2008 MACUL Conference Blog

The great philosopher Jimmy Buffett tells us, “There is a fine line between Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.” I guess this post would qualify as one that rides the fine line between self-promotion, a preview, and an invite to a virtual visit.

I will be presenting on Friday morning at 10:00 am in the DeVos Place Grand Gallery Room E. The focus of my talk will be on web 2.0 tools specifically useful with PK-2 students.

Here are my session goals: 1) to give attendees tools and ideas that can be applied the first day they return to their classrooms and 2) to share some of my experiences with these tools that all come “kid approved”.

The hour will be split into sections with one featuring “teacher tools” and the other showcasing “student tools”. All resources are free and available online.

Please check out my list of session links as a preview or as a “virtual visit” if you are unable to attend.

I always look forward to meeting lots of other MACULers. Hope to see you on Friday.

MACUL is just a couple weeks away and I can’t wait. Last year one of the things I was looking forward to most were the Guerrilla Sessions. It looked like they wouldn’t happen and then there was some internet buzz and the MACUL Borad found a room for the first Guerrilla Sessions. I was excited.

Unfortunately there ended up only being one impromptu session and I missed it. The folks from the Geek!ED! podcast did one where they recorded live at MACUL. I would have been there, but I was presenting a hands-on session at the same time.

I still really like the idea of Guerrilla Sessions. Basically, these sessions could be on the cutting edge of new technologies, so new they didn’t really exist before the session submission deadline. Or maybe they’re a bit geeky/technical, or maybe a little too short for a full one hour session, or maybe the presenter has good ideas but was a bit intimidated by the quality of MACUL presentations and consequently didn’t write a session proposal.

This year I have ideas and I plan on doing at least one Guerrilla Session, maybe two. One I’m planning on for sure is:

How do I, as an educator, exercise my fair use rights with DVDs? There are times when I need a small section of a DVD that I legally own for use in my classroom. I can, of course, cue up the DVD to the proper section, but this is cumbersome and wastes valuable teaching time. It is much more effective to extract just the small section I need.

I’ll be shooting for a good time on Friday for this one, keep your eye out if you’re interested. Does anyone else have any plans?

This year’s Macul conference keynote speaker Hall Davidson and fellow Discovery Education Network colleague Steve Dembo with host several sessions at our 2008 gathering.

Both recently participated in DEN’s Virtual Conference and posted their talks online. Take a peak and then meet each of them in person next month.

Hall Davidson: Revenge of the Digital Immigrants

Steve Dembo: 50 Ways to Spin a Digital Story

Let’s face it. We can only survive so long on free Smarties, Starburst, and Hershey Kisses before we become in need of real nutrition…like…hotdogs!

Yesterdog has been serving up heaven on a bun for 32 years. They offer a limited menu but make up for it in supreme quality.

Yesterdog- $1.60, chili, onion, pickle, ketchup, mustard

Krautdog- $1.80, kraut, pickle, mustard

Veggie- $1.80 cheese, kraut, onion, pickle, ketchup, mustard (no dog)

Cheddardog- $1.90, chili, cheese

Ultradog- $1.90, chili, cheese, onion, pickle, ketchup, mustard

Killerdog- $2.10, chili, cheese, kraut, onion, pickle, ketchup, mustard

Chips and Pepsi fountain products are the only other menu items. Hours are 10:30 to 2:30 am (Mon-Sat).

Yesterdog is located in Eastown at 1505 Wealthy SE. It is a bit out of walking distance from DeVos so you’ll need a vehicle. Here is a Map.

My session about Web 2.0 in the early grades is scheduled for 10:00 am on Friday. I think Yesterdog will be the perfect way to celebrate its completion. Anyone who would like to meet up around noon is more than welcome to indulge in this local delicacy with me. Send an email to alosik at hamiltonschools.us and we will set something up.

Bring your cash. No credit cards or checks are accepted.

Probably the best thing that ever finds its way to my school mailbox in January is the MACUL Conference Registration Book. I (Andy Losik, elementary Infotech teacher, Hamilton) usually spend a couple of hours or so poring over the session offerings and a few themes jumped out at me.This will be my 5th MACUL conference in 6 years and at each one I have seen some definite trends or themes emerge. One year, it seemed that nearly every session I attended had something to do with handhelds. Another year seemed to really focus on podcasting. It could be that I just chose those sessions as one that really interested me, but nonetheless I set out this year looking for what new themes and trends would pop out as most prevalent.Web 2.0 is something we expend a lot of energy learning, understanding, and trying to find ways to integrate. According to this year’s booklet, one could spend the entire conference in sessions dedicated to this “new” phase of the Internet. It just happens that the session I will be presenting this year (sometime on Friday) should fit in well. My session, “WEBkids 2.0: Online Read/Write Resources for our Youngest Learners” will focus on using Web 2.0 in the lower elementary grades. Other similar sessions will focus on video sharing with SchoolTube, TeacherTube, and others. Fellow MACUL Blogger Melissa White from Ingham ISD and Carolyn McCarthy from Shiawassee RESD promise “A Techgadget Web 2.0 Shootout” during their Thursday session. There is a “Smart Board and Web 2.0″ session scheduled. There are several on videoconferencing and even those often maligned social networks as well as others on ways to successfully integrate these new tools. It is easy to see that Web 2.0 will be a major theme of this year’s conference.NETS and METS look to be other topics receiving a lot of attention and we aren’t talking about Vince Carter and Pedro Martinez (basketball/baseball references: sorry). Finding ways to meet the National Educational Technology Standards and Michigan Educational Technology Standards should be a hot topic as conference attendees share successes and commiserate their frustrations.Beyond these couple of hot-button topics, this year’s conference looks to offer at least a little bit about everything even handhelds and podcasts, the hot-button topics of the past. It won’t take much to fill up your Thursday and Friday with great sessions. This doesn’t even include all the exhibit hall will have to show us.Less than 2 months! I better get cranking on finishing my presentation.