Thursday, September 24, 2009

Thursday, April 16, 2009

ITSCO Student Video Challenge

How’d They Do That?
sponsored by MidState Educators Credit Union

Video is a powerful educational tool and when you put a camera in the hands of students, learning grows exponentially. Video production provides students with the opportunity to create their own learning and make sense of the curriculum they face. Also spectacular is the potential for peer-to-peer learning. Who would your students rather listen to: an adult or someone their own age? A peer, of course! Take a student created video, put it in a mobile format, and imagine where it might land. Suddenly students are sharing their videos on cell phones, mobile audio/video players, through email, and online. Learning has moved outside of the classroom and into the students’ informal environment! Imagine…kids teaching kids!

ITSCO wants to foster this kind of creative learning environment and we are happy to announce our first Student Video Challenge. The rules are simple:

  1. make a video
  2. keep the length under 2 minutes
  3. address the topic “How’d They Do That”

Use cell phones, camcorders, cameras, pictures, drawings or whatever media inspires you. Follow our online directions for uploading the video to TeacherTube.com (we’ll help you if you run into trouble) and submit a registration form to ITSCO.

Need Ideas? These should get you started. Give us a call if you want to brainstorm!

  • Inform people how to file a request for public information using the Ohio freedom of information statute.
  • Use Google SketchUp or similar modeling software to solve real-world problems involving area, surface area, volume and density.
  • Do you have a creative way of showing how solar panels work?
  • Have you ever thought of a way to describe when to use who vs. whom?

Competition Eligibility and Submission Requirements:

  • Competition is open to students in grades 6-8 and 9-12 who are enrolled during the 2008-2009 school year and in ITSCO member school districts.
  • All participants must follow your districts Acceptable Use Policy when posting student work, photos, and/or names on the Internet. ITSCO will not use any student names online or in print, but rather refer to each submission by title, teacher, school, and district.
  • Each classroom is limited to one entry. If there are multiple videos created in one class, it is up to the teacher to determine which video will be entered.
  • Projects may be the work of a single student or a group of up to four students.
  • All video projects must be completed by students with minimal help from a teacher or parent.
  • Each entry must be uploaded to www.teachertube.com and tagged with the keyword "2009ITSCO68" for those entering the grade 6-8 catagory or the keyword "2009itsco912" for those entering the grade 9-12 catagory. A short tutorial walking you through uploading to TeacherTube is also available.
  • TeacherTube accepts video files in the WMV, .AVI, .MOV, .MPG, .MP4 and .FLV file formats.
  • Download a separate Registration Form (Word document) and submit to ITSCO through email, mail, or fax.
  • Video projects must be 2 minutes or less. Any video longer than 2 minutes will be disqualified.
  • Winners will be determined by online vote beginning May 1, 2009, at www.itsco.org.
  • Entries must use copyright free material or submit proof of permission to use copyrighted material.

Dates and Deadlines:

All video projects must be uploaded to TeacherTube and Registration Forms submitted by April 24, 2009. Online voting will begin May 1st and continue until May 8th. Winners will be announced the week of May 11th.

Voting:

Please visit our ITSCO website for instructions and dates to vote on your favorite video.

Good Luck! Please email me if you have any questions ~ alyssa@itsco.org

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

A great resource for building your own instructional tutorials

"The Talking Web"
Flowgram
Have you ever wanted or had the need to create a tutorial or informational video that has web page shots, pictures, documents, highlighted annotations, and a voice narrative? Plus, once finished, your video can be embedded in most websites, blogs, or wikis. Flowgram is a free, completely online tool for creating presentations, tutorials, and/or slideshows. Take a look at the great Web 2.0 example below courtesy of Flowgram.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Create your own iGoogle Theme and/or Gadget


For all the iGoogle lovers out there, make sure to try the new feature of creating your own theme and gadget. The customized gadget is a great add to your students' classroom iGoogle tab. Just create your customized gadget and then share it with your students!

Friday, February 6, 2009

Great Opportunity for Educators!


If your students are using or plan on using My Profolio please see the scholarship below for the 2009 NECC (National Educational Computing Conference)in Washington, D.C.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

How to remove the Navbar on your Blog

I am very happy to say that I have received numerous emails in regards to my Google Apps presentation at the 2009 eTech Ohio Educational Tech. Conf. (see Google Pres. below the video) I've had quite a few email me about disabling the NavBar. Below is a great YouTube video that will walk you through how to disable the NavBar Search. Not that we don't love this feature, but from experience, I know this discourages plenty of teachers and educators from creating classroom blogs. I also included below the written instructions for those of us that aren't visual learners :)
*note, once you disable the bar you will need to go to www.blogger.com to sign into your dashboard for editing. *
Please comment back if you have ANY questions. Have fun!

1. Open your Blogger dashboard.
2. Go to your blog’s Layout settings > Edit HTML
3. Look for:
/* Variable definitions
====================
4. And above that add:
#navbar-iframe { display: none !important; }
5. Make sure to save your settings and open your blog now. The navigation bar will be gone.
6. To show that this works, take a look at the top of my blog, no search bar :)


Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Photoshop Elements

Once again posting from the 2009 eTech Educational Technology Conference. I'm just getting ready to present Fun Effects with Adobe Photoshop Elements in the BYOT C Lab. For all the conference attendees reading this, please stop by and learn how to digitally edit your favorite photos! I hope to see you there!

My Local Weather


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