tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75935990016776149452024-02-06T20:20:45.684-08:00Positive RelationshipsMark Carls blog for some thoughts through my educational journey.Mr. Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16458798789406058252noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-90721099365891657902013-11-02T19:17:00.002-07:002013-11-02T19:32:12.283-07:00Aaron SwansonI promised myself that if I ever started a new blog post it would be about one of my former students, Aaron Swanson. I never knew Lance Corporal Aaron Swanson. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJe82yMDcukf4kAqCQUP4aHVmT1NoNiVrgeJNLAX6X8REXcNCVToD1ans-9wF9OlKkJtA64lSfO3i1KX79jYKYTUmKVzAxwnENGQydUzisqL8DRdiXKPt9OxM6Fcy0WBLQXALC_o3DOviW/s1600/Aaron+Swanson+II.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJe82yMDcukf4kAqCQUP4aHVmT1NoNiVrgeJNLAX6X8REXcNCVToD1ans-9wF9OlKkJtA64lSfO3i1KX79jYKYTUmKVzAxwnENGQydUzisqL8DRdiXKPt9OxM6Fcy0WBLQXALC_o3DOviW/s320/Aaron+Swanson+II.png" width="223" /></a><br />
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I knew a kid who sat in my JCC Stats class at Southwestern. A kid who was quiet, sneaky smart, and had a great personality.<br />
Actually, he reminded me a bit of....me!<br />
<br />
However, did I give him appropriate attention and focus? Maybe not. He was never the squeaky wheel, at least not that I remember. Aaron could figure things out on his own, he was quiet and never asked for anything. He was killed in the line of duty on February 7th, 2011 in Afghanistan.<br />
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Since I've been out of teaching for a few years I've had some time to think about my time in the classroom. I hope that the lives I've touched will think about these times positively. I hope Aaron did.<br />
When we moved to Allegany after I took my current CABOCES job I remember the night I wandered into the living room to hear the local news stating that a local warrior was lost. Then, they showed the picture and name of Aaron Swanson and my heart sank. How sad. Did I even remember meeting his parents? What were they going through? <br />
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I wonder how much we realize in education the lives we touch and our effect on young kid's lives?<br />
I hope I do.<br />
Thank you Aaron Swanson for all you've done for our country and for me.<br />
God bless you and your family and friends.Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-44445123510610046552010-07-12T12:21:00.000-07:002010-07-12T12:27:08.165-07:00Moving onWell, I sent the message today to all the members of the <a href="http://voicethread.ning.com/">Voicethread Ning</a> that we're moving to a new Voicethread group inside the <a href="http://www.classroom20.com/">Classroom 2.0 Ning</a> here: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/VTNing">http://tinyurl.com/VTNing</a><br />
It took quite a bit of time to figure out what to do. I toyed with the idea of starting an Elgg hosted site (From <a href="http://twitter.com/steveoc">@steveoc</a> on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>) and I even started a <a href="http://grou.ps/voicethread">Voicethread Grou.ps</a> (which I'll get rid of soon). However, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if we need a stand-alone Ning-like site.<br />
When I asked I remembered a few people mentioned joining another Ning group like Classroom 2.0 and I think that will work out. Since they have a vast community of educators there already,it could be a one-stop place for educators to share ideas and connect with others about Voicethread or any other topic. <br />
I hope this works well. We've gotten a couple to join already today and I hope it continues to grow.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.classroom20.com/group/voicethread"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">Here's our new look:</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguvc655YC6p509YX7hantIIck9OnM_AiTMhyqp50P4st1k7P3XkVE-svQW45ydON2U15CH8OzPE_UhsQSEbSrL6l_XuDMQmy5oE9W3IV8Ia06B6o2ep8PKkK2vQUaUdDkqCgew2ueHgSVl/s400/Voicethread_Group-_new_home.png" width="400" /></div>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-45602754146882408772010-06-10T09:45:00.000-07:002010-06-10T09:45:25.408-07:00Elementary Voicethread Project<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;"><a href="http://elementaryvoicethreads.wikispaces.com/">"Show off Your School"</a></span></strong></div><strong><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;"></span></strong><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
That's the title I finally came up with for our end of the year <a href="http://elementaryvoicethreads.wikispaces.com/">Elementary Voicethread project</a>. Around January I asked on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> if anyone would be willing to collaborate with an area school using <a href="http://ed.voicethread.com/">Voicethread</a>. I received a couple tweets back and said I'd be back in touch later. A few things came up and we didn't look to go much further, but <a href="http://twitter.com/bwasson">Brian Wasson</a> sent a follow up tweet about a Kindergarten class on Long Island still interested, then right before the Spring Break I found another area Kindergarten teacher, where I work, who said she'd be interested as well. I told them that we'd talk after the Spring Break. Well, that Sunday before we came back, I was in church (<em>where I get many of these ideas</em>) and thought, why not invite <a href="http://conversations.nokia.com/wp-content/uploads/environmentpainting-the-world-green.jpg">the world</a>?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="239" qu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR5mbqSfw_xTJ083JinxrfUfgnjOd29HRgqJXVOAt-zJ76KD8qGzrbdLfDsP4L2q9awCUxkuhj-MyQOb2-6JgQNXlsZ89ESvg1AZm_jaNScCtvgYo5n0R_5S0_PNL39hE45Vi1kYu2mcpL/s320/ElemVTwiki.png" width="320" /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>I created <a href="http://elementaryvoicethreads.wikispaces.com/">this wiki</a> on Sunday afternoon and by Wednesday we had almost 40 members join our wiki after a few tweets (OK, quite a few <a href="http://www.twice.cc/projects.html">tweets</a>) and the project posted in <a href="http://www.twice.cc/projects.html">CAPSpace</a>. I left it wide open so people didn't even have to actually join the wiki, so I wonder how many others were interested? I put up the <a href="http://www3.clustrmaps.com/counter/maps.php?url=http://elementaryvoicethreads.wikispaces.com/">ClustrMap</a> a little late, mostly from US, but a couple from across the pond and on our <a href="http://elementaryvoicethreads.wikispaces.com/1st+Grade">1st Grade page</a> you can see a variety from Canada, the US and Australia!<br />
We started with most teachers posting Voicethreads that they've done this year with their class which has been great to see and I hope to post to Colete Cassinelli's <a href="http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/">Voicethread4Education wiki.</a> However, to keep it to the "Show off Your School" theme, I moved them to <a href="http://elementaryvoicethreads.wikispaces.com/Other+Voicethreads+Created">this page</a>.<br />
Teachers could take just one picture of the front of your school (or classroom) and have all of their students comment on just that one picture if they wanted, or they could do a bunch of pictures. <br />
What I envisioned was letting your students go around, take their own pictures (either on their own or in a group), decide which ones to put up in the one class Voicethread and then comment on those picture(s). Post that Voicethread to <a href="http://elementaryvoicethreads.wikispaces.com/">our wiki</a> and then comment on others (if they allowed comments)<br />
We 'officially' ended on June 3rd and got quite a few in the Kindergarten-3rd grade level. One at the Pre-K and 4th grade level, but none at 5th and 6th. <br />
Honestly, I was hoping to get other schools in to look at what others schools did and maybe....just maybe, connect with them at the end of the year. If that happened and they saw how easy it was, then they may look into doing it again next year. We'll see how any of that plays out. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #274e13;">I'm hoping to hear ideas to help improve it for next year and to bring in new teachers!</span> </strong></div><br />
I think, sometime in late August, I may move all of these to a 'Spring 2010' page. I will still keep them separated by grades and then start it again next year for a Kick-Off to the school year. <br />
Ironically, the Hinsdale teacher and Long Island teacher (Brian's lovely wife who helped their Kindergarten class set up) shared the Voicethreads they made separately. I wonder if that would've been a better way to approach it? Let people sign up, then pair them with another school. The whole posting to a wiki for the world to see, might've been a little scary for some? <br />
Then again, I like sharing them on a wiki, teach them how to create and post a digital story on the internet responsibly....for some reason that feels like it should be part of my job?!?!<br />
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Thanks to anyone who participated. I'd love feedback. I think they went well. Have a great rest of the school year (or summer vaction for some of you not in New York State!).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwvxRcRzAfNAdR4RdXJxzZE1AX38hTo9VdigHV8F78cBgK_-hFfBtlaHH_zyePumlxBRKgnBXFgfW-BeUqIhy4R5tTvakaNj854PmNUUwMF36fn33sYabTa6u5u4Z4gWa7s6J1Ab4Pzfm/s1600/ElemVTwikiSidebar.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwvxRcRzAfNAdR4RdXJxzZE1AX38hTo9VdigHV8F78cBgK_-hFfBtlaHH_zyePumlxBRKgnBXFgfW-BeUqIhy4R5tTvakaNj854PmNUUwMF36fn33sYabTa6u5u4Z4gWa7s6J1Ab4Pzfm/s200/ElemVTwikiSidebar.png" width="186" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-5886877391153596592010-06-10T07:22:00.000-07:002010-06-10T07:28:42.430-07:00Why can't I blog more?<div style="text-align: left;">I started off May with a few ideas and said, you know what, I'm going to have a goal of one blog post per month! That's not too hard, is it?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">I guess it was.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Today is June 10th and I'm finally going to finish one. I did start one earlier blog post, but never finished it.<br />
I've noticed with my job in professional development that I'm not busy like I was as a High School Math teacher grading papers and building assessment. However, I'm constantly searching for and trying out good tech ideas for the classroom and trying to be, well a master of everything! Plus, I now value good customer service and try to keep all of my teachers happy and I try to respond to any issues or questions to the best of my ability....or the ability of my <a href="http://twitter.com/mcarls">Twitter </a>network. There are plenty of good stories to share like the <a href="http://elementaryvoicethreads.wikispaces.com/">Elementary Voicethread Project</a> I tried to get started, Science Fairs in districts and other collaborations that our teachers are doing.<br />
I do try to write some of these up for our <a href="http://www.caboces.org/">CA BOCES website</a> and/or <a href="http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1ny8m/MayJune2010/resources/index.htm">monthly flyer</a>. It's time to start getting those thoughts on here. I also need to get into a good habit of checking my <a href="http://www.google.com/ig">iGoogle page</a> daily to check on my RSS feeds. I can leverage my online community of educators more, make my life easier and be a good role model for the teachers in our area.<br />
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Fingers crossed.Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-533873238199910562010-04-01T11:39:00.000-07:002010-04-01T11:39:07.317-07:00Riding the Google WaveIt's been almost a week and I survived my "Riding the Google Wave" session at NYSCATE's "Riding the Digital Wave" session out at Erie1 BOCES West Seneca location.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiILx6OyozwomL5aryofotTxCjxMM-TYDHBHNsdjB4Tjki-pSajrSyuHf8BZ-Vk2Ok3TqYg9ipu5ETwnwG0ltTf68i4Zx5A8ClAj_uX070ib8bhDX9bbWy4PVdByply3NsgxIc65J-CczPO/s1600/Google+Wave+Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiILx6OyozwomL5aryofotTxCjxMM-TYDHBHNsdjB4Tjki-pSajrSyuHf8BZ-Vk2Ok3TqYg9ipu5ETwnwG0ltTf68i4Zx5A8ClAj_uX070ib8bhDX9bbWy4PVdByply3NsgxIc65J-CczPO/s200/Google+Wave+Logo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
It was a great day starting off with the keynote by D<a href="http://www.rogerfirestien.com/">r. Roger Firestein</a> who started off by telling us he got his major in Creativity and Innovation here at UB! What? I've never even heard of that. He kept us thinking and in particular had us form groups and "<b>without judgemen</b>t" brainstorm ideas about what we'd want our bathtub to be! It was amazing when there were no limits what we came up with. From NASCAR strips that you could just rip off and BAM, the tub and area around it would be clean. To having the water do a skin scan and sending that information directly to your doctor to make sure everything is OK (thanks <a href="http://twitter.com/rickweinberg">@rickweinberg</a> for both of those). I keyed in on the idea of "without judgement" since I was going to be showing Google Wave, which is still in Beta, and quite honestly, Wave's been beat up quite a bit since it's release.<br />
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In my session, well, I survived!<br />
I must've been pretty nervous because I can't distinctly remember where people were sitting, just that it was packed. Quite a few people said they had Google Wave invites, but we only had a few editing with us. I fortunately could call on <a href="http://twitter.com/tclarkeee">@tclarkeee</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/jgriffith2">@jgriffith2</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/theresagray">@theresagray</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/rickweinberg">@rickweinberg</a> as well as some others to add content and ideas.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6fBo7Bfsbk7qf1jp01LOvwPR_telGx166atQ9KPTCSHtgBMewK5wM5rDQ2NxIjckORm9aUsjCOQxif3Pwzvl05eJ0a-r97wTh4bd86MM4x1uMYedFt78vsu3G5HIl3NcPCrgP4X0aIaW/s1600/Etherpad.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6fBo7Bfsbk7qf1jp01LOvwPR_telGx166atQ9KPTCSHtgBMewK5wM5rDQ2NxIjckORm9aUsjCOQxif3Pwzvl05eJ0a-r97wTh4bd86MM4x1uMYedFt78vsu3G5HIl3NcPCrgP4X0aIaW/s320/Etherpad.png" /></a></div><br />
To give the others an real time collaboration option, I set up an Etherpad to use with <a href="http://etherpad.com/RtGW">suffix RtGW</a> (Riding the Google Wave). I then realized that this one is different because it has lower case letters <a href="http://etherpad.com/rtgw">here</a>! Ooops.<br />
The good things that I believe I did was to organize my waves into one folder (RtGW). That gave them a blue box when they were in my inbox denoted by RtGW. I also brought in the Public Robot (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">public@a.gwave.com)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"> otherwise no one would be able to see it OR I'd have to invite every single person.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;">The other robot I used was EasyPublic (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">easypublic@appspot.com) not sure if it did anything different, but I read that it wouldn't go away. I guess sometimes the Public Robot does?</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">THEN, I tagged each of the waves #RtGW and to be safe also RtGW. This is done at the bottom of the wave where it says Tags" and a + sign in a grey ellipse.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">To be even more save, I went up to the top and numbered them 1,2,3,4. Then, when people went to the search they could type:</span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>with:public #RtGW</b> (or RtGW without the #)</span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">and get my four waves. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">For some reason the Fourth wave didn't show up and that was too bad, because I had questions about the opening keynote. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Instead I started back over to wave #1 and deleted my content to put questions up for the keynote. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">You can see it <a href="https://wave.google.com/wave/?pli=1#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252B7_o5Tmo6A">here</a> (If you have a Google Wave account).</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I tried to show the Google Wave that JamieLynn Griffith did with her 2nd Graders and their Community project, but I was trying to rush through all of it and by that point, I'm not sure how many people were still with me.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I'm glad I took the risk, but couldn't done it a lot better.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">First, in the description, sent everyone to <a href="https://www.google.com/">https://www.google.com/</a> to sign up for an account before they got there. I did try to send an e-mail a week before, but some didn't get it in time and didn't have time to send it in and get it back. This would've been the biggest improvement, because I think there was so much confusion at the beginning that it was hard for people to see how they may use this.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I also should've gone slower at the beginning for those that had Google Wave accounts. This is how you start a wave, this is your blip. Shown ways to edit and save a little slower. Maybe had them send waves to a small group next to them to practice...then thrown them into mine to have all of us start adding to.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Then, I could've organized gadgets better. I had my <a href="https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252B7_o5Tmo6A">third wave</a> all full of gadgets to play with. I barely talked about them.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Not sure if I'd do that again. At least not until it's out of Beta and I get to use it more.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Next, maybe something more like <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/">Google SketchUp!</a></span></span>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-31726434434900747862010-03-24T17:47:00.001-07:002010-03-24T17:57:01.457-07:00Riding the Google WaveThis Friday, March 26th I'll be running a "Riding the Google Wave" session at NYSCATE's <a href="http://www.nyscate.org/conferences.cfm?subpage=427">Riding the Digital Wave Conference</a>. More about that later, but trying to see if I can embed a Wave in here using Embeddy Robot?<br /><div style="WIDTH: 560px; HEIGHT: 420px" id="wave"></div><br /><script type="text/javascript" src="http://wave-api.appspot.com/public/embed.js"><br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br /> var wave =<br /> new WavePanel('https://wave.google.com/wave/');<br /> wave.setUIConfig('white', 'black', 'Arial', '13px');<br /> wave.loadWave(googlewave.com!w+WydCtXg4A);<br /> wave.init(document.getElementById('wave'));<br /></script><br /><br />Hmmmm, guess not so easy?Mr. Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16458798789406058252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-83388673104197308422010-02-04T09:53:00.000-08:002010-02-04T10:07:07.837-08:00The Perfect Storm? I tend to try to live my life staying out of the peaks and valleys. Improve gradually. At least I try. Don't get too high from the highs, or too low from the lows.<br />
I've been on quite a high since my Educon trip and I've been trying to keep the <a href="http://mcarls.blogspot.com/2010/02/momentum.html"><span style="color: #990000;">momentum</span></a>.<br />
<div align="center"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Maybe it was just the Perfect Storm for me?</b></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi7DLEPUFn4HsbJ129P69eLnqpYbxPVjR8V8n0kIQwjIrPT9sLmqvVZFPJDuh1v-tN7LvHTrjcSZy195h1mV13wrIE1k77dhcFunfMNRXKCOyWg9n-7l4FqXBiZrRK1HFxH0lUKI9CM3QP/s1600-h/Perfect+Storm" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi7DLEPUFn4HsbJ129P69eLnqpYbxPVjR8V8n0kIQwjIrPT9sLmqvVZFPJDuh1v-tN7LvHTrjcSZy195h1mV13wrIE1k77dhcFunfMNRXKCOyWg9n-7l4FqXBiZrRK1HFxH0lUKI9CM3QP/s320/Perfect+Storm" /></a></div></div><div about="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/3459918218/" style="text-align: center;" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/" rel="cc:attributionURL">http://www.flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" rel="license">CC BY 2.0</a></span></div><div align="left"> <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> My beautiful wife and are are expecting our third child, there have been plenty of things on my mind lately. I knew this trip would give me some time to 'get away' and learn. I did travel down alone and just finding the hotel was an accomplishment for me! *No laughing <a href="http://twitter.com/capohanka">Pohanka</a>!*</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I knew some people from <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> and from <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/">NECC</a> last year in Washington, DC. Thus, I had some people to talk to and hang out with (most notably the three headed braintrust of <a href="http://twitter.com/rinegarcia">Debra Garcia</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/capohanka">Carey Pohanka</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/scmorgan">Susan Morgan</a>). Right away on Thursday night we met the incredible <a href="http://twitter.com/jennyluca">Jenny Luca</a> from Australia and <a href="http://twitter.com/dmcordell">Diane Cordell</a>, a retired librarian from New York. Later on, <a href="http://twitter.com/zemote">Jeff O'Hara</a> from <a href="http://www.edmodo.com/">Edmodo</a> fame, and his wife arrived after their flight from Chicago. <a href="http://educon22.org/">Educon</a> was off to a great start for me. Now, I can't list everyone that I met, however, that aspect of meeting people that I talk to through Twitter made this conference even better. It also helped my confidence, knowing that I've already communicated with many of these people in education.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"> The tour and class visits at <a href="http://educon22.org/">Educon</a> were eye opening. At first it just seemed like controlled chaos. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">Kids were up out of their seats, working in groups, allowed to talk out loud.....and as a result, they were teaching and learning from each other. The one room I walked in, I couldn't even find the teacher! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;"> The CoreValues were displayed in every room, and the hallways decorated with student work. Did you see the math on the 5th floor? </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMH12dhWmEVSuChbghnHGDC7VN5rtSfinE6Ysl081IkckEHYCfyGnHMIPTXllI0FVepppf312MXe-TeDZApMnga-tb_HGws7vXWv55BxCxdCK-5Sk9W0MBiZMAzCNO3tPvYsOsnRzAu0gV/s1600-h/SLA+Trig+Table" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMH12dhWmEVSuChbghnHGDC7VN5rtSfinE6Ysl081IkckEHYCfyGnHMIPTXllI0FVepppf312MXe-TeDZApMnga-tb_HGws7vXWv55BxCxdCK-5Sk9W0MBiZMAzCNO3tPvYsOsnRzAu0gV/s200/SLA+Trig+Table" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Picture taken from my cellphone *Next year, remember camera!</span> </span></div><span style="font-family: Times;"> This table and other math trig graphs were just down from some unit in a health class about Sex Ed that may have gotten a few days of ISS at my old schools! The students and faculty own the building (except for the 4th floor, forgot what was in there, an architectural firm, maybe?).</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"> I had to take two tours, one with a larger group, then as I was trying to think about all that I saw on my first trip I went to the Library. There I sat next to <a href="http://twitter.com/jennyluca">Jenny Luca</a> and she wanted to go for a tour, so I went with here and two nice young men, Javon and Hector. They both asked what we did and then started us off on our tour to the classrooms they thought we'd like. For me, it was the drama room with <a href="http://cs.nyu.edu/%7Ejhan/ftirtouch/">Jeff Han</a> showing his 100-inch touch screen tv, and then down to their Calculus class with <a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/staff">Mr. Latimer</a>. They talked about becoming experts in different types of differentiation and then teaching the class! They also explained how they work together on these projects and even though they honestly grumbled about them, you could see the pride that they had in completing them.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"> The next two days were filled with the </span><span style="font-family: Times;"><a href="http://educon22.org/conversations">Conversations</a></span><span style="font-family: Times;"> that will require more time for me to think through. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;"> I will just say this. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;"> It was never a main point <i>(I don't think)</i> in any of the </span><span style="font-family: Times;"><a href="http://educon22.org/conversations">Conversations</a></span><span style="font-family: Times;"> I attended, however, just building relationships with students, came through in all of them. Caring for your students like they were your own children and giving them a chance to show what they can accomplish when someone believes in them. It's stuff we talk about at our ISS meetings every Monday morning and it was all rolled into this <a href="http://scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">SLA</a> school, and working well. It was eye opening to say the least.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"> I started by saying "The Perfect Storm" because of the timing with other things in my life, how crazy work has been this year, then having HIGH hopes for this conference. Those high hopes were exceeded and it was great to go see a school with clear goals and a faculty working together to accomplish those goals. Follow that up with two days of <a href="http://educon22.org/conversations">Conversations</a> with people (who are much smarter than I), and you have a very inspirational weekend.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"> I had to leave after lunch on Sunday, however, I was in Binghampton before I knew it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;"> <span style="color: #274e13;">Why? </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;"> Because I was talking to myself and bouncing ideas from the weekend all over the car! Time just flew by. I'm still not clear on everything, but realize how much more there is to learn. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">I'll continue to write some more blog posts, and maybe after a few of these I can start making things more clear.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"> Thanks for the patience in advance. There's more to the weekend from my perspective, maybe the next blog post will be about the <a href="http://educon22.org/conversations">Conversations</a> that I went to: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">All three </span><span style="font-family: Times;"><a href="http://educon22.org/conversations">Conversations</a> that </span><span style="font-family: Times;">I went to on Saturday were by the <a href="http://scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">SLA</a> staff, <a href="http://educon22.org/conversations/ReImagining_Social_Media__Technology_in_Teacher_Education">Team Canada</a> was my only Sunday session.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></div>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-64439712188800483932010-02-01T09:41:00.000-08:002010-02-01T09:48:19.110-08:00Momentum<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Trying to get my brain to slow down after three excellent days at <a href="http://educon22.org/">Educon</a> in Philadelphia visiting the <a href="http://scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">Science Leadership Academy</a> (SLA) in action on Friday, and then attending the <a href="http://educon22.org/conversations">conversations</a> Saturday and Sunday.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLX3Bk4BoG9nuVHNeF2Jj_C3e64v27FwmfJ3LBudB_3l7q41nOjFhJycGQHq-6s-Xz0dV0ZutToaZUznppqWmlZ9iEy1xx4i9REIIBwToq4I4JKexySPzwQX7LuQ2yHrp5lwVfzPEhIbgA/s1600-h/Educon+Flyer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLX3Bk4BoG9nuVHNeF2Jj_C3e64v27FwmfJ3LBudB_3l7q41nOjFhJycGQHq-6s-Xz0dV0ZutToaZUznppqWmlZ9iEy1xx4i9REIIBwToq4I4JKexySPzwQX7LuQ2yHrp5lwVfzPEhIbgA/s200/Educon+Flyer.jpg" width="154" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Taken from Educon Wiki: <a href="http://educon22.wikispaces.com/file/view/Flyer_educon_10_size_8_x_11.jpg/102802807/Flyer_educon_10_size_8_x_11.jpg">http://educon22.wikispaces.com/file/view/Flyer_educon_10_size_8_x_11.jpg/102802807/Flyer_educon_10_size_8_x_11.jpg</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="http://educon22.wikispaces.com/file/view/Flyer_educon_10_size_8_x_11.jpg/102802807/Flyer_educon_10_size_8_x_11.jpg"></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I'm wondering how to continue the <span style="color: #990000;"><strong>momentum,</strong></span> and will be posting more this week as I try to wrap my brain around all that I saw and learned.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Not even sure where to start? This will take some time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">There were all of the people I met, touring <a href="http://scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">SLA</a>, my Saturday sessions (all three sessions that I went to were done by <a href="http://scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">SLA</a> teachers), or my Sunday session from <a href="http://ideasandthoughts.org/">Dean Shareski</a> and <a href="http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/">Alec Couros</a>, or......</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Need time. Hoping to keep this <span style="color: #990000;"><strong>momentum</strong></span><span style="color: black;"> going and how to move forward from here. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">For a guy who usually feels like I'm just helping teachers use tools, this was exactly what I needed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><br />
Thank you Chris Lehmann and you're whole SLA team for hosting such an inspiring weekend.<br />
<br />
More coming, I promise....maybe I'll start using this Blog Thing?!?!</span>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-20434059311494045352010-01-15T08:17:00.000-08:002010-01-15T08:19:50.486-08:00Voicethread Updates Jan 15th 2010In trying to get out the information from the Voicethread e-mail today, I figured why not use this thing I once called a blog?<div>I'm just copying and pasting from the e-mail. Thanks Steve Muth and everyone at Voicethread.com.</div><div> Ideas and suggestions always welcome.</div><div><br /></div><div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><strong>Hello VoiceThreaders,</strong></p> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">We have five significant updates to share with you, advanced support for non-Latin text commentary, a tripling of the capacity of student accounts, email notifications of your VoiceThreads' activity, a new unlimited seat license and district pilot program, and the eRacism project, which is breaking new ground in global k-12 collaboration.</p> <h2 style="TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; MARGIN: 20px 0px 8px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; FONT-STYLE: normal; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none; TEXT-DECORATION: none" name="E491864DAB3F4E4E"></a>Advanced Language Support</h2> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">We're very happy to announce that VoiceThread now supports the use of non-Latin scripts in text comments. This has been one of our most requested features for some time now, and we're excited to finally release it.</p> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">What does it mean?</p> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">It means that whenever a text comment contains a non-latin character, it no longer matters whether the person viewing the comment has the correct fonts installed. If they don't, we'll perform some technical magic in the background and make sure they see the text comment in the language that you intended, without any additional work on their part.</p> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">The beta release of this feature applies only to text comments, and if all goes well, we'll apply it to other text fields very soon. Because of the technical complexity of fonts and the way that different computers handle them, we can't give direct technical support for this feature. If you have any questions or feedback please <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #2679b9; FONT-SIZE: 13px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none" href="http://voicethread.cmail4.com/t/y/l/uujiju/jyiujhkyj/y">go here.</a></p> <h2 style="TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; MARGIN: 20px 0px 8px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; FONT-STYLE: normal; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none; TEXT-DECORATION: none" name="9ED718D452E1FBEF"></a>Tripling the capacity of Student accounts</h2> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">Starting today, we're increasing the capacity of student accounts on Ed.VoiceThread by more than 300%. Students will receive up to 1GB of storage and they can now create up to 50 VoiceThreads instead of the current limit of 15. The students have been very busy and we want to get out of their creative and collaborative way.</p> <h2 style="TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; MARGIN: 20px 0px 8px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; FONT-STYLE: normal; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none; TEXT-DECORATION: none" name="EECA9DFF9E33C07F"></a>Email Notifications, aka, 'The Daily Digest'</h2> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">You'll soon start to receive an email digest of all the activity on your VoiceThreads within the last day, with direct links to each and every comment made on them. So you'll no longer need to login to VoiceThread before knowing if you have new commentary to view and hear. Please let us know what you think of this new feature, we're planning updates to it and want to find out what your most important needs are.</p> <h2 style="TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; MARGIN: 20px 0px 8px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; FONT-STYLE: normal; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none; TEXT-DECORATION: none" name="67677D571C10F90E"></a>The Unlimited Seat License for Districts</h2> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">A new pilot program for first year Districts provides discounts of up to 90%, which grants an unlimited seat license for a fraction of the cost of separate school purchases.</p> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">Please <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #2679b9; FONT-SIZE: 13px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none" href="mailto:info@voicethread.com?subject=District%20Licensing%20Inquiry&body=Please%20give%20us%20some%20basic%20information%20about%20your%20district%20and%20let%20us%20when%20and%20how%20to%20contact%20you.%0A%0AThanks%2C%0A%0A-The%20VoiceThread%20Team">contact us</a> for written quote or to schedule a phone call/screen sharing session to answer any of your question regarding the district pilot program and the unlimited seat license.</p> <h2 style="TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; MARGIN: 20px 0px 8px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; FONT-STYLE: normal; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 16px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none; TEXT-DECORATION: none" name="6A64C217EA4D6B0B"></a>eRacism Project</h2> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">A recent project born at the <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #2679b9; FONT-SIZE: 13px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none" href="http://voicethread.cmail4.com/t/y/l/uujiju/jyiujhkyj/j">Flat Classroom(tm) Conference</a> in Doha, Qatar by a <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #2679b9; FONT-SIZE: 13px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none" href="http://voicethread.cmail4.com/t/y/l/uujiju/jyiujhkyj/t">visionary group of students</a> and <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #2679b9; FONT-SIZE: 13px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none" href="http://voicethread.cmail4.com/t/y/l/uujiju/jyiujhkyj/i">organizers</a> is an amazing example of k-12 global collaboration. 16 teams from all over the world used VoiceThread to competitively debate asynchronously the statement 'Differences make us stronger'. The engagement and energy of all the participants is clearly palpable. <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #2679b9; FONT-SIZE: 13px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none" href="http://voicethread.cmail4.com/t/y/l/uujiju/jyiujhkyj/d">See and hear one of the recent debates here</a>.</p> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">We're very proud to have helped sponsor this project and plan on continuing that support in the coming year. If you're interested in participating in the next debate series please visit <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: none; COLOR: #2679b9; FONT-SIZE: 13px; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none" href="http://voicethread.cmail4.com/t/y/l/uujiju/jyiujhkyj/h">http://www.eracismproject.org/</a></p> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">Thanks, and best wishes for the coming year,</p> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana', 'Arial'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12px">-The VoiceThread team</p></div>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-43157668199111100192009-11-24T06:26:00.000-08:002009-11-24T07:32:55.775-08:003...2...1...LEGO!<div align="center"><br /></div><div align="left">I spent most of my Saturday up at <a href="http://houghton.edu/">Houghton College</a> for the <a href="http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/fll/missions1.aspx">FLL</a> (First Lego League) Competition. This is put on by our <a href="http://www.caboces.org/">CABOCES</a> <a href="http://www.caboces.org/iss/student">Student Programs</a> and I was asked to be a referee...I know, keep the snickering down. I really enjoyed it (even though I had to bring my own whistle....Crandall!). </div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 258px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 219px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407684935803468258" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUFheE24eVFvd7RP4l5QrO3NXKi4iT6UpMIVpy1ayjMZ8L8qdnGhHq9ZllLo3dAUjIc7UblmftfJjzw5QHtCghVtTLZ5nx2SNw9GdfH0jZbiATOt80S23gjFN8o92j-EnnEH0gyRXELPrF/s200/Lego1.JPG" /> <p align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;">Sorry- cell phone pic</span></p><p align="left">These 5th-8th graders were really getting into it and had some neat ideas to complete the "missions" that they had to choose from. My only exposure to Lego Robotics was what Jessie Perison showed at last summers' <a href="http://hsnfjuly09.pbworks.com/Jessie-Perison">High School New Face</a>. Because of Jessie, I knew about the <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/overview/NXT_Software.aspx">NXT software</a> and how you put the 'block' into your own lego designed machine to make it move. He mentioned the different sensors and all, but it was amazing to see in a competition format.</p><p align="left">The day flew by, and I was amazed at the great sportmanship displayed by everyone. The students are empowered to do all of the talking during the competition. Then, after they complete their mission we explained all of the points they earned(great suggestion from my wonderful partner, Mary Morris). The students listened intently to make sure we all agreed, then they ran off to make changes to their program that would help them earn more points for the next round.</p><p align="left">I can't wait to do it again next year. I wish all of our school luck, and especially to these three moving onto the next round in Rochester, NY on Sunday, December 6th: </p><p align="left"><a href="http://www.fillmorecsd.org/fillmorecsd/site/default.asp">Fillmore</a></p><p align="left"><a href="http://www.randolphcsd.org/senior.cfm?subpage=711">Randolph</a> (led by Jessie Perison)</p><p align="left"><a href="http://www.alli.wnyric.org/Middle%20School/middleschool.htm">Allegany-Limestone</a> </p><p align="left">I truly enjoyed watching these young individuals excited and working together as a team to problem solve and collaborate. It made me wonder about other programs that students could get into and I thought about <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/">Google Sketchup</a> right away. How about students designing 3-D buildings from their area and sending them to <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a>? Could you have a similar <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/">Google Sketchup</a> competition where they design a few buildings, then have a timed competition? <a href="http://www.caboces.org/mst">Dr. Mike Doyle</a> and I talked about this awhile ago when talking about <a href="http://fab.cba.mit.edu/">Fab Labs</a> and the power of <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/">Google Sketchup</a>. Just a thought, I'm sure there are plenty of competitions for <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/">Google Sketchup</a> out there.</p><p align="left">Anyways, great day, I think everyone enjoyed themselves. </p><p align="left">I know I did.</p>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-69594157596211143132009-10-09T18:54:00.000-07:002009-10-09T19:04:48.322-07:00First trial with Google WaveOK, now that the black banner is gone, I can actually use <a href="http://wave.google.com">Google Wave</a> (if I can find someone with an account!). I had one wave with <a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/jenwagner">@</a><a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/jenwagner">je</a><a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/jenwagner">nwagner</a> and it was tough for me to keep up. There were only 2 of us! Maybe I'm getting old. I did go to bed at 8:30 last night.<img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/JENCAR%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg" alt="" /><br />It will take quite a bit for me to get used to. Plus, I think we both noticed a lag on our computers when we tried to go to email and on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>.<br />I did think about kids, though, and for them it would be engaging as things change instantly.<br />It will take some getting used to for me, but I like it and am excited to have a chance to get in and kick the tires a little.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://wave.google.com/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 185px; height: 162px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbInETUdgigICHewrQEfLsfjU0SLFNRoyVJykYfssZkAFL93XxsLKNpVhKLZttZFcFn2sku0DzwxV8OrUW1KpBsZx_l44INOHBEqy2dRt3DfY4M5BwnQcOqhQyAEaU2qCR8m-6S33WwGpp/s320/Google+Wave.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390784479992752418" border="0" /></a>Anyways, I added <span style="font-weight: bold;">blog-wave@appspot.com</span> as a Contact in <a target="_blank" href="https://wave.google.com/">Google Wave</a> and want to see if I can post this to my blog. <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">Well, the first thing I learned is that </span></span><span style="border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(255, 0, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Bloggy</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> isn't working, so I couldn't post this to my blog from Google Wave. We had to go to Cut and Paste!</span><br /></span></span><br />I also added Tweety (I remember thinking they were going to call it Twave), but can't seem to refresh and get live updates. I did post a tweet from it to <a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> however. To add Tweety, add <span style="border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">tweety</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">-wave@appspot.com</span> to your Contacts.<p>Of course, I found all of this on the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/wave/">Google Wave Forum</a> and in particular, at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/wave/thread?tid=29c89bd09a12cd99&hl=en">this thread.</a></p><p>We'll see where this leads, as I build up contacts (hopefully, some of my invites will go through) it will be interesting. It seems pretty confusing right now and I know I'm only scratching the surface, but in a year, could it be second nature?</p><p>We'll see.</p>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-90750650156253262902009-10-02T05:43:00.000-07:002009-10-02T06:16:55.880-07:00Google Wave e-mail Invite? Or was it?I was incredibly excited to see an e-mail invite from <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">wave-noreply</span></span> yesterday.<br />I was out in a district, and I didn't open it up until the end of the day because I had tons of work that had to get done.<br />I didn't think I'd get one, and also thought it was a little odd that it was sent on <span style="font-weight: bold;">Oct. 1st at 12:07am</span> and not on Sept. 30th, but I thought, "maybe someone from Twitter invited me in".<br />Who cares, I got an invite!<br /><br />My e-mail looked official:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fpGyTpvnKD84N9OGHMkojMCjbkBHQop261maV2vNnnS5wU9puh6zwK2Yn_JSKp0uNKN85wSs0K4RBKB85gh6aZybSXtrV7PcQRN4U6s9nu3UiLxxj8wfu3l1l3rI0cAwjJXn8xjkh50Q/s1600-h/Google+Wave+e-mail+invite.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 415px; height: 336px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fpGyTpvnKD84N9OGHMkojMCjbkBHQop261maV2vNnnS5wU9puh6zwK2Yn_JSKp0uNKN85wSs0K4RBKB85gh6aZybSXtrV7PcQRN4U6s9nu3UiLxxj8wfu3l1l3rI0cAwjJXn8xjkh50Q/s320/Google+Wave+e-mail+invite.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387982884165485970" border="0" /></a><br />I clicked on the link, but it wanted me to add the <a href="http://www.google.com/chrome/index.html?hl=en&brand=CHMA&utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-bk&utm_medium=ha">Google Chrome</a> browser plug-in.<br />I did go and check and this seemed to be legit, so I did download it (Might've been my mistake right there!)<br />Then, when it was done and I got in, all I saw was this:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhccjfHDg9LLp3q9VY4q3iNUOs_dcEWcXRUAekX0uR7QTSVIfueJE1goYwBu5ZtJ7CwnUHebE04WKLg65hZts-AvzsiTHJAIGwBm6NCgMHC_5OTji8Fd_NgarmUram8pLWAR3_YhwbIMR6/s1600-h/Google+Wave+Error.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhccjfHDg9LLp3q9VY4q3iNUOs_dcEWcXRUAekX0uR7QTSVIfueJE1goYwBu5ZtJ7CwnUHebE04WKLg65hZts-AvzsiTHJAIGwBm6NCgMHC_5OTji8Fd_NgarmUram8pLWAR3_YhwbIMR6/s400/Google+Wave+Error.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387983529626745250" border="0" /></a>A tad bit frustrating, if you can't read the top black banner it says:<br />"Everything's shiny, Cap'n. Not to fret!" Unfortunately, you'll need to <i>refresh</i>.<br />Wanna tell Dr. Wave what happened?<br />With a submit box to go to "Dr. Wave". <br />Now, I felt like I got scammed and began thinking why did I use IE!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Then, I thought, why not try </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/">Firefox</a><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >? NOPE. Same thing.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >I went to refresh the page....for a second, it looks good.....then same black banner.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Try it on another computer - same thing.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Download </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.google.com/chrome">Google Chrome</a><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >! YES, that has to work! NOPE.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Try it on a Mac with </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.apple.com/safari/">Safari</a><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" > - No.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >At home, on another computer - No.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" ></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-family:trebuchet ms;" >I came back to work today, maybe? Maybe? NO.</span><br /><br />If I go to My Account in Google, I see Wave listed under My Products.<br /><br />I've posted to the <a href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/wave/thread?tid=33d877e3f591cadc&hl=en">Google Wave Forum</a> and wasted a night trying to figure this out.<br /><br />Did I do something wrong? Maybe it was the Google Chrome plugin?<br />Let's just say it's been a frustrating day.<br />Then again, I'm frustrated over a Beta product that's free.<br /><br />Maybe it's trying to tell me that I have too many other things going on? I would like to try it out this weekend, though. Can anyone help?Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-9854967443572952852009-08-06T08:15:00.000-07:002009-08-06T09:26:15.849-07:00Promethean Focus GroupI've been asked to help an area district next year with their <a href="http://pcspromethean.wikispaces.com/">Promethean Focus Group</a> of teachers. There will be 20 teachers that will be getting a <a href="http://www.prometheanworld.com/server.php?show=nav.15">Promethean Board</a>, and they'll have access to the <a href="http://www.prometheanworld.com/server.php?show=nav.16">ActivVote & ActivExpression</a> voting devices, as well as <a href="http://www.prometheanworld.com/server.php?show=nav.19099">ActiViews</a> for the Science teachers- sometime down the road.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypEj_LQ7gj-TYTP_JzlGaQr8V16aHr8_WNngpiR_Ot1tgPXsJrl0ANwJqmyIJpfRWBnhd0ZTKahwophkCe71DHDfMQ-e2dXAAHSCxXLjnY3Q3GaKgnuO56eX49dP0GnnmGxU1f4kCJ86O/s1600-h/ActivBoard+2.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 169px; display: block; height: 184px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366876037688350738" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypEj_LQ7gj-TYTP_JzlGaQr8V16aHr8_WNngpiR_Ot1tgPXsJrl0ANwJqmyIJpfRWBnhd0ZTKahwophkCe71DHDfMQ-e2dXAAHSCxXLjnY3Q3GaKgnuO56eX49dP0GnnmGxU1f4kCJ86O/s200/ActivBoard+2.png" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Photo taken from <a href="http://www.prometheanworld.com/server.php?show=nav.15">Promethean World</a> and taken using <a href="http://jingproject.com/">Jing</a></span><br /></div><br /><br />My goal from the Superintendent is to lead them through this year with two summer kickoff dates (<a href="http://pcspromethean.wikispaces.com/">Aug. 12-13th</a>) and then follow up sessions about every six weeks. The only stipulations he put on me was that I need to show them sound educational usages for these Boards, and that this style of group needs to be reproducible for next year <span style="font-style: italic;">(for a new group of teachers)</span>.<br />Initially, I thought to start up a <a href="http://ning.com/">Ning</a> group, so I created one to use. Then, I thought since <a href="http://caboces.org/">CA BOCES</a> hosts <a href="http://moodle.org/">Moodle</a> for all of our teachers, couldn't I help promote that more?<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:100%;" >Wait, just keep it simple.</span><br /><br />I don't know how much technology these teacher really use in their classes already.<br />Keep it simple.<br />I'll do my best to help them learn the <a href="http://www.prometheanplanet.com/server.php?show=nav.17012">ActivInspire</a> software and give them time to find resources that they can use on <a href="http://prometheanplanet.com/">Promethean Planet</a> or other sites online.<br />I'll use <a href="http://pcspromethean.wikispaces.com/">this Wikispace</a> to put up an agenda and to give them a chance to not only get information, but to add content to as well.<br /><br />The great Tech guy there walked me through the training rooms and showed me where some of the teacher rooms are in the building <em>(these will be for breakout sessions since we'll all be in a lab w/ one </em><a href="http://www.prometheanworld.com/server.php?show=nav.15"><em>ActivBoard</em></a>). We talked about making sure we were on the same page with what the district's capabilities are, and also checked some of the sites their teachers have access to.<br />For instance, <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a> and <a href="http://bcs.caboces.org/pcspromethean/">Adobe Connect</a>.<br />I'm actually hoping to have someone come in on the 2nd day to talk a little about how they use <a href="http://www.prometheanworld.com/">Promethean</a> through <a href="http://bcs.caboces.org/pcspromethean/">Adobe Connect</a> (we'll see).<br /><br />I'm looking for any other suggestions to show the<br />"<span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">Power of the Promethean Interactive Whiteboard</span>"!<br /><br />I've heard all summer about how IWB's just make the teacher more of the focus, but my hope is that it can make classes more student-centered? I hope to have students create their own content for a lesson (maybe upload it into their own wiki) and share that with the others in the class, maybe even around the world. Is that asking too much?<br />Maybe we'll get to Global Collaborations after school starts!?!?<br /><br />Baby steps to start out.<br /><br /><br />I'm already asked for plenty of help, especially on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> and have gotten advice from <a href="http://twitter.com/budtheteacher">@budtheteacher</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/activeducator">@activeducator</a> ,<a href="http://twitter.com/activtweets">http://twitter.com/activtweets</a> and a host of others.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">What do you think?</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTykdP-pHgDZBGhdPUPWjWMxPTz6izFWRwPK0b8rNNBOscHZ5WysYrsI27pUME9-YRIS4PHy13n1BN0w061XyxSSNEFAREMYDJxJibXnujsffOoQq651i1X-xkyHzksyl7PYBveuU5ojPr/s1600-h/Promethean+Flame.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 200px; display: block; height: 77px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366876394663490978" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTykdP-pHgDZBGhdPUPWjWMxPTz6izFWRwPK0b8rNNBOscHZ5WysYrsI27pUME9-YRIS4PHy13n1BN0w061XyxSSNEFAREMYDJxJibXnujsffOoQq651i1X-xkyHzksyl7PYBveuU5ojPr/s200/Promethean+Flame.png" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Photo taken from <a href="http://www.prometheanworld.com/server.php?show=nav.15">Promethean World</a> and taken using <a href="http://jingproject.com/">Jing</a></span></div>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-40228346387545430812009-07-01T18:16:00.000-07:002009-07-01T20:00:07.961-07:00Initial Thoughts about NECC2009<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/2009/"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 281px; height: 129px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpaQwgRVtI2KKACmOs3ZNJukO_iEdgClu-VXNBOH4541BJ-F3A6OYsEB8ySRuiO3AKSICsIOD52k4AF2NksT7rtwpONpXJ8NwFVz7o6rnzZJ3r5GpAuj1hsj58sxOhaPeieFCbz00s3as6/s200/NECC2009.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353687322432863682" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br />Before I went to <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/">NECC</a> this year in <a href="http://www.dcconvention.com/">Washington, DC</a>, I heard that they would be changing the Conference name to <a href="http://www.iste.org/">ISTE</a>. If you don't know, <a href="http://www.iste.org/">ISTE</a> is the organization that runs the conference. OK, big deal, who cares? What I cared about was getting to <a href="http://www.dcconvention.com/">DC</a>!<br />This trip was packed with info, from poster sessions, to the workshops and a variety of other learning opportunities. The most important thing to me, though, was meeting up with people that are in my Personal/Professional Learning Network. Mostly, those are people that I follow on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>.<br />The week started out by meeting <a href="http://twitter.com/teryl_magee">Teryl Magee</a> on Sunday at the <a href="http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/06/30/video-necc-2009-bloggers-cafe/">Blogger's Cafe'</a>, and ended Wednesday night by FINALLY meeting up with <a href="http://twitter.com/kellyhines">Kelly Hines</a>.<br />In between these two fine ladies were many others that I've been following, not just on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, but on <a href="http://plurk.com/">Plurk</a>, some live streams, and in <a href="http://www.ning.com/">Ning</a> groups. I was surprised how many people came up to introduce themself to me! I think it was a compliment, but quite a few remembered me by my little <a href="http://twitter.com/mcarls">Twitter avatar</a>.<br /><br />The part of this conference that surprised me the most, however, was not the passionate debate with <a href="http://www.istevision.org/watch.php?vid=d50b09b05790f24ee5dcfcb2d98a51b5ee98f902">Gary Stager</a> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">(I still need to go back and listen to that - I couldn't keep up!)</span>, nor was it one particular session, it was meeting <a href="http://www.blogger.com/Users/aaronwolfe/Pictures/Lois%20Smethurst.png">Lois <span class="fn">Smethurst</span></a>.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twitter.com/loisath"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 148px; height: 159px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq0g2QLH7FwIg5Be-AN9F7RwZqPzQbdSAsELOPVNc2yDWrDJzzpLs3HsxjUtyExAFZ0VeQX-FQPS85hVSOPYE1TdwhMf6zsj89ZiSrumqdQlcCBvpstPYa1JKPaJpVtses35SVfaD-EI5x/s200/Lois+Smethurst.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353683416919803170" border="0" /></a><br />Who's <a href="http://www.blogger.com/Users/aaronwolfe/Pictures/Lois%20Smethurst.png">Lois Smethurst</a>?<br />Well, to be honest, I forgot her name as well <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">(</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">I know, big shocker there</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">)</span>. <br />After <a href="http://www.istevision.org/watch.php?vid=518605cf6c08c98cca3e3bf6812dcb9860f7dd3c">Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach & Will Richardson's</a> session, Lois came up to introduce herself. I shoke her hand, at first thinking that she had me confused with someone else. She thanked me for the <a href="http://voicethread.ning.com/">Voicethread Ning group</a> that I started. Then, she explained that she was the one who shared the <a href="http://berwicklodgeps.globalstudent.org.au/2009/05/29/stellaluna-by-4s/">Reader's Theatre Voicethread!</a><br />I've posted this Voicethread a few times because I like how her students used Voicethread to tell the story of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stellaluna-Janell-Cannon/dp/0152802177/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1">Stellaluna</a>" by <a href="http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Janell+Cannon&source=an&ei=1BdMSpDxKaOvtwe9_sy2AQ&sa=X&oi=book_group&ct=title&cad=author-navigational&resnum=8">Janell Cannon</a>. This sharing of ideas is exactly what <a href="http://twitter.com/ccassinelli">Colette Cassinelli</a> and I were talking about at the <a href="http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/06/30/video-necc-2009-bloggers-cafe/">Blogger's Cafe'</a> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">(another person I was very excited to meet)</span>. Being able to see and hear what other teachers are doing in their classroom is exactly what I was hoping when I started that <a href="http://voicethread.ning.com/">Ning group</a>.<br />I now also follow Lois on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, and hope to share projects and other ideas with her, like she did with us.<br />Oh yeah, did I mention I asked her why she had a Koala on her lanyard?<br />She was from <a href="http://www.australia.com/index.aspx">Australia</a>, shouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to figure that one out!<br />As a matter of fact, I met quite a few people from <a href="http://www.australia.com/index.aspx">Australia</a>, some from <a href="http://canada.gc.ca/home.html">Canada</a>, even some guy from <a href="http://twitter.com/jutecht">Thailand</a>!<br /><br />I guess it never really put much thought into it before. This shouldn't be called NECC, this isn't a National Conference, this is an International Conference! It should be <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/2010/">ISTE</a>, that makes perfect sense, at least to me.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/2010/"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 149px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmZ-REAUYLYJTEjKxNswHBANXZx-CW_GaOChXUZT7DzQ20FeDGC-vskpuxdoPnIjSQdts0sjlGEnDkH-pNke8P_v-K5KkNxBaWht-bL45_KEUO5iBXXwS9KsK6BbhXuiJeWYBHsSNDnHOQ/s200/ISTE2010.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353683085834840322" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></div>Now I need to digest all the rest from these past few days.<br /><br />Thanks to everyone who helped make this a great Conference, hopefully, I'll see all of you and more in <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/2010/">Denver</a>!Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-90851363737652905682009-06-24T19:43:00.000-07:002009-06-24T21:08:35.688-07:00Four more peeps<span style=";font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Disclaim</span></span><span style=";font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">er: This is the fourth part of my five part series leading up to NECC about who I'm hoping to meet. I apologize for those I left out and for any mistakes I make (please leave a comment to correct me).</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thursday: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach & Will Richardson,<br />The Jon Becker and Bud the Teacher</span></span><br /><br /></div>Trying to fit in a few people here so I chose two people I’ve met and two I haven’t met yet.<br />The main people who have helped me in my job are my colleagues: <a href="http://twitter.com/tclarkeee">Tim Clarke</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/rickweinberg">Rick Weinberg</a>, as well as my <a href="http://www.caboces.org/page.asp?ParentSectionId=20&PageID=49&SectionID=27&NodeId=S27">BOCES ISS team</a>. However, the two people who helped jump start my learning into hyperdrive were: <a href="http://twitter.com/snbeach">Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/willrich45">Will Richardson</a>.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twitter.com/snbeach"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 97px; height: 72px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAxIDsKpBfcslXB6qP_5PpS9ahH2SpVHpyriyzBlta29DXQkO9g162ttSAzDSFyoNw4GSBxiPHhVC59YXZRjBQ8XFx6yhBARNb0SnWr9f3DLWbfoOMLyZSRD0_T5t3gXVHHsrFYh4t97dl/s200/Sheryl+Nussbaum-Beach.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351095721414432050" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twitter.com/willrich45"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 79px; height: 77px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHyIFgb7y7xqdEiAOEY4M-J5qUe_FMhGH7zKxnueLa7dbS8hyphenhyphenlXXg_cd4gK7_NFdhEvNbx0r4bCFEpUzIqafr7gD9_Ie_znTiBA3Ri3CXs38H6T5CsnkmDvZ-Y6ZpFr9V4dv5lqR37rE8l/s200/Will+Richardson+baseball.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351095793606234658" border="0" /></a><br /></div>I’m sure everyone out there knows about both of these National presenters, so I’ll give a brief overview:<br /><a href="http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/">Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach</a> bio from here <a href="http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/about.html">blog</a>- Doctoral candidate, President of <a href="http://21stcenturycollaborative.com/">21st Century Collaborative, LLC</a> (21stcenturycollaborative.com) and Co-founder of <a href="http://plpnetwork.com/">Powerful Learning Practice, LLC</a> (plpnetwork.com) with Will Richardson, and I'll throw in her incredible wiki full of resources in here as well: <a href="http://21stcenturylearning.wikispaces.com/">21st Century Learning</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://weblogg-ed.com/">Will Richardson</a> bio from his <a href="http://weblogg-ed.com/about/">blog</a>- “Learner in Chief” at <a href="http://www.connectivelearning.com/flash/flash.html">Connective Learning </a>and the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1412959721?tag=weblogged-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1412959721&adid=10NZ1MHW441ZEVX131PE&">Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms</a> now in its 2nd Edition. Will is also a national advisory board member for the <a href="http://www.glef.org/">George Lucas Education Foundation</a>, he writes a quarterly column called “Web 2.0″ for <a href="http://www.districtadministration.com/" target="_blank">District Administration magazine</a>, and he's a regular contributor to journals such as <a href="http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership.aspx">Educational Leadership</a>, <a href="http://www.edutopia.org/">Edutopia</a>, <a href="http://www.ncte.org/">English Journal </a>and others.<br />Now, some of what they've done for me. My first month on my new job with <a href="http://www.caboces.org/Default.asp">CA BOCES</a> I started the <a href="https://wny-plp.wikispaces.com/">WNY-PLP</a> group. This introduced me to powerful education leaders in our area, classroom uses for wikis, this <a href="http://ning.com/">Ning</a> thing (I now belong to 33 groups) and also how to conduct live <a href="http://elluminate.com/">Elluminate</a> sessions. This is the wiki that we worked in for the <a href="https://wny-plp.wikispaces.com/">WNY-PLP group</a>, the Ning group is private so I can’t share it. However, we had a great culminating event and my team put together a nice little <a href="http://voicethread.com/#u21833.b133814.i708456">Voicethread</a> with what they did.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ELHSOLFnLmTUM8CH61CmZzNmGRtOsfgo0J9kKqatWqp3WF2Aeg2kHlKqM5r61-ottKDvDdFpFngwBx_Cemdaa1Q3Ru5WGkRbiBr512ezhPvt2_twfr1fKFdF9wURSGazmHYs6Mn1FLpf/s1600-h/PLP+icon.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 404px; height: 66px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ELHSOLFnLmTUM8CH61CmZzNmGRtOsfgo0J9kKqatWqp3WF2Aeg2kHlKqM5r61-ottKDvDdFpFngwBx_Cemdaa1Q3Ru5WGkRbiBr512ezhPvt2_twfr1fKFdF9wURSGazmHYs6Mn1FLpf/s200/PLP+icon.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351098768236028418" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></div>Where would I be without their initial push? Still moving forward, but they have both connected me to not only some great ideas, but also to great Educational leaders on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, through <a href="http://skpe.com/">Skype</a> and <a href="http://elluminate.com/">Elluminate</a>.<br /><br />How about <a href="http://twitter.com/jonbecker">Jon Becker</a>?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twitter.com/jonbecker"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 96px; height: 120px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC_r-PV5OqHeMjOAKcJT8d5CZYP2LC7lB5KrEuSEF911Fjw-DROyJ2wg6IGnSmiknIm-SwblrpE-9lGWlwq4y9C416wsNf-MaqPoZSMDkWWIfezRLr16xKseCd9GZQ42Aey_gp5jR3mzD0/s200/Jon+Becker.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351103728447828114" border="0" /></a><br />My main <a href="http://goduke.com/">Duke</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> fellow! Jon seems to always be on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> when I am. With him you also get a full range of tweets. From deep pedagogical advice and views, to well.... “<a href="http://twitter.com/kellyhines">@kellyhines</a> Chapel Hill. Booooo!!!”<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMGhPPfdbv__GvqY9A8tT1hsTU9wcplwAJaCZBLFUT2EaY4W4hnAv9NsRDYASRj2rwGWj8pLUHOrfbdOQBGJk81yPnTRwSIRSsKTTuzWBSWTfOE4f0FoyK47DBLy_cYiBcMDiVUHrQMvms/s1600-h/JonBeckerTweet.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 277px; height: 43px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMGhPPfdbv__GvqY9A8tT1hsTU9wcplwAJaCZBLFUT2EaY4W4hnAv9NsRDYASRj2rwGWj8pLUHOrfbdOQBGJk81yPnTRwSIRSsKTTuzWBSWTfOE4f0FoyK47DBLy_cYiBcMDiVUHrQMvms/s200/JonBeckerTweet.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351099646009564658" border="0" /></a><br />Gotta love it.<br /><br /></div>Another thing about Mr. Becker is that he replies to almost everyone, even me! <br />Not only has he helped remind me about upcoming Duke Basketball games, but also views from the college level and trust me, he’s not afraid to share his opinion. Here is his <a href="http://edinsanity.com/">blog</a>. <br />Almost forgot his bio from his blog- An assistant professor at the Educational Leadership Department at <a href="http://www.vcu.edu/">Virginia Commonwealth University</a>, he teaches courses in school law and educational research methods.<br /><br />I appreciate all Jon has done from sharing good <a href="http://disney.go.com/cars/">Cars</a> knowledge from his son to his college <a href="http://www.dimdim.com/">DimDim</a> Educational meetings.<br />I just hope he's not that great of a golfer, not only will I meet him Face 2 Face at <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/">NECC</a>, but it looks like he's in the group <a href="http://neccgolfouting09.wikispaces.com/">ahead of me</a>.<br /><br />And my main question for Dr. Becker at VCU and proud Duke graduate….what did you think about <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCphWpDnAcU">2007</a>?<br /><br /><a href="http://twitter.com/budtheteacher"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Bud the Teacher</span></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMVCnYRNDV7JSOwUk2JK7PFlsscv8IHroxQgkWQB1T46BkaZtFebpRuisfgm_0Wwr_4n71LCKCHrvyhW7x0qRygciyxZLh71MI84MnLDbtYKgq2V60FPRFcY32oNo8J1O97oQOarKmIvgO/s1600-h/BudtheTeacher.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 96px; height: 99px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMVCnYRNDV7JSOwUk2JK7PFlsscv8IHroxQgkWQB1T46BkaZtFebpRuisfgm_0Wwr_4n71LCKCHrvyhW7x0qRygciyxZLh71MI84MnLDbtYKgq2V60FPRFcY32oNo8J1O97oQOarKmIvgO/s200/BudtheTeacher.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351104317541466562" border="0" /></a><br />aka: Bud Hunt<br /><br /><a href="http://budtheteacher.com/blog/about/">Bio</a> from <a href="http://budtheteacher.com/blog/">Bud's blog</a>- Bud is an instructional technologist for the <a href="http://www.stvrain.k12.co.us/">St. Vrain Valley School District</a> in northern Colorado. He is a teacher-consultant with the <a href="http://www.colostate.edu/">Colorado State University</a> Writing Project. Bud is a co-founder of Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation and has served as an Online Community Leader for the <a href="http://njplp.wikispaces.com/">New Jersey Cohort of Powerful Learning Practice</a><br />Lately I’ve been watching for Promethean advice and tips on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, however, I've always picked up great ideas from him. I know that he was always involved in <a href="http://k12onlineconference.org/">K12 Online</a> and <a href="http://notk12onlineconference.org/">NotK12 Online</a>. I'm hoping after our trip to <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/">NECC</a> I'll have even more to add here.<br /><br />It's late and you know what, this blogging thing is kind of tough for me. But, I'm glad I'm doing this again. We'll see if I can keep it up.<br /><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">For Friday? I'm going to try to hit a quick intro to a bunch of people in my Learning Network on Twitter.....good night.</span></span>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-37139706178458028972009-06-23T21:35:00.001-07:002009-06-24T08:01:33.923-07:00Chris Lehmann<p align="left"><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">Disclaimer: This is the third in my five part series about people I'm hoping to meet at NECC this year. I apologize for missing people in my PLN and if I have any incorrect information (please feel free to leave a comment and correct).</span></strong></p><div align="center"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Wednesday: Chris Lehman and SLA </span></span></div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"></span></strong><div align="left"><br />This one was an easy one for me to choose. Trying to write this blog post and what I’ve learned from Chris….not so easy.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twitter.com/chrislehmann"><img style="WIDTH: 147px; HEIGHT: 157px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350754492559558226" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16WgohJAeV9QjCUquvLTGh0-hNXoQTImmIDqXkv9pIRXaNQGcAQ-yLPWqVeb7bVsUcaRJMUhvux3b4sbcmDBSQPwsN91y4bq4AsQ6xUicmXsJ08iOr42aYpoNVwlXX7Akfr9VYUb10E8V/s200/Chris+Lehmann.png" /></a><br /><a href="http://twitter.com/chrislehmann">Chris Lehman</a> is the principal of the <a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">Science Leadership Academy</a> (<strong><a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">SLA</a></strong>) in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=Philadelphia,+PA&safe=active&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=tzhCSqA3wYS3B9-rgJcJ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1">Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia</a>. To me, he seems 'Scary Smart'. You can read his bio on the <a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/staff">SLA Faculty page</a>.<br />OK, I admit, I didn’t realize all of the things that they do down there at <a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">SLA</a>, and I still can't wrap my mind around most of them. What I do know is that it must be great! My guess to why we hear so much about <a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">SLA</a> is the positive leadership from the top.<br />This last January I tried to watch the live streams from <a href="http://educon21.wikispaces.com/">Educon 2.1</a> while also finishing up some plumbing in the Carls bathroom. It was amazing the talent they had there.<br />Seriously, look at the sessions in<a href="http://educon21.wikispaces.com/"> here</a>! Wait, I want to make sure you get this:<br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://educon21.wikispaces.com/">EDUCON 2.1</a></span></strong><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#3366ff;">There was the original <a href="http://educon20.wikispaces.com/">Educon</a> wiki to check out as well.</span></em></div><em><span style="color:#3366ff;"></span></em><div align="left"><br />Now, I’m preparing to go to <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/">NECC</a> in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=washington,+dc&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=sLNBSsCsH96wtgf-spGUCQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1">Washington, DC</a> in a few days, but I remember back in January, after watching some of these <a href="http://www.livestream.com/">Mogulus </a>streams I decided I wanted <a href="http://educon22.wikispaces.com/">Educon 2.2</a> to be the National Conference I went to in 2010!<br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><em><span style="color:#ff6600;">Small problem with our travel ban for the next year ….. I’ll have to work that out.<br /></div></span></em><p><br /><br />All right, enough about me. Check out <a href="http://www.practicaltheory.org/serendipity/">Chris’ blog</a>.<br />You can tell right away what a caring leader he is from reading this, and his <a href="http://twitter.com/chrislehmann">tweets on Twitter</a>.<br />I was able to squeeze into his workshop last year at <a href="https://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=42042879&selection_id=42822292&rownumber=1&max=2&gopage=">NECC in San Antonio.</a> At this workshop he talked about creating sound pedagogical practices and shared stories about how creative they've been down at <a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">SLA</a> with his students. It was engaging and you could tell he was passionate about his work there listening to stories like his students waiting on patents to help major companies! (I forgot for what or to check on where this stands) I'm sure there are tons of other great things conquered there this year.<br />The one article I recently read and like to see about Chris and <a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/">SLA</a> was about <a href="http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3751748">Project Based Learning</a>, which I've bookmarked and shared with other colleagues.<br /><br />What about the his<span style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline"> </span><a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/staff">SLA staff</a> on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>. I follow: <a href="http://twitter.com/tbest">Tim Best</a> - Science teacher, <a href="http://twitter.com/ecram3">Marcie Hull</a> - Digital Arts and <a href="http://twitter.com/dlaufenberg">Diane Laufenberg</a> - History. Brief descriptions are giving on the <a href="http://www.scienceleadership.org/drupaled/staff">SLA Faculty and Staff page</a>. Tim, Marcie and Zac Hall are also presenting at <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=43654821&selection_id=47952881&rownumber=12&max=23&gopage=">NECC this year</a>. Unfortunately, at the same time as Chris and a bunch of great people on <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/program/search_results.php?selection_id=47952881&nocache=1245855341">Wednesday July 1st from 10:30 - 11:30am</a>. To me, this seems like the best hour of sessions, I think I'll go to <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=43654821&selection_id=47952881&rownumber=12&max=23&gopage=">this one</a>, though.<br /><br />Who could I compare Chris to? In my life, another principal of a Charter School, <a href="http://www.earlycollegenv.com/">John Hawk</a>. We both went to <a href="http://www.fredonia.edu/">Fredonia State</a>, we both majored in Secondary Ed Math (he talked me into it), however, John was that '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_A_personality">Type A</a>' person and was very driven. He almost had me out in Vegas with him! Between John and his beautiful wife, not only do they run <a href="http://www.earlycollegenv.com/">Nevada State High School</a>, but they always seem to conquering things. Right now, I believe they're looking to open another Charter School in Reno.<br /><br /></p><p align="center"><a href="http://www.earlycollegenv.com/"><img style="WIDTH: 200px; HEIGHT: 58px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350892304975349634" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvZZD1cuhM2VXKu0snKRl7JlUiumLN9ux8MFex877cEMkWWYLYolBElyvswXqxL1zIViEz2jKXp5VV3XAKXmz6UZDmXjDxKAzjJS7lcRDvyR6frPsOcAiwzoAehFSLZtwPTfnbQRyHKyY1/s200/Nevada_State_High_School.png" /></a></p><p><br />My point? Many people are intelligent, however, some can’t carry it forward to others. Incredible ideas bounce around upstairs, but if you're unable to convey those ideas to others, what good is it? That is why I compared Chris to my friend John Hawk. Both are engaging. Both have that other gear <em>(I'm still looking for neutral!)</em> And both find a way to get others inspired and rejuvenated.<br /><br />When I see all that Chris has accomplished <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">(at such a young age)</span>, it inspires me, and I’m sure others as well, to do better. To work harder. To be that positive influence.<br /><br />Thank you.<br /></p><p><span style="font-family:courier new;font-size:130%;"><strong>Next up for Thursday! I need to fit in quite a few....not 100% sure. Could someone also add a few hours to the day so I can get this done?</strong></span></p>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-82724980018984808162009-06-22T22:04:00.000-07:002009-06-23T05:31:19.117-07:00US Invasion<span style="font-weight: bold;">Disclaimer:</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">This is the second in a five part series. I hope to have all the information correct, please help out by leaving (or correcting) information. I know I'll miss some people, but will try to highlight many people in my PLN.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" >Tuesday: US Invasion</span></span><br /></div><br />Originally I thought I'd make this blogpost about some of the Team Canada people that I follow on Twitter. I began thinking, however, that I'm not sure how many will be making the Southern Trek from '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Canada">O Canada'</a> to <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/">NECC</a> in <a href="http://www.washington.org/">Washington, DC.</a> <span style="font-style: italic;">I'm sure there are quite a few I missed, please leave comments and my apologies.<br /><br /></span>After I realized from <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> that <a href="http://twitter.com/jutecht">Jeff Utecht</a> was going to be there, I thought I'd go with these two:<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://twitter.com/shareski">Dean Shareski</a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twitter.com/shareski"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 107px; height: 111px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJBy4jCc6W9SA9K4GJSVcvVooP3J9MKeHUbIFWejVc_ghbncikzMYj0x5PHx6DqjLp_2uG1oV3rPZgqbMmtMOROICxnkJz2kAM5XRzbRX5HyhDqnhJqu9K0nscLx3UnRFpwwiZz-Z2oI9P/s200/Dean+Shareski.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350396836203170818" border="0" /></a> <br /><br />and <a href="http://twitter.com/jutecht">Jeff Utecht</a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQkGergASHj7sKGqdXl60nRiADFMxUmbhEaGEvjPoMe8tWCv55BddRXTxhEpa8J0cK86RzWIoeRsb1XQiccjJgSgtahsvximne_5FG8igRg3bt96z8CwAJbqGUks5npNW3fo96Mc3ygNwx/s1600-h/Jeff+Utecht.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 113px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQkGergASHj7sKGqdXl60nRiADFMxUmbhEaGEvjPoMe8tWCv55BddRXTxhEpa8J0cK86RzWIoeRsb1XQiccjJgSgtahsvximne_5FG8igRg3bt96z8CwAJbqGUks5npNW3fo96Mc3ygNwx/s200/Jeff+Utecht.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350397277094193890" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" ><span style="font-family:times new roman;">These screen captures were done with </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://jingproject.com/">Jing</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> and the images came from Dean and Jeff's </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> avatar as of June 22nd, 2009</span></span><br /></div><br /><a href="http://ideasandthoughts.org/">Dean Shareski</a> is a Digital Learning Consultant with the <a href="http://www.prairiesouth.ca/">Prairie South School Division</a> in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=moose+jaw+saskatchewan&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=GHJAStTTAo2_twfMo8SoAQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1">Moose Jaw, SK, Canada</a> and also a sessional lecturer for the <a href="http://www.uregina.ca/">University of Regina</a> according to his <a href="http://ideasandthoughts.org/about/">blog</a>.<br />Not only have I been able to see his <a href="http://qik.com/shareski">Qik</a> video updates, but I've also watched a few of his workshops and student presentations on <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shareski-tv">Ustream</a>!<br />I did meet Dean at last year’s <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/search_results.php?cx=000853825739293215263%3A3srg_wai3q0&cof=FORID%3A11&q=edublogger+cafe&sa=Search#227">NECC</a> in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=San+Antonio&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=eXpASufUEsrBtwe4_Y2hAQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1">San Antonio</a>. I was walking away from <a href="http://twitter.com/lkolb">Liz Kolb</a>’s <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=42005677&selection_id=47811471&rownumber=15&max=52&gopage=">cellphone presentation</a> because there was such a line, but he convinced <a href="http://twitter.com/rickweinberg">Rick Weinberg</a> and myself that it would be worth the wait. Rick and I turned around and we took front row seats <span style="font-style: italic;">(on the floor), </span>and Dean was right, it was worth the wait. Liz gave us quite a bit of great information to use cellphones in the classroom and I know Rick has done quite a bit in our area since this presentation including his <a href="http://rickweinberg.wikispaces.com/">NYSCATE presentation</a> in November <span style="font-style: italic;">(with some technical difficulties!)</span><br />I also remember talking to him briefly when he was carrying the head of <a href="http://twitter.com/dkuropatwa">Darren Kuropatwa</a> to their dinner table! We were out for a stroll on the <a href="http://www.thesanantonioriverwalk.com/">River Walk</a> and Dean was meeting with <a href="http://twitter.com/snbeach">Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/wfryer">Wes Fryer</a> about the <a href="http://k12onlineconference.org/">K12Online Conference</a>. Darren was calling in via <a href="http://skype.com/">Skype</a>. You can read about it on Sheryl’s blog post about their <a href="http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/the-coolest-par.html">K12 meeting</a>.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/the-coolest-par.html"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 117px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2zOwpQ5vkX7ghgqJlVyn9K2nr70RJ4No3ZYBWLqbqdmwDXSz5DJx869tVYv0TwJ7k_e9cqr10orc1ZdnA_3w9iBGJvSxoYruYYZq4scTRPrwsGCAuoPhzfGlwSzi_Xu5IwIw5T5Uysfdz/s200/K12+meeting+via+Skype.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350420981927541874" border="0" /></a><br /></div>I don't think he's going to make it, but anther member of the <a href="http://edtechposse.ca/">EdTech Posse</a> with Dean is <a href="http://twitter.com/courosa">Dr. Alec Couros</a>. I’ve wanted to meet Alec not just for Courosa radio, but for all he's shared the last two years on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>. Like Dean he shares many <a href="http://ustream.tv/">Ustream</a> workshop videos and lately I've caught some of his <a href="http://qik.com/shareski">Qik</a> live streaming video as well <span style="font-style: italic;">(Maybe even a dance recital or two)</span>. Alec is a professor of educational technology and media at the <a href="http://www.uregina.ca/">University of Regina</a> and talks a great deal of creating <a href="http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/">Open Classrooms</a> and <a href="http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/1611">"Harnessing the Power of Social Networking"</a>.<br />I try to catch as many of their workshops when streamed online as I can, or the occasional <a href="http://tinychat.com/">Tiny Chat</a>! The last workshop I saw was with both of them at the <a href="http://moodle.tcea.org/area7conference/">TCEA Conference</a> in Texas. Dean just blogged about <a href="http://ideasandthoughts.org/2009/06/22/2-guys-from-saskatchewan-rethinking-teacher-education/">here</a>.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYeFM7Vzhu5tjKoab93XnDIg-ItI8cf5eWDRy4dYMNFg2XYqo52F9n0R6kcVWfHMrgQG8P2ezD9mDkOBZKDd6380ROmNdkAHfrhWC5T0AibXmFfyaQBYC3CRyyPX_NNJTR12neEmmev8uR/s1600-h/Dean+and+Alec.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 108px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYeFM7Vzhu5tjKoab93XnDIg-ItI8cf5eWDRy4dYMNFg2XYqo52F9n0R6kcVWfHMrgQG8P2ezD9mDkOBZKDd6380ROmNdkAHfrhWC5T0AibXmFfyaQBYC3CRyyPX_NNJTR12neEmmev8uR/s200/Dean+and+Alec.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350419035218368066" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:78%;" >This screen capture was done with </span><span style="font-size:78%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://jingproject.com/">Jing</a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:78%;" > and taken from: http://moodle.tcea.org/area7conference/<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /></span></span></span></div>There are at least two other members of the <a href="http://edtechposse.ca/">EdTech Posse</a>: <a href="http://twitter.com/robwall">Rob Wall</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/schwier">Rick Schweir</a> (there are probably others). I'm not so sure if they're coming to <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/">NECC</a> this year, but if so, I'd love to meet them as well.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >OK, I've never had that much to say about Canada, eh?</span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Next on Deck:</span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://wiki.thethinkingstick.com/"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 90px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFcf-Bo23xGl3IDyR8HJSCBjQRbtsyvFi9ADODLYGP8RJs17Sem2vgh1LuDJmDq8Y_bykbfczjG9hRSYmzOyDnyI3nGNxKGl2rplfMtdzwq38GZGZlM0VpjJfYi7n1z0GOcyx0MMDK0ZrI/s200/Jeff+Utech+in+Bangkok.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350420065008923298" border="0" /></a><br /></div></div><a href="http://www.jeffutecht.com/">Jeff Utecht</a> lives in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=bangkok&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=7HxAStiyD46xtwe5w-imAQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1">Bangkok, Thailand</a> and he is currently the Technology and Learning Coordinator for the <a class="external" href="http://www.isb.ac.th/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">International School of Bangkok</a>. I also know that he manages the <a href="http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/page/Jeff+Utecht">Wikis in Education Wiki</a> for <a href="http://www.wetpaint.com/">Wetpaint</a>. My problem is that <a href="http://www.wetpaint.com/">Wetpaint</a> is blocked by most of our districts!<br />I also know that Jeff is a baseball fan and a big Mariners fan from what I can gather from his tweets. I'm hoping he can join us at our <a href="http://necc09baseballgame.wikispaces.com/">NECC baseball</a> trip that <a href="http://twitter.com/paulrwood">Paul R Wood</a> is organizing. His blog <a href="http://www.thethinkingstick.com/">The Thinking Stick</a> was one of the first blogs that I became interested in. A little humor, some great tips and useful websites to use with teachers seemed to fill his pages.<br /><br />I believe <a href="http://21stcenturylearning.wikispaces.com/">Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach</a> showed me Jeff on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>. Just by responding to an occasional tweet or gathering ideas from his blog, I think Jeff helped me realize how small the world really is with technology nowadays. It is neat to hear from Jeff or <a href="http://mscofino.edublogs.org/">Kim Cofino</a> (<a href="http://twitter.com/mscofino">@mscofino</a>) when they are just waking up and are getting ready to start the day, while I’m getting ready to hit the sack.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Next up for Wednesday: Looking for a good Cheese Steak and a good education? You know where to go....</span></span>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-83043645505707140682009-06-22T02:52:00.000-07:002009-06-22T21:55:00.691-07:00Deep in the heart of Texas<span style="font-weight: bold;">Disclaimer: This will be the first in a five part series. I hope to have all the information correct, please help out by leaving (or correcting) information. I know I'll miss some people, but will try to highlight many people in my PLN.<br /><span style="font-size:180%;">Monday: Deep in the heart of Texas</span></span><br />I thought I’d start off the week with my golf foursome!<br />First of all, I owe them, they have NO IDEA what they’re in for on Monday! Thank goodness I’ll get a round in this Thursday with friends, because the other 2 times I’ve played this year have been ugly!<br /><a href="http://twitter.com/paulrwood">Paul R. Wood</a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5ugTSYMbZKdF238GtDv9db_1iVkeLoyIhqjDh353XmTp1bbaCnD03oM6S__duKHW9uUVRnxnnvCtJPAoLrTn5RAoBl18MGs3NJ5zw34NOW0RedGT7WPonzKdQDnJCcvmaIF6giBgrKPBF/s1600-h/PaulRWood.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 114px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5ugTSYMbZKdF238GtDv9db_1iVkeLoyIhqjDh353XmTp1bbaCnD03oM6S__duKHW9uUVRnxnnvCtJPAoLrTn5RAoBl18MGs3NJ5zw34NOW0RedGT7WPonzKdQDnJCcvmaIF6giBgrKPBF/s200/PaulRWood.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350128719668612498" border="0" /></a><br />Let's begin with <a href="http://twitter.com/paulrwood">@paulrwood</a>. I think I started following him after some tweets by <a href="http://twitter.com/briancsmith">Brian Smith</a>. The proud Texan has been a very valuable part of my network since I started on Twitter. I saw Paul last year in <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/">San Antonio</a>, but never introduced myself to him. Paul is the <span class="bio">Director of Tech at <a href="http://www.bdhs.org/">Bishup Dunne High School</a> in Texas</span>.<br />When I first started playing with <a href="http://ustream.tv/">Ustream</a>, I streamed Christmas morning (2007) and Paul was one of the visitors (my parents couldn’t believe someone from Texas took time out to watch the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcarls/3619817980/">Carls Grandkids</a>!). Since then, he’s added a great deal to my learning and probably the main person I’d like to meet face-to-face this year. I also hear he’s an amazing golfer!<br /><br /><a href="http://twitter.com/woscholar">Scott S. Floyd</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/clvoigt">Christine Voigt</a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq339siiXK59J0CDJlkQHD4HDz8XJdnEWlO45IwHYxZVgd1TiW7XZ0bvdMrWm5g1bXK8GNPqdrVX6vynPbdRQ1x6YMFhwWp5_XscZ5dF3k607m16_3Z3ayJbD9uWLI3OHf2NZ-5SYTBYmH/s1600-h/WOScholar.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 129px; height: 117px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq339siiXK59J0CDJlkQHD4HDz8XJdnEWlO45IwHYxZVgd1TiW7XZ0bvdMrWm5g1bXK8GNPqdrVX6vynPbdRQ1x6YMFhwWp5_XscZ5dF3k607m16_3Z3ayJbD9uWLI3OHf2NZ-5SYTBYmH/s200/WOScholar.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350130080609977842" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimZXcy8u6G7LPzPxfQLKfiPh_RMB0BiMBGXZ_OG6x6GD82BSdk22wMKG6YAtmFS0EMZ2buAef8SdGVokGodxm0-8hBkKXiYbuszvf8DNyZns7LHuiAqaeAkZceF1-9_VvtC0qvcdQS36f6/s1600-h/Christine+Voigt.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 118px; height: 124px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimZXcy8u6G7LPzPxfQLKfiPh_RMB0BiMBGXZ_OG6x6GD82BSdk22wMKG6YAtmFS0EMZ2buAef8SdGVokGodxm0-8hBkKXiYbuszvf8DNyZns7LHuiAqaeAkZceF1-9_VvtC0qvcdQS36f6/s200/Christine+Voigt.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350130586577985138" border="0" /></a><br /></div><a href="http://twitter.com/woscholar">@WOScholar</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/clvoigt">@clvoigt</a> have both been great resources and I was able to connect to them through Paul’s influence on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>. Just two weeks ago I was able to watch the Area 7 <a href="http://moodle.tcea.org/area7conference/">TCEA Conference</a> to be held in White Oak ISD put on by Scott and his crew at White Oak. Christine is the Instructional Tech Specialist at <a href="http://www.bdhs.org/">Bishup Dunne High School</a> and has been another great addition.<br />And I must admit, I’m shaking that this crew will beat me in golf…..I’ve packed the foot wedge.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii2Uk00do2Aeoj_8d0rUe6nm1Lb7HasBUHYKK8P73_6O6DWD9EMSdVr9u1WMiSIByhByAXgN37tH5oWgGAtGXOd9Dn1eZMld3RRZHdfNH1-HbCAUUclyShdTRWJjoWb3GNySuhIQ7_wx6G/s1600-h/@paulrwood"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii2Uk00do2Aeoj_8d0rUe6nm1Lb7HasBUHYKK8P73_6O6DWD9EMSdVr9u1WMiSIByhByAXgN37tH5oWgGAtGXOd9Dn1eZMld3RRZHdfNH1-HbCAUUclyShdTRWJjoWb3GNySuhIQ7_wx6G/s200/@paulrwood" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350131898288016194" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Photo courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a>: http://www.flickr.com/photos/courosa/3626583372/<br /></span></div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Next up for Tuesday:</span> Looking for others outside the country, eh?Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-12215709699225969932009-06-21T18:29:00.000-07:002009-06-21T19:31:47.147-07:00What do you want to get out of NECC 2009?I was thinking of this about a month ago, but never put aside the time to start these blog posts.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" >"What do I want to get out of <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/">NECC 2009</a>?"</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 123px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2dNyujQk3jjRR0D71ENswcGxRlgDjIiIMMJSUH4cQZU-O000hDu6fEoFDUcQ3GS0O0kVCBd-c6dhPUL7b387jxFle-DXSANTQxc9n5X8pV_268xQ2xpBODaspI6Zq-9HsBATR8cm6ahNX/s320/NECC2009.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349963757779558226" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Screen capture using <a href="http://jingproject.com/">JingProject</a> from: http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/</span><br /><br /></div>After being quite overwhelmed last year in <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/">San Antonio</a> (I made it to quite a few workshops, but stayed pretty quiet) I'm hoping to meet more of my network. Even though I visited the Edublogger Cafe, I didn't introduce myself to many of the people I knew on Twitter and/or Plurk.<br /><br />This year, my main goal is to make face-to-face connections with people that I communicate with on an almost daily basis. Hopefully, that will happen and I can thank all of them for their help, and the support they've given me this last year.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"> ** However, all I've really planned (so far) are the golf and baseball outings**<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold;">By the way, I can't wait to see <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/bal/ballpark/index.jsp">Camden Yards</a>!</span></span><br /></div><br />I'd like to know what others are looking forward to at <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/">NECC</a> this year?<br />Is it to meet specific people? Seeing a certain speaker? Maybe it's the <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-style: italic;">Vendors</span>!<br /><br />My plan is to try and blog the next 5 days about the people I'm hoping to meet this year. This could be difficult for me, since I've really let this blog sit over these last few months. Shhhhhh.<br /><br />First up for Monday, here's a small hint.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/010481.html"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 151px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCq4q9eB64DE1DhNxgavJZkzhiV14nKayz8ei-nfGBVwzXTixy0pEITuyC3ZdshBO4ov1KVekvLrSK_ULo31i1qW-h6KqGXoEMfT9SXBsT4iVQmZstp-sZ-4kIb5sn-QUkLzwuE_C72qQp/s320/Chimpanzee+Thinking" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349967047018705538" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Picture found using <a href="http://images.google.com/">Google Images</a> from http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/010481.html</span><br /><br /></div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" >Not the picture....here's the hint:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" ><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><br />"The stars are bright...."</span></span>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-66571174632108192102009-06-19T11:18:00.000-07:002009-06-19T18:45:47.331-07:00Educational Uses for Glogster?Today on <a href="https://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/paulawhite">Paula White</a> sent a tweet to <a href="http://twitter.com/andrewconnelly">Andrew Connelly</a> asking for a "140 word description of glogster, please :)"<br />The reason this caught my eye was because I've liked using <a href="http://www.glogster.com/">Glogster</a> to create an on-line poster or to spice up a wiki. I've also shown <a href="http://www.glogster.com/">Glogster</a> to a few teachers this year (<em>at least one has the </em><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.glogster.com/edu/"><em>EDU</em></a><em> account with her students and they use it quite a bit</em>). I've also used it for my <a href="http://markcarls.wikispaces.com/">own wiki</a> (for our daughter's 2nd Birthday part invite), and even as a colorful way to link to websites in our <a href="http://cabocesrti.wikispaces.com/RtI+Resources">CA BOCES RtI wiki.</a><br />Here's a Glog I made from 'TweetShots' (Captured from <a href="http://jingproject.com/">Jing</a>) that I recieved today:<br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><br /><img style="VISIBILITY: hidden; WIDTH: 0px; HEIGHT: 0px" height="0" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyNDU*NDAyNzA*MzImcHQ9MTI*NTQ*MDI3Nzk3OSZwPTIyMTYzMSZkPSZnPTImdD*mbz*4YTcxMjNlM2U1YjY*YmU4YTJlOTRkMmZhMmQyZTlhMCZvZj*w.gif" width="0" border="0" /><a href="http://mcarls.glogster.com/Glog-About-Glogs/"><embed src="http://www.glogster.com/flash/flash_loader.swf?ver=" width="380" height="514" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allownetworking="all" allowscriptacces="always" wmode="window" flashvars="sl=http://www.glogster.com/flash/glog.swf?ver=1242737037&gi=2462492&ui=117562&li=3&fu=http://www.glogster.com/flash/&su=http://www.glogster.com/connector/&fn=http://www.glogster.com/fonty/&embed=true&pu=http://www.glogster.com/blog-thumbs//2/46/24/2462492_2.jpg&si=x&gw=3,8,0&gh=5,1,4"></embed></a><br /></div><p>I think <a href="http://www.glogster.com/">Glogster</a> is a neat visual way to spice things up like I said, however, just loading this page and getting back into edit have been difficult. I also know others (including one of the teachers I work with) have had it not save or upload pictures when a class full of kids were on the <a href="http://www.glogster.com/">Glogster</a> site.</p><p><br />Thanks to everyone who helped out today and to <a href="http://twitter.com/paulawhite">@paulawhite</a> for distracting my from my paperwork!?!? </p><p><br />Actually, it was a great opportunity for me to see what others have done and HEY, I blogged again.<br />What do you know.<br /><br />Any other ideas on how to use Glogs in the classroom (or personally)?</p>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-11548654724894523722009-04-06T07:50:00.000-07:002009-04-11T11:30:22.871-07:00Twitter shout out<p>Working with teachers the last Wednesday before the break, we went over any of their <a href="http://smarttech.com/">SMART</a> software questions, then in the afternoon started to look at other Web 2.0 tools that they could use. </p><br /><ul><br /><li>Global Collaborations - Looked at a few <a href="http://ning.com/">Ning</a> groups and at <a href="http://projects.twice.cc/">CAPSpace</a> which I've used to connect a few techers.</li><br /><li>File storage - They were all over the place, so we talked about <a href="http://box.net/">Box.net</a> and our <a href="http://teach.caboces.org/">BOCES storage</a>, then I just shared my <a href="http://delicious.com/mcarls/storage">delicious links</a>.</li><br /><li>iPod help with iTunes and also using their voicerecorder.</li><br /><li><a href="http://jingproject.com/">Jing Project</a> to get screen captures- Which I love and used for the screen captures below, plus, a host of other ideas. and websites.</li></ul><br /><p><br />The most interesting part for me was when I mentioned to these teachers that I was using <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> to answer most of their questions. Quite a few had heard of it, and I <em>tried</em> to explain it......<strong>tried</strong> being the key word! </p><br /><p>Then, I asked my <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> network to say hello (which I've seen many times, but rarely done). Below was the results and they were floored....plus, thinking I was even geekier than before!<br /></p><br /><p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCVJJiaizdsyLYjjfZjWtTrq96fJwF1e6-Z9A1MMxEPYj2YRnfa29vOxHh8P2OLqVaj5VMa7vFTGUu3Iu2h-9XiIuuK0JgfNQ4NZe_MkYwb_x3Ohp8Kwqf2j5AkuUAbYhbglqGTN-I-z4/s1600-h/ALCSTC2+Hello1.png"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 298px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321591631708249986" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCVJJiaizdsyLYjjfZjWtTrq96fJwF1e6-Z9A1MMxEPYj2YRnfa29vOxHh8P2OLqVaj5VMa7vFTGUu3Iu2h-9XiIuuK0JgfNQ4NZe_MkYwb_x3Ohp8Kwqf2j5AkuUAbYhbglqGTN-I-z4/s320/ALCSTC2+Hello1.png" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypAnLp1o2CdJcoX4hy12KPFmoBBYcrNM82_Mu63kgXK88d1VcNozdYycmjOczvmJAW-tDE1Wd5jwlml9ws7U_u6D7HgCSgmdbxBFLwXyKISXAc4QiHh9SKZhw_rWhyNBgRiR-EghOCIU/s1600-h/ALCSHello2.png"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 37px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321591756453895202" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypAnLp1o2CdJcoX4hy12KPFmoBBYcrNM82_Mu63kgXK88d1VcNozdYycmjOczvmJAW-tDE1Wd5jwlml9ws7U_u6D7HgCSgmdbxBFLwXyKISXAc4QiHh9SKZhw_rWhyNBgRiR-EghOCIU/s320/ALCSHello2.png" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklPrYh4KMNtGg5cJW6aKx69lwIVDBg8zPLVfoSWB9KT6YLXzwfk3p-d5n3iOIY7KTyFafoS8AI6BMZDIAR3TbE4WtvCbmOfm6Ob1-_x83CvDP_nWMXg2an3AaYkiR_zdE1AiesGXnpSc/s1600-h/ALCSHello3.png"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 302px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321591885582015746" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklPrYh4KMNtGg5cJW6aKx69lwIVDBg8zPLVfoSWB9KT6YLXzwfk3p-d5n3iOIY7KTyFafoS8AI6BMZDIAR3TbE4WtvCbmOfm6Ob1-_x83CvDP_nWMXg2an3AaYkiR_zdE1AiesGXnpSc/s320/ALCSHello3.png" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMNRmZQZoLKHTpCAaSBQOIsBiA8XAroOGt6h-KAv9W774OLJXedrt0Q4_FT68gmN1e3UA3Fxe5uqd9xzFUcOkcRnBB0s_8JF-Mi9iS4L1cFR0RN85M__pr8-84nHiOyfR9trWcPIxxFuk/s1600-h/ALCSHello4.png"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 303px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321592083342890050" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMNRmZQZoLKHTpCAaSBQOIsBiA8XAroOGt6h-KAv9W774OLJXedrt0Q4_FT68gmN1e3UA3Fxe5uqd9xzFUcOkcRnBB0s_8JF-Mi9iS4L1cFR0RN85M__pr8-84nHiOyfR9trWcPIxxFuk/s320/ALCSHello4.png" /></a><br /></p><br /><p>Thanks to everyone for helping show how I learn and the power of having a network.<br /><br /></p>Mr. Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16458798789406058252noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-80257171679371199242009-04-04T12:42:00.000-07:002009-04-04T13:32:52.237-07:00Long stretchSince I'm a 12 month employee, my family scheduled our vacation around my wife's school schedule. They get the two week break in April, so we scheduled our second vacation as a family of 4. This year to Florida! We have the tickets, are finalizing arrangements this weekend and fly out Tuesday!<br />We can't wait, to get to sunny Florida and stay at.......a retirement community! <a href="http://thevillages.com/">The Villages</a> in <a href="http://www.weather.com/weather/local/USFL0252?lswe=Lady%20Lake,%20FL&lwsa=WeatherLocalUndeclared&from=searchbox_typeahead">Lady Lake, Florida</a>. Mostly free room and board and some relaxation.<br />To get here, though, required a long winter stretch with no February break. In March, we actually had pretty decent weather.<br />Then, this morning.....SNOW on April 4th. Of course, I remember growing up, my father saying, "It ALWAYS snows in April", so I'm not too surprised. Oh yeah, snow again when we leave on <a href="http://www.weather.com/weather/wxdetail/14706?dayNum=3">Tuesday!<br /></a>I will try to write another post about the busy week I had at work and some of the things I worked on with teachers. <br />The one reason I remembered to come back here was because of <a href="http://twitter.com/rickweinberg">Rick Weinberg's</a> Tech Tip this week about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code">QR codes</a>. He showed us how you can get a QR 2 Dimensional code for your webpage, text, phone number or SMS from <a href="http://qrcode.kaywa.com/">Kaywa</a>. Rick used <a href="http://www.cellphonesinlearning.com/2009/03/update-on-qrcode-orienteering-project.html">Liz Kolb's</a> blog post as reference to these codes. Then, after seeing a post on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> by <span class="fn"><a href="http://twitter.com/dragonsinger57">Jo Fothergill</a> (<a href="http://twitter.com/dragonsinger57">@<span style="font-weight: bold;">dragonsinger57</span></a> from New Zealand) I went and grabbed one for this blog</span>. You can see it underneath my <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> feeds to the right.<br />Here is the link to the QR Code as well: <span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/cuqadm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/cuqadm</a><br /><br />I hope everyone gets some time off to fully recharge for the final stretch of the school year, and hopefully, I'll find more time to blog about some of the great things are teachers are doing out here.<br /><br /><br /></span></span>Mr. Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16458798789406058252noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-84093138482518007732009-02-28T15:58:00.000-08:002009-02-28T18:50:05.747-08:00Welcome to the Tweets of March #gr8t<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;color:#006600;"><u>Welcome to the tweets of March</u></span></strong></div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Here's an idea that has picked up speed lately on Twitter. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">During the month of March use the hashmark (#gr8t) to retweet (RT) your favorite tweet of the day.</span><br />Here's the wiki to explain: <a href="http://gr8tweets.wikispaces.com/about">http://gr8tweets.wikispaces.com/about</a><br /><br />There have been quite a few blogs about it:<br /><br /><ul><br /><li><a href="http://twitter.com/deacs84">Laura Deisley</a>'s post <a href="http://thenetwork.typepad.com/architectureofideas/2009/02/find-anything-gr8t-lately.html">"What's tickled you lately?"</a></li><br /><li><a href="http://twitter.com/dkuropatwa">Darren Kuropatwa</a>'s blog post <a href="http://adifference.blogspot.com/2009/02/great-tweets-gr8t.html">"Great Tweets #gr8t"</a></li><br /><li><a href="http://twitter.com/clintlalonde">Clint Lalonde</a>'s blog post <a href="http://clintlalonde.net/2009/02/28/gr8t-tweet/">"gr8t Tweet"</a></li><br /><li><a href="http://twitter.com/allanahk">Allanah King</a>'s blog post <a href="http://allanahk.edublogs.org/2009/03/01/tweet-of-the-day-gr8t/">"Tweet of the Day #gr8t"</a></li></ul><br /><p>Plenty of others, but those are a few who will explain it better than I.</p><br /><p>Follow the <a href="http://twitter.com/gr8tweets">TweetBird</a> on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> or <a href="http://search.twitter.com/">seach Twitter</a> for <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23gr8t">#gr8t tag</a>.</p><br /><p>Maybe I should've titled this <span style="color:#006600;"><strong>"Please share the Tweets of March"</strong></span></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308045842861953938" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 275px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1jo_cbOwtFk_I5YuptppSj535hVwKPaSgTFlNXV6OY9owtBOQGXuTmsUXy93gNSqX8A6e9INS_SvOJMCliE6ar_Rtd4Szbad81bt-D6KNq9qidUs66ObH_U3xWHY5k3RaAuuQxGyYDgjF/s320/gr8t.png" border="0" /><br /><p></p><br /><p>... the tweets are coming, the tweets are coming.</p><br /><p></p><br /><p></p>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-30906451662268280672009-02-17T17:10:00.000-08:002009-02-17T18:50:44.493-08:00Global Connections<div><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://www.classroom20.com/groups/group/list?page=14"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303961928765594994" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 195px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 153px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUv_UbMTq-Ytl2b8pI_Ef_bx99OHMjS6oN-77dYRNNsAiU04QoSOkdQPXgdRhH8LrpUzAaSH9qgesVECmcAuZa14_mtoxtajqDtwN290m8h71sBkbcJiSQXVAo0PeOV9aSg8cBnJmO7kay/s320/Global+Connection.bmp" border="0" /></a> <strong><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Picture above is from: </em></span></strong><a href="http://www.classroom20.com/groups/group/list?page=14"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>http://www.classroom20.com/groups/group/list?page=14</em></span></strong></a><br /><br /><div>Here's the deal, I belong to all of these networks to create Global Connections with area teachers and since <a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/">NECC 2008 </a>down in <a href="http://www.sanantonio.com/">San Antonio</a> it has been a main goal of mine.</div></div><div align="center"><br /><a href="http://www.twice.cc/projects.html"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303962903244491426" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 124px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 86px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgAMjO1cIOHYXYPlSGT35TlexsfLv2eIzjNVlxg3K8fYIAT7sZOMiJLVEOv94SOSwUQxkbaBQv8KJTnfW3beJ9X9QKXpcMAvxZZewDuR5ASSZlk6odz0cD9O82TwMRt1lWHNMkLZ2UpdHb/s200/CAPSPACE.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><div>I belong to <a href="http://www.twice.cc/projects.html">CAPSPACE</a> and get daily e-mails for projects that have been created. Now, I need to try to get that info to teachers in our area. I have been able to establish one French Connection because of a very flexible teacher in a district I work at. They were able to connect with a Pennsylvannia school on a wiki and have met via DL.</div><br /><div>After that connection, I tried to establish another one with a French class in Toronto, but times didn't work out for a DL connection there. They were able to use a <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> connection to collaborate with another school.</div><br /><div>There are plenty of elementary projects out there like: <a href="http://www.flatstanleyproject.com/">Flat Stanley</a> - seems at least one a week, weather in your area, and some using <a href="http://voicethread.com/">Voicethreads</a> with students.</div><br /><div>I want to make teachers aware that it is very easy to take a project that you will be doing and just post it out there to see what you can get. This is one thing I'll try to work with.</div><div><br />I also want people to know there are plenty of other ways to connect, there are plenty of <a href="http://www.ning.com/">Ning</a> groups: <a href="http://www.classroom20.com/">Classroom 2.0</a> and <a href="http://flatclassrooms.ning.com/">Flat Classroom</a>, </div><div>plus other sites like <a href="http://www.epals.com/">ePals</a>, <a href="http://www.globalschoolnet.org/">Global School Net</a>, <a href="http://www.tigweb.org/">Taking it Global</a> ...</div><br /><div>You know what, just go here's a better list from <a href="http://www.monroe2boces.org/programs.cfm?sublevel=60&subpage=54&subsubpage=55">Donna Farren</a> and <a href="http://www.monroe2boces.org/programs.cfm?sublevel=60&subpage=54&subsubpage=55">Lauren Skolny</a> and they <a href="http://nyscate.org/">NYSCATE</a> workshop <strong>"<a href="http://nyscate.wikispaces.com/Learning+Without+Borders">Learning without Borders</a>".</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>What are some of the Global Connections others have made out there? Looking for some motivation! </div><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593599001677614945.post-12311818500977592712009-02-16T12:24:00.000-08:002009-02-16T20:20:11.547-08:00Social Networking decision<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.loogix.com/"><img style="width: 189px; height: 102px;" src="http://www.loogix.com/img/res/1/2/3/4/8/4/12348418021696326.gif" alt="Loogix.com. Animated avatars. " border="0" /></a><img style="visibility: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyMzQ4NDM5MDkyMjImcHQ9MTIzNDg*MzkxOTMyNyZwPTQ3NTU3MSZkPSZnPTEmdD*mbz**M2U2YThmODQwZDU*MjBhOGY5MTM4ODQ4MGEwY2FmYg==.gif" border="0" height="0" width="0" /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />The animation above is made from: http://www.loogix.com/</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">All of the photos are screen captures from: http://jingproject.com/</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><br /></div><div>Still trying to figure out all this stuff about personal learning networks, professional learning networks and which I use where. I blur most of it together, but the social networks I use are <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://delicious.com/">Delicious</a>, <a href="http://www.ning.com/">Ning</a>, <a href="http://www.plurk.com/">Plurk</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>. Probably in that order. </div><div> </div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://nyscate.org/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 147px; height: 47px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjvn36IaQIfX8zZr1tgCcrIR5v7p5d0F1xhXebmp06OsRfJErkSPCRJo2I7SuvS676nQM4nPkWKbgk_OpOzGjgVLuEZJKYKBIMz2pG4FvUOo0H9lf-6abHf79oGm2U5UOwadExNhn2tGkF/s200/NYSCATE+logo.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303614462458456610" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twitter.com/"><br /></a><div>I was first introduced to <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> at my first Technology Conference in 2007: <a href="http://nyscate.org/">NYSCATE</a> by <a href="http://weblogg-ed.com/">Will Richardson</a>, who also <a href="http://ustream.tv/">Ustreamed</a> the session - another Web 2.0 tool I've used quite a bit. Then, I started to get into many other <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network">Social Networks</a> including, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/">MySpace</a>, many <a href="http://www.ning.com/">Ning Groups</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://delicious.com/">Delicious</a>, <a href="http://www.diigo.com/index">Diigo</a>, <a href="http://pownce.com/">Pownce</a> (now gone), <a href="http://identi.ca/">identi.ca</a>, <a href="http://www.twine.com/">Twine</a>, many Wiki sites, Twice, <a href="http://teachersconnecting.com/">Teachers Connecting</a>, <a href="http://www.plurk.com/">Plurk</a>......too many to mention and most with weird spellings of names!?!?</div><br /><div> </div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://delicious.com/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 160px; height: 36px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT_4C2S86YW9GdwbcuKoDAhXgG_EhcMSZmkNYfZLGuupjOvfBq8iJr0dn45T63rMoA_0nDI9InQx742Zk9OmQlh343DDrJpOJQmssNvFiFDehKSM_duagx2aITksr-A0z_MrC2MaUaSTss/s200/Delicious.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303608628004990162" border="0" /></a><div><a href="http://delicious.com/">Delicious</a> for me is a staple! Bookmark all your websites online so that you can access them anywhere and you can share them with others. The Gateway drug into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking">Social Networking</a> and where I tend to start when trying to explain <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking">Social Networking</a> to teachers.</div><br /><div> </div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twitter.com/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 168px; height: 47px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURgJTahWHNrxju8ZA-TcU-kpPr-AltbGiCFBZkU4L8G7Cqlf-9rNab5hddDUdROPsZRCZzuTBFnsZpy6lzD0iv_NnASA-rFSaujbou-INsnWy5tcRfnnJniYZpjNt6kzmEH5B8tFSuJZg/s200/Twitter.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303608094743759874" border="0" /></a><div><a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> is <strong>again</strong> my favorite microblogging site. It's power is well documented a few times a week on <a href="http://cnn.com/">CNN</a> it seems. My most powerful network is there. I often still lurk around and listen in, often I ask questions and occasionally I try to add to my network.</div><br /><div> </div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.plurk.com/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 164px; height: 90px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCnqKmvR05J6D2ae3VqXbVevnFxf1Wr6fNkIvOobmNylURsWIos9B_WCcDJfkcYa4y4kuHZFdu20-86bntC5O_b51-N-Oyav0tqg_WlpZ4cJiOoChvZHtRjww-vs1xn0qTEan72DMarg2/s200/Plurk2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303606688629528114" border="0" /></a><div><a href="http://www.plurk.com/">Plurk</a> was the one site I thought would replace <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> for me. Your posts are contained in one thread so you can easily look back and see what others have added to anything you posted or responded to. My network is stronger on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> and I've had a hard time (probably finding time) to balance both. I still try to go onto <a href="http://www.plurk.com/">Plurk</a>, but have drastically dropped my usage in there.</div><br /><div> </div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.facebook.com/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 171px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKM642FExZVKGl3JyrpT0AiH7QM8ETVbiU2yiwQROVqsQBjgG2hf2STRdT1SZY42Cz6h_qPLaaCXe2IAtAxJHRjgEi7B1HShU5zKGa28Q2OVfM7eOU4YTtGZeNmv62Z9wzFTmyZWA-6wre/s200/Facebook.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303609463350985138" border="0" /></a><div>Then comes <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>. I still have no good reason why I don't use this more. Even my wife is on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>! And making friends with my co-workers and friends. As I posted on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a> from George Costanza, "<a href="http://www.stanthecaddy.com/worlds-collide-theory-theory-that-discuss.html">My worlds are colliding!</a>". I think this is the one network I use for mostly personal use. It is amazing how many friends and/or people I barely knew growing up and going through college that I've connected with. With the pure numbers I really can't figure out why I don't use <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">FB</a> more? Maybe just because I want to improve at my job I stick with more professional networks, even though on all of those I do post about the recent bug going through the Carls house or what great new thing the kids have done.</div><br /><div align="center"> That reminds me, I'm also a member of <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>.</div><br /><div align="center"> </div><br /><div>The battle I've seen is <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> vs <a href="http://www.plurk.com/">Plurk</a> and even though a few months ago I was ready to write my "Dear John" letter to <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, I think for me <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> gets me the info I need and the steady responses. I like the setup of <a href="http://www.plurk.com/">Plurk</a> more (even though I still think the timeline goes backwards), but <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> is how I start my day. I find out what is new in the educational world and find great links, plus I usually get answers to questions I post.</div><br /><div> </div><br /><div>The downside to <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, it does take a bit of time to build that network. <a href="http://twitter.com/lizbdavis">@lizbdavis</a> just posted this weekend <a href="http://edtechpower.blogspot.com/2009/02/advice-for-teachers-new-to-twitter.html">7 Twitter tips</a> for new Twits tweeting to <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>. If you followed all of that, then you are more of an expert than I. </div><div> </div><br /><div>Oh wait, then I got a tweet from @<a title="Tec Coach Z" href="http://twitter.com/zmanrdz">zmanrdz</a> about the <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2341095,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03129TX1K0000625">Top 10 tips</a> for using <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> and what is this? A <a href="http://www.wetpaint.com/">Wetpaint</a> wiki about using <a href="http://twitterforteachers.wetpaint.com/page/Twitter+in+the+Classroom?t=anon">Twitter in the classroom</a>!</div><div> </div><br /><div align="center">What social networks work best for you? </div><br /><div align="center">Me? </div><br /><div><a href="http://delicious.com/">Delicious</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, then <a href="http://www.ning.com/">Ning Groups</a> like the <a href="http://voicethread.ning.com/">Voicethread for Educators</a> Ning Group I've created, <a href="http://smartboardrevolution.ning.com/">SMARTBoard Revolution</a> Ning Group which just passed 1000 members and then <a href="http://www.classroom20.com/">Classroom 2.0</a>. There are other Global Collaboration Groups I visit from time to time as well as long as groups for conferences like <a href="http://nyscate.ning.com/">NYSCATE</a> and <a href="http://www.neccning.org/">NECC</a>.</div>Mark Carlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519144352176519978noreply@blogger.com2