These are my notes from the January 30, 2012, Oklahoma City WordPress User’s group meet-up at The Div in Edmond. WordPress is a free, open-source content management system used by tons of folks worldwide to create websites. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. http://yesdancan.com is the website Dan Lovejoy built by hand (not
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I’m proud to announce the worldwide publication and release today of Rachel Fryer’s first eBook, “Snowflake Gets Lost.” I’m the proud papa of Rachel (age eight) who worked from August 2011 through January 2012 during “writing workshop” time in her 2nd grade class in Oklahoma City Public Schools to author this book. Rachel’s classmate, Madison
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I received an email today from an educator in Oklahoma City interested in attending one of my workshops on technology integration in upcoming weeks. I thought I’d cross-post the information I sent him in case this is of interest to others. I’m sharing a couple sessions at OTA/Encyclomedia in two weeks in OKC and several
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Today was an unprecedented Saturday for media production and new media experiences around our house. Everything kicked off with a great breakfast with Alan Levine, who visited last night enroute to the east coast, and a big thrill listening to him broadcast live from I-40 on #ds106 radio from his iPhone and talk to my
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These are my notes from the MinistrySafe online training video for churches. This is a required training program our church has paid for all adult volunteers who work with children and youth to complete. My wife saw these trainers (who are lawyers in the Dallas area) present in person and helped bring this training program
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Mateusz Mucha, a web developer in Krakow, Poland, has developed a free, online tool called “Percentage Calculator” you should show to your math students and use with them in class. Use this tool by visiting percentagecalculator.info I tried embedding the actual calculator on my own website, but for some reason that version didn’t work to
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(cross-posted from playingwithmedia.com) This semester I’m working on a contract basis (thanks to federal grant dollars) as an “innovative instructional coach” in Yukon Public Schools. This morning I helped one of our sixth grade teachers facilitate her first lessons using free, ad-free class blogs hosted by KidBlog.org. In this post, I’ll share some of the
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(cross-posted from Professional Development Reflections from Yukon PS) On January 26, 2012, we attended a full-day workshop about “Common Core Transition” led by Jan Hough with Marzano Research Lab. These are some of our takeaways from the day. Handouts from Jan’s session are available on the OSSBA website. Writing Across the Curriculum One of the
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If you have not already, take 91 seconds and watch the YouTube video, “Google Chrome: Dear Sophie.” It’s a fast-paced, touching look at how some dads are using digital technology to document, share and preserve the lives of their family and their love for their kids. It’s a compelling bit of media, and an outstanding
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This evening I used TextWrangler to parse session data from the 135 page PDF file published for the upcoming OTA – EncycloMedia 2012 conference in Oklahoma City (February 7-8) into a public Google Spreadsheet. Use the following shortened URL to access this version of the schedule in a computer web browser or on your mobile
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Last week at our Apple Store in Oklahoma City I met Tyler Garcia. He recently graduated from the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma with an associates degree. He loves music and making digital music, and told me about a very innovative homework assignment he completed for one of his classes
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These are my afternoon notes from Jan K. Hoegh’s presentation on 24 January 2012 in Oklahoma City for the Oklahoma Curriculum Improvement Commission. (This is the link to my morning notes.) Jan is a consultant for the Marzano Research Lab. (@marzanoresearch on Twitter – Jan is not on Twitter yet.) MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE
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These are my morning notes from Jan K. Hoegh’s presentation on 24 January 2012 in Oklahoma City for the Oklahoma Curriculum Improvement Commission. Jan is a consultant for the Marzano Research Lab. (@marzanoresearch on Twitter – Jan is not on Twitter yet.) MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The official description of this
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Google Calendar (free) offers a wonderful feature for teachers: The ability to set up “appointment slots” which other people can click on to schedule a meeting at an available time. This is ideal for scheduling parent-teacher conferences or other meetings in which individuals in a group need to specify a time that works with their
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Here’s a blog and Twitter meme idea: What is one of your favorite lessons from elementary, middle or high school? Post your lesson memory to your blog and share it on Twitter with the hashtag #favlesson. For ‘extra credit’ include a related Creative Commons image in your post. Here’s mine. One of my favorite lesson
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This afternoon I started a new eBook project using a collection of favorite Bible verses from the Friday morning men’s group at our church. The idea is pretty simple: Include verses from the NLT and MSG translations, complying with the copyright permissions for each provided on the YouVersion.com Bible website. Along with the verses, include
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(Cross-posted from my new website and iPad productivity training website, ipadwithwes.com) In this episode of “iPad with Wes,” author and digital learning consultant Wesley Fryer explains how to create a custom digital newspaper on your iPad using the free application Flipboard. The video is 9 minutes, 17 seconds long Referenced links in this episode include:
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(cross-posted from the Storychasers blog) This video is a 73 second interview with Laquita Semmler, principal of Mustang Elementary in Mustang, Oklahoma. Mrs. Semmler won a $2000 technology grant from the Oklahoma Association of Elementary School Principals (OAESP) at the mid-winter conference on January 20, 2012, in Oklahoma City. She is planning to use the
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I’m quite enthused by Apple’s announcements yesterday about iBooks Author software (free, Mac-only) as well as iBooks2 (free) for iPad. James O’Hagan is spot on in his post for EdReach yesterday, “The New iBooks Release Means . . .” iBooks Author software will make it even easier for teachers as well as students to create
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These are my notes from Michael Barlow, Dr. Cassandra Funderburk, Cindy Taylor, Talia Shaw and Linda Hendrick’s presentation, “Teacher Leader Effectiveness (TLE) and the Tulsa Model” at the Oklahoma Association of Elementary School Principals (OAESP) mid-winter conference on January 20, 2012, in Oklahoma City. The conference is sponsored and organized by the Cooperative Council for
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