Category Archives: macul10

Guerilla Workshops…Welcome to the Sideshow

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The MACUL Conference has always been an All Star Show of Magnificence & Wonder for educational technology.

Side_Show_gorilla_poster

The conference boasts many more than three rings and has featured it’s share of daredevils, acrobats, strong men, and even clowns.  It’s an amazing show…one that leaves attendees wanting more.

For the past several years, Michigan’s Greatest Show has tried to address that “more” by setting up a sideshow…Guerilla Workshops.This sideshow provides an opportunity for anyone to commandeer a room for a presentation on a topic of their choosing.  Perhaps it’s a presentation wasn’t accepted the first time or maybe you’d like to discuss something so cutting edge that you hadn’t even heard of it way back in September when presentations were due. (Maybe you just saw it in the last session!)

Whatever the reason, pull up your wagon, put down the gate and set up your Guerilla Workshop. Sign-up sheets for leading a Guerilla Workshop will be available in the Social Media Café. Sign ups are first-come, first-served. Step right up, folks!

Tweeting ..Twitter challenge

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twitter bird and t

To all you Twitter lurkers out there ( I include myself as one). I challenge you to activity use Twitter during this year’s conference.  Not just read what others are saying, but share thoughts, ideas, ah-ha moments, anything you think is relevant.

During a session go ahead and backchannel. I have found some insightful comments and thoughts come out when I have participated in a backchannel.

So go ahead get out of your comfort zone of just looking and get more involved with Twitter. You may just find yourself becoming a full-fledged Twit….I mean Twitterer.

Final Conference Book Now On-Line

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The final conference book is now online at the MACUL site (click here).

I for one always look forward to when the book comes out so I can sit down and plan who/what to see. Now that we have the on-line conference planner I can really get cracking and planning on what to learn and explore (a little OCD is coming out I think).

For those newbies out there you can download the book as a PDF and, if you are one of those “digital immigrants” you then can print it out and mark on it and highlight to your heart’s content.

Favorite Web 2.0 highlighted at MACUL

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If you are like me, you walked away from MACUL in a daze. Thrilled with how much you were able to learn in 2 short days, and at the same time overwhelmed. Wow! Many Web 2.0 Tools were mentioned in the sessions I attended and many were shared by more than one Speaker. I will try to highlight a few that are think are well worth your time and free. I am a big fan of the FREE Web Tools.

Screencasting Tools
CamStudio – http://camstudio.org/
Jing — http://www.jingproject.com/
I have used both. Very easy to use and great results. A favorite aspect of Jing is that it will give you an embedd code for your screenshot(picture) or screencast(video.)
Ideas on when to use: Mathcasts (idea I learned from last year’s MACUL) Students talk and explain math problem on computer screen (IWB is a plus here) and it is recorded for others to view/learn from later.
Teacher may record lesson as she teaches for absent students to view later, Or message/directions to students when teacher will be absent.
Pull a clip out of a YouTube or other online video.

Blabberize – http://blabberize.com/
Blabberize is easy to use. You upload a picture, adjust the dots they give you around the location of the mouth, and then record the words you want your picture to say. Blabberize lets you embed it in your blog, wiki or website to share. Students may create a blabber as part of a report on a famous figure – so many ideas. A 1st grade teacher used pictures of spiders that the children created and then had them share their spider facts or stories as the spider talking. One Warning – Do not allow children to browse the public files (there are over 5000.) I did this once and came across a very inappropriate one.


Voice Thread – http://ed.voicethread.com/#home This may have a minimal one time cost (I think I once paid $10.) Another way for students to share stories, create visual projects, comment on each others work. One suggestion was to embed a DEstreaming video or clip into the Voicethread, have the students watch independently and then comment.

Animoto – http://animoto.com/education Easy tool to turn pictures and video clips into a professional looking video. These videos can be download to your computer as well as embedded on blog or wiki. You may add text as well. There are free educator accounts and you can set up accounts for your students.

Smilebox – http://www.smilebox.com/ This one wasn’t mentioned, but I use it as another video sharing tool. Like Animoto you can add pictures or video clips.