Streaming workshop

For 25 years, Gary Stager, an internationally recognized educator, speaker and consultant, has helped learners of all ages on six continents embrace the power of computers as intellectual laboratories and vehicles for self-expression. He led professional development in the world’s first laptop schools (1990), has designed online graduate school programs since the mid-90s and is a collaborator in the MIT Media Lab’s Future of Learning Group. Mr. Stager’s doctoral research involved the creation a high-tech alternative learning environment for incarcerated at-risk teens. Recent work includes teaching and mentoring some of Australia’s “most troubled” public schools. Gary is Senior Editor of District Administration Magazine, Editor of The Pulse: Education’s Place for Debate, Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and an Associate of the Thornburg Center for Professional Development. Dr. Stager is also the Executive Director of The Constructivist Consortium. In 1999, Converge Magazine named Gary a “shaper of our future and inventor of our destiny.” The National School Boards Association recognized Dr. Stager with the distinction of “20 Leaders to Watch” in 2007.
Gary is presenting a workshop at the Science Academy Leadership Conference in Philadelpia January 25 – 27, 2008

Think before you Ban

ESchool News presents an excellent overview of the reasons that School Board should get on board using Technologies that keep pace with our students.

Before school officials prohibit teachers and students from accessing certain web sites, they should think about the positive impact those sites might have on education: That was the message of “Think Before You Ban: How Classrooms Become Communities with Web 2.0 Technology,” a recent webcast sponsored by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN).
The Jan. 16 program, moderated by ed-tech consultant Karen Greenwood Henke, focused on how schools can use Web 2.0 tools to foster collaboration and innovation in classrooms.

“We cannot ignore this phenomenon,” said Susan Brooks-Young, a Web 2.0 consultant who works with schools on technology programs and integration. Educators should “look at the instructionally sound ways to bring [Web 2.0 tools] in, and help both teachers and kids make the best use of this technology.”

Web 2.0 technologies “lend themselves very well to teaching 21st-century learning skills, and our job is to prepare kids for the workforce they’ll be facing when they leave school,” Brooks-Young added.

Before school officials prohibit teachers and students from accessing certain web sites, they should think about the positive impact those sites might have on education: That was the message of “Think Before You Ban: How Classrooms Become Communities with Web 2.0 Technology,” a recent webcast sponsored by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN).
The Jan. 16 program, moderated by ed-tech consultant Karen Greenwood Henke, focused on how schools can use Web 2.0 tools to foster collaboration and innovation in classrooms.

“We cannot ignore this phenomenon,” said Susan Brooks-Young, a Web 2.0 consultant who works with schools on technology programs and integration. Educators should “look at the instructionally sound ways to bring [Web 2.0 tools] in, and help both teachers and kids make the best use of this technology.”

Web 2.0 technologies “lend themselves very well to teaching 21st-century learning skills, and our job is to prepare kids for the workforce they’ll be facing when they leave school,” Brooks-Young added.”

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Flash Movie – Video Clip Freezes – Quicktime Pro solution and iMovie08

While I was facilitating the project Student Learning a Parent Focus I found a particularly annoying problem with the video clips freezing and dropping the sound about a minute and a half into the clip. It took some considerable time Googling to find an answer. It happened when I created 5 minute video clips that I created with iMovie and then converted to Flash Movie using Adobe Flash encoder Movies. The problem was created by the audio component. These are the steps that I now take to produce a video using iMovie08. I import DV footage using the import function. Edit the movie as needed. Share the movie as a Quicktime Movie using the mp4 format being sure to select mono not stereo for the audio settings. Then open file in QuickTime Pro and convert the file to a flash movie. For some reason iMovie08 returns a error for saving video as a FLV which prevents you from exporting the file directly from iMovie08. I worked around it using Quicktime Pro. Import the Quicktime movie into Quicktime PRO and then export as a FLV. I learn by trial and error perhaps someone else has a better solution.

WordPress SEO for Beginners

I present to you the very first WordPress SEO guide for beginners – The Blog Oh! Blog way. It can be considered as a crash course for all the people who are struggling to get better search engine results with their WordPress blogs.

Better search engine results will increase the number of people interested in what you have to say. In this e-book, I will guide you how to rapidly configure your WordPress blog with maximum SEO benefits.

Please use the traffic you get to sign up at the Wikispace support blogging petition

read more | digg story

Centre d’Apprentissage du Haut-Madawaska uses a blog for its school website

Diane Carver at thecanadianteachers.com talks about how Centre d’Apprentissage du Haut-Madawaska uses a blog for its school website.

The C.A.H.M. weblog links to individual blogs kept by students, teachers, department heads and administrators to present a dynamic and up to date picture of the school. Each week, the school’s director uses feeds from classroom and student blogs to post an update of what’s going on in the school. The front page may include recognition of students or teachers, short summaries of classroom work that’s being done and information about upcoming events.(3)(4) The RSS feed makes it easy to pull in and format all the information, and the recognition encourages students and teachers to post their work, questions and information.

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