West Virginia Broadcasters Association Grant for Video Journalism and Media Classes.

On a day this past March, I left my school right after the bell rang to go to a hearing aid clinic in Clarksburg to get my hearing aid checked out.  I pulled into the parking lot and I got a cell phone call from my assistant principal who was yelling at me "Where are you?" and I was started and I thought I was supposed to be at an after school meeting.  She was yelling at me because she was happy that I got a grant for $7,500!

I have a Media Productions class at Grafton High School.  I don't receive much funding for equipment from the county budget, but I want to update equipment to catch up with technology.  I have been working with $150 WalMart video camera and $35 tripods.  Funds for these came from selling t-shirts in basketball season and selling Graduation DVDs.    I was able to get the contact information from the West Virginia Broadcasters Association Foundation from a colleague in another county.  I wrote a grant request by January 31st that was my "wish list"  and how I teach my class.  You can view my grant request document by clicking on this link.  The request was over $11,000 but the foundation put a limit, but they had said it was the largest grant they ever had given.  I didn't get everything I would have liked and I made some substitutions.  I worked with B & H Video who quoted me with educational prices. This link are some of the items that I had purchased with the funds. I talked with my county Tech Coordinator and she said I should purchase extended warranties for the pricier items as the school district would not cover repair costs on those items.

I view the role of my Media class is to be a public service to the school and the community as I try to record school events and post it to SchoolTube.com and the City of Grafton Public Access channel.   We produce a daily newscast that is posted online and shown to students throughout the school.   I also promote Digital Citizenship in my class as I feel their is not much instruction in that area at my school as well at the First Amendment Free Speech rights for students, school, and society as a whole.  Now I have more equipment that I can record  student projects, teachers instructing, and other events in the school and community.

If you live in the state of West Virginia and would like to modernize technology and have budding video journalists, take the time to apply for this grant this winter.

Rich Zukowski accepting WVBA check from WDTV's Nate Smail 

#WVEDCHAT "A new discussion venue for West Virginia Teachers"

I would like to propose a new hashtag for West Virginia teachers to use on Twitter:  #wvedchat

Why?  The needs to be a network of teachers in West Virginia who would like to be part of a PLN (Personal or Professional Learning Network) with other teachers in West Virginia.  Teachers have similar interests and concerns throughout the state and this would be a perfect venue for it to take place. I envision teachers sharing journals, articles, instructional strategies, workshops, conferences,  and concerns they have about education in West Virginia and education in general.  Educators in all subject areas are welcome to take part in this community.

To participate, all you have to do is go to the Twitter.com website and search for #wvedchat and there would be a listing of those who used the hastag #wvedchat in their Twitter post.  You do not have to have a Twitter account to read these posts, but if you want to contribute, you have to have an account.  You need to remember that Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters, but conversations can continue with replies.  If you like what you see you can "favorite" a post or "retweet" to share the post to your followers.  As you become more involved on Twitter, the more followers you are likely to accumulate.

You can also follow teachers (or anyone on Twitter) to follow their feed on Twitter.
I do not want this to be a place to gripe about education in West Virginia, but as a way for educators to network and make education in West Virginia better for all!  This kind of chat works well with educators in other states and other fields.  There are some chats that have live conversations that take place for an hour each week.  This could be something that we could grow into at a later time if there is interest.

You can follow me on Twitter @richzukowski

If you are unfamiliar with Twitter in education, take a look at these webpages:  http://cybraryman.com/twitter.html
http://podcast.teachercast.net/a-beginners-webinar-to-twitter-and-pln-building-tech-educator-podcast-10/

Overview of websites discussed on June 19

This is an overview of sites discussed at the "Organizing Your Classroom on the Cloud" presentation for the Celebration of History conference at the Bridgeport Conference Center on June 19, 2013.

• Twitter:  www.twitter.com
• Social Studies Chat Ning
• Edmodo
• Schoology
• LiveBinders
• Quizlet
• EasyNoteCards
• Dropbox
• SugarSync
• Dropvox
• TinyScan
• InstaGrok
• SchoolTube
• TeacherTube

You can contact Mr. Zukowski by email  at rzukowsk@access.k12.wv.us, richzukowski@gmail.com, Google+, and Twitter @richzukowski.

A new research tool in InstaGrok

Are you looking for a research tool that gives you a different way to show you results?  InstaGrok may be your answer.  InstaGrok gives you the opportunity to "Grok" your search.  Results are shown in a web graph format that shows relationships of your results to subtopics.  If you click each bubble, you can explore the topics even more.
InstaGrok also gives you key facts related to the topics, websites, images, and videos that are related to the topic you have searched.  It will also create a quick quiz related to the search and a glossary of terms.  Those using InstaGrok can created a journal that will collect information from the searches in a Word-document like format that can be printed out, saved, or emailed to someone.
Everyone can create a free account and be able to keep track of your own searches.  Educators are able to purchase the ability to have students be part of the teacher accounts where the teacher can see history of  the research the student has conducted.  Students are separated by classes.
There are many ways to use the information you obtain on InstaGrok and it can be a great addition to your teaching tools.

Review from Edudemic of InstaGrok

What can I do with Dropbox?

Dropbox is a versitle application   It is web-based, yet you can create a folder in your computer that you can access to it online and share files through the cloud.   It is also used by many applications on iOS to upload or download files.  I am g
oing to show you a couple of Dropbox aligned applications that I use to help my instruction.

The first is TinyScan.  This is a iOS app that is used to scan documents, books, and pages in black and white, color, or grayscale.  You can create a PDF document that has many pages and name the files on the application.  This is a useful tool that you do not need to have a scanner nearby or do not want to play around with a scanner and it will automatically upload the file to the TinyScan folder in your Dropbox account.

The other application I use is called Dropvox.  "Vox" refers to the ability to create sound files that are then uploaded to the Dropbox account.  This is a sound recording application that is different from voice memos on the iPhone because it automatically uploads to Dropbox rather than either sending it as a message or an email.  Once it uploads through Dropbox, I can rename the audio file and place where I want to use it.  This is very useful for me to create audio recording for tests read aloud and the student has access to the file or for students to use the Dropvox app to recording projects.

These are just a couple of apps that I use to tie into my Dropbox account I feel that are useful in my instruction.  Here are some websites that may help you use Dropbox:

http://plpnetwork.com/2012/08/10/dropbox-a-superb-classroom-tool/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-apps-dropbox/
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3984-25-Apps-for-Dropbox 
http://edtech.keuka.edu/dropbox-web-apps/

Now where did I put this...?

I am notorious for having messy desk, but it has its own chaotic organization as long as someone else doesn't move anything.  But it may take a while to locate some things.  So many times I make sure I put notes aside for future use.  Now I have the ability to keep the notes electronically through a site/app called Evernote.  This app keeps notes and files handy for you in the cloud.  I can type in a note that I want to keep for the future, website URLs can be placed in the note, drag files into the note, create tags for notes, or whatever information I want to include.  You can even use its search function that will search titles, tags, and the text of the note and in the files that you may have added.

There are several ways to view notes within Evernote.  You can view notes as a list, by the different notebooks that you have added, and the tags.  Evernote is also an umbrella company that has apps such as Skitch, Penultimate, Evernote Food, and Evernote Peek, all of which have iOS apps and Android apps that will send notes to your Evernote account.

The way I use Evernote for my profession is that I will log into a website that I would like to remember.  I just copy the URL and put some tags in such as educational blogs that I follow.  I also use this as a place where I can put some hints to different usernames and passwords (not the actual passwords) to different websites.  I can access my smart phone and utilize the app and search for the notes.  I also made notes and copied emails that confirms my flights, hotels,  reservations, and workshop details to different workshops this summer so I won't have to try to search my email to find specific information within emails.

There are web-based apps, iOS, Android, and Windows 8 apps available for Evernote.

Web Log In Screen

View of the Web Account Logged In

View of the Apple Mac App

I've finally cleaned out my file cabinet and replaced it with this

I have been in my current school for four years now and haven't really cleaned out the materials left behind by the previous teacher until the past month.  I have pitched items that were part of the previous three textbook adoption cycles (including all of the samples from companies that weren't adopted) and my classroom, cabinets, and files are pretty empty right now.

Are the file cabinets going to filled back up anytime.  For me, probably not due to the current format of resources that are available to us now.  Most instructional materials are in the form of files on CD that we print off or are web-based.  I have been using a tool for a couple of years that have organized materials for instruction and have been a great resource to isolate supplemental materials for students.

This web-tool is LiveBinders.  It is billed as you 3-ring binder on the web that would have been lost in file cabinets.  LiveBinders.com is a free website that allows people, not just educators, to create binders for specific topics to link other website, put in pictures, attach files, etc. to customize instruction to your liking.  You can create tabs and subtabs for the binders and even color code for increased customization.  Each binder is located on a shelf.  The shelves can be public or private.  There are many public shelves that can be searched within the website and you can add them to your own shelf.  

I have created binders for the textbooks I have been using.  We were towards the end of our instructional material adoption and I gathered supplemental sources via web and files to my binder.  I organized the materials by chapter.  I was able to share the binder with my students and have them complete assignments using a specific chapter or content.  Such assignments that I created were scavenger hunt activities, researching topics using the links, and find information to expand on what was included in the text. I also added links to students own blogs that I have them complete for my classes to the specific class binder so the students are able to view those blogs without having to have the specific link.

Holt World History:  The Human Journey 
Edwards Government in America

We have adopted new instructional materials for the next school year and I plan to make a new LiveBinder for my new textbooks.  I will also make sure that the weblinks are still "live" and active.

Using LiveBinders is a way for educators to create customized web-based instruction that allows students to use specific sites and activities located on the binder.  There are also many binders with a variety of topics that can aid your instruction and you can "adopt" and place on your shelf.  I have been using the free basic functions and it seems to be sufficient for my instruction so far.  There are pay options to uploads large file sizes.  This is an easy to use website and functions well for my instruction. There is an iPad app available for LiveBinders on the Apple App Store.  There is not currently a version for the iPhone.