About CForum

February 1, 2008

Location:
Granite School District Administration Bldg. 

Welcome - Jim Henderson / Celia Powell

Spy Hop Productions workshop - Dale Webb and Sheila Walton
http://www.spyhop.org/

    • Spy Hop Production's mission is to provide multimedia arts education programs in film/video production, audio engineering and interactive design. Their main audience is K-12 students, but they also provide professional development to educators.
    • 28 of the STSs attended a train-the-trainer workshop to learn about the whole video production process. It was a very hands-on week.
    • They broke into groups and they went through all of the steps to produce a video.
    • The STSs are now sharing this knowledge with the teachers and students at their schools.

Chroma Key activity - Dale Webb and Sheila Walton

    • Chroma Key is a technique for mixing two images together, in which a color from one image is removed (or made transparent), revealing another image behind it. It is commonly used for weather forecast broadcasts. Although it appears that the weather guy is standing in front of a large map, he is really in front of a large blue or green background.
    • Dale and Sheila set up a "studio" with their green screen and iSight camera so that we could experience the process. Robert was our local weather man.
    • Dale then showed us how easy it is to take a photo of a person that was standing in front of the green screen and mask out the background using software such as Photoshop Elements.

Granite's Enhanced Classrooms - Larry Hudgins and Brent Woffinden

    • Enhanced Classroom will get:
      • Ceiling mounted projector
      • 4 speakers mounted on the walls
      • 6 or 8 foot screens
      • Sound system
    • The district has contracted with an outside vendor to install the equipment. (Set up takes about 2 days for each school - once their network jacks and electrical is in order.)
    • We learned that the audio system really helps a teacher:
      • Saves a teacher's voice
      • Helps hearing impaired students
      • Helps with classroom management
      • Studies show that test scores go up when audio systems are used in a class.
    • Most classroom has one teacher mic that hangs around the educator's neck. (Granite has placed 5 student mics in each school that the teacher can check out. )
    • Once everything is installed, the trainers go in and teach the educators how to use the hardware.
    • This is a huge project and installation will continue into the summer.

Wimba Demonstration - Cory Stokes / Karen Krier
Wimba provides a fully featured live virtual classroom supporting IP audio, video, application sharing, web tours and content display (such as PowerPoint slides or graphics) all delivered synchronously over the internet or archived for asynchronous access.

    • Collaborative Uses: Professional Development, Webcasts, Virtual Classes, Tutoring, Office Hours, Meetings
    • Collaborative Features: Multi-way Audio, Follow-the-speaker Video, Public and Private Chat, Emoticons, Break-out Rooms, Archives, Telephone Access, Content Upload and Storage, Electronic Whiteboard, Polls

UEN has negotiated a license for all Utah higher ed and public ed educators and students. Doug Jones is heading a Steering Committee to determine how to roll this service out to the K-12 audience.

Gadgets

    • Blue Snowball USB Microphone - Robert Gordon
      • Great for podcasts and web conferencing.
    • Eye-Fi (Wireless memory card) - Robert Gordon

UCET Updates

    • UCET 2.0 – Explore and Create Possibilities - February 29 and March 1, 2008 Taylorsville High School, Granite School District
    • Registration - Before Feb. 15 $45 / After Feb. 15 $55
    • Robert needs presenters for Over the Shoulder sessions. He had a lot of presentation ideas - but know needs to line up the presenters. Please contact him if you are willing to help out.

UEN Updates

    • MHz Worldview launched today on UEN-TV 9.2.
    • Updated my.uen Help Center
    • UEN received two awards from the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA). One was for SciFi Friday and the other was for NetSafeUtah Outreach.

USOE Updates

    • Brenda Hales and Judy Parks presented at the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Jan. 31. They shared the great work that has been done by the districts in this state to provide instructional technology and computer based assessments. They also shared the needs of districts to move forward. The information was well received. The legislative committee is supportive of providing additional funding in order for schools to have 21st century technology to support student achievement. They are asking for $50 million ongoing for computer technology. Mike Petersen from UEN presented about the need high capacity connection to the elementary schools.
    • Rick Gaisford showed us a little laptop called ASUS Eee PC 4G. It has a 7" compact design ($325 - 400)
    • The USOE Ed. Tech Department is looking for great content for the iTunes U site. An example of the things they are looking for is the video podcasts created by a Utah educator for her hearing impaired students.
    • Next meeting - Feb. 22 in the garden room in Salt Lake City School District.
    • They awarded 22 Qwest grants but the winners have not been notified.

UTIPS Updates
Julie was unable to attend today, but anyone with concerns regarding CBT/UTIPS can email her.

Future meeting dates:

    • April 11, 2008 - Davis School District

Utah State Office of Education - USOE     Utah Education Network - UEN     Utah Coalition for Educational Technology - UCET

For questions or comments contact us.