Alright….LOTS of stuff today! It’s coming at you fast with not alot of explanation to some of it, so get ready! I’ll go into more depth on some of these next week)
TRLD Conference 2009:
Lots of good stuff at the conference! My session went really well this evening and was well attended. A recurring theme at the conference and general buzz amongst people seemed to be that of professional development and how it seems that so many teachers are ready for it to be, at least in part, an online experience. This is interesting to me and goes right along with my recent blogging about Second Life and other immersive environments as I believe this sort of 3D virtual world is where we are headed with a lot of professional development.
Some quick tips and things to try:
Zoho: Zoho is sort of like Google Apps on steroids. Try this out as a great way to collaborate on documents! It’s FREE. www.zoho.com
Twidla: Twidla is a FREE interactive whiteboard that multiple people can use and colloaborate on at once. It’s fairly basic, but it works really well and it’s free! www.twidla.com
TagCrowd: A free, simple way to take a body of text and focus down to the most frequently used words in that text. Very Powerful Tool in my opinion! www.tagcrowd.com
UDL Editions: http://udleditions.cast.org/
Book Builder: http://bookbuilder.cast.org
CAST Curriculum Self-Check: http://udlselfcheck.cast.org/
CAST UDL Lesson Builder: http://lessonbuilder.cast.org
April 16, 2009
Junior Achievement Building of Central IN, Inc.
7435 North Keystone Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46240
- No cost to you.
- Varied Presentations nd Vendor Booths.
- Door Prizes and Giveaways!
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Register for the Tech Expo By Clicking HERE
NIMAS Digital Rights Managers Update:
- There are currently a little over 600 DRMs registered statewide.
- New DRMs can now be registered through the ICAM right on their website.
- There will be DRM Webinar Trainings from the ICAM almost every week, on Tuesdays.
Pixies Online: It’s been a few weeks since I’ve talked about immersive environments such as Second Life and I wanted to mention a couple of things. First, we now have a PATINS-Project SL Group in Second Life. If you create an avatar (which is free) in Second Life, do a search for PATINS and join our group!
These last few weeks, my daughters have been completely immersed in Disney’s Pixie Hollow, which is a free, online virtual world. Unlike Second Life it is highly controlled and I feel, quite safe. My daughters each have created multiple fairies (avatars), know how to fly them around, how to chat with other fairies, how to collect ingredients such as leaves and spider webs and how to decorate their fairy homes! My daughters are 5 and 7 years old. I’ve given them relatively little instruction or help once I helped them set up their accounts. This is just incredible to me and it really goes to show that this sort of 3D virtual or immersive world is what our students are growing up with. They understand it, it’s not “wierd” to them like I hear from many teachers and they are quickly able to learn with it, from it and contribute to their worlds. I think we have an obligation to pay some close attention to what’s coming!
Tags: 20009, DRM, iPod, literacy, McNulty, NIMAS, PATINS, Pixies, redefine, Second Life, session, TRLD, warlick, Wiki
