asked me to review 10% of the Adobe, Inc. video content randomly to see if any appropriate education specific language is used and to correlate the feature list of each product with the tutorial list to see what features may have been "not covered" by their training.  I am excited to do this as I have used Atomic Learning in the past for my classes.  I will spend about twenty hours reviewing their videos and giving them a report on my findings as it relates to their requirements.  Great opportunity for me to review Adobe product content!

http://www.atomiclearning.com/

Had the opportunity to judge the Flat Classroom 12-2 media for the World Wide Web group. There were 23 videos that three of us viewed and voted on.  Students were to address the following issues: 

How the World Wide Web Has Changed the World
The New Age of Connectivity - Flattener #2, p 60-77 of the Flat Classroom Book written by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsey.
This flattener is identified as our ability to not only author our own content, but to send it worldwide with the 1995 launch of the Internet. Netscape and the Web broadened the audience for the Internet from its roots as a communications medium used primarily by 'early adopters and geeks' to something that made the Internet accessible to everyone from five-year-olds to eighty-five-year olds. (8/9/1995)
Overview of topic

• Development of the Internet: low-cost global connectivity
• The emergence of the World Wide Web: Individuals able to post content for world viewing
• Spread of the commercial Web browser: Netscape and others, able to display WWW content on any computer, development of protocols enabling devices to talk to one another

Ideas related to this topic

• Global Perspective on Internet connectivity
• Digital divide issues
• Standards and policies for use of the Internet and the WWW: comparing differences between countries
• Development of eCommerce, dot-com boom and bust
• Development of social interaction and communication between individuals via the Internet

How the World Wide Web has Changed the World, ideas to get started

• Discuss the development of the WWW (Netscape etc) and associated protocols
• Provide a perspective from your country on WWW standards and issues
• Conduct a discussion about the use of the WWW in education and business (local and global perspectives)

http://fcp12-2.flatclassroomproject.org/home

NCCE 2013 - The Greatest Show on Earth

Well, I just found out that I am an "Incredible Featured Adobe Educator" at the NCCE 2-13 Conference held in Portland, Oregon, February 26 - March 1, 2013.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I submitted my proposals for Adobe InDesign and Adobe Dreamweaver.  I certainly didn't expect to be a "Featured.....Educator."  Not exactly sure what my schedule is yet, but it looks like I will be teaching an Introduction to Adobe InDesign on the morning of Wednesday, February 27th.

While I know I shouldn't be nervous because I have probably taught hundreds of classes to adults and teachers, but this does make me a little nervous, I have to admit.  I know I will do fine, it is just getting this kind of attention makes me nervous.  I am, however, really looking forward to it and plan to help out in the Adobe booth, which is always fun and a great learning experience.  If you are interested more in what this conference is about, check out the Advance Program - specifically check out page 15. I am excited to see that after all these years of attending workshops held by Joe Dockery, I am listed right beside him in the program.  This is quite an honor, I have to say. I have always admired his work and am always inspired by his workshops.  I hope to provide the same for the people that attend my workshop. 

This summer I attended ISTE 2012 in San Diego, CA. I attended Linda Dickeson's Adobe InDesign workshop.  She gave out books that she had written which I thought was great - because if I missed something in the workshop, I had a reference to go back to.  Linda recently updated her InDesign book to InDesign CS6.  I am hoping that I will be able to use her books at the NCCE conferece. I really like the idea of supporting a fellow AEL (Adobe Education Leader) and being able to provide a great resource for students.  More on this topic, as I learn more.  Have to say, I am very excited, even though a little nervous, about this endeavor.

Well I have some very motivated and talented students this year and feel that it is time to implement the Sentinel Design Academy.  I have thought about this for years, but never quite had the right situation.  This is the year.  I started out by thinking of it as a Design Lab. This Design Lab will be for students that want to go into the field of design, whether print, web or video.  I am thinking more of an Academy now.  These students will complete authentic projects for the the school and community. Since our design lab is under the Business Department, the hope is that we will turn this into a business with real-world experiences for students. These students must be taking a digital design class (graphic design, web design or digital film) and maintain an A in their class.  They should be studying for or passed the Adobe Certification Associate exam. They should be mentors for other students.

Somewhere along the line I stumbled upon a website called Photoshop Ping Pong.  This intrigued me.  It is open to the world.  The idea is that one student finds an image and posts it. Another student picks up the image and makes a change to it and repost it.  This goes back and forth for five rounds, for a total of ten rounds.  Students rate their posts and the best rating wins.

I thought why not start this through Moodle so that it would be geared just toward high school students.  I would start of small - just between two students in independent study. Then move on to getting Graphic Design 2 students involved.  Next, I sent an e-mail to the two other high school Graphic Design teachers in our district (at different high schools). So far the other schools are considering it. There is a technical difficulty hoop I need to get past before I can bring this outside of the school district. I created a Moodle with no enrollment key on our district Moodle site just for Photoshop Ping Pong. The hitch is that only students with an our school e-mail address (whether real or not) can register with our Moodle.  I will need to see how we can work with this hitch, because my next idea is to post something on the Facebook Adobe Education Leaders Facebook page and possibly the Adobe Education Exchange website looking for teachers interested in having their high school students participate. The exciting thing about this, is that it will have worldwide impact. Who knows, just thought I would give it a try this year.

Presented a collaborative session for the Flat Classroom Project about Google Apps for Education (GAFE).  This was rather hard for me, as we have not fully implemented this in our school district.  I explained that I was piloting this for our school district and what I have done so far.  Other teachers Theresa Allen from Joliet, IL, and Cynthia Sandler (fellow Flat Classroom Certified Teacher Program) from North Salem, New York) presented what their schools have been doing.  Theresa is a technology teacher and coordinator for a private PreK-8th grade school and Cynthia is a Library Media Specialist in a Middle School. This was a great experience in collaboration and I hope to do more of these types of things - reaching out globally. To listen to the presentation: F.L.A.T.s Ways Classrooms and Schools Use GAFE

This has been something that I have been wrestling with.  At first I didn’t see the point. After listening to several presentations and doing some reading I now feel that I have a better understanding of why you would want to gamify your curriculum.  I heard a presentation at the Adobe Education Summer Institute that really intrigued me.  I followed up with Mike Skocko who is a teacher & Tech Coordinator at Valhalla High School in El Cajon, CA.  For years I have followed Mike (and the MAC Lab) and Rob Schwartz (and Brainbuffet) from Seminole Ridge High School, Loxahatchee, FL (both Adobe Education Leaders) who teach what I teach.  They are awesome and I love their method of deliver and philosophy of education.

I followed up with Mike and found some exciting things.  He and several students have developed a Wordpress website gamifying the education he has been delivering for years (and I have been following).  While this overwhelmed me a little, I was fascinated.  I have been follow all of the posts on the Adobe Education Exchange through the trials and tribulations of getting something like this setup.  I truly feel like he is on to something.  Check out his new site:  Mac Lab 3.0
I thought about re-creating this through Moodle, especially the new Moodle 2.3 which has the ability to not let students move on unless they have completed certain requirements.  I actually started to create this.  I had a student test it out.  However, I see several things that he is able to do with his site that I will will not be able to do with Moodle, or would be quite complicated and possibly confusing.  

I decided, after that experience, to contact our computer science teacher, Dave Hamilton, to see if he had a couple of students that might want to get involved in something like this.  Dave is also the Track Coach for Sentinel High School, and he said he would not be able to do anything for two weeks.  He was very interested, however and had a book (with many bookmarks) that support gamifying education.  I will be getting back in touch with him, for sure.