Fun Tech Facts for Spring Break!

By Kris Walsh

I hope that everyone is enjoying their time off and recharging their batteries for the final quarter of the year! I didn't want to let a week go by without another exciting post to Techy Tuesday. (Though it is actually Wednesday... but hey, its Spring Break) I didn't think that anyone would want to read a long post about a new tech tool/idea, so I am just sharing some pictures and interesting facts that I thought you may enjoy.

I cannot take credit for any of the images or facts. Many came from a site I stumbled across called iyogi.com. Others are from Google searches.

Here you go! Enjoy, and have a good rest of break!

It has been figured that the original iPhone, released in 2007, contained more computing power than all of NASA during the Apollo era. Just this week, Apple sold their 500 millionth iPhone.

The captions are hard to read, but they explain that the top drive held only 250 MB and cost tens of thousands of dollars and that we can now purchase a Micro SD card that holds 16 GB (64x as much storage) for about 11 bucks.

The above picture is a picture of one of the first hard drives. Made by IBM in 1956, it weighed over a ton and stored a mere 5 MB of information. (In comparison, 4 of those 3.5 inch floppy drives that we have not used in a decade would hold more!) 

The top caption reads, "Google uses an estimated 15 Billion KWh of electricity per year. More than most countries."

I couldn't resist a Mac reference :)

My favorite graphic of the bunch. This is what is happening, on average, on the internet every minute!

PowerED UP- Our Regional tech conference

By Kris Walsh

In case you have not heard, Perry Central has been chosen as a host site for a “Summer of eLearning” conference this year. There are many of these regional conferences hosted around the state for staff members in neighboring areas to attend and learn about new and exciting tech tools and integrating technology into their classes. Last year the eLearning coaches had the privilege of attending 3 of these conferences. We really enjoyed these conferences and learned a great deal. We were so motivated by these experiences that when the Department of Education opened up the window for schools to apply to host, we jumped at the chance!

Our conference is called “PowerED Up- Inspiring Teachers-Empowering Students”. We will be hosting this conference at Perry Central from 8-2 on Monday, June 2nd and Tuesday, June 3rd. This is a regional conference and we are inviting participants from all of the area schools. We will feature great keynote speakers, interesting breakout sessions, displays from vendors, door prizes, and of course, tasty meals. Where else can you get all of this for only $30?

Our keynote on the first day will be Dave Burgess. Dave is a high school history teacher in San Diego. He has been recognized by his school for being most dramatic, most entertaining, and most energetic for the last 17 years running! We discovered Dave through participating in the DOE fall eLearning book club where we discussed his book, Teach Like a Pirate. In it Dave talks about bringing energy and passion back into the classroom. Feel free to check out his site- www.daveburgess.com to learn more about him.

On the 2nd day, our keynote speaker is Leslie Fisher. She is the Director of her own company, Fisher Technologies inc. She specializes in presenting, and training at K-12 schools. Since starting her own company in 1997, she presents at 25-30 events a year. We discovered Leslie at this year’s ICE conference in the fall. Her presentation, titled Technology Time Machine, was very interesting and well-received. She has a very energetic and humorous presentation style. It is little surprise that she is a popular choice for a speaker during this summer’s Summer of eLearning conference series. If you would like to learn more about her, check out her site www.lesliefisher.com.

In addition to exciting keynote speakers, we have a wide-range of breakout sessions planned. Topics planned include:

Unconference- a session with no agenda and topics determined by the moderator

Google Drive

Google Apps

KidBlog

Apple Apps

Social Media

TED Talks and Socratic Seminars

Project Based Learning (PBL)

MyBigCampus- separate sessions for beginners and advanced users

Presentation tools- Prezi, Thinglink, Google, PowToon

Movie Creation- iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, Premier

Screencasting

Curating Digital Content

Coding

Content Area Literacy

Webpage Creation

Digital Citizenship

Finding time for Passion Based Learning

Chrome and Chrome Extensions

Text Annotation

Building a PLN through Twitter

We are also going to feature a technology petting zoo where there will be displays of some ed tech hardware that you can get hands on with and learn what it can do.

Please see our webpage http://www.pccs.k12.in.us/powered-up.html for more details. Registration will be opening soon! We will be emailing and Tweeting out info about the conference as details develop. We hope to see you there.

Follow us on Twitter- @mrkriswalsh @zellersp @jamieguillaume1 @perrycentral #pcelearn

Check out the weekly DOE Twitter chats on Thursday at 7 central time. Search #inelearn to follow the chats and learn other interesting information about educational technology.

 

http://www.doe.in.gov/elearning/2014-summer-elearning

Benefits of e-books

By Jamie Guillaume

As teachers we tend to love books and understand the direct connection of becoming a lifelong learner and reading.  Teachers also tend to be most comfortable with books in print.  However we should not ignore the use of e-books in the classroom and should actually encourage the usage of e-books for many reasons. 

Students nearly always have a tech tool in hand whether a smartphone, iPod, e-reader, etc.  Each of these tools has the capability of housing e-books, which begs the question, if this tool is always in hand, why not teach students how to use their favorite tech tool to read?!

The e-reader I use is the Kindle app on my iPhone and my favorite feature is the imbedded dictionary.  The dictionary allows the user to simply touch the unknown word and the pronunciation and definition instantly appear!  All e-readers have a similar dictionary feature. The benefit of this feature is obvious because when reading a book in print, students are less likely to take the time to look up a word in which they are not familiar. 

As teachers we also encourage students to mark the text when reading.  Unfortunately this is not possible with most print books as these books are rented from the school or checked out from the library.  E-readers have highlighting and text marking features that allow students to mark key text components and then the e-readers house the text makings for easy accessibility. 

Other features within e-readers are being able to quickly navigate the book through the touch screen, the e-reader not losing the page you are currently reading, and of course the portability of books.  Many times the price of e-books versus books in print is also cheaper because the cost of production is lower.   Other benefits include, the availability of free books to download and libraries also have e-books that are accessible. 

Now of course the teacher in me understands the question, how do we make sure students are reading their e-book and not surfing the web or playing a game on their e-reader?   Last year was the first year I welcomed e-reading in my classroom and it went great, but of course guidelines had to be set to ensure success. Much like anything else that begins in a classroom, routines and procedures are needed.  I conducted mini-lessons with my students on e-reading.  We discussed how to find and download books, using the electronic dictionary, practicing digital citizenship, and any other topic or issue that surfaced. 

My main goal as a reading teacher is to inspire the love of reading and reading for most 21^st Century students is going to involve some type of e-reader.  Therefore as teachers instead of worrying that students are not going to use devices appropriately, we should allow these devices into our classroom and teach students how to appropriately use them in a school setting.

PowerED Up: The Commodore Vision for Digital Learning

We are happy and excited to announce that Perry Central is a proud recipient of a $100,000 Digital Learning Grant from the IDOE!  A team from Perry Central was selected, from an application process, to make a pitch to the eLearning team from the IDOE.  Our pitch had to include a vision for digital learning, a plan to carry it out, and the capacity to be able to do it.  It was an exciting and fun experience for us and we're glad they liked our pitch.   

We started this process by brainstorming a vision for moving digital learning forward.  What our team ultimately came up with was, PowerED Up: Passion Based Learning.  We want students to have time, while at Perry Central, to pursue their own interests and passions.  Being a history teacher, it's hard for me to imagine some students not being passionate about studying the past and making connections to current events but there are a few (probably much more than a few...ha!) that just aren't!  I know, it's hard for me to believe too!  Our goal with this project then, is to allow students to do both, learn what they NEED to learn and learn what they WANT to learn.  We want this to be a project with students, getting their input throughout the process. 

First, I want to share with you our team's vision for moving digital learning forward.  If we could sum it up in one statement it would be this: Less us, more them.  Meaning, less lecture and facts and more facilitating.  We want students to create, tinker, and solve problems they care about.  We want students to learn from failure, not be afraid of it.  Imagine all the great inventions and ideas that would have never been if people stopped trying after failing the first time.  Students should be imagining, wondering and innovating.  They should have their ideas and projects heard and seen by authentic audiences giving them real feedback.  Students will have to learn how to find their passions and interests. We believe these types of experiences can be very empowering for students.

Without a plan, a vision is just a vision, so we developed a plan to carry this vision out.  Professional development will be an important piece of this plan.  We are hosting a "Summer of eLearning" conference right here at our school.  Keeping in theme with this project, the conference will be called PowerED Up and will be June 2 and 3. 

There will be nationally renowned educators and speakers here giving great insight into digital learning.  It will also be a great opportunity to connect with other educators and share ideas.  There will be other professional development opportunities as well.  On the student side, we want to give them time during their day to pursue their passions and interests.  WIN, specials, mini-classes, a Learning Experiences in Applied Fields (LEAF) class for high school students, and after school time will be the basic structure for giving students this time.  Since technology is the vehicle, we also plan to expand our 1:1 initiative as well.

The capacity to carry it out is where the rubber meets the road.  When it comes to digital learning, there are so many great things happening at Perry Central.  I think of the VEX and LEGO robotics teams, PLTW classes, FedEx days the seniors participated in, online classes, blended classes, flipped classrooms, My Big Campus, all the Google tools being used, as well as other technology tools.  There is a lot of great digital learning going on at Perry Central but we now have the opportunity to push that even further.  We know we have the capacity to make it happen and drive this vision forward because everyone at Perry Central has always had a commitment to create the best school we can for our students.

Below is a video we shared with the team we presented to.  We believe it is a good representation of what Perry Central is and stands for.  It is a "Happy" place to be!

      
Team members on this project include: Mary Roberson, Tara Bishop, Jackie Wright, Seth Clark, Ray James, Jody French, Jamie Guillaume, Kris Walsh, and Phil Zellers