If you were concerned the U.S. doesn’t have compelling economic reasons to remain engaged militarily in Afghanistan, this NYT article suggests you might want to reserve judgement: “The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals
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Week 1 of the 2010 iConnect, iLearn Conference came to an end today in Colby, Kansas. Next week the conference moves to Salina, Kansas. These are the session resources from the morning’s keynote and two breakout sessions I shared. I did record audio for the keynote, and may share that later as a podcast and
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This afternoon my son and I attempted to see the movie “Ironman 2″ at Tinseltown Theater in Oklahoma City, but were interrupted by a severe thunderstorm which dumped large, damaging hail on the area around the theater, including my car. After having to evacuate the theater because of roof damage which led to leaks and
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These are my notes from David Jakes’ presentation “Creating Immersive Learning Environments with Mixed Media” at the 12th annual Palm Beach County Schools Technology Conference. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Official session description is: This session provides participants with an understanding of how to design interactive and immersive learning environments by blending
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Yesterday in week 8 of my “Technology 4 Teachers” class at the University of Central Oklahoma we focused on GeoApps, or Geographic Applications. The overview for yesterday’s class was: GeoApps are applications which permit learners to connect concepts to geography. Google Maps is a browser-based Geo-application environment, and Google Earth is a software-based GeoApp. We’ll
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Matthew Teague’s December 2009 National Geographic article, “The Other Tibet,” should be considered must-reading for anyone interested in understanding modern China. In my November 5, 2009 podcast, “Reflections on Social Media, School Change, 21st Century Learning Skills, and China” I addressed some of the recent challenges the Chinese government has faced in maintaining tight control
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Cross-posted to the Storychasers blog. This week Oklahoma educators participated in our 29th “Celebrate Oklahoma Voices” workshop since 2008, and created some fantastic digital stories about the history, geography, and people of our great state. Did you know Oklahoma is home to a growing black bear population and just had its first open hunting season
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These are my notes from Aaron Doering’s presentation, “Designing for Learning: Engaging Students and Teachers from the Arctic to Australia” at the 21st Century Learning @ the West Lake Expo held Oct 31 – Nov 3, 2009 at Xi Hu, China, also known as West Lake. West Lake is in the center of Hangzhou, China,
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These are my notes from Li Yi and Xiuping Ren’s presentation “Web3D virtual reality-based informal learning” at the 21st Century Learning @ the West Lake Expo held Oct 31 – Nov 3, 2009 at Xi Hu, China, also known as West Lake. West Lake is in the center of Hangzhou, China, which is about an
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It is very important we help students in our classrooms develop deeper, broader, authentic world views through the information we share and collaborative activities in which we engage together during and after class. It is also critical we help students develop values like respect, empathy, and compassion. Learning is most powerful when it is experiential
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This past Wednesday, my 11 year old son and I were on a three mile hike in the Arbuckle Mountains of south-central Oklahoma, heading to “three falls” about a mile from from Camp Classen. I turned to him and said, “Wow, isn’t this amazing? Just think, you could be sitting in school today, and here
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The September 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine features an article on page 70 titled, “Somalia: The Number One Failed Nation.” According to the English Wikipedia, the term “failed state” is: …often used by political commentators and journalists to describe a state perceived as having failed at some of the basic conditions and responsibilities of
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After 28 hours of travel from Oklahoma, I’m pleased to report I’ve arrived safety in Hong Kong and am looking forward to a day of visiting several international schools tomorrow. The 21st Century Learning @ Hong Kong Conference starts on Thursday. Before catching some sleep tonight, I uploaded about 50 photos to Flickr from my
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This podcast was mobile-recorded from the road, driving across Kansas following the Google Teacher Academy in Boulder, Colorado, on August 5, 2009. The GTA is a packed day of learning, and I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to not only learn more about Google and Google Tools, but also network with some extremely innovative teachers from
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Podcast326: Reflections on the Google Teacher Academy - Boulder, Colorado [ 36:15 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3353)These are my notes from the Google Teacher Academy, in our second afternoon session. All resources are linked from http://sites.google.com/site/gtaresources/Home. Now hearing from Jerome Burg – resource links from Jerome – Google Lit Trips were born at the first GTA – Carol Anne McGuire forced me to go public with this! (another ADE) Jerome has
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Thanks to both Eric Langhorst and Beth Still for tweeting the link to this amazing footage from Vortex2 of the tornado this past week in Wyoming. The most remarkable part of this video for me was this section which showed a “tornado within a tornado.” I remember many years ago talking about tornados with my
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Today was, without a doubt, the most adrenaline-inspiring drive on an Interstate highway I’ve experienced to date in my life. It’s ironic today’s experiences driving west on I-40 from Oklahoma City to Amarillo came on the heels of last night’s post, “The lure of iReporter fame encourages dangerous tornado chasing.” I was thinking as we
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Wednesday night I posted “Webstreaming Storm Trackers” to the ISTEconnects blog, and noted how webstreaming technologies along with more pervasive cell tower connectivity is empowering a new generation of storm trackers / storm chasers to broadcast “live” from the field as severe weather hits local communities. Actual storm spotters, in contrast to amateur storm chasers,
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Today’s severe weather in Lubbock, Texas, (where we’re visiting currently) reminded me of storm stories which have been recently shared in our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices digital storytelling and oral history project. This is a photo I snapped today of storm clouds in Lubbock, just after a tornado warning expired in the SW part of town.
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I’ve created a new presentation and workshop I’m calling, “Geo-StoryChasing.” I’ve listed a variety of mobile audio, video, and photo sharing options (many supporting geolocation) on the wiki curriculum page I started. If you know of others I should include, please let me know by commenting here. This is the short description for this session:
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