pacific tech

I hope your break gave you an opportunity for some renewal. I spent a few days in Bend with my family and the the rest of the time back at home. Breaks are a good time to reorient yourself; so, as we move into April, I wanted to give you an overview of the last half of our class. Be sure to check the syllabus and project descriptions for the finer details on all the projects.

Webquests and Web-Based Tools

The Webquests (and Explore Learning Gizmo evaluations for the math and science folks) are due on April 4, this Friday. Each one of the assignments should be posted to your blog. There is no need to send me anything via email. Simply be sure to post by Friday 12 P.M. and you will be good to go. I will have computer lab office hours from 8-9 A.M and 12-1 P.M. on Monday and Wednesday and Jesse is in the lab everyday from 8:30-5:00.

For those of you doing a Webquest, a few reminders for you. Remember that the content is the most important thing! Your clarity, cleverness, and creativity give your Webquest the power. Be sure that you are asking your students to complete a task that requires them to think deeply about a topic and use web-based resources to complete the project. Have fun with it.

As you move closer to completing your Webquest and you begin to consider formatting and using pictures on your page, you should use images that add to the content. You can upload your images to your page by using he upload tab directly below your page editing window. You simply browse for the picture on your computer (this means you have to know where the picture is saved on your computer) and when you find it you click upload. The picture should magically appear in your page editing window. Once it is there, you can edit it if you click on it and then click on the insert image button on your toolbar.

For the math science folks who are learning about Gizmos, you can upload some screen shots of your Gizmos to enhance your post.

A link that explains how to take screen shots if you have a Mac.

A link that explains how to take a screen shots in Windows.

The Remaining Projects

You have three projects remaining to complete in the class after the web project:

Geospatial Tools Project

Digital Video or Podcast Project (your choice)

Interactive Whiteboard project. During the final class session you will be doing a microteach using the Smartboard.

Oregon Technology Education Network (OTEN) Conference Saturday April 12th

On April 12th we will be attending the OTEN Spring Conference at Pacific University in Forest Grove. OTEN is a consortium of liberal arts colleges in Oregon. OTEN was formed eight years ago with the purpose of securing grants to support the integration of technology into our teacher education programs. We have received a number of grants to support our work over the years. We are currently in the fourth year of a five year 1.5 million dollar Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant from the Federal Department of Education.

The grant supports our statewide efforts to support our students, student teachers, mentor teachers, and university faculty who are integrating technology into their work. A good portion of our funds are directed to supporting the distribution of minigrants. The presenters at The Spring Conference are students and classroom teachers who received minigrants in 2007. They are your peers. They will be giving informal and interactive 20 minute roundtable presentations about the projects they completed using the grant money they received from OTEN.

You can get all the information you need about the conference from at the OTEN Conference Web Page. Here you will be able to:

1. Register for the conference.

2. Get directions and a map.

3. View a schedule of the presentations.

The conference keynote address starts at 8:30 A.M. There is a free lunch after the last presentation. You can stay for lunch, or take it with you to eat on the drive home. The conference ends at 12 P.M. The drive to Forest Grove takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes. Every year some students stay in Portland or Forest Grove on Friday. The McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove is a nice and affordable place to stay if you are considering staying overnight. They have a few nice bars, a restaurant, a movie theater and other activities going on there. It’s about six blocks from Pacific University.

As I said earlier, our grant supports the distribution of minigrants to students. During our class next week I will outline the grant application process for you. The big benefit of attending the conference is to see models of successful grant applications. As the campus coordinator on the Eugene Campus, I will oversee the grant process here. We will be able to fund approximately 8-10 student minigrants. You will be able to apply for a minigrant of up to $750 to purchase equipment you would use in your classroom to execute a technology-enhanced lesson. Successful grant applicants will have to use the equipment in a lesson during your student teaching (of course you can and will use it more often, but for the purpose of meeting the requirements of the grant, you will need to use it in a specific lesson). In addition to lesson, grantees will be required to participate in some post-teaching assessment and agree to present at the 2009 OTEN Spring Conference. You will get to keep the equipment you receive for the duration of your teaching career. The equipment is technically owned by OTEN and loaned to you for the duration of your teaching career.

After you attend the conference and as a result of taking our class, your mind will should be spinning with ideas for ways in which you might be able to use technology in your teaching. In June you will spend a few weeks in your major placement with the mentor teacher you will be working with in the fall. If you are interested in applying for a grant, you should talk to your mentor teacher about a project you might complete in the fall that would include some technology. After this, you can complete the grant application form which is due June 27th.

mark s.