Technology Workshops for Fall 2009

Here is a quick list of technology related workshops being offered for the fall of 2009.
All workshops will take place at the Support Services Center at the Norwich BOCES Campus from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm

An Introduction to the SMARTBoard - Sept. 21
Writing in the Digital Age - Sept. 23
Using a SMARTBoard in the Math Classroom - Sept. 25
SMARTBoard Level 2 - October 5
SMARTBoard Level 1 - October 6
An Introduction to Microsoft Word 2007 - Oct. 20
An Introduction to Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 - Oct. 21
An Introduction to Microsoft Excel - Oct. 23
SMARTBoards for ELA - Nov. 3
Fun with Geometry - Nov. 5
Google Tools - Nov. 16
Digital Storytelling - Nov. 18
An Introduction to GarageBand - Dec. 1
Animation to Support Instruction - Dec. 3
SMARTBoards for LOTE - Dec. 4
SMARTBoards for Science - Dec. 15
SMARTBoards for Social Studies - Dec. 18

Online Safety Link

This is a link to a web site from the PBS series Frontline. In light of the focus on internet safety, I thought I'd post a link to this. It's from an episode that aired in 2008 and is titled "Growing Up Online".

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/

TRintuition

Just discovered this site through an online newsletter. They offer a service called "workbench" and is best described as a web-based multimedia authoring tool. As it states in their FAQ page...

Web authoring software has traditionally fallen into one of two categories. It has either been powerful but difficult to learn to use (and consequently used primarily by professionals), OR web authoring software has been easy to use but very restrictive and based on the use of confining screen templates.

The workBench overcomes this either/or quandary in important new ways. Its intuitive, drag-and-drop environment contains templates, but they are a convenience, not a requirement, and you can open and totally alter any one of them in any way you choose. You can create web screens entirely from scratch and, if you like, save your own screens as templates at any point in their development. You can later copy and paste these screens into any project, new or old. Better yet, you can create working groups, teams of users, to collaborate on the creation of websites and other web-based materials, with each group having access to its own planning Calendar, sharing resources, and combing web pages into final cumulative products.

I've only been playing with it for about a day now, but I have found it easy to use and very powerful. The help screens and video tutorials are excellent.

I encourage anyone who is interested in this service to give it a try! You can set up your own single account for free and subscription plans are available for classroom and school wide services. I'd love to hear from anyone else who gives this a try! Let me know how you see yourself using it.

New York State Model Schools Meeting

Last Thursday and Friday (April 29-30), BOCES I.S.S. staff members Rod Sutton, Ron Pike and Todd Rutan participated in a teleconference with other members of the New York State Model Schools consortium. A major part of the teleconference involved breaking the committee up into working sub-groups who then worked on portions of a new online course being offered via the new Model Schools moodle. The new course being created is intended for teachers in NYS to learn about safety on the internet.
More information about this course will be distributed when the course is finalized.

iTunes U Spotlight

Click the title of this post to go to the iTunes U Spotlight update page. About once a month, this page is updated with amazing and free podcasts that you can download and use in the classroom. This month's spotlight is all about podcasts related to the environment.

Its easy, free, quick and all podcasts can be kept on your computer or easily burned to CD or DVD for archival storage. This is truly a no-brainer!

If clicking on the title of this post won't work for you here's the link
http://www.apple.com/itunesnews/itunesu/

You owe it to yourself and your students to check this out!!!

2009 Media Festival Update

All the entries for the Media Festival have been received and we are happy to report we have received a total of more than 260 entries. That is about 35 more entries than we received last year.

Entries are now being evaluated by our judges for awards. And speaking of awards, the award ceremony is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, May 20 at two locations. Schools who send BOCES students to the Chenango Campus will attend the ceremony at the Support Services Center in Norwich and schools who send students to the Harrold Campus in Masonville will attend the ceremony at Townsend Elementary School in Walton. More details about times and locations will be mailed out to those who entered as the festival gets closer.

Fall Technology Workshops

Here is a quick list of technology workshops and dates we are offering this fall. All workshops take place from 8:30 - 3:30 at the DCMO BOCES Instructional Support Services Center at the Norwich BOCES Campus.

SMARTBoard Intro - Sept. 23
SMARTBoard Intro - Sept 25
Intro to PowerPoint - Sept. 26
Intro to Word - Oct. 6
Wazzat new technology - Oct. 8
Online Safety - Oct. 21
What's new in Office '07 - Nov. 23
Intro to GarageBand - Oct. 25 (note this is a Saturday session)
Intro to Excel - Nov. 4
SMARTBoards for Social Studies - Nov. 6
SMARTBoards for Science - Nov. 7
SMARTBoards for ELA - Nov. 18
SMARTboards for Math - Nov. 20
SMARTBoards for Phys. Ed. - Dec. 2
SMARTBoards for Music - Dec. 4
Intro to Animation with Computers - Dec. 16
Intro to Podcasting - Dec. 18

Additional details can be found in the BOCES catalog of Professional Learning Opportunities. A PDF version of the catalog is available at http://www.dcmoboces.com/dcmoiss/staffdev/pdodef01.htm