This summer has been busier than anticipated. Since the grad school courses wrapped up, I spent some time checking out the digital support materials for information presented at ISTE this year. While disappointed that I didn’t attend this year, there were some interesting sessions in the “Video on Demand” section and some supporting websites with excellent resources. One of my professional goals is to attend ISTE 2012 with 9 members of our faculty.
The past week or so has been focused on preparing presentations for the Lake Geneva Technology Academy. Designing presentations is interesting, picking the style of presentation is, at times, difficult. My personal preference as an attendee is to sit and listen, take notes, think about what is being shared, let my mind drift on how I could use the new webtools, or who I could share them with. If I am interested in learning how to use specific tool, I like the workshop-style, walk me through with a hands-on learning opportunity. Earlier this summer I was reading a blog post (please forgive me I can’t remember which one) and the author was reflecting on how she (I remember it was a she) preferred to discuss, be an active part of the discussion and she would choose the participatory session over presentation.
The Google Geography (Maps and Earth) session I’m assembling is workshop-style. We will explore some sites including Dr. Alice Christie’s Google Treks for Google Maps, Google Lit Trips and Real World Math for Google Earth (of course we’ll use the .kmz files in Google Maps too, very cool), and then work on making our own tours in both Google Maps and Earth and customizing placemarks by embedding video, images and other creations.
The wiki workshop is a combination of instructor-led introduction, hands-on workshop practicing wiki skills, and group discussions on applications for wikis in the curriculum.
Finally, there is a Web 2.0/Webtools session. Last year the group informally voted and wanted to see as many tools as I had time to show them and didn’t want to discuss during the session how to use them or deep discussions on how to embed them into the curriculum. I intend to ask the audience for their preference. We will be the last 3-hour session at the end of their week-long workshop. Wow. I created a Livebinder for the session. I believe it has 90 some resources categorized under an “ABC” theme. The notebook isn’t quite ready for full public access in the Livebinder community, but if you would like to see it, click here. The access code is: etlabcs The URL sharing page is having an issue as Only2Clicks doesn’t seem to be letting me share a public page by URL at the moment (frustrating). I like Only2Clicks, but if I have to, I’ll try 3x3Links, they seem to be basically the same thing.
On to the handouts. I would like to finish them tonight so tomorrow can be the Twins game and then a drive with little to no work on these presentations!! 🙂
Stay cool!
No Time to Sleep 