Hope to see you in Lake Charles at TNT!

It is that time again this year when the Region 5 TLTC works with the annual conference Teaching and Technology (TNT). It is the 11th year for this conference and they are expecting 700 attendees on October 3, 2009. The conference is open to region 5 folks but hopefully there will be some Tweeters there to document all the great things going on that day. You will find me at the booth with the Intel Banner working the table by handing out flyers and bookmarks. I will be doing a session at 1:35 PM entitled License to Thrill: Tools to Capture your Students' Interest. If you are there then please stop by the session or the booth to say hi. I am looking forward to a great day and some good shopping and eating the night before the event.

Port Allen, LA meets Asia!

I was so excited to participate in a webinar for Asian Intel Senior Trainers. I wasn’t quite sure if Asia was ready for a Port Allen girl but I think it was a perfect match. We were asked to spotlight a couple of web 2.0 tools. I presented my materials using Prezi and I spotlighted Glogster EDU glogs that were created by Louisiana students. A big shout goes to Jan McGee of Ouachita Parish for sending me some glogs that were created on the Revolutionary War. My niece created a glog on her summer reading – Three Cups of Tea which was awesome. She said Glogster was a cool web 2.0 tool and she wished that her teachers would use these types of sites instead of the boring web 2.0. I am not sure what exactly what is Boring web 2.0 but I take any compliment that I can get. Prezi was also a big hit so check it out if you want to go outside of the box with your presentations – this ain’t yo mamma’s PowerPoint. The experience was so incredibly cool that it made it sit back and think of the great opportunities that have passed my way all because I am an Intel trainer. I also have to think about all the people that I have encountered. I have met so many state educators that I would never have known except maybe by name. I feel a part of an educational whole instead of just a girl (or should I say glamorous lady) who works behind the desk in the DOE building. I look forward to working with all of you this school year and I can’t wait to get one of the enormous cookies at our MT celebration at LACUE. We will have our luncheon at LACUE and details will follow in upcoming months.

Glogster

I am having such a great time with Glogter

Discovering Discovery Education

I just conducted my first training with Discovery Education Streaming. Wow! This tool come a long way since the days of United Streaming. I had a few fellow educators from the Department of Education join me for lunch and a training. I was limited in time but what a productive hour! I was able to show the basics of the site and discuss exporting clips and pictures. A great time was had by all. I think I see future lunch trainings with Discovery....

There Is One in Every Group

The 3^rd annual Louisiana Literacy and Numeracy Conference was held this past week . I was asked to present at the Numeracy portion so I demoed math examples from the LCC using tools from my Visual Thinking presentation. Visual Ranking was a big hit and I briefly covered Seeing Reason since I was running short on time. The session was a big success and all left with Intel training flyers…never hurts to do a little PR for our programs. I was a little surprised at one of the evaluations. There were some great comments but you know we always focus on the negative ones. The statement was….spent too much time on the computer and needed to cover subject materials. I was sad to see that the participant who was a teacher did not recognize that I was covering the subject materials but with the use of the computer. I was showing them the LCC way of doing things and then how to enhance the activity with technology. I guess you can’t win them all over with our cool technology stuff but we must keep on trying. Good Luck with your technology integration adventures.

I dreamed a dream...Leadership Forum???

Forty seven year old Susan Boyle debuted in Britain's Got Talent this past Friday and awed the crowd with her version of I dreamed a dream from Les Miserables. A video went live on April 11th on YouTube and has had over 12 million views. I was so inspired to see Susan Boyle's performance this morning on the Today's Show. Lili the dog wasn't so thrilled since she barked non-stop at her....she has no taste! I started to think about the battles that I have fought in my life to reach professional dreams. I was so excited to submit the Louisiana Intel report this month which showed 131 Participant Leaders trained in the first quarter. In three months we have already met our Intel quota proposed in our grant. It was only a couple of years ago that I begged folks to attend this training. It looks like persistence (or should I say harassment) pays off. I am so proud of all the work that our Intel trainers are doing in the state. I encourage you to think about your dreams and think of Susan Boylean as inspiration. Just at first glance she may not have seemed like a contender but the YouTube hits say it all. None of us are perfect but we all have dreams so go out and pursue one that has been sitting on a backburner!

Twitter and Conferences are like Peanut Butter and Jelly

Twitter and Conferences do go hand in hand. I just finished reading this blog post by Chris Brogan. In the post entitled 27 Things To Do Before a Conference it says to check twitter for posts about events or conference topics. I am getting ready to head out to the Northeast Louisiana Tech Fair in West Monroe, Louisiana and the keynote speaker Brain Mull has requested that all participants complete a task before arriving to his session. The assignment is as follows.....

Sign up for Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/. Once you sign up, you will see a textbox within your account where you can type a message (of 140 characters or less). I’ll explain a bit more about this tool during the session, but for now I am just going to give you a quick assignment. In the textbox, answer this question. What is the main barrier stopping you from using more innovative forms of technology in the classroom? At the end of your answer, type #NLTF. Again, I’ll explain more on Saturday.

It was interesting to see the hand full of folks that responded to the call. There were only 8 but people still have today to get involved. The average tweet was about 3 per person. One fellow actually just joined and was following 20 people. I guess that is how twitter keeps going! What a great activity to show people how they can follow each other at a conference or get notes on conferences that they don't even attend. Not going to a conference like Florida Educational Technology Conference -FETC then try #FETC to get a micro-blogging version. The power of Twitter is amazing! I can't wait to see all the tweets - Tweet On Region 8!

Mapping your Twitter network: Twitter.mailana.com

Mapping your Twitter network: Twitter.mailana.com:

What a great resource! Does it matter who you follow or why? I guess that depends on your use of Twitter. I see this site as an important tool in determining my future follows. You can see the recommended list of those to follow - Don't worry Mr. Tweet I won't abandon you. You can also select a user to view their conversations. I plan on researching my BFFs (determined by conversations) to see their BFFs. Gosh! I never thought I would use the BFF term again in my lifetime. I am not surprised that @gardenglen is my top BFF. He is one of my best Intel friends. I look forward to using this site to expand my network. I am hoping to locate other Louisiana educators through this venue. Once I locate one then the rest should be cake...with twitter.mailana.com!