South Florida Parents

Nothing like a deceiving title to 'catch' your attention! About a year ago I actually won something in a DEN contest at one of our Polk Socials. I had the choice of the Pilot episode of "The Deadliest Catch" or something else (see, it wasn't good since I didn't choose it eh?). As you can tell, I chose "The Deadliest Catch" DVD.

With all the hype that "Planet Earth" is getting, the "Catch" goes on and shares the perils of crab fishing in some of the worst office conditions I've ever seen. If you've not watched it, I would say to give it a whirl on Tuesday nights and you will be glued to your sets every week thereafter.

I used the show as a way to expose my daughter to where some of the food she eats comes from. We have since watched every episode in Seasons 2 and 3 together, usually coupled with a trip to an All You Can Eat Crab place at the end of the season. I will warn that there is some inappropriate language that is used, so if you plan on using portions of it in a classroom setting, screen it first prior and possibly pick certain scenes to watch.

Better yet, on the Discovery Channel website you can screen webisodes that show the anatomy of a Crab Vessel, interviews with deckhands and captains and even take a shot at being a crab boat captain in the "Deadliest Catch" Game.

Tom.

I will have to say, Friday went just way too fast for me. As you can see, your Florida DEN bloggers represented well, and thank you to David Warlick for being kind enough to take this picture with us.

David was the keynote and I had barely enough time to keep up with the Inspiration Concept Map I was using to take notes with while he was talking. His Keynote was his "Reinventing & Retelling the Education Story" and left us with the one thought from a student which was pretty nice, "Engage us where we live, Not from where you live." His topics ranged from gaming, blogging, wikis, podcasting, to recognizing what the office of the past has in common with the office of the future. If I'm not mistaken, the only thing there was left from the office of the 20th Century was a couple of flower pots.

The Tech Forum gave us many opportunities to network with the other educators in attendance. I sat in a roundtable discussing that was tackling the topic of safety and security vs. web 2.0 applications. The common theme that the educators present all had was district IT and security people blocking sites that have a great potential for educational content and collaboration. Case in point, just as of this week davidwarlick.com in my district was blocked. We were unfortunately unable to come up with a good way to combat this conundrum.

I did not get to sit in Kay's presentation on digital storytelling (sorry Kay). But I did get to talk with her and she said it went well. Hopefully the attendees learned just as much from her as I have over the last few years in working with her.

I was a big winner in one of the prize drawings, which I never win anything. Just wished it was the Qwizdom 32 handheld classroom set. Missed it by one pull! But seeing that in use for the FIRST time, I was truly amazed. I think I've found another thing I will have to have my principal get. I had a GREAT time yesterday, learned some, knew some, will start dawdling in Second Life just to see what the craze is all about. Look for me, Mithras Barbosa if you are there.

Tom.

I didn't really make an announcement here, but I've been pretty much incognito for the past few weeks. My wife and I took the plunge and became homeowners for the second time in our lives. BIG step for us. It's a beautiful house in a great location (7 minutes from my new school!) So if you all were wondering where Tom's run off to, well there you have it. I've also simulposted most, if not all, of this on my personal blog as well. I just wanted everyone to be aware  since some of you might not know my Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages blog.

As of last night I’m officially connected again to the world of web 2.0. I’m very much surprised that I didn’t break down into convulsions over the weekend by not being able to check my email, blogs, chat with my friends, etc. Just goes to show how important something as small as a little box with blinking lights is important to people.

House update for those that were in the know. We are in, boxes are everywhere!! How can four people accumulate so much stuff??? I’ve set up my office (just need to put the fan up, darn it’s hot in here!), complete with a wireless LAN to provide access from around the house. The living room and kitchen are painted, along with necessary wallpaper accents put up. I’d say in another 6 months everything will be done! I, of course, hope it’s sooner then that!

Between all of the moving I was able to host my first training session to my school yesterday. Thanks very much to Virginia Richard for coming to my school to explain the goodness of video on demand applications to the classroom teacher. It still intrigues me that some teachers have never seen places like unitedstreaming, where at their fingertips they have the ability to take advantage of as many teachable moments as possible. I think the most telling question that I had from the entire 1 1/2 hour training session was from the entire kindergarten team (all 13 of them asked this at the same time!). As close to verbatim as I can get, it went like this, “Now Mr. Turner. Just how important is something like this unitedstreaming thing for us Kindergarten teachers? Will we actually be able to use this thing?” I just had to sit back with a smile, while during Virginia’s presentation I heard the ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ coming from the group. We didn’t want to overwhelm them in one day, so we basically just left it with the basics of logging in, searching by benchmark and subject area. At that point I knew we were starting to lose some of them (I won’t go into the lack of professionalism by some which amazed me still). But for the most part everyone left with learning something new. Next up is learning how to use these video applications in the classroom. Can we say Inspiration, Photostory, or MovieMaker? Not yet, but soon I hope!