Great Rresources from Conferences

I spent the past two weekends at conferences, paid for by MDEA. The first conference was the Good Teaching Conference (also attending was Lisa Caballero, math teacher from Mt. Diablo High School) and the second was the annual conference of the California League of High Schools (also attending was Liane Cismowski, English teachers, from Olympic High School). Both conferences were excellent, and served to rejuvenate and motivate. I appreciated the opportunity to hear what other schools and districts around the state are doing to exit Program Improvement, motivate and support their teachers, and truly work as a team to provide a 'successful' learning environment for their students.

I've listed some resources below. Some of the resources are for tools to help in the classroom. Others are for inspiring change on campuses. Some of these EVERYONE knows about, some are completely new. Please add more suggestions of resources that you have found helpful.

1) www.zamzar.com those awesome video clips on youtube or google video that our district blocks? Copy the URL to the zamzar site, it will convert it for free, and then you can drop it into your powerpoint.

2) http://guerrillalearning.wetpaint.com/ great resource for overview of internet tools out there, PLUS explanations on how to use them. Gems are hidden on left side of the home page under ‘site pages’.

3) ‘In Plain English’ are quick videos on YouTube that plainly explain things like blogging, RSS feeds, social networking, google documents, etc. Just go to YouTube and type in “In Plain English”.

4) www.edublogs.tv apparently not blocked by district filters. A moderated video sharing site of stuff submitted by educators

5) www.cooliris.com it’s a free download. Not sure how to describe what it does, but it has to do with displaying pictures differently and it looked really cool when the presenter used it.

6) www.nextvista.org a moderated video sharing site—I like the way this is organized better than edublogs, but not as much stuff on there (as of now).

7) www.280slides.com and www.sliderocket.com students ever say that can’t do a powerpoint because they don’t have the program? Both these sites have free powerpoint type programs. Students build the presentation online. Sliderocket is more commercial than 280slides, but it still gives you a free option.

8) Richard DuFour's handout on his presentation on Professional Learning Communities at the CLHS conference Transforming The High School.

9) A Powerpoint to Regina Owens' presentation on Collaboration can be found at the CLHS website.

10) Do you like Facebook? Here's a professional network just for high school teachers.