LEARN NC ONLINE Conference 2009

I had a wonderful learning experience today and all from the comfort and privacy of my home!

I participated in the LearnNC Online Conference 2009. Peruse the agenda here. Later, you can view the taped portions of the afternoon online conference. All conference sessions are to be archived on LEARN NC website and posted here when they're ready. Also all handouts are available. This was an all day conference for those attending in person, but only the afternoon was available online.

For me, one of the most interesting parts was the discussion about PBL (Project Based Learning) by a high school science teacher, Kelly Yonce. Kelly had been a typical teacher for 5 years and then found out about PBL. She started teaching in that manner in all her classes and now has been doing for at least 4 years. She clearly states that it is a different way of teaching and takes a lot of preparation and constant revising, but she feels her students truly understand the concepts she is teaching rather than just spitting back definitions on a test. Read about her here.

There was another session that was full of interesting tools and sites that are all FREE. These sites are mentioned in a blog entitled Instructify which is “published” by LearnNC.

This was an excellent way for me to learn from home and at my own pace.  I could  listen and participate online and then I can also review everything and print out or review the handouts from online at any time after the conference.  It makes learning convenient and suited to my needs today.

Thanks LEARN NC!

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GLOGSTER.com …POSTERS here we come!

One of my Diigo groups posted this bookmark and I decided to try it out!

Glogster is a poster making application.  I only made one (see below) but it was a lot of fun.  I know you can import photos, probably drawings too, add text to them, save them, and also you can publish them to the web if you want or keep them private. I could embed the code for this one into my blog as well.

I didn’t quite like the way my text laid out on the speech bubble, but perhaps I could have played around with it a little more.  I am not sure if there were alignment adjustments available. I know there were font size and color adjustments. I think the number of fonts is limited.

Overall, for a free tool, I think it is worth a project or two. Besides if the kids like it, they can use it also on their own time and perfect their technology skills!

I always love it when a student takes something we use/do in class and then goes home or in study hall extends the lesson further by using it for their own purposes! Authentic learning!

What fun, yet educational tools do you introduce to your students?

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BOOKR ...Publish your own book!

I am not yet sure if I REALLY like this tool, but it is somewhat fun. It is FREE, so that says a lot, too!

I wanted to move the title so it does not sit right in the middle of my photo. I have not yet played with this enough to know IF I can move the title box. I tried, but it did not move for me the first time.

Nevertheless, I can see that for students, especially those learning the language, either as a second language or in their native tongue as a new/young learner, it would be quite engagaing!



Try it and let me know what you think! Click on the title of the post to get to the site.