SC DEN Stars had a great time on Saturday, May 30th, at the first annual DEN Geocaching Day.

We met at the West Columbia Riverwalk and spent the morning looking for geocaches. Families were invited and this was a great time for children and adults as we went under bridges, over rocks, and into holes to find the caches.

The morning culminated with us planting a DEN travel bug and placing our own geocache. You can start tracking the progress of our travel bug by getting a login to http://www.geocaching.com and going to this link.
Use the travel bug lookup (upper right of the screen) and paste in this number: TB2JWYH.

You can track our Discovery cache by going here. The cache name is River Monsters.

Did you attend the event? Tell us about your experiences by posting a comment to the blog below. Didn’t get to attend, but are an avid Geocache fan? Share with the DEN how you use GPS activities in your school or classroom, or just tell us your favorite story about searching for caches!

Not sure if geocaching is for you? Then check out some of these photos from our event…that should convince you to get started!

Greetings!

The best plans sometimes get changed! The city of Columbia is having a Spider Lilly Festival in the afternoon on Saturday at the Riverfront park. Because of this, the park will be closed in the morning. So, instead of meeting on the Columbia side of the river, we’ll meet at the West Columbia Riverwalk which is right next to New Orleans restaurant. We’ll meet near
the ampitheater at 10 am. The directions are below:

To the West Columbia Riverwalk - 121 Alexander Road, Columbia, SC 29169

From West Columbia

Go down Meeting Street toward the Capital. Make a right onto Alexander Road before the Gervais Street bridge. You will see the
amphitheater and the parking lot on the left beside New Orleans Restaurant.

From Columbia

Go down Gervais Street toward West Columbia. Cross over Gervais Street bridge. Make your first left onto Alexander Road. You will
see the Amphitheater and the parking lot on the left beside New Orleans Restaurant.

From Spartanburg

Go down I-126 from Spartanburg toward downtown Columbia. Veer off onto Huger Street. Go down Huger Street about 1 mile and make a right onto Gervais Street. Cross over Gervais Street bridge. Make your first left onto Alexander Road. You will see the Amphitheater and the parking lot on the left beside New Orleans Restaurant.

Please go to the Discovery blog and add your name to the spreadsheet of people who will be geocaching. You may need to scroll down a bit on the page. Discovery will be using this list to award prizes later next week.

We’re excited about seeing everyone on Saturday. We will have some breakfast snacks and then learn how to use the GPS receivers to navigate to several caches in the area. We will also plant our own SC DEN cache with an offical DEN travel bug. I look forward to seeing you! Please contact me by e-mail if you have any questions.

Donna Teuber
SC DEN Leadership Council

Your state DEN is preparing for a day of outdoor treasure hunting…EdTech style! Join us in Columbia as we use GPS devices to find hidden treasures at Riverfront Park on Saturday, May 30th.

In order to participate, you need to RSVP by this Friday, May 22nd. For information on how to do that, download the event flyer here. See you there!

And now it’s time for us to strut our DEN stuff for the crew at StreamlineSC. The team at ETV has extended the deadline for Presenter Proposals for the ETV Summer Technology workshop to April 30. Debbie and Donna are looking for presenters, and who better to share their digital expertise than SC’s brightest educators: our state STARS!

Due to budget cuts and concerns, many of the educators across our state can only attend the summer workshop, so there is a fairly large number of registrants expected to attend. The workshops will run July 28, 29, and 30. You do not have to present all three days, and you do not have to present all three sessions in a day. The proposals are available on the Streamline website. Or download a copy here.

And while you’re working to finish your proposal by the April 30th deadline, save one more date. Plan to join the SCLC on the morning of Saturday, May 30th. We are planning our first annual Geocaching Day. We are making plans now to have a site in Columbia for Stars and other DEN educators to meet for geocaching and lunch. Look for more details to come.

Last but not least, the SC DEN Leadership Council is in need of a few people to join our LC. Send an email to our Leadership Chair, Donna Teuber, if you’re interested in being a part of the LC. Get involved and join in on the fun!

I hope that you all enjoyed your spring break!

The SC DEN Leadership Council is gearing up for the Virtual Conference that will be held around the country on Saturday, April 25. Mike Bryant from Discovery is coordinating the events for us in South Carolina. We will host the conference at Ridge View High School (in the northeast area of Columbia) located at 4801 Hard Scrabble Road, Columbia, SC, 29229.

We’ll begin the day at 8:30 with breakfast and then have a mix of breakout sessions and
virtual sessions. Discovery is providing lunch and the day will end at 3:00.

Sessions by our Leadership Council include:

Senteo and SMART Activity Toolkit - Amy Dent
iPod-a-bilities in the Classroom 2.0 - MaryAnn Sansonetti
Roundtrip Tickets Anywhere: Google Earth in Education - Donna Teuber
Web 2.0 - Julia Davis

You can register for the conference by going to http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/denvirtcon/. If you’re planning to attend our in-person event at Ridge View, be sure to indicate that on your registration.

Don’t miss this great opportunity to network with SC educators and DEN Stars, and to learn about new ways to effectively integrate technology into your classroom activities. We hope to see all of our SC Stars on April 25th!

Please post any questions or leave a comment on the blog!

See you soon,

Donna Teuber
SC DEN Leadership Council Chair

For some people,March Madness means basketball courts and hoop dreams, but for the generous folks at ETV, it means engaging educators from all over the state of South Carolina in three days worth of educational technology know-how. On Wednesday, March 18th, ETV opened their doors and studios to educators for a series of free workshops and seminars. Participants sat through sessions facilitated by educator experts in topics that ranged from Google products to digital storytelling. Registered participants had opportunities to learn how to incorporate new techniques on the SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard, as well as how to create eFolios for students.

In addition to the numerous workshops provided, StreamlineSC’s devoted divas, Debbie Jarrett and Donna Thompson, teamed up with the SC DEN’s Leadership Council to bring iPod guru Tony Vincent to the big screen! That’s right, with Discovery Ed’s Justin Karkow at the helm, the Leadership Council hosted EdTechConnect with Tony Vincent. Before the webinar began, we all had an opportunity to sit down to a catered dinner and talk shop- that may not sound like a big deal at first until you realize that the peanut gallery included educators as far south as Berkeley County on up to Rock Hill. Not bad. And though we had a few technical difficulties at first, Justin proved that Discovery Ed managers are problem-solvers at heart!

We’re in the process of putting together pictures and video from the event, so check the blog soon for some familiar faces. In the meantime, if you were fortunate to attend one (or all three days) of the workshops, we’d love to hear from you. What did you learn? What did you teach? What did you see that you just cannot live without? WHAT DID YOU THINK OF OUR FEARLESS LEADER’S ENGINEERING SKILLS DURING THE WEBINAR?!

See the invitation here to register. Participants will not only enjoy rubbing elbows with fellow SC STARS, but will also take part in iPod guru Tony Vincent’s exciting webinar!

Plan on attending? Be sure to reply to the invitation, then leave a comment to let the rest of the SC DEN know you’re coming.

Back by popular demand, the fun and fabulous folks at ETV are bringing you technology workshops to help you learn the latest and greatest trends in educational technology. Donna, Debbie and Dean (the three D’s of education) have lined up 3-days for you and your peers across South Carolina to learn, network, and collaborate.

Join the SC DEN as we meet in Columbia to teach and learn. DEN members, along with folks from Discovery Education, ETV, and educators in and around the classroom, share technology integration ideas for novice to advanced users. The workshops will be held at the ETV building in Columbia on March 17th, 18th and 19th. Registration opens next week, so check here for more information.

And why not spread the news?! Download a copy of the flyer to email to colleagues or post in the workroom. You may even be eligible for a 1-hour re-certification credit. So what have you got to lose? Oh…just three of the most information-packed days to make your classroom or school a more exciting place. That’s all.

Photo Story is an application that allows you to import digital, still images and create a photo slideshow that you can share. So imagine this, you start off with images from your digital camera or from StreamlineSC. These images are brought into the application where you can crop or add cool effects (like “sepia” for that old-timey feeling). Each image can be edited on it’s own, allowing you to really get creative! Once you’ve finished, the final product is actually a video file that can be viewed by just about anyone.

With Photo Story, you can add your own narration to one or every image in your story, as well as use music to set the tone. The application allows you to use mp3 audio, or get around that good ‘ole copyright law and create your own music. While the music you create won’t be earning you any platinum albums, you’ll still be able to set the mood for your story.

As you edit your story, pictures are placed into a “slider” that allows you to track changes using icons, or re-arrange the order of your show. Recorded some narration for a particular picture? No worries! If you move that picture in the story, the narration and changes you made to the photo will travel with it.

One of my favorite features of Photo Story, though, is the ability to customize the motion of your pictures. Let’s say you’re telling the story of a Civil War soldier. You’ve downloaded a file from StreamlineSC that shows a group of Civil War soldiers at one of their camps. The story begins with this picture, but then zooms in tight and rests on the face of one of the soldiers in the group. You then begin to tell the story of how this young boy went off to fight in the war, highlighting the famous battles he fought in and the generals who led them. Each picture fades in and out, creating a seamless flow of images that tell a story. Pretty neat, huh? Some might even have a name for that effect (hint, hint).

Or imagine you have pictures taken from around your school. You put them together and, with the help of students from your classroom, add narration that describes each photo. You record the voices of your students to coincide with the pictures you’ve taken and - POOF! - you now have a virtual tour of your building. Can you imagine greeting a new student with an iPod and allowing them to tour the school with one of your students?

There are limitless possibilities for Photo Story in the classroom. A common use for this application in education today is a student-created book talk. Using their own artwork, students get the chance to re-tell a story. This is an excellent alternative to a book report, and presents you with the opportunity to very easily integrate technology into the classroom.

Other Photo Story examples include digital scrapbooks for an “All About Me” presentation, history report using photos of photos of key figures, science project visual for presenting findings, and… well, let us know! Please leave a comment about how you have used (or would like to use) Photo Story in your classroom or school. Got a link to one of your videos? We’d love to see it!