Tech Times Voorheesville

Twitter in the Classroom

2009-06-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

Here it comes...the Twitter revolution!

Presentations the TED Way

2009-05-12T11:38:00.001-07:00

I found this on Garr Reynolds's Presentation Zen website (found here).

Thanks to Tim Longhurst (The TED Commandments - rules every speaker needs to know) you can see the list in an easier to read format below:

1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.
2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story.
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.

These are great rules, hands down, and ones we should follow as we again mount the downward stairs to PowerPoint Hell (fifth ring, I believe). I may use this with my students, too. I mean, why not? The people on TED are pretty smart, after all!

MPAA Suggests Teachers Videotape Movies

2009-05-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

In a strange turn, the MPAA has suggested that teachers record movies using a camcorder pointed at flat screen tv's in order to use copyrighted material in the classroom. The clip is interesting, only for the fact that the thinking here is somewhat hypocritical and ironic. We can't use the material directly from the DVD in our classroms for educational purposes, but we CAN videotape the tv? Life is strange in the world of education...

Here's the clip.

MPAA shows how to videorecord a TV set from timothy vollmer on Vimeo.

Eno Board for your perusal

2009-04-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

Virtual Tours Help Students Narrow College Choices

2009-04-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

"Your web presence allows [students] to narrow their options," Swartz said. "If they can get a sense of your people, your courses, your environment, it's a very compelling way to narrow your choices."

Check out this interesting article on eCampus News concerning colleges and universities utilizing virtual tours to enhance the way they sell their products (i.e. their schools) to prospective students. American University's virtual tour cost $90,000 and took two years to develop. The link is here.

Interesting reading, and an interesting way to utilize technology as an effective communications tool.

RSS Feeds and Your Cellphone

2009-04-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

This is a reprint of a blog entry I wrote for the Times Union Technology Blog.

Hello, my name is Brian, and I am a blogger.

Ok, I’ve said it. Like many others, the blogging bug bit me many years ago when I asked my high school students to blog with me over the course of a semester in creative writing, and I haven’t stopped writing online since. And, from the looks of the blog rolls out there, lots of other people are blogging, too, about lots of things. There seems to be lots of blogs out there for every taste, which can lead to a bit of oversaturation for most busy users.

So how can one keep up with the overwhelming influx of information that is available in the blogosphere? How can I be sure I catch the latest missive from The Urban Muse (http://www.urbanmusewriter.com/) or Alan November (http://novemberlearning.com/blog/), when I often find myself buried in the minutiae of everyday life? Enter RSS.

RSS

In an effort to stay on top of the blogging game, and to somehow manage the plethora of information available to you at the click of a mouse, all you have to do is incorporate RSS onto into your daily blog reading regiment. Simply click the subscribe icon on most blogs (the orange icon above) to get new posts sent directly to your newsreader of choice, or, in some cases, you can simply sign up to receive new content via email!

But if checking a newsreader site is one step too many, or you have trouble keeping up with the downpour of email you get on a daily basis (for me as a teacher, I was a bit surprised to find that most high schoolers don’t use email at all, preferring Facebook or IM’s to the now “old school” email), the dilemma is to find a way to deliver the content right to where you will actually see it: and for most people the answer is their cell phone.

So I did some research, and lo and behold I found Web-Alerts (http://www.web-alerts.com/). Simple to use, all you need to do is enter the URL of the site you would like to follow (http://brianstumbaugh.net/blog/, for example) and Web-Alerts will look up the feed for the site. Once it finds it, all you need to do is enter your cell number and- BAM!- you get text message alerts right on your phone.

Pingie (http://pingie.com/beta/index.php) is a very similar web application, although still in Beta form. It’s easier than Web-Alerts, and allows for a quicker application process, but the results are the same. Once you apply and set up a free account, you can direct any feeds you want to follow right to your phone. Very cool, and easy as an option for those among us too busy to be chained to our computers all day.

Oh, but be careful, normal text messaging rates apply, so unless you have unlimited texting, this could get expensive. And since a growing number of us have smartphones that have free RSS reader apps, this might seem a bit unnecessary. But there are some of us out there who don’t have the fancy bells and whistles type phones, but we just about all have cell phones. Why not bring the web to that world?

2009-04-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

This video from Alan November challenges schools to globalize curriculum as he tours his hometown of Marblehead, Massachusetts. Great to get you thinking!

Find more videos like this on NL Connect

Technology Grant Winners

2008-11-18T10:26:00.000-08:00

Emerging Technology Grant Winners have been notified of their status by Frank Faber. Stay tuned to the website and the next print edition of TechTimes for more information!

Welcome to the Blog!

2008-10-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

This is the first entry in the new TechTimes Blog. In this space the technology team will try to keep you up to date on current trends in technology, news from our schools that will affect you, and other technology related stories. Keep checking back to this space for new and interesting stories that can help you teach better!

Brian