NECC



STAR Grant funds are being used to pay for this trip for all of us. As a result, we need documentation regarding what we do, what we learn and so on. Rather than wait until after the conference for a post-conference survey, I thought it might be helpful to create an environment where we could all keep up with each other as we go through the conference. As a side benefit, we'll all get some experience using a wiki, something you might hear about at the conference.
 * Brent Harris Wrote:**

If we all contribute, we may all have a richer experience at the conference as well as create some documentation for our STAR Grant report.

Here's what you can do: Whenever you go to a good breakout session or see a vendor that has a product of interest, write about it here. If a general session, peaks your interest, we can all discuss it here. If someone mentions a great web site you would like to use in the future, rather than just putting it in your notes, add it here so we can benefit from it. If you want to meet up with others from the group for dinner, why not discuss it here? You get the idea.

I think this is a great idea. It will come in handy when we want to prove how we are using technology tools to help us collaborate and plan.
 * Vicki Ventura Wrote:**

I am learning so much about Adobe Acrobat and I see so many applications; it can be used in training teachers (face to face and on the web), in organizing the huge district documents, and teaching in the classroom to students. The only down side that I can see is that everyone will want Acrobat Professional!
 * Vicki Ventura Wrote:**


 * Saturday June 28, 2008 **

This morning I attended a grant writing workshop and learned some very valuable tips for future grants. I also received a huge list of grants available to schools and teachers. Watch the Tuesday Technology Tidbit next year for those resources! I also met many international attendees who are broadening my perspective. Very cool.
 * Terice Ahr wrote:**

This afternoon I am learning about higher order thinking in student podcasting. Next year our STAR Grant particpants will learn a little about podcasting, and this speaker is encouraging us to leave behind summary reports in multimedia and move up Bloom's Taxonomy with our products to create much more fun and interesting podcasts. I have the notes!

I picked up some good tips in my session today. One of the presenters demonstrated using iGoogle as a home page for a fifth grade Science class. He created.an iGoogle tab with portals to feeds from National Geographic, Weather, discovery news, dictionary.com, Yahoo word of the day. ..
 * Brent Harris wrote:**

I also learned some cool new things about Google docs.

They demonstrated a visual learning tool from Intel that would be really good for collaboration with students in a classroom or with teachers and administrators in professional development or planning activities. I published my notes with links using Google Docs - [|Click Here].


 * Sunday June 29, 2008 **

We just arrived at the hotel, and are very excited that we have our very own rooms and bathrooms-it's like an apartment! Thanks technology team! Looking forward to the rest of the week....
 * Rebekah Hibner Wrote:**

I went to a fabulous session on Moodle today. Moodle is a Course Management System. It's a great tool for creating online courses or adding online collaboration to a traditional course.
 * Brent Harris Wrote:**

When we get back, I would like to get a Moodle server setup, create an online class for teacher professional development and recruit some teachers and/or administrators to participate in the online learning environment.

My notes from the session are [|HERE]. Links from the class are [|HERE].

This will be a great way to document the different sessions for our external evaluator. Several of the RLISD group have arrived and will hopefully see you all at the first general session and the reception.
 * Howell Wright Wrote:**

This morning's session by the Library of Congress included some great resources. Go by their booth (Booth #9924) to pick up handouts and information.
 * Terice Ahr Wrote:**

We attended an inquiry based model lesson on creating an M&M Dispencer for space. It was presented by eMints. This is a link to the lesson on the teacher's website: http://teachers.emints.org/mathysl/mandmwebquest.html eMints also has a resource data base for educational website for all subjects. This is a link to the website organized by grade: http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/by-grade.shtml
 * Shelly McMullen and Hope Orsag Wrote:**

Wow! Can you believe that exhibit hall? I saw the Library of Congress ladies, and they have CDs and all kinds of posters for free. Go by there if you get a chance. We've also seen great software and hardware today. The sessions are informative and fun, too. Post your opinions or notes. I've heard from a couple of you that you wonder what to do tonight. Some are meeting at Mi Tierra ( [|www.**mi**tierracafe.com]) at 6:00. There are also tons of things to do on the RiverWalk. Check out your treat sacks or the area in front of the front desk for suggestions and discount coupons. You can always call me if you need ideas.
 * Terice Ahr Wrote:**

I really enjoyed the concepts of the keynote speaker last night-"cognitive diversity" and "collective thinking" were two of my favorite topics that were discussed. If you stayed up late to watch NOVA last night, there was a program on the exact same topic! The concurrent session I got the most from today was this morning's "Everybody Needs a Little T.L.C." (Technology & Literacy Classroom), presented by Michelle Moore. It was a very down-to-Earth presentation showing the variety of simple and teacher-friendly ways she has incorporated such programs as Kidspiration, powerpoint, websearches, blogging, united streaming, Web 2.0, (she mentioned Audacity, but Michelle and I are still not sure what that is.) A really cool website she showed us was [|www.blabberize.com] --use any image, and add a 'talking mouth', and your audio-very funny! Another handy website was [|www.showbeyond.com] --students can upload images and add narration to tell stories. The exhibit hall was great-we collected more technology swag than our backs could handle!
 * Rebekah Hibner Wrote:**

Open Source I attended the Birds of a Feather Session: Open Source this afternoon at 4:45. WOW what an eye opener! I was astounded at what others are doing and all of the free things available on the web. Everyone needs to check out the link for this session through the NECC site. They will list all of the websites we discussed. There are so many I can't list them all, however theopendisc.com/education is a site where you can look up all sorts of available free programs.
 * Joyce Myers Wrote:**

I also learned that audacity has to do with pod casting. Many have gone to Openoffice instead of Microsoft office and have used the savings to fund staff development in the area of technology. go2web20.net is also good to find lots of sites.

For the IT administrators, they discussed spiceworks (a network management system) untangle.com and nagros.

I really found it interesting that many do not have document camera's etc, but are really using social networking, wiki's, student communities etc with students. I felt like I was in the dark and was a wet sponge taking it all in. On the other hand, when I spoke to my son after this session (via cell) he informed me, that where had I been, he knew about lots of the items I was telling him about. I told him he needed to educate his dear old mom better!

I have found almost every session I have been to, very educational and the vendor booths have also been great. Tomorrow is another day and I am looking forward to learning even more!

Are any of us going to get together tonight or tomorrow evening? 3 RL people are in room 811, give us a call! permalink Posted 48 minutes ago


 * Pam Parcus wrote** This is the best conference ever!!! I have learned so much. I do so want to do podcasting this year. Enjoyed learning about Google services and the after school programs, including the geocaching. Can't wait until tomorrow!


 * Sandra Velo, Jill Ross, Roxanne Sanders wrote:** There are so many exhibits that it is more than we could have ever imagined and I am glad I wore my tennis shoes! We need mimios and training on how to use them in the classroom. We attended a class and learned about moodling. We looked at mini laptops for student use. They appear to be durable, user friendly and we liked how they were ready to use instantly and you didn't have to wait for them to boot up. The teacher can monitor each students computer. The mini laptops are priced at less than $500 which is cost efficient.


 * Chrystal Choats**: I agree the mimios are FABULOUS! I know we have one on campus that I have seen the teacher use once or twice but have not seen any others. The mini laptops are cool. I would like to see the mini laptops as a mobile lab; no boot-up time, durable, and relatively inexpensive. This would be a good way to get a computer in more students hands more often for about half the cost.


 * Teresa Sullivan**: This morning I attended a session on blogging in the classroom and got some great tips. This afternoon, I went to a session about student poetry collaboration that creates a community where students can create and share poetry online as well as publish and discuss poetry. This is something I would love to use. As I sat through the sessions, I caught my mind wandering on how to incorporate each of these things in the classroom for next year.


 * Tuesday July 1, 2008 **

I’m really excited that you all are posting to the wiki! After several sessions and one day of NECC I am thinking a lot about where this is all taking us. Lots of factors like great, free online tools for content development, distribution and collaboration (Moodle, wikis, blogs, Google docs . . .) are more directly connecting the student, the teacher and the content. I talked with the new director of the Texas Virtual School Network. Within the next year, the legislature and TEA are scheduled (insert appropriate eye roll) to launch the virtual schools with a structure for teachers to teach online, students to take and receive high school credit for online courses and ADA ($$) to go to the school who is sponsoring the teacher. In Texas the way content is traditionally delivered is from the content provider through the textbook publisher, through the State, through the district, through teacher, finally to the student. Several factors like great tools (mentioned above), virtual/online learning, current dropout rates, even the economy make me wonder what value (and at what cost) is being provided by the textbook publisher, the State, the district (yes, that would be me and many of you). Are we approaching an age of the decentralization of education? Will the students, teachers and content all be directly connected through online learning opportunities to increase efficiency and decrease cost? If so, what is our response today? I think we have to begin to facilitate, connecting the content, the teacher and the student through online learning environments. In the short term, these will be hybrid face-to-face and online experiences. This will prepare teachers and students to move more toward online teaching and learning. I also think we, as administrators, should get involved by providing content and delivering instruction to our teachers in an online format. Check out the Moodle session tomorrow at 10:30. Could you do your next book study with your teachers online using the tools in a CMS like Moodle?
 * Brent Harris:**


 * Devera Shipp:** What a day yesterday was! We did everything from podcasting to mimio-ing to meeting Elvis! This experience has certainly been eye-opening! I am amazed at where our world of education is heading and am excited that BISD is starting the journey. I have learned so much from both World Book and Thinkfinity that will allow our students to "safely" search the web. Also, I now know what podcasting is and the importance of having access to iTunes to help make this authentic form of assessment successful. The one thing that blew me away was the mimio! I sat through that presentation twice to make sure I didn't miss anything. I would love to see the district support all of us who feel that mimio would benefit our classrooms!


 * Shelly McMullen:** Hope and I were discussing creating a home page for our classroom where students can have threaded discussions, write blogs about content, and send e-mails to discuss the content. We have found Gaggle.net. I was wondering what the Technology department thinks about that. There is a free version for e-mailing. Does anyone know of any free sites that I could use to create a website for discussions and blogging?


 * Trish Trubee:** Glogowski's Blogging Communities in the Classroom was a very real classroom world application for blogs and wikis. I only wish he had time for Q&A. The quote to take away from this session as an ELA teacher "Stop Marking, Start Reading". The overall message that I have received from all sessions is a reinforcement of the use of "project based" learning.


 * Vicki Ventura:** I am in the Captivate class, learning how to create on-line tutorials. The bad news is that I already knew most of this. The good news is that the presenter gave us a great website that has tutorials for anthing and everything on Captivate. (The tutorial narrator has a great Scottish accent!!!) http://www.swict.com/captivatecourse.asp

I am now toward the end of the workshop and I have learned how to create quizzes using Captivate and it even grades them for you. I can see this as a great tool in assessing comprehension of our tutorials that are online. I know that Temple ISD uses this software for that very purpose. Cool.

So Hope and I spent an hour at the Mimio booth this morning. I have been converted. The new system is awesome and I am probably going to steal **the** Mimio from my partner. :-) The new features are amazing, and Hope and I discussed the fact that teachers will be more willing to use this technology if the administrators use it in their presentations. If administrators get comfortable with the technology, then the teachers will follow suit. And Vicki...I'm a sucker for Scottish accents...I played the tutorial just to hear that!! :-)
 * Shelly McMullen:**

Monday was a good refresher for LoTi and understanding "how the NECC conference works. Some of the leadership sessions were not that great. Today was better, the exhibit hall was very productive as were the poster sessions on podcasting and working with different populations of students (especially ESL). The open source info available on the internet 2.0 was helpful. I just finished a session on "how to use the cellphone in the classroom". Very interesting and thought provoking. What a way to connect to our students and get them to use the technology we ban at school as a learning tool! All of this requires professional development and a constant redirection/updating of our technology facilitators.
 * Howell Wright wrote:**


 * Devera Shipp:** BISD is going to be so proud of us "Elementary Folk!" We collaborated to create a video to win FIVE classroom sets of Student Response Systems (aka "clickers") from Turning Technologies. In a week, they will send us a website to go to vote for the best video to win! I do not exaggerate when I say that __every person__ working that booth gathered to watch our recording and said that our's was the most creative. Once we get the website, we'll send it your way to vote - time and again! We'll split the 5 sets amongst 5 elementary schools. This interactive tool is innovative, informative and a great resource for all educators. Check them out at [|www.turningtechnologies.com].-)

If you haven't checked out www.4teachers.org lately it would be beneficial to do so. The folks there have added some really great help for teachers. Much more than Rubi Star and the other products we are used to. They have even added help for special populations. Sat through their session today and it was enlightening. Sony had part in a session called "Grants and Philanthropic Offerings" on Monday that highlighted some of the businesses that are offering grants and opportunities for schools to win great prizes. Sony's contest is awarding up to $400,000. Your local cable company also has some free benefits for schools. Have been in some great sessions so far and am looking forward to more. Food around town ain't bad either. Viva San Antonio!
 * Jim Bartosh:**

What a busy day! Michelle, Devera, and I enjoyed the keynote speakers, Jim Carleton and Mali Bickley, as they were extremely inspirational. They truly expanded the borders of their classrooms, it was my favorite presentation! Jim and Mali use technology to follow the two main passions of their students (reaching out to students in war-afflicted areas, and the environment). Have a said it was amazing? To view historical video archives on demand go to http://www.hotchalk.com/nbc.html (free 30 day trial).
 * Rebekah Hibner wrote:**

We then went to a session on integrating virtual math manipulatives into the elementary classroom. Websites to visit: [|http://drewpolly.wetpaint.com] and http://groups.diigo.com/groups/virtualmanipulatives We also went to another session on writing great grants with Sheryl Abshire, who seems to be a grant-writing pro! Visit the following link for the presentation on writing grants: [|www.cpsb.org/Scripts/abshire/grants.asp]

//**We (Hope, Shelly, Rochelle, Sandra A., Devera and I) topped off our afternoon by creating a hand-puppet play that was recorded at Turning Technologies, LLC. Why would we do such a thing? They will be posting the videos of people explaining how they could use the technologies (the group recieving the most votes will recieve 5 free class sets of clickers!!!) The account executive, Chuck (who loves Sandra Atmar....), and the rest of his crew said our video was the most creative they have seen-hopefully that increases our chances.**//  The website for this technology we hope to win: [|www.turningtechnologies.com]

I attended an awesome workshop on podcasting! I've now attended one session focused on using Audacity for audio editing, and one using Wavepad for audio editing. I think that Wavepad is a little more user friendly and will do what we need it to. I also learned that many of our colleagues around the globe are using Photo Story as a starting point for their podcasts. How great is that? We know that one backwards and forwards! We looked at various headphones and mics for use with podcasts, and we heard some great uses for podcasting in the classroom. Our students will love creating these as well as learning from them! I'm really pumped about it! Free site to post podcasts: http://www.mypodcast.com/ How to use WavePad: http://gemini.utb.edu/jbutler/power_bytes/Wavepad/Wavepad_tutorial.html
 * Terice Ahr Wrote:**

By the way, we LOVE Gaggle! We suggest it as a great place for monitored student email accounts and have done some training at the high school on using the Gaggle blogs. I'm glad you found it and like it!

Soak up all you can on our last day. We are so proud of our Belton/Rosebud-Lott bunch. You guys are awesome! Mimio's, gaggle

**Wednesday July 2, 2008**

My favorite part of NECC is the International feel that it brings. I always come away with my eyes opened wider regarding the role of education and global diversity and commonality. In addition to yesterday's keynote, I sat in on a session called Shaping Global Citizens. I'm becoming more convinced that we need to be more intentional about connecting our students with the world and preparing them for meaningful global citizenship. It was a great session with some good links. I posted notes and links [|HERE].
 * Brent Harris:**


 * Devera Shipp:** Yesterday was even better than the day before! Not only did I get up on that bull, but I learned so much about vitural manipulatives and grant writing. Rebekah, Michelle and I attended the best grant writing session that really opened my eyes about the specifics that grant-funders look for. There is a TON of money out there to help us grow our students and prepare them for this new technological world we are headed for. I would love to be involved in writing grants for mimios, student responders, getting gaggle and ipods for podcasting. Today, I attended a session entitled Google: Its Elementary. We had to create a gmail account to gain access to all of Google's tools and that had me questioning our ability to utilize this search engine to the fullest. Here is the link to the presentation: [|http://www.tomdiener.com], scroll down to "Its Elementary Resources." (It took awhile to load at the conference) But it is worth taking a look at if you're interested.

Being "old school," finishing high school without ever toucing a computer, I know that I need to be more involved and learn so so so much to be able to teach our students. They deserve it. Thank you so much for this opportunity!


 * Joyce Myers:** What an awesome conference! There is so much available to us! I would like to see grants written for our campus for mimios, student responders, gaggle and some other items too. Thanks for the opportunity to attend and soak up so much information.

O.K. I must admit I am overwhelmed with all the technology I have been bathed into these past few days. We had a great time attending sessions on Monday. I got great software from Study Dog to facilitate student reading. After going to all of these great sessions and vendors and thinking $$$$$$$$, several of us attended a session on Grant Writing by Dr. Sheryl Abshire on Tuesday. She was so informative. Reminded me of Paula Dean. They are both from the South and make you think you can do anything. I really enjoyed the trip, room, sessions, vendors and most of all the great comraderie with Belton and Rosebud Lott friends. Thank you.
 * __Rochelle Oldham__**:

__**Trish Trubee**__ Ditto on the camaraderie between R-L and Belton. It has been enjoyable to say the least. I know I have gotten emails throughout the year about various contests for students, but honestly never had the time to mess with them because the deadlines were too short. Now that I know in advance, I'm going to encourage my students to collaborate and produce even better products than they have to now. I feel on Techno-overload. I have to get out my good ole paper and pen notes (my laptop was just to heavy to carry all the time - I want a mini) and disseminate the information I gained. See you guys when school starts.


 * Jill Ross:** The most incredible website that I saw was the NBC News site. The archived videos are organized by TEKS and easily searchable. I loved the icue.com website which is free for the moment. I don't know if it will remain free, but the potential for use in a classroom is really high. Though the audience is AP, I think that it would be really great for all kinds of kids. I'm going to share it with my son at home and see what he thinks. I also think that if I have an opportunity to go to something like this again, I'll probably bring him. He would be able to give me a kid-version of the cool-factor of the different vendors, sites, and hardware.

I had a great time at the Moodle workshop on Wednesday morning. I can see how this will be a very useful tool for our classrooms! I also enjoyed hitting up some of the vendors for treats for our teachers. We'll have some door prizes for our STAR grant sessions this year!
 * Terice Ahr**

The trainers from the Library of Congress session sent me this link to the files from their workshop. __ http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=42044092&selection_id=42818217&rownumber=6&max=7&gopage= __This note was attached: "The 33.4 KB document titled LederleEnsign_PrimarySources_behindthedoc.pdf is the complete framework for what we did (and a few things we omitted), with links to the bibliographic records for all the materials, and a brief guide to locating additional resources. This is the best starting place! Most of the other documents are print-ready versions of the workshop materials. The links at the bottom of the list are to the Primary Source Investigation materials and to the Immigration Statistics -- there was no way to label them.

I had a great time at NECC and came away with more information than I dreamed possible. I am so thankful for the STAR Grant which allowed us to come to the conference and faciltated our collaboration with Rosebud-Lott ISD teachers and administrators. We have learned a lot from one another and I look forward to the next year with renewed enthusiasm. I hope you had a wonderful time at NECC, too, and that together we can share and shape our learning environments to create lifelong learners and thinkers!