Learning Labyrinth

Jeff Giddens Super e-Sleuth, Uncovers Hundreds of Information Visualization Tools and Resources

Remember when you were small and your father/mother used to tickle you until it hurt? Well I was so tickled by what Jeff Giddens had to share with his participants in his GaETC workshop that I implored him to continue flooding my brain with new concepts and ideas even though it grew virtually painful to find space to store all of his incredible resources.

Jeff, co-author of the SEGA Tech blog, is an Instructional Technology Consultant with the First District RESA ETTC in Southeast Georgia. Jeff, and his fellow colleagues, helps educators in Southeast Georgia use technology efficiently and effectively to enhance the learning experiences they provide for their students in the classroom.

I attended Jeff’s GaETC workshop entitled, “Seeing is Believing: The Power of Information Visualization“. Jeff has a true passion for science and technology, and therefore it is no surprise that his expertise resides in the integration of technology into middle and high school science classes. Having met and worked with Jeff at previous conferences over the past few years I was confident that he would deliver rich content and offer concrete examples of how technology can enhance student engagement, learning and skills. To say the least, I was not disappointed.

Information Visualization is a powerful means of helping students comprehend complex concepts. Throughout the workshop, Jeff taught us how to make hard-to-grasp ideas more understandable through the use of visual media. He introduced us to a number of free digital resources dedicated to the creation of 3D models, virtual worlds, and other effective instructional graphics. We all walked away with a multitude of new ideas and techniques for making learning more engaging and meaningful.

I could not even begin to catalog the numerous best practices he shared throughout his workshop so I will just pass on one suggestion: Subscribe to his blog SEGA Tech and spend some time reaching into the recent past by reviewing his archival posts. Oh, and one more thing … you may want to have del.icio.us bookmarking tools installed prior to visiting as you will definitely want to save and share the vast number of engaging resources Jeff has highlighted. Be ready to expand your personal set of technology resources exponentially!

Over the past few weeks I have had the privilege and opportunity to participate in several thought-provoking and engaging discussions with parents in our school community surrounding the concern of Internet Safety and their children. After reflecting on these conversations, I have decided to republish a post that I wrote months ago in response to the PBS Frontline Special: Growing Up Online. I encourage you to read, watch the program (either in its entirety or just the areas of interest to you) and then respond via commenting on this blog post below. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feelings surrounding this vitally important topic.

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I have compiled the following list of resources for the Trinity School Parent Community in alignment with the Internet Safety Parent Seminar that I facilitated on October 23^rd, 2008. Included you will find direct links to the most informative and valuable online Internet Safety Resources I have found throughout my extensive research on the topic. If you have any questions about the seminar, the resources below or the topic of Internet Safety, please feel free to contact me.

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Being in the forefront of the shift in education to meet the needs of today’s digital learners, I want to share two very inspiring and awakening videos with you. The first video focuses on the student of today and their needs, while the second video shares with you a view of what today’s teacher aught to be in order to meet the educational needs of today’s learners.

“A Vision of K-12 Students Today” was created to inspire teachers to begin using technology in engaging ways in order to promote the development of higher level thinking skills in their students. Equally important, it serves to motivate district level leaders to provide teachers with the technology tools and professional development training to accomplish this goal.

“A Vision of K-12 Students Today” as featured on TeacherTube

Source: http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d1296214afd7cc367045

“Digital World… Today’s Teachers’ is about how today’s teachers are changing the culture of education in the 21st century through the use of technology and web 2.0 tools and resources. This incredibly inspiring and thought-provoking video is a highlight of the 21st century teacher working in a digital world. I invite you to watch the video and then ask yourself, “Am I a teacher of today?”

“Digital World… Today’s Teachers” as featured on TeacherTube

Source: http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=9fae5dab3de636b8f130

As always, your comments and reactions are welcome.

“Did You Know? 2.0″ is an official updated release to the original “Did You Know?/Shift Happens” presentation first produced by Karl Fisch in August 2006. Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, in partnership with XPLANE, released “Did You Know 2.0″ in June 2007. The latest version includes new and updated statistics, thought-provoking questions along with a fresh design.

I think back to the impact Karl Fisch’s video had last November, when I first viewed it, to what it has become today. It was incredibly powerful in it’s original format due to the underlying reason and motivation that Karl had for creating this presentation (noted in his blog post) – he wanted professional development to have an impact prior to the school year, to not do the same familiar training that led to nothing changing. Now, the new version of the video is even more powerful! It is no longer enough to view the video and be complacent; one must react in a constructive way.

“Did You Know? 2.0″ presents fascinating data and thought-provoking questions. It provides inspiration to make you think about globalization and the information age, it is an evolutionary presentation. Indicative of the “shifts” that are occurring, all the facts and statistics lead to one overwhelming conclusion: We’re connected, so we should be taking advantage of that both inside and outside of the classroom environment!

“Did You Know? 2.0″ as featured on TeacherTube

Source: http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=6f2c2eba77f39993d118

You can find more information on the latest presentation, including suggestions for usage, a link to the various versions of the video, and other relevant resources, at http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com.

As always, your comments and reactions are welcome.

How would you like to win an all-expense paid trip to an incredible educational technology conference?
Well — in this case you are a WINNER!

The K-12 Online Conference 2008 officially starts today. It is two-week conference that hosts four sessions per day. It features remarkable presenters with a wide variety of stimulating topics. And the best part… It is totally FREE!

You can access the sessions according to your own time schedule. Presentations will remain available for at least a year, so if you don’t have time now in the midst of Progress Reports , you can watch them later this year.

K-12 Online Conference 2008

Conference Website: http://k12onlineconference.org/

Full Conference Schedule: http://k12onlineconference.org/docs/k12online2008schedule.html

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With the upcoming Presidential Election, below you will find some featured websites that can help you and your students get up to speed on the candidates and the election process before the big election day in November.

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Thing 23 – Add your reflections to the K12 Learning 2.0 Voicethread; Blog about your experiences and next steps

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Nothing like finishing at the last possible second! Shelley has without a doubt created an exceptional and powerful course for educators. My goal is to encourage every single faculty, staff and administrative member of our school community to complete this course at some point. I would try to have them all complete it at one time, but that would be suicide – Death by Mentoring Overload! LOL… just teasing… sort of. I am looking forward to just focusing on mentoring during the Summer 2008 course though, rather than mentoring as well as participating simultaneously. I often fell behind on my own course work because I was focusing on helping my fellow Trinity teachers (participants) to succeed, develop and learn throughout the course. It became an psychological strain on me to know how far behind I was while all of my “mentees” were succeeding and keeping up so well! I am however extremely proud of each and every one of them. They all worked incredibly hard and were genuinely excited about everything they were learning throughout the past twelve weeks. It’s amazing to see the excitement spread and watch them as they try to engage other teachers around them in to taking in the new knowledge they now have to offer one another. Participating in this course online has helped to develop new bonds and professional relationships among our school participants.  Whenever, participants pass each other in the hallway they will often excitedly ask “What thing are you on?” or shout “Thing 17, baby!” as they slap each other high-fives. It’s so much fun! I hope that excitement continues as more and more teachers participate in this incredible program.

Two of my favorite new tools that I am excited to be taking from this course are ed.VoiceThread and PageFlakes. I have already convinced the Instructional Technology team to purchase a subscription for an ed.VoiceThread community. I introduced it during a faculty meeting a couple months ago and it has taken off! The teachers are totally psyched about the tool and have been creating projects with their students left and right. It’s incredible! PageFlakes is going to be an incredible tool for me to be able to develop technology integration resources that I can share amongst the teachers. I can only hope that it takes off as well as Trinity’s ed.voicethread community.