Rushton Hurley- Getting teachers to adopt technology: what to do and not to do

I first attended a Rushton Hurley session two years ago and I loved
his humor and especially enjoyed his tools that he gave us.  He is a wonderful speaker and he uses videos and other resources to grab your attention and make you think.


xrl.us/NVnews this is a link to his newsletter sign up page so that
you can get an email with different links on a regular basis.


Tinyurl.com/RHatFETC2011
The link above is for all the links he shared with us during the
presentation. Below, I will try to jot down some notes from his
session.

*Technology should help my kids learn better or should save me time.

Training-
Do's and don'ts:
Don't limit by requiring
Do remind them of their expertise

Don't start with standards
Do show something fun
Tag galaxy is visually compelling- capture their attention

Don't sit everyone in a lab for training
Do allow regular (and short) sharing time
Amazing things happening on our campuses happening every day

USING FUNDS: do's and don'ts
Don't limit technology to labs
Do show what's possible with one or two computers in the classroom

Don't buy expensive software that teachers haven't used *(didn't catch
everything this said)
Do learn what's freely available

Don't blanket the campus with expensive hardware
Do use targeted spending to focus purchases

Primary Technology: They can do it too!

All resources posted here: primarytechnology.pbworks.com
This session focuses on the primary age group. The presenters gave
many resources for kidspiration. They also gave us different web2.0
tools like: voicethread, glogster, kid blog and many more. All
resources are located on the website above.

Programming Wizards: using Kerpoof

Well...my first session was packed full of people so I am attending a session on using Kerpoof in the classroom. Kerpoof.com is a website that I have demonstrated to many of my teachers. Kerpoof allows you to do many things, but for this session the presenter is demonstrating how to use it to help the children understand programming using the movie feature. Devren Hobbs showed us a brief tutorial on using Kerpoof and then showed us how that correlates to computer programming. I don't know very much about programming but the idea that the very basics of programming can be taught to elementary children could be very useful. I like the idea that the teacher creates a simple movie and then gives the children a timeline to write out the actions that they witnessed.

Link to a Kerpoof Lesson Plan:  http://www.kerpoof.com/edu/plans/Programming_Wizards/Programming_Wizards.pdf

Ready for FETC!

Well, I am with my wife in beautiful Orlando, Florida enjoying the
warm temperatures. I will try to update my blog with every session I
attend and important things I find out.

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December Newsletter and others

Google Earth 6 is Out!

A new release of Google Earth is out with some new features!  They have made it easier to navigate, check out Street View in 3D, and you will also notice 3D trees in street view!  Download it here: http://www.google.com/earth/index.html