCs, and Pocket PCs. The software is easy to install and use. The interface is simple so you can concentrate on your eBook. Since the eBooks were on the PDA and we had text-to-speech enabled, I am able to listen to the eBook while driving the car. It's exciting to watch her choose a title, start reading it and then jump from the page to a linked audio or video. Everything is hyperlinked, making it easy to go back to the written page or to another topic.

Using the technology comes easily and naturally to this younger generation. The next item on the Angie To-Do List is to create her own eBook. We're working on the story in MS Word 2003 and will be able to convert it using the Read in Microsoft Reader feature. The Table of Contents, hyperlinks and images will be automatically converted from Word to the eBook. As an upcoming fifth grader, she hasn't learned all about how to create the table of contents for her chapters - I'm off to lend some assistance.

10 Ways to Become More Tech Savvy This Summer

Have fun checking out each of these tools and think about how you could integrate these tools into your lessons.

1. Create a Video Vault
   a. Use Miro 2.0 (free open source HD video player and video podcast player) to select videos to use with classroom lessons. Save videos to a flash drive and you’re ready to content specific videos to your students.
   b. http://www.getmiro.com/index2.php


2. Using Photos
   a. Use Big Huge Labs to do fun things to photos, such as make posters or magazine covers.
   b. http://bighugelabs.com/


3. Creating Comics
   a. Turn pictures into a comic book by using Comic Life software or create storybooks or picture albums.
   b. http://plasq.com/downloads


4. Create a Wiki
   a. Wikis are a great place to organize, collaborate and share information with your students and staff. Try using PBWorks.
   b. http://pbworks.com/


5. Form a Questionnaire
   a. To help students understand content more deeply teachers need to question students. Try using SurveyMonkey to create professional online surveys for your students or staff.
   b. http://www.surveymonkey.com/


6. Share Snapshots
   a. Teachers can start a project within the school, district, or across the US by sharing images and information through Picasa, a free photo editing software from Google. Teachers can create photo web albums to share and students can enjoy adding pictures to the web albums.
   b. http://picasa.google.com/


7. Survey a Situation
   a. By using Google Maps check our various locations your students will study this fall thru novels, social studies or historical events.
   b. http://maps.google.com/


8. Cache In
   a. Geocaching can be a great way for your students to find places they are studying. Geocaching uses a global-position-receiver that makes latitude and longitude come to life for your students.
   b. http://www.geocaching.com/


9. Know the News
   a. How great would it be for your students to read front page news items from around the world? To help students better understand the global economy think about using Newseum, an interactive online museum.
   b. http://www.newseum.org/


10. Listen Up
    a. Have you ever wanted to set up a series of stories or poems for your students? By using Lit2Go teachers can select from free audio collections of public domain books to download for your students. Collections can be browsed by author, title, or database and can be downloaded as a PDF so students can read along while listening to the stories.
    b. http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/
    

Take some time to browse through these great resources and think of all the ways these resources will motivate your students to be active, engaged learners.

Article from Edutopia The George Lucas Foundation – July 10, 2009:
http://www.edutopia.org/tech-savvy-summer
Image from Microsoft clip art

Summer Tech Workshops

This week I spent three days holding tech professional development with some teachers from Bolton Elementary. It is sometimes hard to have three full days of training in any area-in technology it can leave the participants feeling overwhelmed. But the group seemed to pick up on a lot of the tools and make connections with how it may help them in their classrooms in August. So I left the training this afternoon feeling really positive about the experience and looking forward to the upcoming follow-up sessions.

During the first day's session I asked the group to respond to the following question as it relates to this staff development: "What do you expect to learn?" I recorded their answers and pasted the results into Wordle (a tool which presents the text and emphasizes the frequently used words). I've included the result below. I was most impressed that many of the responses were less about what I could do for them and more about their desire to help students learn and their willingness to be learners themselves. That attitude of being willing and excited about learning really is much more important for a school's technology than any amount of equipment. If July is any indication, it should be a great year for many of the teachers and students at Bolton.

Ashe County Technology Conference 2009

As you may have already read in an earlier post, Emory and I were given the opportunity to present last week at the 2009 Technology Conference in Ashe County, North Carolina!

Technology Conferences are always exciting - you go in with a great expectation and huge anticipation for learning, seeing, and hearing something that will inspire you back at your desk. This time, though, things were a little bit different... As a presenter, I was in the role to provide that inspiration to others. Did I do just that? I sure hope so. I received a lot of kind words and many thanks for my session titled "Introduction to Wikis" using PBWorks.

So, what was my main goal in presenting the idea of wikis into a regular classroom curriculum? Simple. It gives the students a 21st century method for presenting the same work they always have. The key here... teachers must realize that 21st century skills learning doesn't necessarily mean changing the curriculum... it just means taking a second look at the delivery method - as a teacher and as a student. Where can you start? Tackle the two most common assignments most teachers give... Writing Prompts and Research Projects. Both make excellent use of the wiki and collaborative learning environment.

Whether presenting away from home, or simply doing the day-to-day workshops here and there, inspiration is my top priority. I want to inspire teachers on several levels.

I want to...

• Inspire them to be open-minded in their quest for achieving successful 21st century learning environments in their classrooms;
• Inspire them to be gutsy and try new things - being oh so mindful that the new things they try aren't so "new" to the students! We just need to shape what they already use into our educational molds and purposes!
• Inspire them to believe in themselves. It does not matter how long you've been a teacher... learning is the name of the game in your 1st year and in your 30th year.
• Inspire them to see the bigger picture... yes, the little details matter during the day when integrating technology into the projects, one class project at a time - but better still - the big pictures makes way for overall and increased technological skill development by the end of the academic year

Did I enjoy presenting? For certain. I only hope that those folks who came into my session left with the same passion I came in with.

Want to check out the technology conference format? Take a look.

Match Point: It's a "Hawk-eye" Decision

Match Point: It's a "Hawk-eye" decision. This year’s Women and Men Wimbledon Tennis Finals were by far my favorite. Notwithstanding you may be wondering, first of all what does this have to do with technology. Then you may wonder how this topic relates to the classroom. In response, the area of sports technology has expanded and tennis has had its influence in this area as well. In the classroom, I am not quite sure. However when it comes to school related extracurricular activities, these technologies may be influential in the outcome of various games.

One such technology in the world of tennis is the "Hawk-eye" system. This systems makes it easier for officials to make "split hair" decisions when determining if the tennis ball is within boundaries. With this system, no longer is the outcome left to the human eye or human judgment alone. To see more information about "Hawk-eye" technologies visit their website.

During your next conversation about the latest tennis win, consider mentioning the "Hawk-eye" system as one way to make a smooth transition from a sports dominated conversation to one that places the emphasizes on the importance of the integration of technology in all aspects of our lives, including sports.

References:
Picture from Microsoft Clip art online
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/split+hairs
http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/index.html

Notes from the Ashe County Tech Conference

I had the opportunity to present at a tech conference in Ashe County this week. It was a small but well run conference that brought in a lot of educators from the county and few from beyond. It is always great to interact with teachers on summer break. The teachers seemed excited and interested in learning about new technology, and I met some really dedicated educators doing great things in their schools. I think sometimes having the summer time to reflect and use new technology is a key factor in whether teacher will use it in their classroom.

The session I taught was on using Pageflakes and Netvibes, and my group did a good job of grasping how this could both allow them to organize web content for themselves, and also use these startpages to use in instruction. The participants in the session also seemed to understand the need for having tools like RSS feedreaders to organize the massive amounts of information online. A key skill for 21st century students will be learning to use tools to help access and evaluate the information on the web, and we need teachers to model these skills. I shared my email address and encouraged them to share their experiences with me. I'd enjoy hearing what they've done with these tools.

During the conference I am reminded of how all those in education are dealing with the same issues. Our districts may vary in size, our kids may look and talk a little differently, and classrooms may be outfitted with various equipment, but we are all searching for ways to engage students in learning with technology. I was very pleased to be a part of this conference and a part of that movement.

The UN's World Digital Library

Four years ago James Billlington, U.S. Librarian of Congress wanted to share cultural and educational data from the Library of Congress with anyone who had access to the Internet. On April 21, 2009, UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) and the Library of Congress unveiled the World Digital Library, a collection of 1,200 high-resolution digitized files that allows users to zoom in on ancient documents and archival photographs.

Resources may be searched by keywords, time period, place, type of item and the institution that contributed the data. Descriptions are given for the materials in seven languages while the documents are shown in their original languages. Currently there are books, journals, documents, photographs, audio and videos. There are currently 457 maps in the World Digital Library and I hope there are plans to continue adding cultural and educational data to this digital library.

Students and teachers can find interesting items like the first printed edition of a 16th-century Japanese novel called The Tale of Genji; a journal by Ferdinand Magellan kept from his voyage around the world; a panoramic view of Constantinople; to an early recording of Marseillaise, the national anthem of France.

To check out the new World Digital Library please click here or go to: http://www.wdl.org/en/

There are many ways that teachers and students could utilize this information to make learning more engaging and real world.

Article from Time Magazine April 22, 2009
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892916,00.html

Image from the World Digital Library
http://www.wdl.org/en/item/105/

Global Competition: U.S. Students vs. International Peers

The U.S. has been leading a movement of discussion about the importance of educational technology and 21st Century Skills that all students need. But several countries are doing a better job of preparing students with technology skills which means that US schools could fall behind other countries in using educational technology to improve K-12 schools.

Australia, Britain, China and South Korea have launched plans to make sure students will know how to effectively use technology for learning and work. Developing countries such as India are making financial commitments to ensure that technology skills are taught in schools.

What makes the difference between U.S. students and international students? According to the article U.S. students know how to use cellphones, computer applications and multimedia equipment but they are not being taught to think critically about what they present, how to analyze content or how to employ tools for specific tasks and problems. Students are not receiving consistent, engaging, comprehensive instruction in how to apply technologies to the kinds of assignments given in schools or the workplace.

According to Donald G. Knezek schools need to instill critical thinking, analytical and technology skills as well as creativity, collaboration and communication into the curriculum. According to the article many states in the US have become more deliberate in infusing technology into the curriculum since the No Child Left Behind Act but states have been left to figure out how to reach this goal. How can schools help students gain “technology literacy”? How can schools engage students to use technology for more than Web research or as a presentation tool?

Here are several sources of information for teachers:
ISTE’s Educational Technology Standards for Students
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/NETS_for_Students.htm

Partnership for 21st Century Skills – Framework for 21st Century Learning
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=120

Intel Education Programs and Resources
http://www.intel.com/education/technologyliteracy/

Benefits of Technology Literacy Projects
http://download.intel.com/education/common/en/resources/technologyliteracy/teach/Overview_Benefits_Technology_Literacy.pdf

Teachers: Content Literacy
http://www.literacymatters.org/tech/intro.htm

Article from Digital Directions - June 16, 2009http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2009/06/17/04global.h02.html

How To Create a Revealer Tool in ActivInspire

Do you want to amaze your students? I’ll tell you how to create a revealer in ActivInspire to reveal answers hidden behind colored rectangles on your flipchart page. First you will need to draw a square or rectangle. I like to use a black line with a thickness of 20. Fill the square with another color such as red. Use the page zoom tool (found in the view menu) to zoom in on the filled square. Select the magic ink tool which can be found in the tools menu. You can change the size of the magic ink tool using the line thickness slider on the main toolbox. Erase the red color inside the square. Make sure you move the square to the top layer in the object browser. Otherwise you aren’t going to be able to see the red color erase when you use the magic ink tool. Select both the square and the magic ink shape and group them. Now go up to the upper right corner of the window to choose “best fit” from the scale drop down to set the page zoom back to normal. Type the answers to your questions and cover them with filled rectangle shapes. Be sure to move the filled rectangle shapes covering your answers to the top layer, but below the revealer square (square and magic ink shape). Now have your students come to the board to move your revealer square over the covered answers and watch their amazed faces. Now that you have created your revealer tool, you can add it to other pages in your flipchart simply by dragging it into another page in the page browser. You can also copy the revealer square, open another flipchart and paste it into a page there as well. So, you really only have to make the revealer tool once unless you want to make another shape such as a circle. Of course you could just make them over and over again. It’s so easy, even a caveman can do it!

Getting Ready for College

Are you getting ready for college, or are you still deciding? Trying to figure out where to go and what it will be like can be a daunting task.

Would it be a better thing if you could get a sample of what life is like prior to actually showing up on move in day? I know some of you are saying "..but I went to orientation." What about those who were not able to go to orientation or have just now decided on which school to attend.

Do not worry you can now go to YouTube EDU to check out what campus life is like. The site contains a lot of free video clips from colleges and university's that have been pulled from their regular YouTube channel. You can easily search for your college by using the Directory or you can check out the Most Viewed or Most Subscribed tabs. They have more than just interviews with students there are also information about classes as well as recently added materials like commencement speeches and clips from Oprah Winfrey.

image provided by YouTube.com

Collaborative Photo Books and Albums

Sharing pictures and photo books seems to be getting easier all the time. We used to take the pictures, have them developed, and then let others go through them to share in our experience. Sometimes we put them in a book with some sayings around each picture and add a little flair to go along with a theme (scrapbooking, my sister calls it). Now, with the online software Mixbook, we can take the photos, create a book online, allow friends to help put it together, and share it for all to see or print it out as a picture book.

Mixbook is really easy to use. After joining the site for access, there are just three steps to create a book or photo album - Start with a title to create the book and invite your friends, upload your photos (friends can add some of their own), and Automix to add pages and make edits. Although friends collaborate and add their own personal touches, the creator controls the final product.

My granddaughter is here with me this month from Maine. We are building a book around her activities and sharing it with her dad. Since the cost of a hard cover album with 20 pages is only $12.99, we will probably get one printed for a keepsake. It will be exciting to watch the album develop as her dad and other grandparents contribute to the book.

Some other ways to share using Mixbook would be to create Memory books (Weddings, Guest Books, Baby's 1st Year, School Years or a Yearbook), Family Photos, Scrapbooking, and Digital Storytelling. Everything is online, no software to download. It comes with hundreds of layouts and the frames and text can be customized. Once you've picked a layout, just drag-and-drop your photos onto the page. Each page can have a different layout. A special feature I really like is the way it integrates with other photo storage sites such as Facebook, Picasa, and Flickr. No need to start from scratch each time. You can add an entire album to Mixbook with a couple of clicks. Then you can use them for any book.

Every day with a ten-year old brings new adventures that we can share online and it is exciting to see what has been added from the others. The final step will be to embed the Mixbook player on our blog so all the family and friends can also enjoy the events.

Broadcasting with UStream

Ustream.tv is a free, web-based application for broadcasting live over the Internet. The site allows you to broadcast and record live video and sound and to post the session to the Ustream site. I've used it in the past to view sessions at technology conferences I couldn't attend in person. Sometimes the audio and video quality vary, but overall it is a great tool for sharing and broadcasting ideas. Until now I've always been a "puller" of content from Ustream, but I haven't "pushed" anything using it.

This week Matt Barfield from CSI delivered a session on ActivInspire on the first of July to a user group in our district. I've attended several of Matt's session in the past, and feel I take something new from each of his sessions. Wouldn't it be great to share his presentation and save it for teachers to view later? Wouldn't teachers enjoy being able to view (or review) this session when they had the time? This seemed like the perfect scenario for Ustream. I cleared it with Matt and began preparing for my directorial debut.

All I needed for setup was my laptop, webcam and ethernet cable. I logged in with my account and began broadcasting. Wow. It was very easy to use, and although it is not the same as sitting in the audience (it is hard to see action on board), I was impressed at how well it turned out. I think seeing and hearing Matt's session might be a great resource for teachers interested in using Activinspire or as a way to review the session they attended.

Beyond taping sessions of staff development, Ustream has much broader potential for use in classrooms and for teachers.

Interested in seeing the sessions on ActivInspire or just want to see how it worked? Check out the recorded sessions from Ustream:

Part 1 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1738078

Part 2 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1738148

Part 3 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1738249

Part 4 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1738426