Friday, March 31, 2006

College Visit

Off topic:

I spent the last 2 days touring Central Washington University with my son Craig. He plans to attend here next year as a Junior.

"For the third consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report has ranked CWU among the top 20 such institutions in its annual ranking. Central was tied for 15th on the list in the 2006 online edition of America's Best Colleges."

On the tour we learned CWU's Construction Management degree is one of their more rigorous requiring 135 credits. This department also totes a 100% employment rate after graduation.

We also learned that the tallest buildings in Kittitas County are located on the CWU campus...and they're not very big.

Personally, I received my Masters from this fine University...Go Wildcats!

Any other Wildcat readers?

Thursday, March 30, 2006

My Space Event

Margie Jensen is coordinating a My Space and Internet Safety Event @ RHS for parents and educators.

Follow along and contribute your ideas to our wiki.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Tax Time

Which online service do you use to do your taxes?

Turbo Tax?

H & R Block?

Tax Act?

Other?

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

PodCacher PodCast

I've been listening to a weekly podcast on geocaching called PodCacher.Com. It's produced by the PodCachers Sonny & Sandy. This husband and wife team puts together a great show each week.

It may give you ideas on how podcasting might be used in your school.

It may also give you ideas on how to use geocaching with your students.

Speaking of geocaching, the City of Puyallup is hosting a geoteaming event this Saturday, April Fools day and that's no joke!

I wonder if Sonny & Sandy will mention that on their show?

Monday, March 27, 2006

Wiki Wiki Wiki ...33 in fact!

I've been watching this project which will introduces 33 Wiki's;
a different Wiki each day for 33 days.
26 days to go

Follow along it should be fun.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Word Processing Online

Open Office Writer is a free replacement for Microsoft Word.

Writely is a cool Wiki type online word processor bought by Google.

Writeboard from 37 signals is another cool wiki collaboration word processor.

But AjaxWrite is the coolest yet.


This is all new stuff... Word processing has come a long way!

What's your favorite?

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Protect the Children!

The easiest way to protect children from the internet is to deny them access.

Let's cut off all collaboration sites that promote discussion!

Wikis create loopholes where inappropriate content may be published and viewed.

Blogs allow you to post your thoughts and even pornographic images if you want.

Discussion boards, like blogs can not be controlled.

Chat rooms are no better and students could engage in an inappropriate discussion with someone from India.

Photo sharing sites like flickr allow you to post images that should not be viewed in schools.

What are your thoughts to this line of thinking?

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

My Space: An Inside Look


Andy Carvin and I were both interested in this perspective of My Space shared by Nancy Willard.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Weblogs, Wikis and Podcasts - Oh My!

this is an audio post - click to play

This audio blog was posted using audioblogger from my cell phone for Conn & Anne!
You can accomplish the same thing using Odeo.

Here's the Script from the Audio Blog above:
This is Glenn Malone from PepTechTalk and today's audio post is meant for the
21 teachers that signed up for a class with Conn McQuinn & Anne Allen at PSESD titled:

Weblogs Wikis and Podcasts - Oh, My!

Oh My is right.

I want to take this opportunity to point you to 3 wiki's that I've been using lately 2 of which I've used to work on a couple of regional and national projects.

The first is Writely.com, in fact Writely is so good it was recently purchased by Google. I used Writely to put together the geocaching documents we used for this year's NCCE conference. It's simple and free!

The second Wiki is Wikispaces. Wikispaces is another free wiki hosting website. Sonny Portacio, a tech director and podcaster from San Diego, and I have been working on coordinating a geocaching event for the NECC conference coming this July. This wiki has allowed us to edit and publish multiple documents together online. You should also take a look at his weekly podcast on geocaching at Podcacher.com

Finally the best wiki I've seen this week was started by Darren Kuropatwa using the peanut butter wiki. He calls it Whiplash. It's an amazing way to look at Web 2.0 technologies using wiki's for staff development. In fact, it's given me some great Ideas for a Keynote I'm going to be presenting at PSESD in May.

Enjoy your day and be sure to add PepTechTalk to your bloglines aggregator for my daily tech tip and leave me a comment telling me how you plan to use what you learn today.

this is an audio post - click to play

this is an audio post - click to play

Monday, March 20, 2006

Thou Shall Not Steal

This post may seem odd coming the day after a recruiting post...

My good friend Rebecca had her laptop stolen from her car today. We were at a Best Western conducting interviews for Assistant Principal. The laptop was in her bag in her back seat of her van with tinted windows. The thief came between 11 - 12 in broad daylight, tried to pry open her door at the lock and after a failed attempt busted out her driver's side window and took off with her laptop and bag with all the contents. The contents?...all of her teacher evaluations!

What a shame
What a violation
What a crime

Friday, March 17, 2006

Recruiting Teachers

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in our district's recruiting MiniConference. If you're a reader looking for a great place to work and you don't already work in Puyallup here's your chance.

We had 350 recruits come to 15 minute screening interviews. In addition, we offered 17 sessions that told candidates why they'd want to work for us.

Topics included:
  • Salary & Contract - Puyallup has one of the best in Washington
  • Affordable Housing - Our area is growing and housing is much cheaper here than in most of the surrounding areas

The reason I was invited was to talk about the Tech Tools package we provide every teacher.

In Puyallup every instructional space includes:
  • Every teacher has a laptop, over 1200 issued.
  • Every teaching space has a DCam
  • Every teaching space has a projector
  • Every teaching space has a multimedia speaker to project sound

In addition, in our 5 new schools opening in 07 & 08:
  • Every teaching space will have an Interactive whiteboard
  • Every teaching space will have an overhead mounted projector
  • Every teaching space will have an integrated sound field system.

And finally, none of the above would make any sense without quality staff development. 25 % of our tech bond budget has been allocated to classes for teachers taught by my fabulous staff!

Puyallup is indeed a great place to work; located between majestic Mt. Rainier and the beautiful Puget Sound & Pacific Ocean.

Check out our simple application process online.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Proto Lingo

Protopage is my new favorite homepage.

Complete with widgets, free positioning and gravity!

Ajax is so cool!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Earth, Moon, & Mars

Google has begun to take over the universe.

First Google Earth = Still cool but old school nowadays
Then Google Moon = Far out and don't forget to zoom in all the way
Now Google Mars = Outta Sight & compatible with Google Earth!

Next ?

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Snow & Emergency Closures

On Friday we had a 2 hour late start due to icy conditions. It's getting late in the year and I doubt we'll see another "snow day", but we may have need for another emergency notification.

We subscribe to the Public Schools Emergency Communications System, a service of the Puget Sound Educational Service District.

This is the fastest way to receive accurate information regarding school district schedule changes.
As soon as the district posts information on the network, notification will automatically be sent to your computer(s) or cell phone--at the same time it is sent to media.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Relax, Refresh & Rejuvenate

Webster defines Rejuvenate:
1 a : to make young or youthful again : give new vigor to b : to restore to an original or new state <rejuvenate old cars>
2 a : to stimulate (a stream) to renewed erosive activity especially by uplift b : to develop youthful features of topography.
The 32 Elementary Principals & Assistants of my district spent this weekend doing just that at beautiful Sleeping Lady in Leavenworth, WA.

My part was to provide technical assistance and to give presentations on the semantic web and to show them how to get the most from their new Laptops & Treo 650 phone.

Building Principals are the key to any systemic shift; including those that include tech integration ...so this was critical work and I welcomed the opportunity to help.

On our first night I gave them an overview of the "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman and they saw many examples of how Web 2.0 is much different. I gave examples of the "steriods" and a few of the flatteners mentioned in the book.

As a result, we now have a BLS wiki(Krause & Hedman), Pope Blog(Williams), SingleWheel Blog(Crawford), Leifsen Land(Leifson), Mool Family(Mool), Woodland Blog(Keller).

In addition, all elementary principals got a very quick intro (awareness level) of SWIFT in their building through our Intel project.

Finally, they all have their voice mail set up and they can take and send messages and pictures using SMS & MMS on their Treo smartphones.

They had a brief introduction to Documents To Go and we even sent and received documents using Blue Tooth.

Each night I offered an open lab for all things Treo or Laptops from 9:00pm - Midnight on both Thursday & Friday night; many chose this option for extended opportunities in an informal setting.

It was a fantastic success!...but we still have much to do! Right now we are at the awareness level with most and soon we must move on the recommendations of ISTE for Administrators in NETS A.

The links that I used and shared for this conference can be found here in my delicious bookmarks: Maps Wikis Blogs Videos Treos

Friday, March 10, 2006

Vizu

If you've been following along you saw 4 different map/photo web apps this week now let's use Vizu to determine which web app we collectively like best.

If you haven't seen Vizu it's a simple, fun , and free quick survey web app.

It should work well for our purposes here...unless you don't vote...then it doesn't work at all.

Take this Vizu survey to express your thoughts:

Which of these 4 Google Maps remix do you like the best?
Which of these 4 Google Maps remix do you like the best?
JoeMap
JoeMap
PanOramio
PanOramio
Wayfaring
Wayfaring
Flagr
Flagr
powered by Vizu.com: See what the world thinks



Is there a better on line survey app?

Are there other Online Map & Pics Web apps out there?

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Pan O ramio

My fourth & final map/photo interface web app and last virtual field trip to Pioneer Park in Downtown Puyallup is accomplished using PanOramio.

PanOramio was the quickest and easiest map to set up. In addition to uploading pics to the google maps overlay it also has a Google Earth KML interface. This allows you to see the pics on Google Earth.

So there you have it JoeMap, Flagr, Wayfaring, & PanOramio.

Each has a flare of it's own.

My final analysis:
  • JoeMap is by far the hippest
  • Flagr has the best Web 2.0 feel
  • Wayfaring looks the most professional
  • PanOramio is the simplest to use.
I can see applications for each in the classroom.

Tomorrow I'll post an online survey to see which one you like?

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Wayfaring Wednesday

If you've been following along this week you know that we've been taking a daily virtual field trip to Pioneer Park in Downtown Puyallup right outside our district office.

Wayfaring is today's site integrating Google maps, GPSr & camera. This was the most time consuming production of the three I've used so far, but the end result does look better.

With Wayfaring I used Flickr badges to post the images which is little more cumbersome and will require a little more skill and patience on your part. They also have the ability to post in the typical upload fashion which in hindsight was definiately a better option.

Which one do you like so far....

Joemap, Flagr or Wayfaring?

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Flagr Share Where


Flagr's another map and pic app that was just released yesterday... this is a cool way to do virtual field trips.

I couldn't figure out a way to give you the exact URL so you'll need select Explore to search for my flags using GEMalone zoom in until you see my flags at Pioneer Park in Puyallup. You can also serch for the tags Park and Art. I used the same waypoints and pics as yesterday so we could make a fair comparison.

It didn't take long for me to recreate yesterday's virtual field trip using JoeMap. I like the obvious ajax feel, it is very easy to create content.

I was even able to add a pic to this map from my cell phone. Using MMS I sent the address, description and title to Flagr and it placed the pic on the map at the exact location almost...it only missed my house by a couple of blocks.

Anyone up for another virtual field trip tomorrow?...Guess where we're going...you guessed it...Pioneer Park in Puyallup.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Joe Joins my Favs

Joe Map! that is.

I love these maps, coordinates and picture combo applications!

In fact, Jan, Brenda and I took a walk outside my office with my digital camera & GPSr. We put this little virtual field trip of Downtown Puyallup's Pioneer Park together for you using each of 3 apps. Took about an hour.

Could you think of ways to use this with kids?

Tomorrow...another similar tool.

Friday, March 03, 2006

The Streets of San Francisco

No no no not the Karl Malden TV show from 1972. The actual streets of San Francisco and Seattle too!

It's A9 maps meets Yahoo Local.

You can drive in a race car through the streets of Seattle San Francisco using Microsoft's preview version of Local Live.

This is very cool, it brings Google maps down to the street level.

You chose either to drive a race car, sports car or walk by the Space Needle! You drive using the arrows on your keyboard.

I just drove from Pike's Market to the EMP and traffic was pretty good.

"Detective Lieutenant Mike Stone" would love it!

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Hey Conn & Crew & PSESD!

Today is my Dad's b-day...he was born on this date in 1941...but that's not the reason for this post.

It's also the day that Conn McQuinn is leading a discussion on Weblogging in Education with Tech directors and coordinators in the Puget Sound Region.

I hope he will introduce 3 of my favorite blog tools:

Blogger - Simple & easy way to create content on the web and have people respond. This blog is written in Blogger.

Technorati - Simple blog search engine to find out what people are talking about in the blogosphere.

Bloglines - My feed reader(RSS aggregator) of choice. It delivers content to me. I'm currently tracking 337 feeds...that's too many, start with much fewer.

I think he'll even show a bit of audio blogging using Odeo.

this is an audio post - click to play

Once you get started it's fun to watch who's reading your site by adding a Stat Counter.
For instance my last 100 readers have come from New Zealand, The Russian Federation, Germany, The United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia, the Phillipines and Canada.

WOW I guess the world really is flat.

Hey, why don't you practice by leaving a comment!

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Meme Mania

Blogger Betsy and I were talking about meme's today....What's a Meme?

Wikipedia offers this definition:
The term "meme" ([miːm] in the IPA; rhymes with "theme"), refers to any piece of information transferable from one mind to another. Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods. Different definitions of meme generally agree, very roughly, that a meme consists of some sort of a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetics).
Scobleizer shares his opinion on Memeorandom a Meme tracker.
So, what does Memeorandum do? It watches the top bloggers in these two worlds and analyzes what we link to. The more bloggers who link to a specific story the higher on Memorandum it goes.
OK....I'm starting to get it.
AHHHH....I have so much to learn...my brain is full!


 
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