Tag: clif mims

Your Class Can Interact with Astronauts

NASA astronaut Mark Polansky, who will be commanding the next mission to the International Space Station, has just posted a video to NASA’s official YouTube channel inviting YouTubers and Twitter fans to take part in his next mission, submitting video questions via YouTube and following mission updates over Twitter.

To ask a question, Polansky says to create a video of around thirty seconds and post it to YouTube, then send it to his Twitter account using an @reply. He’ll respond to the questions on NASA TV, which is broadcast nation-wide. (Source)

I encourage you and your students to participate in this activity. It’s a rare opportunity. Who knows? You may have a future NASA astronaut, controller or engineer sitting in your class!

Advice for Future Teachers Graduating This Month

THINKING OUT LOUD
Episode 002

Please watch this 20 second video post and consider sharing your wisdom. NOTE: Click on the small video stills under the viewer to watch the video replies from others.

Please share your text/audio/video reply in the Comments section of this post or respond to the corresponding Seesmic conversation (Think video-based Twitter).

Memories from Podstock 2009

Anytime you get innovative educators with a desire to improve education together you’re likely to have a great event. Podstock 2009 was exceptionally good. It had a unique theme and attitude, the ESSDACK crew went above and beyond to be hospitable, and the presentations (see notes from Day 1, Day 2) were informative and engaging. Here’s a fun music video from Sara Childs that gives you some idea what it was like to be part of Podstock 2009.

Make your plans to join us for Podstock 2010!

New SlideShare Account

I had to setup a new account at SlideShare. I’d had my old account for a couple of years, but I just kept having too many problems with it and their support didn’t didn’t seem interested in helping resolve it. Overall, I’ve been satisfied with SlideShare, so I’ve gone ahead and setup the new account (One advantage of this is that my ID is now clifmims which matches almost all of my other online IDs). I just hate that I’ll loose some of the connections that I previously had with many of you on SlideShare. I’d very much appreciate it if you’d add me as one of your SlideShare contacts (friends), so that I can reestablish my network more quickly. Together we all learn more!

For what it’s worth, I’ve been very satisfied with my account at SlideBoom. It has fewer social tools than SlideShare but SlideBoom has made uploading files easier. I also think the SlideBoom presentations look a bit better.

Using Digital Technologies and PLNs to Enhance Learning

These are the slides for my Podstock 2009 keynote. Unfortunately the animations and effects were lost when uploaded to SlideBoom. I’ve shared my notes, resources and video of this presentation over on my wiki, Learning Telecollaboratively. I hope to create a Vidcast or SlideCast of this presentation once I return home and things settle down.

Resources from Podstock, Day 1

MORE COMING THROUGHOUT THE DAY…

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Getting a Global Perspective: The Power of Collaborative Projects
 – Dyane Smokorowski’s presentation resources

Global Collaborative Projects

View more presentations from smokorod.

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Math Snacks: A Nibble of Conceptual Math – Michelle Flaming and Renee Smith’s podcast and resources

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Publish Audio at Will and Geo-Story Chasing – Wesley Fryer

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Curricularizing to the Podcast World – Diana Wieland

  • Sound-seeing tours
  • Broadcast student audio plays
  • Interviews with content experts
  • Student produced “radio” talk shows about content
  • Also see these podcasts: KidCast, Coulee Kids, and Our City

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The Cosmosphere in the Palm of Your Hand- How we fumbled our way to fame(?) – Howie G (a.k.a. Harold George and Joel Walker)

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Get Out of Your FUNK, Cut the JIVE! Make Your Classroom Come Alive!!! – Kim Herron, Tamara Padfield, Linley Voboril

Dean Mantz’s is hosting live blogging throughout the day. Please join the live discussion or visit the archive afterwards.

Students and PLNs (Feedback Requested)

We’ve been discussing educators’ use of personal learning networks (see here and here). While the responses have been quite favorable (Certainly skewed by the fact that most that saw the request are likely plugged-in to social technologies) several have raised important issues, shared frustrations, and expressed reluctance related to the use of online PLNs. I do not wish to impede that ongoing conversation, but I would like for us to extend the conversation a bit more. So…

Do you think participation in personal learning networks (PLN) can enhance student learning?

NOTE: I’d like to include responses in my Podstock keynote and blog post. You can share your text/audio/video reply in the Comments section of this post or respond to the corresponding Plurk and Twitter discussions.