I had the opportunity this morning to talk with attendees at the 2009 MUG-NW Summer Bootcamp. 
The Moodle User Group Northwest in partnership with NCCE holds a summer Moodle Bootcamp for both system administrators and instructors. This multi-strand event will allows participants to focus on either installing and administrating a Moodle environment or teaching and learning using one of the hottest online content management systems available.
If you’d like to see my course, just click the pic above. If you are interested in any of the activities you see, just let me know.
…it would have looked like Edmodo. Like Twitter, it’s a microblogging site, but it builds in significant additional functionality to support classroom interactions. Edmodo allows teachers to create groups that students join and then send messages, files, links, and assignments to the entire group. AWESOME !!
Check out Chris Dawson’s review of Edmodo for more info.
This is the cutest little webcam I’ve ever seen, and I want one.
I’m currently preparing to present at NCCE 2009 in Portland this February. My session is regarding the ways in which my students and I use Moodle in our math classroom. It should be a great conference and I hope to see you there!
REGISTER BY JANUARY 16 AND SAVE!
February 17-20, 2009
Oregon Convention Center
Portland Oregon
FEARLESS TECH EDUCATION CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
Find out how school districts are saving money with Open Source Software and how it can improve teaching and learning in the classroom!
Workshops
- Open Source for Schools
- Moodle for n00bs (newbies)
- Web 2.0 Basics: You mean you can do THAT on the internet?
- Create Powerful Learning with Moodle
- Free Internet/Online Tools to Increase Student Achievement
- Multimedia Moodle Marvels
- Managing Moodle for Teaching and Learning
- Web 2.0: All you can eat buffet
- School 2.0: Living Learning and Leading in a flat world
- Making Moodle Matter for Learners and Families
Educators, Administrative Leaders and Technical Staff will experience how Open Source Software increases both access and opportunities for students and teachers.
Concurrent Sessions
- MUG-NW (Moodle User’s Group) Gathering
- Web 2.0 – Voice, video on the web for free! Skype, UStream, Voice Thread
- Moodling in Math <— This is my session
- The IT Admins Guide to Managing Web 2.0 in Schools
- Open Source Smackdown
- Web 2.0 – Collaboration Tools you can’t live without. Delicious and Google docs
- Content Management Systems for Schools (Drupal, Joomla and others)
- Using Moodle: Supporting Administrators and Professional Development
- Opening Doors to Learning with Moodle
SEARCH LEARN and EXPLORE @ www.ncce.org
Qipit is a free online tool that allows you to copy documents, whiteboards and handwritten notes with your camera phone or digital camera to store, fax, email or publish. Just take a picture of a document with your camera phone and send the picture from your phone or via email to copy@qipit.com. You’ll receive a link to the online PDF copy of your document, all for free. I have other ways to share my whiteboard slides and notes, but this would be a great tool for students.
I found out about Qipit from the article 10 Useful Web Applications You Don’t Know About
Despite my long summer absence, I have been very busy preparing new technology for this upcoming school year. My most recent project is developing math courses using Moodle. Four of us (3 teachers and our tech director) attended the MUG NW Summer Moodle Bootcamp in July and two us us are currently participating in an online Moodle course, Create Powerful Online Learning with Moodle. We are also working on developing our Moodle courses for this upcoming school year; you can view my courses (they are works in progress!) at Woodland School District Courses. I would appreciate your feedback!
In the midst of all that, I spent two weeks in Maui which was fantastic – I snorkeled with a shark and a barracuda (not purposely, believe me!) and learned to surf! Click on the pics below if you’d like to see more Hawaii pics on Facebook.
Aloha!
I had no idea that there was such a day until I saw this Common Craft post in my Google Reader today. In honor of the day, here are some helpful resources:
Apparently, May 1st is RSS Awareness Day! I had no idea such a day existed, but it has it’s own site at RSSday.org . Thanks to the nice folks at dailyblogtips.com for making our RSS in Plain English video part of the site – and day for that matter.
I agree that RSS is one of those special technologies. It has the potential to positively impact virtually every Internet user at no cost. A big problem is awareness – it’s hard for people to see how it could impact them until they give it a try. Hopefully we’ve been able to turn some people on – but there are still about 94% of Internet users that haven’t seen the light. The challenge continues.
Here’s the improved version of the original video from the Common Craft Store:
Blackle is the energy-saving search engine powered by Google.
How does Blackle save energy? Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. “Image displayed is primarily a function of the user’s color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.” Roberson et al, 2002
Check it out and consider making Blackle your homepage.
Blackle.com - Saving energy one search at a time
I will be presenting this summer at the Summer Institute in Olympia, WA. During my session, Math & Technology in Today’s Classroom, I’ll show how I use technology such as the electronic whiteboard, student response systems, software, mathcasts and video projects to promote student learning and achievement and for assessment (both formative and summative).
At InterMath: Constructionary, users can obtain a list of constructions in Geometer’s Sketchpad. Clicking on a letter of the alphabet gives a list of constructions for that letter. When you chose a construction, clicking on the numbers shows the steps for that construction. Clicking on “Notes” at each step will give a brief description, and I do mean brief, so newbies may need additional help. This is not a stand-alone tutorial but definitely makes a great resource.
