Monday, August 22, 2011
Coming Soon! Walled Lake Spice it Up Technology Conference
Walled Lake Consolidated School District in SE Michigan hosts an annual tech conference just prior to the school year begins; the Spice it Up Technology Conference. I chair the event and it's coming up on Thursday, August 25. It is sure to be our best yet!
Highlights:
Highlights:
- Our keynote speaker is Dr. Rebecca Harris, General Motors' Social Media Strategist. Dr. Harris will explain what GM does to communicate with consumers, stakeholders, and dealers to show how social media is a real medium that EVERYONE needs to understand to be successful in business and life today. Our role as professionals in helping our students utilize social media in positive ways is critical as we help prepare them for success in their future endeavors.
- SB-CEUs are available for the first time!
- Over 50 sessions!
- Held in a beautiful school with wireless Internet access throughout, making BYOL sessions possible.
- Sessions for teachers, administrators, secretaries, and parapros.
- Lots of "buzz" in the air; people excited to attend and learn!
The conference brochure is available here. Although the conference is put on by Walled Lake staff for Walled Lake staff, educators outside of our district can attend for a small fee. Contact me if interested.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Do You Understand Creative Commons Licensing?
As I work with teachers across the country, I find that very few have heard of Creative Commons licensing, and this is alarming to me. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. Educators MUST be aware of Creative Commons and teach students about it as they use images, sounds, and other multimedia components to help make up their own multimedia projects.
Creative Commons has been described as being at the forefront of the copyleft movement, which seeks to support the building of a richer public domain by providing an alternative to the automatic "all rights reserved" copyright. When creators license their media with creative commons "some rights reserved" licensing, students (and adults) have the freedom to include the media/content in their own projects without breaking copyright laws.
For example, I take a lot of pictures and share them on Flickr with a Creative Commons license. I welcome others to use my photos, as long as they give me credit and don't make money as a result. My photos have a "
There are six Creative Commons licenses. Learn about them here. It's easy to pick the appropriate license by using a wizard found here, answering a couple of questions about whether you are okay with your work being used for commercial purposes and whether you are okay with it being modified/remixed.
If you are looking for content to use in your own projects, consider going to the Creative Commons Image Search Webpage or Flickr's Creative Commons search page.
This two minute video created by Justin Cone, called "Building on the Past," was the winner of the CC Moving Images Contest. It demonstrates what Creative Commons is, how it works, in a clever way. Enjoy!
Creative Commons has been described as being at the forefront of the copyleft movement, which seeks to support the building of a richer public domain by providing an alternative to the automatic "all rights reserved" copyright. When creators license their media with creative commons "some rights reserved" licensing, students (and adults) have the freedom to include the media/content in their own projects without breaking copyright laws.
For example, I take a lot of pictures and share them on Flickr with a Creative Commons license. I welcome others to use my photos, as long as they give me credit and don't make money as a result. My photos have a "
There are six Creative Commons licenses. Learn about them here. It's easy to pick the appropriate license by using a wizard found here, answering a couple of questions about whether you are okay with your work being used for commercial purposes and whether you are okay with it being modified/remixed.
If you are looking for content to use in your own projects, consider going to the Creative Commons Image Search Webpage or Flickr's Creative Commons search page.
This two minute video created by Justin Cone, called "Building on the Past," was the winner of the CC Moving Images Contest. It demonstrates what Creative Commons is, how it works, in a clever way. Enjoy!
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Iowa, Did You Know?
Another version of the highly shared "Did You Know?" video has been recently published. It's written to be used in Iowa, but as I watched it, I found that other states could be substituted with the same effect. The video is 7.5 minutes in length. A facilitator's guide and other resource materials are available on Scott McLeod's Big Think Blog.
The video is aimed at Iowa policymakers, citizens, and educators and is intended to help them feel a greater sense of urgency when it comes to changing our schools. Right now there’s a fair amount of complacency; the average Iowan isn’t
coming to his or her school board or politician saying, “Hey, why aren’t you preparing my kids for this digital, global world we now live in?!”
Take a look at the video and see what you think. Even if you don’t live in Iowa, I think you’ll find it quite pertinent to your educational context too.
I live in Michigan, and it's pertinent to Michiganians for sure!
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
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