Please see this letter in request of your support for the PATINS-Project to continue providing Assistive Tech and UDL support in the State of Indiana.  We would greatly appreciate your voice of suport.
Download Letter Here: PATINS AT letter of support 11-10-09

3D SL Wiki PATINS Staff

Think the idea of multiple parties in multiple locations collaborating on a single piece of writing in a traditional Wiki is cool?  Try to wrap your head around the possibilities that exist with a 3 Dimensional Wiki where each node or page of the wiki can contain text, links, notes, objects, etc!   Here’s a screen shot of the PATINS Staff participating in a 3D wiki experience on our Second Life Island regarding a Project Based Learning Book Study.   More to come on the possibilities here!  Don’t forget today at 2pm in my office on our Second Life PATINS Island will be the Accessible Technologies Round Table Discussion!  Here’s the slurl:

Mac Accessibility: Today, I’m doing a session for a district on some of the built-in accessibility features of Mac OS X and thought I’d might as well share a couple things here!

• Great Video Demonstration: Accessibility in Action
• Take your accessibility preferences with you: “Once you’ve customized your own Mac, you can take all your VoiceOver settings with you on the road. To do so, connect a USB flash drive to your Mac and choose Create Portable Preferences from the File menu in VoiceOver Utility.”

Quick Thoughts:

• Today’s students are expected to have about 7 careers, NOT 7 jobs in their lifetime.  How should this impact what we teach them and how we are teaching them?
  
• When you think about ACCESS to your curriculum; physical and sensory access is usually pretty concrete, but we must also think in terms of cognitive access.  What, specifically, are you doing with your teaching to account for cognitive access to the general education curriculum for ALL of your students?
  

TEXT TO BRAILLE: www.translatum.gr/converter/braille.htm

First, I’ve also spent quite a bit of time with the folks at Don Johnston discussing and working with Read:OutLoud 6.  I wanted to be sure to remind everyone that you have access to download this new version 6 of Read:OutLoud at no charge to you AND to put it on ALL of your school computers AS WELL as send it home wiht your students for their home computers!  Read more on this opportunity you have to move your educational space toward a more Universally Designed instructional environment:   www.icam.k12.in.us/ DRMs download ROL6 here: www.icam.k12.in.us/downloads.php

CRU’s:

…AND You can get 3 CRU’s just for learning how to use Read:OutLoud!   Here: www.donjohnston.com/state/indiana/indiana_readoutloud/index.html

UDL Blog: Some of you may know of Karen Janowski already.   If you don’t, you should!   One of the many great things Karen has is a real nice blog on UDL (Teaching Every Student)  http://teachingeverystudent.blogspot.com

Wikipedia Simple English Image

Wikipedia Tip: Many of you know my feelings on Wikipedia and if you don’t I’ll be happy to share.  In general, I am strongly in support of allowing the use of wikipedia and teaching students to cross reference and to truly evaluate their resources.  SO, I thought I’d share this little tip.  When performing a wikipedia search, there is a link along the left side of the screen that reads, “Simple English,” within the available languages.  Remember that access to the curriculum is certainly about physical and sensory access, but it’s also just as much about cognitive access.  Play with using this Simple English setting to get the same content presented in simpler terminology.

UDL Concept Map: Check here for a nice pdf of a UDL, AT, RTI, DI concept map from Brian Wojcik: http://59303.wikispaces.com/file/view/UDL+RTI+AT+Relationship.pdf See what you think.  I’d love to have discusison with Indiana folks on how these terms/concepts relate to one another.

Magify! I think I’ve blogged this one before, but certainly worth sharing again.  A MAGNIFIED search tool: http://big.com/home.php

Simplified Web Pages: Allows you to simplify and remove some distracting content on web pages.  There are also add-ins for firefox, apps for the iphone and bookmarklets.  http://tidyread.com/

OK… I have LOTS more to share and I promise I will… I have to make the journey back to Indiana RIGHT NOW, before Jim leaves me in Chicago, but I will try to post another entry perhaps tonight after Trick Or Treating! 

PATINS-Project Staff in Second Life Image

Here’s your chance to see what the PATINS Project is doing in Second Life.
We are hosting an open house on our Second Life Island and you are invited to join us to see what it is all about.
When:    Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Time:     9:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. and then again 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. EST
Where:  Go to: http://slurl.com/secondlife/PATINS%20Project%20Island/114/98/26

Various PATINS staff will be available during these hours and activities will include island tours, formal address and discussion of potential future events and training/meeting topics.  You must already have your avatar created prior to this event in order to participate. Attached, you will find how to “GET STARTED” on Second Life or visit the PATINS Website http://patinsproject.com/videos.html for 5 video tutorials that walk you through getting your avatar created.  You can always contact us ahead of time for additional help.

Give it a try… and give us feedback on how you like it, and what you would like to see us provide you on our island.

1. Do you have an Avatar created? See here: www.patinsproject.com/htm/TrainingVideos/SecondLife/SecondLifeIntro1/Second%20Life%20Introduction%20Tutorial%201.html
2. Do you have the software downloaded and installed? See here: http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/?lang=en-US
3. Have you checked to make sure you can access Second Life and that your computer meets the minimum system requirements? See here: http://secondlife.com/support/system-requirements
4. Do you have the address or slurl for the PATINS Island? Here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/PATINS%20Project%20Island/114/102/26
5. Need The One Page Getting Started Hand Out? Second Life Getting Started Informational Sheet

Free Online Sketch Pad: I’ve recently been playing around with the potential use of a pen/tablet type of device in place of a traditional mouse.  During this experimentation I’ve been fascinated by the ability of many of these devices to respond to pressure (pressure sensitive) and have been looking for a free way of utilizing this technology.  Check out this Free Online Sketch Pad. www.onlinesketchpad.com

RFB&D Books! The ICAM is pleased to announce a recent agreement made with Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic to provide audio digital format to certified students with a print disability textbooks and trade books (novels). The Agreement allows at no cost to the school district to place request for materials and download materials through your ICAM registered Digital Rights Manager. To learn more on training and how to access RFB&D See the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic tab on the Tools & Downloads page.

• Announcement Letter: www.icam.k12.in.us/RFBDannouncementfall09.pdf
  More Info Under the RFB&D Tab here: www.icam.k12.in.us/downloads.php

Read:OutLoud Image Logo

Read: OutLoud: NEW VERSION FREE!!!!   FOR ALL YOUR COMPUTERS!!!!  Version 6 has many GREAT improvements!

More info and perform download here: www.icam.k12.in.us/downloads.php

Caption YouTube Videos: Just sign in with your Google Account and quickly caption YouTube Videos to make them accessible.  Easy and Free: http://captiontube.appspot.com/

]]> http://nepatins.edublogs.org/2009/10/16/10162009patins-sl-open-house-tuesday-new-readoutloud-version-6-free-for-all-your-computers-rfbd-book-opportunity-free-online-sketch-pad-caption-you-tube-videos/feed/ 1 http://nepatins.edublogs.org/2009/10/09/1092009-crus-available-now-for-rol-second-life-getting-started-quick-tips-and-updating-patins-open-house-other-great-locations-k-12-podcasting-resources/ http://nepatins.edublogs.org/2009/10/09/1092009-crus-available-now-for-rol-second-life-getting-started-quick-tips-and-updating-patins-open-house-other-great-locations-k-12-podcasting-resources/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:32:24 +0000 danielgmcnulty http://nepatins.edublogs.org/?p=403 Are You Ready?

The PATINS Second Life Open House is only 11 days away!

1. Do you have an Avatar created? See here: www.patinsproject.com/htm/TrainingVideos/SecondLife/SecondLifeIntro1/Second%20Life%20Introduction%20Tutorial%201.html
2. Do you have the software downloaded and installed? See here: http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/?lang=en-US
3. Have you checked to make sure you can access Second Life and that your computer meets the minimum system requirements? See here: http://secondlife.com/support/system-requirements
4. Do you have the address or slurl for the PATINS Island? Here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/PATINS%20Project%20Island/114/102/26
5. Need The One Page Getting Started Hand Out? Second Life Getting Started Informational Sheet

Regarding System Requirements: The two most common issues with some computers not being able to access Second Life are High Speed Internet Connection and a new enough Video Card and Drivers.  The high speed internet connection speaks for itself, but you can check here for info on updating your computers video card drivers to the latest, which just might solve your problem:

Update Your Video Card:

• ATI Video Card Drivers: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
• NVIDIA Video Card Drivers: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Info on Letting Second Life Through! Here’s some techy info which may be necessary for accessing Second Life from your teacher computer at school:

• Hardware firewalls need to allow access on certain network ports. Second Life needs to connect to ports:443/TCP, 12035/UDP, 12036/UDP, 12043/TCP, and 13000-13050/UDP.
• You should configure your firewall to allow outbound traffic on those ports, and related inbound traffic.
• You’ll need to consult your firewall’s documentation, or the manufacturer’s website, for instructions on how to make these changes to your firewall.
• As of Version 1.13.2, released Jan. 10th, 2007, you need to enable UDP/TCP in order to access Second Life.Second Life Subnets used for connections:
  • 63.210.156.0/22
  • 64.154.220.0/22
  • 8.2.32.0/22
  • 8.4.128.0/22
  • 8.10.144.0/21
  • 216.82.0.0/18

Contact Us
With Questions.  We’re Happy To Help!

CRU’s for ROL:

You may or may not be aware that you can get CRU’s just for learning how to use  Read:OutLoud software that Indiana has made available to every computer in your district AND take-home rights for students.

• CRU’s available here: www.donjohnston.com/state/indiana/indiana_readoutloud/index.html
• More info on ROL here:  www.icam.k12.in.us/downloads.php

NPR in Second Life: As I’m sure you’re eagerly awaiting the Open House for our very own PATINS Project Island in Second Life on Oct. 20, you might want to spend some time over at the NPR Island, especially on Fridays when they have their “Science Friday” presentations!   Here is a great set of resources on the blog: www.storyofmysecondlife.com/?p=397 and here is the Island Location in SL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Science%20Friday/205/250/23

Two Other Virtual Spaces: I’ve blogged about lots of different virtual spaces, in addition to Second Life, including the 150 or so that are specifically intended for school aged children.  Well, here are two more that are new to me.  I’ve not explored either of them yet, but wanted to throw them out there and if you decide to check into one or both, I’d love for people to report their thoughts back here to the blog as comments.

• Blue Mars: www.bluemarsonline.com
• Metaplace: http://metaplace.com

Jokaydia Island and Resources:  “…a community of educators and artists exploring Second Life. Lots of great, creative resources here.

• The Wiki: http://jokaydia.com/2009/10/02/trademarks-and-the-sleducation-wiki/
• The SL Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia/128/128/25

1 Quick Teleporting Tip: Ever teleport away and want to go back?   See here:
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/tnt/blog/2009/10/01/quicktip-ever-accidentally-teleport-away-and-want-to-go-back

K-12 Podcasting: …had a few questions this week about podcasting at the K-12 level.  Here’s just a real quick and NOT comprehensive list, but a good place to get started if you are new to the concept of podcasting:

• http://www.edtechmag.com/k12/issues/april-may-2007/podcasting-at-school.html
• http://www.edtechmag.com/k12/issues/april-may-2007/podcasting-at-school.html
• http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~nshelley/
• http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/apr06/Eash.shtml
• http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/podcasts/
• http://kathyschrock.net/podcasting/podcasting.pdf
• http://www.intelligenic.com/blog/
• http://fcit.usf.edu/podcasts/

I do have a free hands-on podcasting workshop scheduled for Feb. 9.  We can also come out to you to do a training and/or we can have a training online in our new Second Life Island for free, saving travel costs for everyone!  Let us know how we can help!

Featured Teacher! This week I spent a couple minutes talking to Maria Demopoulos about some of the things she is using video iPods for, specifically for social stories/scripts for some of her students on the autism spectrum.  Let me know if you know of other amazing teachers doing great things for students from a Universal Design for Learning or accessibility point of view!

Download

Flip Video Educational Pricing: Many of you have probably heard me talk about Flip Video cameras in my workshops and trainings and I wanted to point out that there is special educational pricing on some of their video cameras for teachers through the Digital Wish program.    http://www.digitalwish.com/dw/digitalwish/product?id=4310

Mac Accessibility: I got a couple questions this week, one from Warsaw and one from Jim about software to access an Apple computer.  Immediately coming to mind is the built-in Voice Over utility that comes on Macs and also some of the iPods now. www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover

• 50+ Reasons: …to consider using VoiceOver on your Mac. www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/reasons.html

Karen Kangas: …a handful of seats remain!
Sensory Processing, Integration and Seating with Karen Kangas: PATINS is once again bringing Karen Kangas back to Indiana for 2 intense workshop days at no cost to you!   There are still a few spots remaining for this workshop.  If you’ve heard Karen before or heard me speak ABOUT Karen, you know this isn’t one you want to miss!  November 17, 18.   Click Here to Register!

PATINS Project Island Main

PATINS Island Open House! Don’t forget to spend 10 minutes:

1. Creating Your Free Avatar:
   www.secondlife.com
2. Download and Install the Second Life Software.  Remember this can be installed to a $5 Thumbdrive and run from there.  No need to install to your computer’s hard drive if you’d rather not.
3. Make sure you can access the Second Life Grid by trying to log in once step 1 & 2 are completed above.
4. If you cannot log in, contact me.  I have some ideas that could help.

On OCTOBER 20, ALL DAY LONG, at least one PATINS Staff Member will be available on our Island to greet you, give you a tour, answer your questions, provide you with training demonstrations, etc.  Contact me with questions via email or leave comments on the blog!  Additionally, if you want to log in to SL earlier than October 20th to explore our island and would like one of us to meet you there, just let us know!

Additional Resources for learning about Second Life and getting started:

• PATINS Video Tutorials on Getting Started (5 minutes long)
• Second Life Getting Started Informational Sheet
• SL_Keyboard_Shortcuts

Remember you can register for any of the FREE trainings PATINS offers:
www.patinsproject.com/regional.html

Article on Sight-Words: www.donjohnston.com/enewsletter/teacherleadermcnulty.html

Online Learning: This week I participated in an ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) webinar on Project Based Learning and Collaboration.  One of the many very interesting components of the discussion in that webinar was some recent meta research looking at online learning.  While the search turned up relative little research in the K-12 world, the results did indicate that more learning occurred online that face to face and even better performance yet was obtained by utilizing a combination of face to face and online training.

PATINS Project Island Main

PATINS Island Open House! Don’t forget to spend 10 minutes:

1. Creating Your Free Avatar:
   www.secondlife.com
2. Download and Install the Second Life Software.  Remember this can be installed to a $5 Thumbdrive and run from there.  No need to install to your computer.
3. Make sure you can access the Second Life Grid by trying to log in once step 1 & 2 are completed above.
4. If you cannot log in, contact me.  I have some ideas that could help.

On OCTOBER 20, ALL DAY LONG, at least one PATINS Staff Member will be available on our Island to greet you, give you a tour, answer your questions, provide you with training demonstrations, etc.  Contact me with questions via email or leave comments on the blog!  Additionally, if you want to log in to SL earlier than October 20th to explore our island and would like one of us to meet you there, just let us know!

Talking Calculator for iTouch/iPhone: Of course you probably are as used to me blogging about the extraordinary educational power in the iTouch/iPhone as you are me blogging about immersive 3D environments!  …but, Nanette from Elkhart came to see me today to pick up her refurbished computer, talk about some accessibility issues, NIMAS and other stuff.  One of the things she was looking for was a big-button talking calculator that didn’t make her student feel like she was standing out or using an “un-cool” tool.  Again, if it’s not socially valid, it’s not likely going to be engaging.  A quick look in the app store yielded a .99 application that is a very simple talking calculator with larger buttons.  It’s not perfect, but for .99 is worth looking at for some students.

Karen Kangas! …is coming back to Indianapolis November 17 and 18! If you saw Karen last year when she presented for us on Seating and Positioning for Success, you know what sort of treat you’re in for by attending this year’s 2-Day workshop on Sensory Processing, Sensory Integration, and
Seating & Access.

• Flyer here: Karen Kangas Fall 2009 2-Day Workshop Flyer

• Registration here: www.patinsproject.com/training.html

FETC Virtual Conference: Last year I attended an FETC online virtual conference with Sandy and we both really enjoyed it.  It’s an experience you should consider if at all possible.  October 22 from 10am to 6pm.  Details and registration here: http://virtual.fetc.org/Microsites/FETC-Virtual/Event-Home.aspx

Fall 09 PATINS AT Overview Course: Don’t forget to register!  This is a great opportunity to become more familiar with Accessible Technologies and how you can help increase access to the General Ed. Curriculum in your building! As always, this course is free and provided by the PATINS Project.  It will run from 9/28 through 11/6.  More info here:
2009 AT Overview Coarse FAQ
2009 AT Overview Course REGISTRATION FORM

Time Zone Converter: Between Second Life Time (SLT), which is the same as PDT and EST, where I live and work and CST where some of the other PATINS Sites are and Australian time, where my in-laws live, and England where my brother-in-law lives, I tend to get confused now and then!  Here’s a resource that might be worth bookmarking for you and your students.
http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

Camtasia For Mac: YES!!! All I can say is that it’s about time!  Camtasia is hands-down my favorite program for recording screen tutorials, but until  this week it has been unavailable for Mac.  Here it is!  Unfortunately, it’s not a free one.  But, it is one that’s well worth spending the money on if screen recordings are something you intend to do right. www.techsmith.com/camtasiamac

Getting Started in Second Life: Second Life Getting Started Informational Sheet

• 5 Short Video Tutorials on getting started here: www.patinsproject.com/videos.html

]]> http://nepatins.edublogs.org/2009/08/28/8282009-featured-teacher-video-fetc-virtual-conference-karen-kangas-returns-camtasia-for-mac-getting-started-in-sl/feed/ 0 http://nepatins.edublogs.org/2009/08/21/8212009-welcome-back-to-school-patins-at-overview-course-registration-patins-second-life-island-udl-in-columbus-featured-teacher-scratching-3d-animation-and-a-free-article-7-opportunity/ http://nepatins.edublogs.org/2009/08/21/8212009-welcome-back-to-school-patins-at-overview-course-registration-patins-second-life-island-udl-in-columbus-featured-teacher-scratching-3d-animation-and-a-free-article-7-opportunity/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:08:09 +0000 danielgmcnulty http://nepatins.edublogs.org/?p=258

Greetings Indiana Educators! I hope everyone has had a relaxing and inspired Summer and are now settling back into the school routine.  No more Brussels Sprouts philosophy this week.  I’m back into the groove and ready for some new, exciting, free/cheap, and engaging 21st Century Accessible Technologies! …hope you are too!

PATINS Project Island Main

With limited time this summer, I decided to devote much of my free time to building on the PATINS Project Island in Second Life.  I’m pleased to let you know on this beautiful Friday morning that the Second Life PATINS Project Island is up and running and ALMOST ready for Indiana educators to come check out!  For much of the past 2 years, I’ve blogged about Second Life and many other online, immersive, 3D spaces available  for the purpose of professional learning networks, technical training, 3D workshops, etc., for educators as well as for student learning, role playing and social scripting.  It’s exciting now that PATINS is almost ready to open our island up to Indiana educators looking for a safe and secure space in which to do these things.  What I’m looking for NOW is a group of 5-10 educators interested in participating in some preliminary trainings/meetings as the facilities are developed and fine tuned.  If you are one of these educators, contact me via email, phone, skype, SL or simply leave a response here on the blog.

UDL:  For any of the current or former PATINS UDL Pilot Teams, here is a free training opportunity: BCSC UDL Flyer September 17-18.

Register Quick! The PATINS-Project Assistive/Accessible Technologies Overview Course tends to fill up fast!  Registration for the Fall 2009 Course is now open. As always, this course is free and provided by the PATINS Project.  It will run from 9/28 through 11/6.  More info here:
2009 AT Overview Coarse FAQ
2009 AT Overview Course REGISTRATION FORM

Scratch for SL Image

SCRATCH IT! Over the Summer I was introduced to a program called Scratch, or more specifically, Scratch for Second Life.  In short, what this FREE program does is allow you to create scripts or programs that you can attach to just about ANY object in Second Life, causing it to become animated and/or controlled by your commands.  This is very exciting news for educators in Second Life!  What this means is that you can create, buy or find any object in Second Life and use Scratch to animate it without having to know anything about programming!   It’s all drag & drop and copy & paste.  …Super simple and highly effective!  This brings modeling, teaching, learning and networking in an online environment to a whole new level!  Oh, and did I mention, it’s FREE?   Check it out for yourself:
http://web.mit.edu/~eric_r/Public/S4SL/

I’m planning to do a few workshops this year, both in Real Life and Second Life, where we’ll be working with Scratch to create some teaching and learning tools!  Keep a look out!

Mr. Glass

Great Teacher Featured: Last week I spent some time in Warsaw doing some hands-on trainings and came across a teacher named Rick Glass, who reminded me that there are so many incredible teachers out there doing amazing things who have so much to offer, but often don’t get to share beyond their own school district.  Mr. Glass made several comments in response to various questions I asked during the workshops and it became obvious to me that he’s had Brussels Sprouts on his grocery list for some time now.  So much of what he’s been doing in his classroom NEEDS to be shared with other educators.  When I asked Rick for permission to write a little about him in this week’s blog, he agreed and shared, “I am excited about the ways I have been permitted to teach my students.  What is most fulfilling is seeing their excitement grow as they take responsibility for their own learning.  I love teaching them to learn to love learning.  Please feel free to share anything I might be doing that could encourage others who read your blog. All the best, Rick” What I specifically wanted to share with you this week about Rick is the Global Virtual Classroom project he and his students are a collaborative part of.  Along with a school in Illinois and a school in Israel, Rick’s class works on this collaborative project-based learning initiative as a way to engage his students in reading, writing social, technology and community oriented skills.  Their website can be explored here: http://gvc0801.gvc08.virtualclassroom.org/

…I hope to include a little more from Rick next week and if YOU know of an Indiana educator doing amazing things with accessible technologies and Universal Design for Learning who’s ideas should be shared, please do let me know!

Article 7 Learning Opportunity: For those of you in the Anderson area, INSource will be offering some free training next week. 

Article 7–Getting a Fresh Start in the New School Year”, 7 on August 27, 2009. This is a 2.5 hour training and open to the public, but registration is requested.  More information and registration here: http://insource.org/forms/08-27-09MM-Gen.html

Of course the CAST site offers a lot of other resources regarding NIMAS as well: http://nimas.cast.org/index

TLT ‘09: Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I participated in the FREE Teaching and Learning With Technology Conference at Purdue University that I blogged about several weeks back.  I returned to my office Thursday morning with several really interesting experiences from this conference. www.itap.purdue.edu/tlt/conference/

1. Twitter-Enhanced presentations/teaching:  Though I’ve had a Twitter account for about 3 years now, I’ve never really made good use of it till now.  During the opening keynote at this conference, Sarah (Intellagir) Robbins, spoke very well while showing ppt slides.  What made this a particularly different experience for me was that the audience was encouraged to Twitter their thoughts and questions about the presentation while Sarah was presenting.  Three or four large monitors and projectors displayed a running twitterfall of the asynchronous discussion going on in the crowd during the keynote.  It was incredible to me and I tried to participate with a few twits of my own.  Sarah proceeded to recognize the twitted comments/questions and responded to them, making it much more of an interactive experience even with a few hundred people in the room!  I loved the concept and immediately started thinking about applying to 1. my own presentations and trainings and 2. a classroom teaching situation.  So, everyone continued to Twitter their thoughts, comments, questions, resources, during the remaining 2 days of conference and I have to say that I probably gained almost as much information from other attendees twits as I did from the presentations themselves.  What an incredible learning network opportunity!  Here’s one resource that someone at the conference twittered, during the conference, as one source of info on how to present while the audience Twitters:  http://pistachioconsulting.com/twitter-presentations/

2. We should all be well aware of the term “Web 2.0″ by now even if we aren’t using all sorts of great web 2.0 tools in our classrooms quite yet.  Here’s a listing of some award-winning web 2.0 tools all in one place:  www.seomoz.org/web2.0/short.  Many of the tools are free and very powerful and certainly worth a little of your time to check out!

3. Purdue University in Second Life. I knew of Purdue’s presence in Second Life, but hadn’t been able to spend any time on their island.  However, two of the sessions at the TLT ‘09 Conference specifically addressed Purdue’s experiences in Second Life so far and I got a good look at the Boilermaker campus in SL!  4. Wordle: Wordle isn’t new to me.  In fact, Sandy has had a PATINS Wordle on our website for quite some time, but I was reminded of Wordle clouds at this conference and came home to immediately implement with my daughters.  My 7 year old and I put the Itsy Bitsy Spider text from the book she had to read for homework, into Wordle, which created the word clouds below.  This may not look overly impressive at first glance, but consider what went into this and what the final product actually is.  First, in order to type this story into wordle, she and I had to go over and over the text in the book making sure we had the words spelled correctly.  In the process, she actually read me the book 3 times.  The final product displays the words that are used more often in a larger font.  So, it’s obvious from looking at this wordle which words are repetitive in the story.  How many great ways could you use this to help interpret public addresses and speeches and even your own teaching perhaps?  Then, we had the opportunity to play with the font colors, style, placement, etc, bringing in a little bit of the creative design aspect.  Give it a try.  Wordle is free. www.wordle.net/

5.  Intellagirl: …mentioned in #1 above with regard to the asynchronous twittering, but worthy of continued discussion!  Sarah Robbins was the opening keynote for the conference, and in my opinion, really started the conference off on exactly the right foot and with the right attitude.  Sarah is the coauthor of “Second Life For Dummies,” is a PhD candidate at Ball State University.  She’s doing some truly ground-breaking work with pedagogy and just a select few of her points from this conference that stuck with me, that maybe are worth spending some time thinking about include:

• 78% of 2009 incoming class will have had internet access for their entire K-12 career, 98% in 2012.  This has SERIOUS implications for pedagogy and the tools we use with them as educators.
• It’s TIME NOW to implement policies that punish or reward the person doing, rather than policies that prohibit the technology.
• The concepts and theory behind tools like facebook and twitter are NOT new and can actually allow educators to engage their students in the instruction on a much deeper level.
• Most errors on wikipedia are corrected in less than 60 seconds.  Sarah expressed that she was blown away that many districts block wikipedia rather than teaching responsible use of it.
• Policy driving pedagogy, as we often have now, is seriously separating our students from the world in which they will be expected to live and work.  It’s time for pedagogy to drive policies.

Finally for this week: Above is a screenshot of the K-12 school districts represented on the Lighthouse Learning Second Life Island.  The Lighthouse K-12 Island in Second Life is hosting something pretty special:

Time:  5pm (SL time)
Date: April 26, 2009
Location:  Lighthouse Learning Island Auditorium.

Contact me if you’d like more information and a Landmark to attend this event!

Free Video Tutorials: Sandy, our SW Site Coordinator found this great website where you can watch free video tutorials on a variety of subject areas including basics of MS Word, iMovie, Searching the internet, Social and Professional online networking, iPhone and iPod basics and more!   The ones I’ve looked at so far are great!  www.woopid.com

Getting Started in Second Life: At the PATINS Tech Expo next week, I’ll be at the Second Life/PATINS-Project booth talking about Second Life and it’s potential benefits to education and more specifically to Professional Development.  We’ll be handing out a 1-page sheet on Getting Started in Second Life as well.  If you’d like that sheet ahead of time, you can download it below.  It might be beneficial for you to create an avatar before arriving at the Tech Expo so that you might have some more specific/details questions for me.  Download the getting started guide here: second-life-getting-started-info

Tech Expo: Pre-registration is offically over for the Tech Expo, however walk in registration is welcome…although a lunch may not be available for walk ins. Please see Glenda Thompson the day of Tech Expo to see if a lunch is available for you if you did not pre-register.

Teaching Every Student Ning: ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) has started a NING on the book we use for our Indiana UDL Program.  Check it out here: http://teachingeverystudent.ning.com/

Second Life Tips from the Traveling Avatar: I just recently came across this FREE podcast.  It’s actually no longer being produced with the last episode having been published on 1/8/2008.  However, it is still offered for subscription (free) on iTunes and offers some nice little tips for utilizing Second Life.  Keep in mind that it is not intended for educational uses entirely, but it does offer some great tips for getting the most out of Second Life in general.  Some of the topics that looked interesting to me included: Reducing Lag, Securing Your Land, Etiquette in SL, Voice Chat Hardware and Etiquette, How to make a picture display in Second Life, etc.

…Another couple of podcasts that might be of interest:

• Global Kids Digital Media Initiatives Podcast Series and
• RezEd Podcast Series: This one is outstanding if you haven’t checked it out yet!