NJAET

Annual Conference October 14

noreply@blogger.com (Anu Vedantham) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:16:00 +0000

We hope you will all join us at the 21st annual NJAET Conference! Details are at www.njaet.org

21st NJAET Annual Conference
21 Years of Growing Up Digitally
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Georgian Court University, Lakewood, NJ

Earn 5 Hours of Professional Development

There will be lots of great sessions and colleagues to meet - anew and again. You can register online today.

Extreme Classroom Makeover… Updating your Class for 21st Century.

noreply@blogger.com (Sue LeBeau) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:35:00 +0000

The June/July issue of Learning & Leading with Technology had a fabulous article on ways you can give your classroom an extreme makeover. Here are some ideas from this article:

Utilize some collaborative writing tools for group projects. Such tools available are:
Zoho: http://www.zoho.com
Google Docs: http://docs.google.com
Whiteboard: http://www.whiteboard.com
Gliffy: http://www.gliffy.com
Letterpop: http://www.letterpop.com

Blogs can be used for reflective journals, student portfolios, integrated units and newsletters, for just a start. Here are some great blog tools:
WordPress: http://www.wordpress.com
21 Publish: http://www.21publish.com
Blogger: http://www.blogger.com
Edublogs: http://www.edublogs.org
Gaggle: http://www.gaggle.net
Think: http://www.think.com

There are many social bookmarking sites that could be used to simply list content resources. If you don’t have a place to store your favorite websites, utilizing any of these tools could be your solution:
Del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us
Diigo: http://www.diigocom
Ma.gnolia: http://www.ma.gnolia.com
Backflip: http://www.backflip.com
BlinkList: http://www.blinklist.com

Your classroom should be filled with the use of visuals, to include photos and pictures. Some of the tools below can be used to store photos taken in the classroom or for activities and even be used for story starters:
Fliction: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/flicktion/
Creative Commons: http://www.fickr.com/creativecommons/
Third-party Flickr: http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/03/great-flickr-tools-collection/

Want to build some reference resources? Some of these tools might be useful to you:
PBWiki: http://www.pbwiki.com
WikiSpaces: http://www.wikispaces.com
WetPaint: http://www.wetpaint.com

Yugma - Free Screen Sharing from anywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Anu Vedantham) — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:48:00 +0000

I've experimented with a web-based screen sharing option - http://www.yugma.com/ - with an account (free for now!), I can choose to let anyone on the web view my desktop. I can also give another person control over my desktop. This could be a powerful way to do training - to let someone else watch while you use a piece of software that they need to learn. Since your full screen is shared, they can watch you using any software program including custom databases or internal systems. They also don't need to install the software on their computer. I remember when labs did screen sharing with hardware connections. I think this could revolutionize how we do training and demos.

Overcoming the Fears of YouTube in the Classroom

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:03:00 +0000

Often times you'll see items in the news about the inappropriate videos posted on YouTube. One such example recently has been the numerous postings of fights between teenage girls. The immediate reaction is to ban students from YouTube. So how do you balance the positives/negatives of YouTube? As one presenter stated, at a recent conference I attended, (which really added clarity to my thinking) was we don't ban students from using paper and pencil if they use it to write a nasty note or derogatory comment. So why do we immediately place all of these restrictions on sites such as YouTube? Of course, a note doesn't go out to the internet for the world to see. However, if there are positives that can come from YouTube, why simply eliminate its use entirely?

One solution that has worked well is to embed specific YouTube videos directly into a web page or if you're using a Moodle directly into a Moodle page. By doing so you get all the benefits of YouTube and reducing the chances of students going to other inappropriate videos. This also eliminates all of the additional items listed on a YouTube page. All the students see is the video that you want them to see. Thereby, you eliminate the risk.

So before you simply dismiss the power of such sites as YouTube look at what benefits may be derived from utilizing videos to supplement your teaching. In one recent training I gave on the Moodle, a 5th grade math teachers was thrilled at finding videos on YouTube that explained math concepts that she was teaching her students. She now could add these videos to her Moodle and allow students to view them at any time to review concepts. By doing so, she is able to extend her teaching beyond the classroom!

Set to Screen Series!

noreply@blogger.com (Sue LeBeau) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:51:00 +0000

Here is an opportunity for your high school and college students to learn about moviemaking from a pro. Baz Luhrmann, Oscar-nominated director of Moulin Rouge!, and William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is producing another movie, Australia. Baz and Apple have teamed up to take your students on an adventure through the Set to Screen Series (http://www.apple.com/education/settoscreen/).

Every few weeks through October, a new podcast episode from Baz and his production team will introduce another aspect of moviemaking, starting with on-set still photography, then moving on to costume design, cinematography, scoring, and more. You’ll get insights from the artists at work on Australia, watch them in action, view footage the rest of the world hasn’t seen yet, and follow along as the movie comes together.

Five of the episodes arrive with something extra: a creative challenge for you. Each time one of these episodes is released, you’ll have three weeks to complete the challenge and post it to the Apple Student Gallery. If your project is one of the best (10 from high schoolers and 10 from college students), you’ll win an iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod touch, or a MacBook Pro. And if your work is chosen as the most creative of all, you’ll be going on yet another kind of adventure—a trip for two to Australia. Five challenges mean you’ve got five chances to win. Oh, and one more thing. Submit the top project for the final challenge, and Baz himself will plan your trip to Oz, meet you there, and take you along on the promotional tour for the film in the U.S. Your project will even be included on the DVD release of Australia.

If you subscribe to the Set to Screen Series, iTunes will automatically download each new episode that’s posted. Once you’ve watched an episode, come back to the website (above) check out the notes about the featured member of the production team, and—if there’s a challenge for that episode—get all the details you’ll need to participate.

So start exploring your creativity. You could wind up anywhere, even Down Under.

YouTube, TeacherTube, SchoolTube

noreply@blogger.com (Sue LeBeau) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:31:00 +0000

A recent Washington Post article touted the value of using video-sharing sites in the classroom. Sounds simple: use some of the many free video-sharing sites that are on the internet today! But, it’s not so simple.

We definitely know one thing: video in the classroom has certainly evolved over the years! More teachers are using online video-sharing sites like YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/) to engage with students. And video is no longer a one-way channel of communication, either! Students are participating in the creation of videos, too, as they should! On TeacherTube (http://www.teachertube.com/), educators share material, such as instructional math videos, with classrooms around the world. Another site, SchoolTube (http://www.schooltube.com/), mainly hosts videos produced by students in class with the help of their teachers.

Many teachers who do use these sites often say that they value the opportunity to see what other educators are doing! It also gives students a great outlet to showcase their work! But while video-sharing sites can help capture students' attention, critics say such services will have difficulty gaining wide support from school administrators who often block access to Internet sites like YouTube. Much of the material on these sites isn't tied to curriculum or designed with educational standards in mind, and the videos vary widely in quality. In addition, teachers need to weed through clips to make sure they are relevant for class - a potentially time-consuming process.
These sites certainly do create potential controversies among teachers, administrators and parents concerning the use of these video-sharing sites. And to that end, hoping to make its site more user-friendly, TeacherTube is rolling out a pilot program called TeacherTube Onsite (http://www.teachertube.com/onsitepromo.php) that will give school districts software to manage videos on their own intranets.SchoolTube is planning a similar service that will enable teachers to design public web pages on SchoolTube's site, making it easier for schools to share videos, photos and documents.

So, what do you think? Do you use any video-sharing sites with your students in the classroom? If so, please share your ideas with us…

iTunes U for K-12

noreply@blogger.com (Sue LeBeau) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:32:00 +0000

While Apple's iTunes U has a decidedly higher-ed slant, a number of participating universities provide content and other resources geared toward K-12 educators and students, including the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Arizona State University.
The "Beyond Campus" portion of iTunes U (bottom right on the main page) also provides free learning materials and research for K-12 from organizations like American Public Media, PBS, the Smithsonian Institution, and others.

http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu_mobilelearning/itunesu.html

http://deimos3.apple.com/indigo/main/main.html?v0=WWW-AMUS-ITUNESU070521-N48LX

iTunes is More than Just Music

noreply@blogger.com (Sue LeBeau) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:18:00 +0000

Have you really taken the time to explore all that is offered at iTunes? I invite you all to take a good look at what is offered through iTunes and all for FREE! Go to the iTunes store and click on the Podcasts category. Virtually every podcast offered through iTunes is free… (you can’t beat that, can you?) Once you get into the podcast section you will see a number of categories, some of which are Business, Technology, and Education; and, there are many more categories, as well.

For instance, take a look at what is offered under Education. There are numerous podcasts for the foreign language category. Want to learn a new language? Try one of those podcasts…There are numerous podcasts, too, in the Educational Technology category. If you can’t get to a workshop or a conference, subscribe to one of these podcasts and on a regular basis they will download to your iTunes account. Then sync your iPod and take your new information on the road with you on your MP3 player. Need training in a specialized area? You can probably find a podcast on the topic…. even places like Home Depot and the “Dummies books” series have training podcasts! Check them out! We would love to hear about your favorite podcasts… Hit the comment button below and share them with us!

Skype and iChat experience

noreply@blogger.com (Anu Vedantham) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:46:00 +0000

Alan's post has inspired me to write after a long time! I wanted to share good experiences we had recently at Weigle Information Commons with cheap videoconferencing. We began with a request from a grad student who wanted to contact a colleague in south India. Using a MacBook Pro - with the built-in iSight camera - and a free Skype conference call, we connected to Chennai and we could see and hear his colleague quite well. Next we experimented with the same technology on a large projector screen. We organized a Skype call using the built-in iSight to London to talk to a student studying abroad. On our end, we connected the MacBook Pro to a regular classroom projector with sound. We had about 15 students here and we could see and hear the student in London close-up on the big screen. The event was casual, required no tech assistance and worked great as a "virtual field trip". Explore Skype at http://www.skype.com/ and the isight at http://www.apple.com/macbook/isight.html. The new Dell laptops have the built-in cameras also.
- Anu Vedantham

NJAET Blog Back in Business

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:35:00 +0000

Ok, so it has been some time since the last post. You know how those things go. You get busy with other things and next thing you know the hours, days, weeks, months slip by and the next thing you know ...you've let something go. As a new member to the blog, I hope to add to this blog, as well as other NJAET bloggers. I'll try to put this on my to-do list to comment on technology as it relates to education. Hopefully, I'll cover everything from technology integration to Web 2.0 to cool new gadgets.

So this first blog I'll talk about a cool new gadget that I discovered and many of you may already be familiar with it. But first let me set the stage for purchasing this gadget. Often times I wanted to capture some short video clips to add to a webpage, videocast, tutorial, etc. I didn't feel like pulling out the video camera (now granted they aren't like the old vcr cameras) and then hooking the camera to my computer retreive video off of the dv tape. I was at FETC 2008 and a company had a small video camera that used a SD disk. It was cool but a little pricey. So I did a search on the company and didn't like what I read about the camera. So I began to look at other small video cameras. After comparing features, particularly interested in the lighting aspect and stablization, I purchased the Flip Video Ultra ($145.99 -Amazon.com). It's a great little video camera that can save up to 60 minutes of video. It's perfect for those quick videos that I need. It connects via USB and has a program included that lets you save, share, make, and delete videos. The quality of the videos is good and would highly recommend it. The one add-on I would suggest it to purchase a usb extension cable. It makes it easier to plug in then plugging the camera directly into a usb slot.
Until next time,

Alan

The Internet as a Tool for Children's Literature

noreply@blogger.com (NJAETDave) — Fri, 04 May 2007 16:25:00 +0000

The Internet is a treasure trove of rich educational materials, and there is a vast amount of material related to literature for all ages. In this month’s blog we will explore how the Internet can be used to help students enjoy and learn from literature.

Among the sites helpful to teachers are primary, secondary, and tertiary sites.

Primary sites – Authors
Primary sites are those most directly linked to the book, usually the author’s site. Author sites are often created by the author, and almost all publishers have sites for their authors. These sites are very reliable because they are by the people who know the most about the books. They are great for biographical information and background on the stories.

Secondary sites – Publishers
Sites with good connections to the author’s sites are said to be secondary. Publisher sites are often promotional, as you might expect. They not only provide information about their books and authors, but they also provide information for you to buy the books. The information is usually very reliable because they work with the author.

Tertiary sites – Unaffiliated sites
Tertiary sites are those about books and authors done by people with interest, but no affiliation with the author or publisher. These are done by anyone and should be used very carefully. Tertiary sites might include a scholarly article about a famous author such as C. S. Lewis or it could include a 6th grader’s report on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

There are so many ways to use these sites, and the purpose of this blog is to hear your creative ideas for using them.

How do your students use the Internet of author studies?
How do they use it for traditional or multimedia book reports?
How do they interact online with other classes to discuss a book?
Which site have you found useful for enriching literature study?

Share your ideas and comment on other ideas you find here!
.

Visual Literacy

noreply@blogger.com (Anu Vedantham) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:33:00 +0000

NJAET's Guest Blog by Cathy Grimaldi explores how and why images affect us.

Hardware, software and underwear

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Sullivan) — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 16:19:00 +0000

When it comes to doing an inventory, it can't be limited to equipment. You need to review the hardware, software and underwear! OK, so you want to know what the underwear in technology is! Read on.

Hardware:
Look at your equipment, services, maintenance policies, supports and general infrastructure. Identify how you deal with assistive technology and access for all stakeholders. Revisit your plan for obsolescence—you want a plan for obsolescence in place.

Software:
What software supports your processes—administrative, network, classrooms/libraries and staff?

Underwear: (the humans using the network)

Cybersafety:
How do you keep your students safe? One method is filtering what can be accessed through the network. What filtering methods do you use—hardware/software?
Acceptable use policies guide students in using globally based materials appropriately; what AUPs do you have in place for students and staff? Merely having students sign off on an acceptable use policy doesn’t do the over all job of educating them about how to be safe on the internet. How do you educate students and parents about cybersafety? This could be done through workshops/classes, web based information, flyers, etc.

Needs Assessment: (a lot of underwear here!)
In order to move forward, you need to know where you start from. Evaluate current practice in using technology in your curriculum and proficiency levels of all staff so that you know what administrators and teachers do know and practice. What access does staff and students have to technology? It becomes a barrier to the process if technology isn’t available to support the needs of students and staff when and where required.
In order to plan forward, you must know what professional development has been offered to all staff so that you can plan what professional development is needed to move towards a more empowered future for staff.
You need to see what supports are offered staff beyond the professional development. Do you have a mentoring process, tech support, student assistant, help desk? What do you do to support your staff’s use of technology? Ongoing, sustained professional development works so how do you offer your PD?

Once you work through this then you need to look at what the barriers are and prioritize them.

How do you assess your process?

Technology Planning and Stakeholders

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Sullivan) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:02:00 +0000

As with so many goals in our lives, we know that we don’t achieve success without planning for it. In order for technology to be successfully involved throughout the whole educational setting, you need to prepare for it with a solid plan.

Planning means having stakeholders. At a workshop setting I asked the attendees how many stakeholders each had working on their plan. One lady said that she had some that they had left. We talked and discussed the value of stakeholders. Look around at your stakeholders and envision them as having white T-shirts on and on the front in large red letters there are printed the words—BUY-IN. Each stakeholder participating in your plan has ownership, vision, and the ability to represent the shared beliefs and goals of the plan through out the school. They are the seeds of the plan embedded and spreading roots across the whole school.

Another member at the same workshop wanted to tell the stakeholders what needed to happen and from this perspective felt the process would be much quicker. Telling people what to believe doesn’t work and never has; working with them to develop a belief… a vision does work. It’s through the work and shared vision that buy-in does develop.
Everywhere you want support for educational technology should be represented through your stakeholders.

Technology Literacy Proficiency Requirements Guest Blog 11/13 to 11/20

noreply@blogger.com (Anu Vedantham) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 03:51:00 +0000

Please join Linda Carmona-Bell as our guest blogger on Technology Literacy Proficiency Requirements from November 13 to 20, 2006.

Educator-Recommended K-12 Web Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Anu Vedantham) — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:24:00 +0000

Here are the educator-recommended K-12 websites received to date from blog readers:

www.enchantedlearning.com - from Anu Vedantham
www.podomatic.com - from Sue LeBeau
www.youtube.com - from Sue LeBeau
www.refdesk.com - from Sue Sullivan
www.internet4classrooms.com/k12links.htm - from Carol of Hopewell Valley
www.starfall.com - from Kevin Jarrett
www.marco-polo.org - from Anthony St. Jean
www.kidzonline.org/TechTraining - from Carolynn Parisi
www.getnetwise.org - from Carolynn Parisi

Please share yours!

Guest Blog Moderators: Schedule for 2006-07 Year

noreply@blogger.com (Anu Vedantham) — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:15:00 +0000

NJAET welcomes guest moderators for six discussion topics this year:

Technology Literacy Proficiency Requirements
How can NJ schools meet their technological literacy proficiency requirements; what does it mean to you?
Linda Carmona-Bell, November 13 to 20, 2006

District Technology Plans
How do you plan for success with your district technology plan?
Sue Sullivan, January 2007

Visual Literacy
How can we help students develop the visual literacy skills needed by 21st century learners?
Cathy Grimaldi, April 2007

Extending Children’s literacy through the Internet
How can we use the Internet to extend students' interest in and understanding of children's literature?
Dave Cochran, May 2007

Effective Uses for PowerPoint
How do you make Powerpoint powerful?
Barry Haines, May 2007

Moderator Biographies

Linda Carmona-Bell has been employed for 17 years by the New Jersey Department of Education, where she currently serves as an educational technology specialist. Her background with State offices includes vocational education, bilingual education and now educational technology. She has spent her career in New Jersey assisting school districts in all aspects of implementing educational programs including developing and managing data collections, planning and evaluating program practices in the classroom, grant writing and designing programs to affect instructional change. She has also assisted in the development of the regional assistive technology centers in NJ.

David Cochran, Ed. D is an assistant professor at Georgian Court University where he leads the MA in Instructional Technology Program. He is active within the NJAET as the NJ representative to ISTE, co-editor of publications, and President-elect. In his spare time, Dave is actively pursing a lifelong interest in writing for children.

Luigi Laugelli is an elementary school Language Arts Literacy Facilitator. He holds an MA in Educational Leadership, an MA in Computing in Education and a BA in Spanish and Elementary Education. He is currently pursuing a Doctor of Education degree in Education Technology Management. Luigi is a member of the Executive Board for the NJ Association for Educational Technology.

Welcome to the NJAET Blog.

noreply@blogger.com (Anu Vedantham) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:26:00 +0000

This Blog will include monthly topic discussions with experts from all around New Jersey and places for NJAET members to share ideas and resources. Visit the NJAET Website to learn more about our annual Conference on October 10, 2006 at Georgian Court College. Online registration is now open.

For this first post, please take a minute to add a comment with one of your favorite websites for classroom use. I'll start with one of mine: www.enchantedlearning.com

Please add yours!