The Techno Cheetah

Last school year, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders all completed an activity using Google Earth.  Google Earth quickly became a favorite application among the students.  This upcoming year, the tech teacher laptops will have the newest version of Google Earth.  One of the upgrades that I really like in the new version is the date stamp.  When zooming in on an area the date the satellite photo was taken appears on the bottom right of the screen.  In the picture below you can see that the satellite photo of Bellows Spring was taken in February 2002.  This makes sense, as there’s a lot of brown around the school because although the outside of the school was built, it was still a construction zone.

If you don’t have Google Earth on your computer, you can download it free from the Google Earth website. (Students, please get assistance from your parents before doing this.)  To see the other cool upgrades in Google Earth 4.3 watch the video below.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I met Lester Holt, the co-anchor of Weekend Today and the weekend anchor of NBC Nightly News, at the NECC conference.  Mr. Holt moderated a Today Show style keynote discussion at the conference.  Here’s a picture:

I’ve been home for a little over a week now since the NECC conference in San Antonio and I’ve had some time to digest all the information.  First, I just could not get over how big the conference was.  It was amazing to me the number of people that are interested in educational technology and came from all over the globe to learn more about it. According to this article from the ISTE website there were:

12,654 registered attendees

577 international attendees from approximately 57 nations

88 registered journalists from around the globe attended NECC, plus hundreds of dedicated bloggers

The size of the vendor hall was also mind-blowing.  It was an amusement park atmosphere only without the rides and people are trying to sell you things   I tried to capture the size of the vendor hall but I don’t think the pictures really do a justice.

Again, from the ISTE article:

The largest educational technology event in the nation, spanning five and one half football fields, featured 1,340 booths and 479 companies displaying hardware, software, educational and technical publishing, and equipment/services emphasizing the use of technology by students and education professionals.

The Office of Media and Educational Technology has set up a blog where attendees from the Howard County school system wrote about what they learned at the conference.  You can read about two of the sessions I attended (here and here) as well as what others HCPSS employees learned at the conference.

I’m excited to use some of the ideas I came away with this upcoming year.

The NECC conference has been very busy but I did have some time to walk around San Antonio and take some pictures. I could just post the pictures I’ve taken on this blog.  But, I wanted to do some a little more unique . . .

A few months ago I came across a website called Animoto.  Animoto will automatically create a montage video of pictures you upload to their website with music (either from your computer or Animoto’s selection).  The final product will look like a professional music video.  Here’s my Animoto video of sites around San Antonio:

For more information about some of the sites in the video, click on the links below.

The Alamo

The Riverwalk

The Torch of Friendship

Tower of the Americas