Education Technology

Discovery Education has a lot of great resources for educators, many free (over 30). They also have fee-based services such as DE Streaming with thousands of videos, audio files, images, lesson plans, and much more.

The Discovery Education Science Techbook is more than a digital textbook. "It’s a different way of thinking. Thinking outside the box, perhaps. Or more appropriately, thinking outside the book." "The Techbook not only provides awesome content aligned to each state’s standards (there are currently Science Techbooks available for most grades K-8 in 30 states across the U.S.), but includes a model lesson for teachers to use with every concept, assessment questions for each standard, a teacher’s guide, and DVDs for when the Internet is not available. Resources such as the virtual labs, reading passages, video segments, science sleuths, explorations, and interactive glossary, etc., are packaged together to follow the five E model of instruction. Teachers have found an easier and creative way to build lessons using technology resources and content, as well as differentiating their classroom."

I am a STAR Discovery Educator and a member of the CT Leadership Council (group of educators who work with Discovery Education to provide support to teachers) and love their resources.

They have a lot of great, free resources available for any educator to use and provide a lot of free online and in-person professional development for teachers.


Here are a couple of new things Discovery has:

Summer Tips and Tricks for Parents and Teachers - great presentation with some great resources and apps for parents and teachers to use themselves, and their children/students this summer.

 

Discovery Education Science Techbook is an incredible resource for educators. It's more than a digital textbook. "It’s a different way of thinking. Thinking outside the box, perhaps. Or more appropriately, thinking outside the book." "The Techbook not only provides awesome content aligned to each state’s standards (there are currently Science Techbooks available for most grades K-8 in 30 states across the U.S.), but includes a model lesson for teachers to use with every concept, assessment questions for each standard, a teacher’s guide, and DVDs for when the Internet is not available. Resources such as the virtual labs, reading passages, video segments, science sleuths, explorations, and interactive glossary, etc., are packaged together to follow the five E model of instruction. Teachers have found an easier and creative way to build lessons using technology resources and content, as well as differentiating their classroom."

It is not just a PDF or other media file with links. It is an entire ecosystem of lesson resources for educators to use in their classroom. It's not free, but neither are print textbooks or iBooks, and the DE Science TechBooks are ready, aligned to standards, and in use in thousands of classrooms around the country.

It has been available for Middle School for quite some time and is now debuting for High School. There is a webinar on May 29th that will debut the high school version. Check out the details below.

Discovery Education is ready to go to High School with the introduction of the Discovery Education Science Techbook for Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Earth & Space Sciences. Join us to learn more about each course as we take a quick dive in to the resources and instructional strategies used to develop this amazing textbook replacement.

Ready for High School?.... We Are!
Join us for the debut of Discovery Education Science Techbook for High School Educators Webinar
May 29th, 2012
6:00PM EDT
To Register or join the webinar please visit:
https://discoveryed.webex.com/discoveryed/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=630360655

Last night was the DENny Awards 2012, the annual awards where the Discovery Educator Network and Discovery Education honor DEN members for their efforts throughout the years. It's the Oscars for us. In fact, the Discovery Education employees that ran the event were wearing tuxedo t-shirts!

You can view the entire thing, which was live streamed from Discovery Education HQ last night, below:





You can also check out some of the tweets from last night #DENnyawards.



I was honored to have won a DENny for "PL DEN", a play on PLN (personal learning network), for my work sharing and connecting with other educators about Discovery Education resources on social media and the DEN blog for the CT Leadership Council. I according to DEN, I've tweeted over 132 times sharing Discovery Ed resources and posted over 100 blog posts on the DEN Blog.
(I was also honored last year with a DENny for my contributions to the DEN blog. I'm truly humbled by the awards).

Connecticut had a good showing last night, with Howard Gunther winning a DENny for Best DEN Event for the SCICon Event held at the Mark Twain house and Joe Fromme, the CT Leadership Council's fearless leader, winning a DENny for Leadership. Lynn Reedy and I were also finalists to be DEN Guru's this year and, while we weren't selected, were both honored to be part of such a distinguished group of educators that were the 12 finalists.

It was a fun event and I love the people in the DEN and from Discovery Education that I get to work with.

Discovery Education and the Discovery Educator Network do so much for educators and education. They are a dedicated group of educators and professionals that work to support educators in their job of educating our youth.




Why don't you join the Discovery Educator Network and become a STAR Educator!

More about the Discovery Educator Network: http://community.discoveryeducation.com/about.cfm

ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education) puts on a great, huge, educational conference each year. I was lucky enough to attend ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia last year (thanks to winning a Discovery Education contest that paid for it for me) and had a great time, learning, sharing, and connecting with educators from around the world. Philadelphia is also a great town!

Attending ISTE is a great experience for any educator, but can be a tad expensive. Travel costs, meals and expenses, hotel, conference fee, etc. I was lucky enough to get my paid for by Discovery Education. Beth Still (@bethstill), a great educator that's part of my PLN thought every teacher should have a chance to attend the ISTE Conference. Back in 2008, when it was the NECC conference, she decided to see if she could use Twitter to help raise $1500 to send a teacher to the conference. It worked! And she's doing it again.

This year's ISTE Newbie is Jerry Blumengarten, better known on Twitter as @cybraryman1, who has an incredible website (http://cybraryman.com/) with thousands of great resources for educators (500 pages and 30,000 links). He's very active on Twitter, helping with various educational chats and also helping teachers out with resources and ideas. He's also a nice guy. His generosity to other educators is incredible.

So, let's help send Jerry to ISTE 2012 in San Diego this summer. You can go to the ISTE12 Newbie Site to donate. As of 9am today, over $700 had already been raised towards the $2000 goal! I donated because I think its a great idea and cause, and I think that Jerry truly deserves it.

https://sites.google.com/site/istenewbieproject/





Related:

ISTE 2011 A great experience!

ISTE Session Review - Extreme Web 2.0 Makeover by Steve Dembo

Nature Works Everywhere is a great, free site from The Nature Conservancy and Discovery Education. The site has resources to help learn about how nature works and the fact that nature is a factory, making many of the things we need.



There is an interactive online game that helps students discover the connections between everyday items and nature's resources, interactive lesson plans about topics like pollinators, forestry, coastal erosion and more, videos about how nature works to benefit us and how we can preserve nature, and a section about scientists working to preserve nature and keep it productive. There are even some virtual field trips.

Check it out and share it with your colleagues: http://www.natureworkseverywhere.org/



Related:

Tons of Great Resources from Discovery Education

Great Resources from Discovery Education 

Turfmutt - environmental lessons and resources

The Social Learning Summit was a great, free, online educational conference hosted by Classroom 2.0 and Discovery Educator Network last Saturday. There were over 70 great sessions, led by some great educators and now the archives are available for those who missed it or who want to review things.

RJ Stangherlin, a DEN blogger, live blogged many presentations and you can find her posts here.

Every session was recorded and you can find them all here.

This was a great resource for all educators and now anyone can view the presentations.



Related:

Discovery Educator Network - great resource for all educators

Free Resources from Discovery Education 

Discovery Education and the Discovery Educator Network are great resources for educators and students. They have over 30 free resources for educators, Discovery Streaming Plus, Discovery Assessment, Discovery Education Science TechBook (really awesome) and much more.

They are hosting a sneak peek webinar series of some of the changes coming to Discovery Education this summer. You can find out about product updates, mobile and social products and updates and all the newest, latest, greatest features and resources available.

The webinars are scheduled for Tuesday, May 8th at 7pm ET, Tuesday, May 15th at 3:30pm ET and Tuesday, May 22nd at 7pm ET. You can register to attend these free webinars here: Register: http://links.discoveryeducation.com/sneakpeek2012




Related:

Discovery Educator Network - great resource for all educators

Discovery Products, News, Lesson Ideas, Resources and more

25 Free Resources from Discovery Education
Discovery Education Science TechBooks - great resource - more than an e-text

Join us on Thursday, May 17th at 7 PM ET for the 2012 DENny Awards.

This year, we’re thrilled to announce that the DENny Awards will be broadcast live from the HD Theater at the world headquarters of Discovery Communications in Silver Spring, MD. If you are nearby, we invite you to join us in-person. Sign up to join us in-person at Discovery Headquarters in Silver Spring, MD or join us online at http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/liveDiscovery Educator Network - great resources and great addition to any PLN

Discovery Education has a lot of great resources for educators, many free (over 30). They also have fee-based services such as DE Streaming with thousands of videos, audio files, images, lesson plans, and much more.

One of their other resources that I have been using lately is the Discovery Education Science Techbook. It is more than a digital textbook. "It’s a different way of thinking. Thinking outside the box, perhaps. Or more appropriately, thinking outside the book."

Trial Request: Please contact Discovery Education representative Brett Jacquay, Education Manager, brett_jacquay@discovery.com

Discovery Education's Discovery Educator Network runs a variety of professional development sessions each year. These are usually online sessions with live meet-ups also planned. For this Spring, they are doing something different instead of the normal Spring Virtual Conference. The DEN is partnering with Classroom 2.0 to present the Social Learning Summit. Steve Hargadon, of Classroom 2.0, and the DEN are working together to organize the event which will be held Saturday, April 21st. The event is free.



More information can be found on the DEN blog and Classroom 2.0 sites, including how to submit a presentation proposal. Stay tuned for more information.

The conference theme is the use of social media and Web 2.0 in teaching and learning, and we are calling for proposals immediately at http://www.SocialLearningSummit.com. To be kept informed of the latest conference news and updates, please join the Classroom 2.0 network. This will also allow you to correspond with the presenters and other members, and to comment on sessions and discussions. 

Sessions will be 30 minutes in length, and can focus on practical classroom application or pedagogical frameworks or both. Please do not submit a session if your are a vendor or a vendor representative. Whilepresentation proposals will be accepted through April 7th, session acceptances will start to be issued on March 26th, at which time presenters will be given a chance to use a scheduling calendar to pick an available time to present. All sessions will be held in Blackboard Collaborate (previously Elluminate), and training sessions will be available both "live" and in recorded form.

Related:Discovery Educator Network - great resources and great addition to any PLN

This Thursday, March 15, 2012 at 2pm ET, Mythbusters will be live online: MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition. 

MythBusters Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage will share their experiences as well as those of co-hosts Kari Byron, Tori Belleci and Grant Imahara, as they make experimentation come alive through this dynamic presentation about science behind the exhibit. The interactive exhibit, created by Discovery Communications and Exhibits Development Group (EDG), in partnership with the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, helps inspire learning beyond the walls of the classroom. 

Scientists, engineers, and mathematicians drive innovation that will fuel our future. This live event will spark the natural curiosity of budding scientists by showing students just how fun science can be and how it’s helped Adam and Jamie follow their passion to ultimately find success.

Presentation Format
15 Minutes Interactive Presentation
15 Minutes Q&A
15 Remarks from Chicago Public Schools officials and other dignitaries 

If you can't attend live, check back for an archive of the session.

Curiosity in the Classroom is a new site from Discovery Education that I really like.

There are lesson plans and resources for teachers, organized by grade level (6-8, 9-12), along with videos and webinars. There are some great resources here to help teachers get their students engaged in science and inquiry. The site was designed to "bring teachers, students and families on a journey through life's biggest questions."

There are also parent and student activities, including quizzes, links to the Curiosity TV show, and much more.

This is a great resource to help teachers spark curiosity in their students.





Related Articles

Top 10 Resources from Discovery Education - all free

Discovery Education has a lot of great resources for educators, many free (over 30). They also have fee-based services such as DE Streaming with thousands of videos, audio files, images, lesson plans, and much more.

One of their other resources that I have been using lately is the Discovery Education Science Techbook.

The Discovery Education Science Techbook is more than a digital textbook. "It’s a different way of thinking. Thinking outside the box, perhaps. Or more appropriately, thinking outside the book." "The Techbook not only provides awesome content aligned to each state’s standards (there are currently Science Techbooks available for most grades K-8 in 30 states across the U.S.), but includes a model lesson for teachers to use with every concept, assessment questions for each standard, a teacher’s guide, and DVDs for when the Internet is not available. Resources such as the virtual labs, reading passages, video segments, science sleuths, explorations, and interactive glossary, etc., are packaged together to follow the five E model of instruction. Teachers have found an easier and creative way to build lessons using technology resources and content, as well as differentiating their classroom."

It is not just a PDF or other media file with links. It is an entire ecosystem of lesson resources for educators to use in their classroom. It's not free, but neither are print textbooks or iBooks, and the DE Science TechBooks are ready, aligned to standards, and in use in thousands of classrooms around the country.

The DE Science Techbooks feature

• Lively, interactive resources that capture the attention of students
• Custom, in-person professional development builds capacity to ensure effective implementation
• Cost-effective and efficient
• Organized around the teacher-friendly 5E Instructional Model and integrates the nature of science and inquiry into every phase of learning
• Designed around big ideas and essential questions
• Customized to your state standards
• Student resources for ALL learning styles
• Key teacher resources
• Up-to-date content
• Real-time feedback

From Discovery Education's press release:

Unlike traditional textbooks, Discovery Education Science Techbook uses an inquiry-based approach to learning, bringing key science concepts to life for both English and Spanish-speaking students. Other interactive elements available only from Discovery Education include an interactive glossary, videos and photos, and clips from Discovery Channel's award-winning series such as PLANET EARTH, LIFE and MYTHBUSTERS.

Using a real-time assessment component that measures students' progress and recommends individualized resources, the Science Techbook has the ability to address individual student's learning styles and prescribe resources targeted to their performance. 

The Science Techbook is dynamic and updated in real time, providing teachers the opportunity to incorporate up-to-date scientific issues into their curriculum and students the chance to interact with experts on the front lines. Most recently the Science Techbook has featured such events as the tornados that occurred across the southeast U.S. and the tornado and tsunami in Japan. Finally, Discovery Education Science Techbook is a substantially less expensive option per student than textbooks, with additional savings derived from a lack of textbook replacement or inventory costs.

Some of Discovery Education's content, including the TechBooks, is Flash Based (for now) but you can access all of it on an iPad using iSwifter.

Here's a nice ToonDoo-inspired take on the differences between classrooms that are driven by books (digital or otherwise) and those that are driven by inquiry-based instruction from Lance Rougeux at Discovery Education.




Related:

25 Free Resources from Discovery Education

Discovery Education’s Science Techbook: Scientific Explanations in Action
Apple Announces iBooks2 E-Textbooks - my initial thoughts

What I use with Physics classes instead of textbook

Resources to Replace Textbooks

Free Textbooks - online, download, iPad, Kindle