San Francisco ROCKED!

Ok... I just came off of an absolutely amazing week in San Francisco! Where do I begin?? First off... Thank you sooo much DEN for an awesome, collaborative experience. It was such an honor to be among all of the DEN Stars across the country. I learned many new things and can't wait to share! Here are some highlights from the trip...
On Tuesday, the DEN Stars were picked up at Headlands in trollies!! It was absolutely the coolest thing ever! We had an awesome driver... and were set to begin touring the city. First stop was the Golden Gate Bridge... which was so amazing to see up close. I couldn't even begin to list all the cool places we saw... so I'll just sum up the ones that really stuck out to me. I enjoyed going through Pacific Heights and viewing the luxurious homes and then being able to see the "Seven Painted Ladies". (I am a product of the 80's and watched every episode of Full House!) Fisherman's Wharf was fabulous... we ate at Bouldin's and the meal was excellent! Then we had some free time to explore the Wharf and mingle and shop together.
On Wednesday, Adam Frey from Wikispaces was our keynote speaker, and totally rocked. He filled us in on some upcoming changes with Wikispaces. If you do not currently use Wikispaces... why not??? It is an awesome collaborative Web2.0 tool for classroom use.
On Wednesday and Thursday there were break-out sessions ranging from topics of Digital Storytelling to Geocaching. I led two sessions on Glogster and the DE Builders. It was nice to have Jim Dachos, Education Manager from Glogster join us in San Francisco. He shared some news about changes with Glogster.com/edu for the fall. Glogster will now have its own domain... and will break away from the regular Glogster.com social site. This is great for school districts who have this awesome Web2.0 tool blocked!
On Thursday night, I participated in "AmeriDEN Idol". There were about 18 of us, and we had to present a created resource or a great tech tool, and had 3-5 minutes to do so. We were even lucky enough to have Paula (aka Janita), Cara (aka Jen), Randy (aka Mike) and Simon (aka Lance) judging for us!! I was soooo excited to get "Simon's" autograph on my lanyard nametag! AmeriDEN rocked... with so many cool resources shared. In the end... my buddy Eric and I ended up tying for the win and we each received $100 gift cards to the Discovery Education store!! YAY! Thanks DEN!
This San Francisco trip was unforgettable. I met so many DEN Stars that I'm sure I will continue to communicate with regularly for great conversation and advice! I'm already looking forward to next years DEN National Institute!
Below is a picture of Lance and I at the National Institute. Lance is the Director of the Discovery Education Network... he had to pose for about 80 of these pics!

Neat-o Word Mosaic!

So... Check this out! I came across this site today that is very similar to Wordle.net called Image Chef. Image Chef lets you create Word Mosiacs, as well as other fun projects... (which I haven't had the chance to play around with yet). This differs from Wordle, in that you do not have to type words more than once for size variation. There is one text box to type in, and you choose the font and color of the text. There are also different shapes and styles to choose from. Very neat! Check out the one I created below... I modeled it for the PA DEN Blog.

Time to Catch Up!

This summer seems to be flying by! I recently got back from vacationing in Ocean City with a stop in DC at the NECC conference on the way home. The boys and I got to see many of my good friends as well as visit the Convention Center (Exhibit Hall) and the Smithsonian museums of Natural History and American History. After recently seeing Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, the boys totally loved this! They also enjoyed riding on the Metro for the first time.
At the Exhibit Hall, the boys were a hit with Turning Technologies. This company had a very catchy "Indiana Jones" theme at their booth, and my boys played right into it! Gav even got a t-shirt & hat and Jayden got a $10 Subway card! (Thanks Turning Technologies!) We visited the Discovery Education booth and got some really cool flashing necklaces...which I'll definitely steal from the boys to take to San Fran :) and got to see Matt (Monjan) and Hall (Davidson). Hall even pulled me into his presentation while I was there.
BrainPOP! had a booth, and Jayden and I got our pictures taken with Moby, which was cool. The boys also got some cool pointer sticks from SMART technologies and were able to play around for a bit on the SMARTboard. (Which they thought was AWESOME!)
All in all, it was an entertaining trip. Although I didn't get to attend any sessions this year at NECC, (and I arrived a little late...) seeing my friends and "catching up" was priceless. Next weekend I'm off to San Francisco to the Headlands Institute with Discovery Education and my bags are already half packed! I've never been to California as an adult... and I can't wait!