Educators who couldn’t make it to every session during the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) annual conference in Austin this month turned to the TCEA Twitter page and the TCEA Ning for summaries of resources that were discussed during sessions and workshops.
Despite the slumping economy, the conference had its largest attendance ever, organizers say—with more than 12,000 attendees.
Ning is an online platform for users to create their own social networks. TCEA set up a Ning for conference attendees to post information they learned in sessions for their colleagues who couldn’t attend.
Kirsten Linsenbardt’s TCEA Ning blogs included a post about an El Paso, Texas, class that used video conferencing to communicate with and learn from a class in Russia. The presenters focused on communicating, collaborating, and creating. Click here for the presenters’ web site.
Asked to create a summer technology camp for gifted and talented middle school students, Abilene Independent School District educator Paul Alex Briseno blogged that he was happy to find a TCEA session focusing on summer technology camps. The session covered registration and broke the camp outline into three weeks. MovieMaker, Google Earth, KidPix, and PhotoShop are just a few of the many technologies students can use, according to the session.
TCEA’s Twitter page posted constant updates with free tips and helpful web sites that educators can use in the classroom and for professional development.
Animated Atlas lets students or teachers manipulate a timeline in U.S. history. It includes pop-up information on the nation’s rivers and states and breaks down the timeline, which runs from 1790 to the present day, into decades for more detailed information.
A Day at the Park consists of free software that gives students a moving picture and accompanying sentences. Students place characters around the park and create sentences about their activities.
On Larry Ferlazzo’s Web Sites of the Day, Ferlazzo blogs about useful sites to help English-language learners and those learning English as a second language. A Presidents Day post provides countless resources on the nation’s first presidents, such as a virtual tour of Mount Vernon, an interactive service about the Lincoln Memorial, and Smithsonian presentations.
Teachers and students who want a break from flash cards during math class or homework should check out Mathtwo.com, which offers math games as well as a link library.
Thinkature.com is a free registration-required online collaborative workspace that educators might find useful. It places instant messaging inside a virtual workspace. Once users are invited into a workspace, they can talk, draw, create note cards, and add content found on the internet.
Grey Matters, from the University of California at San Diego, offers short videos detailing how the brain works, how scientists discover new facts about the brain, and more.
