First I would like to say thank you to Discovery for a wonderful opportunity to network with fellow educators across the country and share our knowledge with one another. It was wonderful to attend a workshop that inspired you to go out and create something wonderful to share with your students and teachers.
When we arrived, they placed us in groups with teachers we had never met before. My group consisted of two people from California, one from Pennsylvania, and one from Virginia. We had three field managers working with our group from North and South Carolina and Pennsylvania. We learned so much from each other and I can’t wait to share our project with you.
Our assignment was to create a project with our group around the theme America Revealed. We decided to focus on the Presidents and their monuments. You can view our project at http://discoveramerica.wikispaces.com.
During our conference, we had many motivational speakers that taught us the importance of digital storytelling (thanks Hall) and the need for Global Collaboration(thanks Alan). We realized that our students need to work outside of the walls of their classroom and interact with students, teachers, and experts all over the world. If we want our students to be competitive in their world, they must learn the importance of global communication and collaboration. As educators, it is our job to teach it to them. We also learned that students have stories that need to be told, using technology, we can share those digital stories and enhance the educational experience.
The technology was amazing! I learned so many new skills that I can’t wait to implement in my classroom. We received a wonderful gift from Adobe and learned how to enhance editable video clips using chromo key. This allows us to place people into existing videos. Imagine showing a video clip to your students and you appear in that clip. You will definitely have their attention! We used PhotoStory for digital storytelling and unleashed its learning potential. You can use PhotoStory for quizzes, unit introductions, presentations and so many other possibilities. We explored wikispaces for creating interactive, online units. These are easy to make and the best part is they are free! Check out www.wikispaces.com to create your own space. Google Earth was used for creating virtual fieldtrips and unitedstreaming images can be added to the map! Flickr is a free space for uploading photos and frappr maps allow you to create interactive maps.
Podcasting was introduced to us by Steve Dembo and the educational opportunities are unlimited. If you have a video device, you can download unitedstreaming clips. Creating your own podcast only requires a microphone and a computer. It was so simple and you can post a podcast to your website for parents and students to download to their computers, ipods, or MP3 players. I’m sure we will be hearing more about them in the education community.
I would like to thank Karen Seddon for introducing me to the world of Discovery and Unitedstreaming. You have enhanced my teaching and opened so many doors that I never even saw before. I am inspired to share my knowledge with others and Discovery has definitely recharged my batteries!
Thank you Discovery for putting on such a wonderful conference and providing a forum for collaboration and a chance to create a global community.
Reedy Creek Elementary
As always, I am