I’ve been very lucky to see Steve present for the first time at last year’s DEN National Institute in Silver Spring, MD. Since then, I’ve sat in on a few more and always walk away feeling like I’ve learned something. When I saw that he would be presenting on his Top 7 Free Collaborative Online Tools, I just had to ask him if it was really necessary for me to be there (Thinking: I’m on a cruise, stuff I’ve just seen him present on at NECC, have talked to him in private conversations about, sitting in the pool on the sundeck). I’m glad I stayed as I did learn something. I’ll go down his Top 7 List one by one and add my thoughts to each of them.

1. Second Life: I’ve blogged about my thoughts on Second Life before. I still can’t get over the smut that can be found there. I know Tom…get over yourself. I had a very good conversation with fellow DEN member and DEN SL Leadership Council Anne as we were going down to our cabins following a session. She convinced me in that conversation to basically give it another chance. I’m doing it, baby steps of course. I’ve seen some cool places since I’ve returned from the Bahamas. NOAA and NASA being probably the best 2. Steve used a pretty great term, I’m sure it’s been out there I’ve just not really paid that much mind to it, “Massively Multiplayer Educational Gaming”. As an online MMORPG gamer the acronym MMOEG came to mind. Why not? It sounds cool.
2. Bloglines: RSS aggregator to pick up blogs, news and podcasts. This was the first aggregator that I used. Notice the past tense as I’ve just moved onto Netvibes based in part to Jeff Utecht’s recommendation. However, if you are teaching RSS and RSS aggregators to first time users, I would give bloglines my highest recommendation to teach them. It’s very easy to use, very no muss, no fuss to understand. The only thing that I miss the most from bloglines, that I’ve yet to find a comparable feature in netvibes, is the Save as New check box that bloglines has. I found that to be a great tool to refer back to posts that I found had great links to share, etc.
3. Del.icio.us: Social Bookmarking. Can’t really say more about it than that. I still like diigo better with the fact that you can set up groups. Yes, I know you can make private accounts, etc. But the fact that diigo has a toolbar extension for Firefox is my selling point.
4. Twitter: Don’t really have a great name/description for Twitter. I think that David Warlick coined it best when we were sitting in the Blogger’s Cafe at NECC by calling it “microblogging”. It’s a cross between IM and blogging, with a 140 character max that you can use. See my widget to the >>> side here and you will see my twitterfeed. I’ve looked at some people’s twitfeeds, numbering well into the hundreds of people that they follow. Personally my goal is about 50ish that I want to top at out (at 48 now). I’ve learned quite a bit from Twitter so far, dating all the way back to NECC and following people’s thoughts about certain sessions, etc. Definitely see a role of some sort in the educational arena, even above the use by just the adults.
5. Skype: Combination of text, video and voice chat all rolled up into one neat little package. Again, saw the great use of this by sitting at NECC and being a part of a conversation with someone sitting in their Lazyboy recliner at home, while I’m in Atlanta. See “Learning is Messy” blog to see how great of a tool Skype can really be to a classroom.
6. Gcast: Great way to record, upload and store podcasts. Oh yea…it’s free too. Upload your own audio file, or call in via cell phone to record your podcast. Podcast People is out there as well, I’ve not used it, but I’ve read from others that have used it, and would mark it as comparable.
7. Meebo Rooms: Meebo is another cool tool I fell in love with at NECC. For the better part of the last 2 years, I’ve used Trillian as my primary IM chat tool. It was a sad day when I parted with it, even though in talking with Steve after his presentation, he still uses it, but advised to pay for the ‘pro’ version of it. Back to meebo though. Meebo is a web based IM chat client. You can set up for your msn, yahoo im, aim, ICQ and gchat all in one condensed place. But this is the truly cool thing that I found out in this session that you could do with it. You can create ‘private’ channels and embed them into a blog or webpage. Imagine the great conversations students could have from home, from across the room with regards to topics they are studying in class.

Just for the very last part with meebo, I’m glad I stayed to take part in Steve’s conversation with us. The unfortunate part is, that I know for fact already that it is blocked by my school district, along with skype, twitter and bloglines. Time to start hitting the pavement with my district contacts to get some of these nice tools unblocked.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Technorati Tags: DEN DNI07 web20 webtools

Somewhere over this past week our National Florida Institute was called this, an academic excursion. I really came to like it, isn’t that what we as educators want our students to strive for? It seems a vague concept, how can academics and excursion go together for them? I’ve a saying that I picked up years ago, and believe it or not, came from the back of a Tshirt my wife had. It goes: “Life’s a Journey, Not a Guided Tour”. That fits into the concept of academic excursion. What we do as educators help our young and old students on their life’s excursion. Building them up into what we hope and pray to be successful adults.

Deep thoughts, eh? This was just something that I thought about all week as myself and 50ish other STAR DEN educators “embarked” on the Florida National Institute’s floating conference. I was very unlucky enough to not be able to get typepad to update for any blog posts during the whole week. I basically got tired of losing my posts, so, I decided to just hold off, write stuff down and formulate my thoughts after we returned.

Florida was well represented at this week’s Institute, with myself, Ruth and Chris Paine, Carol Papuga, Janet Hallstrom, our Leader Chair Carole Gooden, Marie Colemen, and Melissa Lander. I’m hoping I can hit each of them up for a guest blogger spot here in the upcoming week so that they can share with everyone what an invaluable experience these National Institutes are. As for myself, it was great to reconnect with all of the Discovery Educator Network staff, as well as, some DEN members whom I had the pleasure of meeting last year at the summer institute in Silver Spring.

As for the events of the week, I will break down my thoughts on a day by day recap so as to not make this a super huge post:

Day 1 began with everyone converging on Port Canaveral. The embarkation process was pretty seamless and didn’t really take long once we got inside. Didn’t take long for me to find Marty Green from MI DEN so that we could get things rolling. Lunch on the ship, then it was time to get to learning. Joe Brennan shared some great tips for making movies. It was a real fast paced session, with barely enough time to get the notes I wanted typed/written up. He shared with us tips about types of shots, ways to set up a scene and to spark interest in the movie. We broke up into groups and worked on a 90second movie based on the concepts we just learned. Each of the groups did a wonderful job, with much joy and raucous laughter coming from everyone.

After all videos were shared, it was about 1030pm and we broke. The true networking then began as people who were strangers, having never met, or only through emails or Second Life, sparked immediate friendships and conversations.

Truly a networking delight!

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…(and to stop swaying)

Tom.

Technorati Tags: PD education DEN DiscoveryEducation edtech

I leave later this morning to drive over to Port Canaveral to pick up my ship for the 4 days of the Florida Discovery Education Summer Institute. This is a first for me, a floating conference. But I’m very sure it will be a very fruitful one. We will be on the Carnival Cruise Line’s Sensation. She looks to be a fine vessel. As with everything DEN/Discovery Education we will be working very hard and working on networking with other educators from around the country.

I’m not sure how the connectivity on the ship will be. Hopefully she’ll have good satellite access so I can do a post or two while out to sea, and maybe upload pics onto FLICKR. If not…we’ll see you Thursday afternoon.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Technorati Tags: DEN Carnival Sensation PD

As most of you that read me often know, I’m a member of Discovery’s Teacher Community, Discovery Educator Network. I’ve been a member for a little under a year and a half now. I’ve been blessed by meeting and networking with a great group of people, fellow educators. Some of these I’m very proud to call more than colleagues, but friends. Danielle, Karen, Kay, Kim, and the entire DEN Leadership crew. So when I was asked by eSchool News to give an interview about my feelings about teacher communities, most notably the DEN, I was more than happy to oblige. You can read the article here and see for yourself.

I’m a firm believer in the ‘teacher communities’ that are out there. I troll the boards of nextgenteacher and classroom 2.0 on Ning. Occasionally post a reply, but haven’t really put my hand into posting there. (I need to get off my duff and get my blog added to classroom 2.0 though!) I think what I like the most about the teacher communities are the teachers in them. The sharing that takes place once that first networking connection is made is outstanding. I’ve an experience I’ll share with you tomorrow about that. It’s a true model of what we want/strive our students to do in collaborative projects.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Thinking back to my start in blogging I have to really give thanks to Ed Warkentin. I told him this in email the other day, but I don’t think I would be sitting here this morning, pecking away on my keyboard if it wasn’t for his patience in answering my questions on our evening DC tour last July. During our Summer Leadership Conference I can honestly say I was very ‘green’ when it came to blogging and podcasting. He set me in the right direction for resources to get the job done.

I’d also like to say thanks to Danielle Abernethy. She’s becomes such a valued friend over being a colleague of mine. Her enthusiasm for tech ed is contagious and I’m very lucky to have been a part of her DEN. She’s always willing to lend a hand or do a workshop/professional development. Thanks for being you Danielle!

I’m going to throw thanks to a group of people over at Discovery for allowing me to be the Florida DEN blogmaster with Debbie Bohanon. Steve, Scott, Jannita, Coni, Lance, Betsy and Hall thanks for the support you’ve given us as we try to grow our DEN community stronger.

I’m sure I’m forgetting others, but I’m running out of time before I have to go to work. I will get any more I know I have forgotten when I get home. But lastly I have to give a HUGE cybercompliment to my wife. After almost 13 years together, she’s seen me go through online gaming addiction, playing hockey addiction and now blogging addiction. I’d like to thank you for being you, being an awesome mother and somehow putting up with me all these years I Love You!

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

I do have a bit of COOL news to pass along about the Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages site. When I started this blog I wasn’t sure how well it would do. Would I just be typing and putting stuff out there that no one is paying attention to? I have to say the coolest addition to the site has been my CLUSTRMAP. If you are running a site, this is the neatest little feature to add to show who’s paying attention to what you are saying. As of this weekend I added another continent to the list of where I’ve been read. Ya Ya. So what does this mean? It just proves that the world is smaller then what we think it is. It very much reminds me of the old maps of Florida I used to use to teach 4^th Grade Florida History (1562, Ptolemy 1492). One of the mantras I’ve been preaching to my students all year is that the world is much larger then the city of Bartow, FL that we live and learn within. Herein lies the power of blogging and the other web 2.0 applications that are out there. One of the many conversations I had over the past week was with Steve Hargadan of supportblogging.com. If you have never been to this wiki, and are working with your administrators to get approval to use blogging as a tool with your students I highly recommend a trip here to gather all the resources to help you in your fight. I’ve added this image with permission from Steve to this post and will shortly be adding it to the widgets for easy access by all!

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Now for the business at hand. One of the things the teachers at my school has been bombarded with this year is a constant reminder to use some sort of graphic organizers in our classrooms. In my monthly Team Leaders meeting with the principal he reminds us to remind our team members about using them. Using graphic organizers is not really an issue for me because I’m CONSTANTLY using Inspiration to organize class discussion, making time lines, and incorporating digital video clips from unitedstreaming. While going through my Bloglines, and having time to add blogs to my list today, I came across this neat table that gives a visual representation for many of the organizers we employ. My apologies to the original finder of this, because after spending all day at school and dealing with a sick daughter when I got home, I’ve forgotten where it came from. I just thought it was too cool of a tool to not share tonight. It can be found here at this link: A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods.

More later…

Tom.

I’ve been doing alot of research as of late in the mac vs. pc debate. As most of my friends will attest, I’ve been a Pro-PC person for as long as dirt. Through some poking and prodding from Ed in N. Cal about the advantages of the Mac systems I think I’ve finally ’seen’ the light when it comes to using Macs for EdTech projects. After seeing another former DEN manager at a party this past weekend show off her Mac Pro Notebook I’m sold on it. My next purchase of a laptop or desktop will definitely be a Mac. The possibilities seem endless. I saw firsthand how easy with one click it was to podcast via garageband. For all these years, I now realize I’ve been shortchanging my students by being restricted to what windows can do. Don’t get me wrong, using Audacity to podcast is great, but having everything right there in front of you in one single program makes life all the more simpler. I can only imagine what else is out there in the Mac OS software that I’ve not even really been exposed to yet! I can only hope I can get my hands on one soon!!

Tom.