I came across a really cool website the other day:

http://www.getdemocracy.com

It is a complete video platform. I am trying to explore this as an option for our teachers to easily create a podcast or video to share. I don’t know all the specifics yet, but it appears to require a video plugin because it has it’s own codec. A big plus is the ability to run it on your own server with teachers using the client.

It seems to have potential but also seems to overlap with what iTunes already does very well with podcasting and organizing web multimedia.

-Chris

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We came across this great open source video conf. software called DimDIm.  It has a lot of potential for delivering training.  This is especially true if you combine the web conf. with Moodle for interactive learning and sharing.

Hopefully a stable release is coming soon.  We are really looking forward to this.

-Chris

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Our website has a lot of interactive elements: eNews, Forums, Podcasts, PTSA website, blogs, moodle, social bookmarking, etc. All of these programs require 2 way input in order to be interactive which becomes a management issue. It is one thing to maintain a web program and quite another to have to feed it information all the time!

So this is my latest issue I am having. We have a lot of great programs and tools on our website, but when do you reach that saturation point? It is hard to keep webpages updated, programs running, and then have to feed information into interactive elements of the website to communicate with parents and the community. Just this year we launched 5 new pieces to our website: iLearn, iBlog, iSeek, eNews, and Parent Forums. This is on top of the podcasting of Board Meetings, Streaming Video of our District Cable Channel, and maintaining/adding information to the district website.

Somehow it is all getting done.  In the pursuit to be cutting-edge and interactive with the community, I am finding myself spending a lot of time feeding the www machine!
One day at a time and it all gets done!!!

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Digital Toolbox for teachers

Dearborn Public Schools is using cutting-edge technology to extend the classroom.  Staff members have a variety of options to use web technology to extend their classroom into the home.  Putting the power of the internet at the fingertips of every teacher and staff member is the goal of the new Dearborn Public Schools’ Digital Toolbox.  There are three main tools for teachers to use: iBlog, ilearn, and iSeek.

 

Publish

Making website creation easy for teachers has always been a challenge.  With the introduction of iBlog, this has changed.  iBlog is a blog creation website where teachers can login and create a public website for their classroom.  From posting homework for parents and students to podcasting, every teacher in the district has the opportunity to create a professional blog.  A blog is the pen and paper of the internet.  Using nothing more than a web browser teachers can create, publish, and interact with students, parents, and the community.

 

Learn

iLearn is our flagship web product for teachers.  iLearn allows teachers to create a digital classroom.  From tests and quizzes to personal journals, iLearn allows teachers unprecedented options for breaking down the barriers of the brick-and-mortar classroom and extending the learning process into the home.  Students can discuss topics brought up in the classroom and even critique each-other’s projects in a safe and secure learning environment.  In the first week of school, the iLearn user database grew from about 75 teachers who were setting up their digital classroom over the summer to currently 830 users.  iLearn is a student’s digital hub for learning.

 

Share

Sharing online resources has always been a problem.  Many teachers share links within a building to educational websites, but there has never been a way to easily share these links with the entire district… until now!  Introducing iSeek, the Dearborn Public Schools social bookmarking program.  iSeek is designed to be a warehouse of searchable and “tagged� links for educators, parents, and community.  It is like our own private google for education designed and created by our staff.  When links are added to iSeek, the teacher adds “tags� which are like keywords but much more powerful and useful.  Links are grouped by tags and related tags in a database.  As well as being organized by tags, every link is text searchable making it easier to find targeting and “teacher-filtered� websites.

 

This innovative and comprehensive set of tools is helping to bridge the digital-divide between teachers and students.  From publishing to the internet, sharing resources, or creating a digital classroom, teachers have the resources to reach out to students in a medium they understand and use: the computer.

Resources:

 

iLearn

http://ilearn.dearbornschools.org

 

iBlog

http://blog.dearbornschools.org

 

iSeek

http://apps.dearbornschools.org/bookmark

 

 

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