Image by Isaac Bowen

It’s time for the school website banner contest! Your buildling Technology Advisors should be receiving information about the contest this week. Be on the look out for flyers and announcements for more information about this exciting opportunity to share your talent with the world.

Take a look at past entries by visiting this Picasa Web gallery.

The contact Pennsylvania had with netTrekker was not renewed for this school year. Because of this all of our netTrekker accounts were automatically deleted from the website.

PENNCREST feels that netTrekker is a valuable resource for teaching and learning. We have decided to renew our subscription to netTrekker for this school year. Accounts are currently being created and you will receive your login information very soon.

A benefit to having control over our netTrekker subscription is that we will now be able to create student accounts as well as teacher accounts. These student accounts will be created by each student with help from your school librarian or technology advisor.

If you wish for your students to have a login to netTrekker please work through your librarian or technology advisor.  Please wait to make this request until after you have received your netTrekker account.

Look for upcoming learning opportunities that will help you integrate netTrekker into your learning community.

Here are some of the new features just released in VoiceThread:

New York Public Library: Over 700,000 historical images from The New York Public Library’s Digital Gallery are now freely and instantly available in the Media Browser whenever you’re creating a VoiceThread.

Flickr Photo Search: Search for and add Creative Commons images from Flickr into a VoiceThread.

Comment Reordering: If you are the creator or editor of a VoiceThread you can now reorder the comments by moving your mouse over any comment segment on the timeline beneath the VoiceThread.

See the full update notes here : http://bit.ly/AuKKh

Photo by jillclardy via Flickr

This past week we worked with teachers from 5 different schools in IU5 on digital storytelling. The first day was spent telling stories around a camp fire, talking about audience, accessibility and tone of digital stories along with planning the story. The second day was spent finalizing the storyboard and then creating the same story in 4 different online tools – Voicethread, Picasa Web, Photobucket and ShowBeyond. Each tool allowed the storytellers to visualize and tell their story in different ways.

Here are the digital storytelling tools we used to tell ours stories:

• VoiceThread – http://voicethread.com
• Picasa Web – http://picasaweb.google.com
• Photobucket – http://photobucket.com
• ShowBeyond – http://showbeyond.com

Our agenda and shared materials can be found via this link – http://psdtech.pbworks.com/Tools-and-Resources-for-Digital-Storytelling-July-09.

Storytelling can really be brought to life through digital tools. They help express the story in ways that are not possible with traditional pen, paper and voice. Sharing your voice and stories digitally allows a wider audience to share in your experiences. Check out 50 ways to tell a story for 50+ examples of the same story told with different digital tools.

http://www.google.com/doodle4google/vote.html

Thanks for your continued support. Please share this link with anyone who may want to vote.

The 16th Annual Technology Fair and Student Showcase is sponsored by NPAECT and provides an opportunity for students, teachers, technology vendors and community members to share the projects and products created in our classrooms.

For more information regarding the Tech Fair please visit the NPAECT Wiki for the Information Letter.

The registration for the Tech Fair is now closed, but we will be representing PENNCREST well with 8-10 groups traveling to Edinboro for the event. We hope to see all of you in Edinboro to support your fellow teachers and students as they showcase their work, interests and talents. See you there!

Technology Fair and Student Showcase

Date: April 30, 2009

Time: 3:00 PM-7:00 PM

Location: Frank G Pogue Student Center at Edinboro University

http://www.google.com/doodle4google/

Check out the entries by PENNCREST students in grades 5-12.

View Album

Get your own

State and Regional finalists will be announced on May 8th, 2009. Good luck to all that entered the competition!

Attendees will spend time in the classroom using GIS applications, free GeoCaching software and resources before heading outdoors (rain or shine) to learn how to find hidden treasures! Attendees will learn how to create lessons using geocaching to teach any subject: Science, Mathematics, English – the possibilities are
limitless. Special “curriculum caches” will be hidden in the surrounding area and attendees will learn how to use a GPS to find them.

**Attendees will be invited to apply for eight $500.00 matching equipment grants to purchase GPS units, software and accessories for classroom use (one grant will be awarded at each training location). In addition, one randomly drawn attendee will receive a free Garmin GPS receiver unit courtesy of netTrekker.

Breakfast and Lunch Included

Receive 5 Act48 Hours

Cost: $0

July 14th, 2009 @ IU5

Download the full PDF of the event

Spaces are limited so be sure to register ASAP!