30 Day eLearning Challenge Wrap-up

THANK YOU!!!

A Great Big Thank You to all those who participated in our 30 Day eLearning Challenge! Last years challenge had 12,000 page views during its 2 calendar months, with views from around 35 countries.  During the last 2 months we have had over 2800 users access the challenge roughly 18,000 times, from over 90 countries worldwide.  The greatest of those users came from home sweet home here in Indiana.  The EVSC ICATS 30 Day eLearning Challenge Blog will continue to be accessible for reference throughout the year and you can expect it to start up again on a later date.

Challenge Winners:

As promised those who completed the entire challenge will be receiving, via email, a certificate of completion for the ICATS 30 Day eLearning Challenge noting 10 PGP hours for licensure.  Expect that email within the next few days.  This morning we held our drawings for our EVSC and non-EVSC prizes. The winners and prizes are noted below.

Outside Winner:

Pictured left: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4dyRGgPtg0&safe=active

Congratulations to Debbie Wolinsky from Indianapolis Public Schools!  Debbie teaches mathematics at Broad Ripple Magnet High School.  She wins registration from the EVSC ICATS for herself and 3 of her colleagues to attend the EVSC eRevolution Regional eLearning Conference on July 10 and 11, 2013.  The eRev 2013 Conference is part of the Indiana Department of Education's Summer of eLearning (#INeLearn).  In addition, Debbie will receive local hotel accommodations for herself and her guests on the nights of July 9th and 10th, 2013.  Thanks again for your participation in the challenge and congratulations!

Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation Winner:

Congratulations to Aaron Sisson, Instrumental Music teacher at Glenwood Leadership Academy.  Aaron was presented with an iPad (3rd Generation) and case this morning.


In addition to congratulating Debbie and Aaron, we would like to again thank all those that contributed to the 30 Day eLearning Challenge!  Many of the daily posts came from a group of teachers within the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation known as the Community of Digital Educators (CODE). Those CODE members include:

• Kara Yates
• Karla Schweizer
• Adrienne Mayes
• Kathy Walz
• Janit Market
• Jolie Devries
• Amanda Bussey
• Leslie Wilhelmus
• Robin Fricke
• Svitlana Reynolds
• Georgina Wagoner

Additional eLearning resources and links are available at our website: www.evscicats.com

Thanks Again and Have a Great School Year!

Day 30 - Empower the Community!

Since beginning the ICATS 30 Day Challenge, we have brought to focus nearly 60 tools, websites, and applications for digital learning across the spectrum of subjects and grade levels.  We have had guest bloggers from our EVSC Community of Digital Educators (C.O.D.E.) share their personal classroom favorites.  Looking at the scope of the challenge we can see that as of the time this post was written there have been more than 2500 unique visitors to the blog in the last 2 months and additionally over 2000 comments to the challenges have been presented.  The comments to the blog have included new ideas and thoughts from educators around the country and globe as to how they could use the challenges to enhance learning for their students.  Additionally, many new web tools and applications have been shared and commented on by you, the digital community, in the process.

Today's Challenge is for you to empower each other!

The Challenge:

What challenge would you present that we have not been able to add to ours?   Please think of at least one digital tool, app, website, etc... that you could empower others with. Share your challenge in a comment to this post including a brief introduction to the challenge, helpful resources, and share how you have used it with your students.

As a reminder, if you have not already done so, those participating in the full challenge will need to fill out the eligibility form from the post "5 More Days"on 12/6 to be entered in the drawings.  However, we look forward to seeing what you have been working on with your learners regardless of whether you have been participating all along throughout the challenge!  We will have a wrap-up post on Tuesday December 18th.  Thanks for participating in the ICATS 30-Day Challenge!

Day 29 - Zoom It

Today's post is on the screen zoom and annotation tool, Zoom It.

Zoom It is a free utility from Microsoft that's easy to use.  It allows users to zoom in on portions of the desktop screen, pan/move the zoomed area, and even draw (annotate) on the screen.  Zooming can be done with the wheel on the mouse or with the up and down arrow keys on the keyboard.  This is a great utility for focusing students' attention to a particular area of your computer screen.

Zoom It is always ready to use.  It runs in the background and activates with hotkeys.  Just select the keyboard shortcut, control + 1, to activate a zoom.  Press ESC or the right mouse button to return the screen to its normal size. 

Annotations can be started by the keyboard shortcut, control + 2.  This allows you to write on your desktop in any application.  Annotations are a virtual layer so when you close Zoom It, all the marks disappear off the screen.

This utility also has a countdown clock that is enabled with hotkeys, control + 3.  

To download Zoom It select the link below:   

Zoom ItSorry MAC users, this handy tool is made by Microsoft and is available for PCs only.Your Challenge:How could you use this tool in your classroom?  

Day 28 - Learnzillion.com

Learnzillion.com offers teachers a wide variety of opportunities! With Learnzillion, you can "plan Common Core lessons; assign lessons and quizzes; assign your students a playlist of video lessons and a mastery quiz, then track their progress against the Common Core State Standards; use the Common Core Navigator to get a birds eye view of what your students need to know and be able to do; use the coach's commentary video to get insights on how to teach each Common Core State Standard; and engage parents [by helping them] get up-to-speed on what their student is learning each week or month." Learnzillion even provides a parent letter!

Upon logging in (which you can do via your Google Account or by creating an account with your @evsc.k12.in.us address), you are taken directly to your dashboard, which gives you notifications and allows you to begin assigning work.

If you click the "Explore Lessons" tab, you are given the option to choose between math and ELA from grades 3-8 and even select a specific Common Core standard. From the "Common Core" tab, you can select a subject, a grade level, and see the numerous lessons Learnzillion has on offer! You can sign your classes up and assign work, quizzes, and lessons from the dashboard.

Here is a sample lesson:

As you can see, there are several options available and already prepared. Learnzillion.com has approximately 2000 lessons at this time. The site is working on the option to allow teachers to post their own lessons and videos at this time, as well as offering feedback for current lessons.

More information about Learnzillion can be found here, with many other FAQs available depending on what you need here.

Challenge: In what ways could you foresee using Learnzillion.com in your classroom? Could it be more than an introductory or "hook" piece for a lesson?

Day 27- Magisto

Magisto.com is one of my favorite web tools for quickly taking video from an activity such as a field trip or class project and mashing it together with music to create a nice, professional-looking video that is interesting and can easily be shared. Even better, while Magisto is a web tool, it is also a fantastic app for the iPhone and Android OS, so now you can shoot video with your phone and have the video ready to go in mere minutes. To help you understand how Magisto performs this magic, here are a couple of videos:



Magisto turns your iPhone into the world's smartest camera from magisto on Vimeo.



What is Magisto from magisto on Vimeo.

Here is a Magisto video that I threw together from some really rough video I shot at Disney World:

   Make awesome movies from plain videos automatically, for Free!

I can imagine all kinds of applications in the classroom:

1. Assign a videographer of the day to capture class and post it on your class website.
2. Make a video collage of clips that illustrate an idea or theme.
3. Make day-in-the-life videos of characters in books or people in the school.
4. Create an inspirational video montage of a class's preparations for an assessment.
5. Have students introduce a topic via video.
6. Create discussion-starter videos.
7. Create motivational videos made of quotes.
8. Create an art portfolio video.
9. Have students create biographical videos (my family, my favorite things).</
10. Have students share their definitions of a word and make a mash-up for that word.

Your Challenge

Play with this tool. Download the App is applicable. Capture some video and then create a Magisto video to share. Then comment below. How have you used Magisto in your class, or how can you imagine using it with your students?

5 More Days!

Hey!  There are only a few more days left in the challenge.  There have been many great ideas shared by you on this blog!  As we look to the end of the challenge there are some housekeeping items to consider.  The drawings will be held and the winners will be announced on Tuesday, December 18th.

1. Keep posting your comments and ideas about the items presented in the blog!  
2. If you have not completed all of the challenges,.... what are you waiting for?  You will be eligible for the drawings as long as you have all your comments completed before Monday, December 17th.
3. If you are or will be eligible for either the iPad or the eRev Conference package, please fill out this eligibility form.  We will use your information from the form to validate your eligibility for the drawing, as well as to contact the winners.

Good Luck to all and keep posting!

Day 26 - Interactive Sims

We have had several tools that are generally of more use to the language teachers in our midst.  Today's post is an effort to balance the load a little bit.  We are posting on two websites that offer free interactive simulations.  One of them belongs to the University of Colorado, Boulder and their list of math and science simulations.  The other is a science manipulative site called the BioDigital Human.

The Physics Education Technology (PhET) website from the University of Colorado on Interactive Simulations

http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/new

This site provides interactive simulations (manipulatives) for elementary through university level concepts in math and science.  You can search the simulations by concept, subject, or grade level.  Once you find the simulation you would like to use, you can play it from the web, download it or even embed it into a website or blog.  At the elementary level, teachers without 1:1 could use these at the interactive whiteboard for the students to use there.  In addition, there are resource PDF's available on the site for all of the simulations that include tips for teachers and links to related sims.

Here is an example of an elementary simulation on fractions.

Click to Run

Here is another one for middle school on Plate Tectonics.

Click to Run

Not to leave out a high school example, here is one on graphing equations.

Click to Run

BioDigital Human

The BioDigital Human is a website dedicated to a 3-D model of the human body.  I know that it is very specific to science, but I though it worth throwing out there to balance things out a bit and challenge those language teachers among us to come up with a creative idea for it's use in class.

https://www.biodigitalhuman.com/

The BioDigital Human website asks for a login, but you can use your google login if you would like to.  Using your google login will keep you from having to remember another login.  The account is free and allows all the major manipulative pieces of the 3-D model.  You can add different layers of the body, choose male or female, dissect parts of the model and isolate individual pieces of the model.  Take a minute or two to play with the model and add layers to it from the navigation menu on the right.

Your Challenge:

If you are a math or science teacher, I challenge you to use at least one of the simulations in class and report about how you used it and how it went.  If you are not a math or science teacher...   I challenge you to share a way that you can use these or other interactive simulations in your classrooms.