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Matt’s Media Tips 11-5 It’s a Date! Five great integration ideas for using the Discovery Education interactive Calendar The Discovery Education Calendar has been with the service since the days we were called unitedstreaming. Found inside Teacher Center, this tool will show you what happened on this day in history within: Art & Humanities, Biography, Health & Guidance, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. Each subject area includes links to videos, images and more depending on the day and content area. That, in itself, is pretty nifty. But I have had the chance to witness educators use this dynamic tool for so much more. Today I’m going to share some of those ideas with you. My favorite (favourite if you’re reading this in Canada) day on the calendar is March 12. Specifically March 12 in the subject area of science. If you go to that day and subject area you will find that the first parachute jump from an airplane occurred on March 12, 1912. Huh. You may be saying to yourself. That’s cool I guess. And I was right there with you until I learned how this link could be used as a writing prompt. Here’s how the story goes. I telling my colleague Austin Dolan (of Discovery Education Canada fame) about this date and how I like to imagine what happened on the night of March 11, 2012. Specifically in this dude’s kitchen during dinner. I like to imagine the conversation that he must have been having with his parents, wife, kids, etc. How would he explain the fact that he was going to jump out of an airplane - a machine that
still a relatively new thing itself? Think about it, how do you explain falling from the sky? What type of verbs and adjectives were used during that night’s dinner discussion? As I was explaining this to Austin he took the idea and ran with it. “What if this was a writing prompt for students?” he said. “What if students had to imagine that they were news reporters covering this historic event in 1912?” What would they be writing about for their papers? How would they be describing the event on the radio for their listeners at home? What types of sound effects would you include? Great prompt Austin! I share your idea each time I talk about this date. Obviously you can get as creative as you would like with the Calendar. I was recently in an elementary school in Florida. There students had their own news show in the morning - complete with its own green screen! Each morning the students would cover any announcements and include what happened on this day in history. Occasionally they would even green screen themselves into one of the videos that they found inside the Discovery Education Calendar. I made a mental note to go back and visit them on December 12. I mean, come on, how cool would it be to see these kids put themselves into a video about the first parachute jump from an airplane? And speaking of great things to include in your morning news and/or primary sources - did you know that Discovery Education has a Video Almanac? Well it does! Simply type in the key words “Video Yearbook” to find an almanac that does back to 1929. Each year is chronicled with actual news footage. You’ll find the usual news events around government, global events, etc. But you’ll also find some more obscure news stories like “Short Hair Must Go Say Experts at Show” (Video Yearbook Collection 1930) or “Six-Man Jai-Alai Contest Proves Thrilling Game” (Video Yearbook 1938). Some of the gems of the Video Yearbook series are the Universal International News Leadins. They are typically 10-15 seconds long and are great items to include in your morning news series today. All of the video yearbook videos are completely editable and can be mixed and mashed up with the content that your students create today. My colleague and recent polar bear explorer, Lance Rougeux, told me that his wife Martha, an elementary school educator in Pennsylvania, uses the calendar to celebrate each of her students’ birthdays. At the beginning of the school year Martha writes down everyone’s birthday on a paper calendar - calendar 1.0. Then, when it comes time to celebrate a birthday, Martha pulls up the Discovery Education calendar to show off all of the great things that happened on her student’s birthday. Finally Martha challenges her class to state what they would do to be featured inside a calendar some day. What event will they be remembered for?
Another great way to use the Discovery Education Calendar is to use it as an activator. One great way to use the calendar as an activator or introduce a new concept is to have students compare and contrast current events with events from the past. Once you have introduced the concept you can then encourage your student to create their own interactive timeline. One of the coolest, easiest, and free interactive timeline tools that I have recently found is called Capzles. You can use www.capzles.com to create timelines that include video, text, audio, images, background imagery and more. They also have a free iPhone app which we’ll explore on the next page. What a cool way for students to build your own dynamic calendar and, in turn, become the teachers! My favorite unique example of using the Discovery Education calendar comes from an educator in southern California. He used the calendar to get his students to come to class on time. Jeremy’s solution was simple and brilliant. The first bell rang at 8:45 AM. So Jeremy said that whomever could be in his class by 8:15 AM would get to “drive the calendar.” Each student could choose the day and video, image, or asset that they wanted to explore. This idea took off with his students. They loved the fact that they were in the driver’s seat and could pick the video(s) that the class would watch. As a result, more and more students started to come early to school. William Glasser MD is an American psychiatrist and author who observed that: “We LEARN: 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see. 50% of what we both hear and see, 70% of what is discussed with others, 80% of what we experience personally, 95% of what we TEACH to someone else” Well my friends, we just explored how the Discovery Education Interactive Calendar can be used as a simple yet fantastic tool to reach all of these percentages. I for one, am excited to see how your students will be remembered in tomorrow’s calendars. And speaking of being excited...Discovery Education is about to celebrate something huge with you all very soon! Discovery Education will soon be delivering our 500 millionth digital learning resource to a classroom near you. In schools across the globe, students and teachers are experiencing moments of transformation as they use Discovery Education's robust offering of digital videos, interactive techbooks, and virtual labs to make learning come alive. Help us count up to 500 million and celebrate this milestone by sharing what Discovery Education's digital resources have meant to you and your students. Tell us about how digital learning is transforming your classroom today! Don't forget to keep integrating Discovery Education’s vast digital media resources into your classroom. The educator or student who downloads the 500 millionth object will win a 1-day Discovery Education video shoot for their school and 1 free year of Discovery Education Streaming Plus. Click here for contest rules.
Discovery Education Webinar Schedule
As I mentioned above Capzles is a fantastic way to record a timeline and/or represent different types of media. You can arrange images, video, audio and text documents in a chronological stream that can be made open to the public or closed to a private audience.
Capzels By Capzles, Inc
From their site: “The Capzles iPhone app connects to your free Capzles.com account, and every time you update your Capzle through the app, the online version gets automatically updated as well, and vice versa. You can embed your online Capzle in your Facebook wall feed, or on any website at any size you want. Share whatever you want, or keep it private just for you or your friends you control privacy for what you want to share.” For my Canadian friends - check out timeline chronicling the Vancouver games. Since everything is digital you can take content from Discovery Education to supplement your Capzel - thus creating your own interactive calendar.
Dates
Time (EST)
11/5
7pm 8pm
Putting the E in STEM with the Discovery Education Science Techbook Part 2: Find out about the "Engineer Lab: Materials Tool" and "Engineer Lab: Data/Graph Tool" as well as instructional strategies for using these tools to help students develop key process skills.
11/5
7pm 8pm
Discovery Education STREAMING 101: The webinar begins with the basics (logins and passwords) and moves quickly through searches, the Teacher Center and Builders, incorporating digital content with web 2.0 tools, and classroom building through our online organizational tools.
11/6
7pm 8pm
7 Simple Ways You Can Change the World (and your classroom): From unplugging computers over the weekends to going paperless, we have tips to share. In this webinar, we’ll show you how to create a FREE Google site for your classroom. We’ll share the free resources on the Siemens We Can Change the World website.
11/7
1pm 2pm
Game On! A Webinar for Students! In this webinar, students will hear from 10th grade game designer Robert Nay, named one of the top kid entrepreneurs to watch. Join us as he shares his story and his insights into the game design process. Explore game design so you can ultimately build and share original games.
11/8
4pm 5pm
Techbook Admin Webinar: This training will cover: Navigation of the My Admin Site, Managing User Accounts (students and teachers), Managing Student Access, Running Usage Reports.
11/8
7pm 8pm
What’s in your Digital Tackle Box? Building a Multimedia Presentation: Using one of the new model lessons on the Explore the Blue website, we?ll show you how to build a media-infused, nonlinear presentation that hooks your students so you can reel them into the content. Tools to be covered include PowerPoint and Prezi.
Questions/Comments? I’d love to hear from you email me at matt_monjan@discovery.com or Tweet me at @monjan
The ipad version is coming soon but here is the link to the iPhone app (which works on iPad/ iTouch) as well.
What is a DEN Star Member? The Discovery Educator Network (DEN) is a global community of educators passionate about teaching with digital media, sharing resources, collaborating, and networking. With over 100,000 members providing professional development to over 600,000 educators worldwide, the DEN connects teachers both on-line and in-person. Discovery Educators have exclusive access to a wide range of resources, professional development activities, networking opportunities, exclusive Discovery Educator events and more. Find out how you can be part of this dynamic and supportive community. Become a DEN Star today!
Link
Miss a week? Catch back up here! 2012-2013 School Year Archives 9/17/2012 Downloading Closed Captions 10/29/2012 A Hauntingly Good Edition. I highlight Explore how to download closed some of the not-so-scary things that I captioned files and manipulate learned at the recent Discovery their text on both a PC and Mac. Educator Network Fall Virtual We'll also examine the Conference. We'll also check out a host TechChef4U app that links to of great webinars and a very cool many education apps! Finally, in iPrompter app. this edition, I provide links to the 10/22/2012 Get Your Game On! Explore how to use Best of Matt's Tips and Tricks the Discovery Education games to webinar resources. engage students. Robert Nay a 10th In-the-know about Infographics. grade game designer will share his story 9/10/2012 This edition highlights the new and his insights into the game design 2012 election material within DE. It process. Finally, we'll check out also dives into different ways that Aurasma, a free augmented reality app you and your students can that works on both Droid and IOS evaluate and explain data by devices. examining three different sites that 10/15/2012 The Digital Decoder Part two of two create infographics. Sock explores how to use Discovery Puppets, an iPad app that is Education and six other digital animated by your voice, is also resources to help students predict, reexplored. state, and make connections to the text Opening up Closed Captions. that they are reading. We'll also explore 9/4/2012 Check out all of the new and a free mobile app called Fotobabble enhanced ways to stream that lets add narration to your pictures. captioned content. We’ll also 10/8/2012 The Digital Decoder. Part one of a two continue to explore the back-topart series that explores how to use school webinars and play with digital resources to assist struggling EasyBib, an Android and iPad app readers. We’ll also explore Audioboo, that makes citing reference a free mobile app that turns your mobile material a breeze. device into a roaming podcasting Back to School Review. Check out machine 8/27/2012 some of the major enhancements 10/1/2012 Getting Quizzy With It. Everything you made to Discovery Education over ever wanted to know about creating a the summer. We'll give you a Discovery Education Quiz and more chance to weigh in, showcase a including an easy step-by-step guide for new back to school webinar series embedding Web 2.0 content into a Quiz! and highlight Nearpod, a very cool We’ll explore a unique mobile app called classroom mobile app. Stack the States as well. 9/24/2012 Five free tools from DE plus one that’s too cool for school. We’ll also explore links to even more free resources and then play with a free mobile app, Sketch Nation Studio, that provides a simple game design/creation platform.
Miss a week? Catch back up here! 2011-2012 Archives 7/19/2012
Sneak peek at the back to school enhancements. Roadshow app.
6/11/2012
Fun things to do over the summer with technology and media. Mustacheme app is featured.
5/21/2012
The ins and outs of Digital Storytelling. Digital Storytelling Web 2.0 presentation and apps
5/14/2012
Who Knew We Had News? Find an additional set of free Discovery News videos, the Video Yearbook, video almanac, and great webinar information. Roadshow App for playing back videos on-demand is reviewed.
5/7/2012
4/30/2012
4/23/2012
My Five Favorite Summer Resources. We explore five free interactive sites that parents, students, and teachers can use over the summer. We’ll also explore a free translation app for mobile devices. Getting Your Game On. Finding great games, simulations and more within Discovery Education. Back-toSchool Sneak Peek Webinars announced. Futaba Classroom Games for Kids iPad app explored. Getting the Point with PowerPoint and Keynote. Learn how to trim audio & video in PPT and save both PPT & Keynote presentations as images to embed in Web 2.0 sites. 2 Screens and Joinme mobile presentation apps explored.
4/16/2012
It’s all about the Theme. We’ll explore several different ways to find unique thematic content. Three most voted upon stories revealed. Studyblue mobile flashcard app highlighted
4/9/2012
Scratch and Pop. Six-Word Story finalists revealed. Links between Discovery Education and
4/2/2012
3/26/2012
3/19/2012
3/12/2012
2/27/2012
Scratch.mit.edu, Popplet.com and EduTechr mobile app explored.
1/18/2012
Mi Content es Su Content. Bookmarking and sharing your Discovery Education content across your school and district, two great contests, and two text-to-sign mobile apps
In a Class of Their Own Setting up Discovery Education Classrooms, Discovery Education Live Webinars, Quizlet App.
1/9/2012
Building out the New Year Five of my favorite things you can do with the Discovery Education Builders, Rover App for DE Students
12/19/2011
Special Holiday Edition 13 Tips from Educators around the US and Canada, Videolicious App
12/12/2011
50 Ways to Use Discovery Education Tips and tricks galore iSwifter - Flash for iPads
11/28/2011
What I am Thankful for Building out your PLN Wordspree and Math Acorn Apps
11/14/2011
Things I Stole From the Community DEN Tips, Four really cool tips you can do with Google. TED and Animoto apps
11/7/2011
First Six Weeks Aggregated
11/4/2011
Creating an “iCenter" How to create an ePub using DE videos. Spirit of Innovation Challenge
10/24/2011
Spooky Edition Digital Storytelling, Web 2.0 Piqua City Community Night, Crazy Pumpkin and Halloween Card Creator Apps
10/17/2011
Stick it to IT Collaborative Note Taking Site Educator Spotlight - Jennifer Everett, ToonTastic and PuppetPals Apps
10/3/2011
Opening Up Closed-Captions Closed-Captions for Macs and PCs, 10 FAQs Customer Service Receives
9/26/2011
Common Core, Web 2.0 and DE Three cool sites that integrate nicely with Discovery Education. Administrator Spotlight - Molly Hay!
9/13/2011
Can you Hear what I’m Writing? Embedding an eReader into your Writing Prompts, Getting to know Discovery Education SCIENCE
Can You Picture it? Learn how to create a six-word story using iPiccy.com and Discovery Education. Digital Story Challenge! MeeGenius Audiobook app for mobile devices. Audio Book ‘em Dano. Eight simple steps for creating an audiobook using iTunes and any computer (Mac/PC). Molecules mobile apps. It’s All About The Sharing. Uploading, sharing and accessing your own content within Discovery Discovery Education. Cel.Ly app polling device via any device. Teacher Center Treasure Trove of Resources. Interactive Calendar Atlas, STEM Connect explored. Socrative App (student response).
2/13/2012
Special Valentines Issue - Things I love about Discovery Education. Five Minute Preps, Images,Coaches Eye App
2/6/2012
What did you say? Closed Captioning on an iPad? Getting Closed Captions to play on your iPad, GreenScreens on iPhone/iPad with GreenScreen FX app
1/30/2012
1/23/2012
Let’s Give Them Something To Sing About Differentiated Instruction Using Songs, First Student Media Contest of the Year, ShowMe and Educreations whiteboard apps Meet the Faces of Discovery Education Get up close and personal with the Discovery Education on-air talent, special student webinar series, Story Kit app