Maine Learning Technology Initiative

Here are links to tools and materials for the MLTI Team’s hands-on BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop) at ISTE 2010.

Session Description
Session Slides

For the Substitution and Augmentation exercises:
Click2Map
MapLib
TitanPad

For the Mofication and Redefinition exercises:
LimeSurvey
KwikSurveys

Supporting Research for the session
Puentedura, Ruben R. As We May Teach: Educational Technology, From Theory Into Practice. (2009) Online on iTunes U

Many forms of digital storytelling rely upon the incorporation of powerful soundscapes as a crucial ingredient. Indeed, soundscapes can in and of themselves constitute digital narratives — but to do so, they must be carefully constructed. We will look at some of the elements that go into creating great digital audio, including music, voice, and environmental sound, and the tools and practices that translate them into a finished product.

Joining this Webinar:
This webinar will be offered twice on May 20 — once at 3:15pm, and once at 7:15pm.
To register for the webinar, please click on the following link: Registration.
If you have not participated in one of these sessions before, guidance and support regarding how to access these webinars is available by clicking on the following link: Support.

Comics and video provide rich possibilities for digital storytelling; however, neither affords the viewer opportunities for interactive exploration. Interactivity allows viewers to delve deeper into different portions of the narrative, and choose their focus according to interest and necessity. Can this type of flexible narrative be created without extensive programming experience? We will see that in fact, it can, and look at two very different toolsets for doing so.

Joining this Webinar:
This webinar will be offered twice on April 8 — once at 3:15pm, and once at 7:15pm.
To register for the webinar, please click on the following link: Registration.
If you have not participated in one of these sessions before, guidance and support regarding how to access these webinars is available by clicking on the following link: Support.

Bringing images to life in video effectively involves more than just sequencing them in a slideshow — it requires an understanding of how the language and techniques of film interact with the processes of digital storytelling. We will look at this interaction, and use the knowledge derived in two applied projects: one that focuses on using still images as its sole raw material source, and a second one that brings video shot on inexpensive pocket camcorders or computer webcams into the mix.

Joining this Webinar:
This webinar will be offered twice on March 4 — once at 3:15pm, and once at 7:15pm.
To register for the webinar, please click on the following link: Registration.
If you have not participated in one of these sessions before, guidance and support regarding how to access these webinars is available by clicking on the following link: Support.

In partnership with Wri2me (What’s Really Important to ME, wri2ME.com), MLTI is hosting a webinar titled Navigating the Real World on February 2, 2010 at 3:15 pm and 7:15 pm. This webinar is in addition to MLTI’s regularly scheduled Thursday webinars.  To register please visit http://www.maine121.org/webcasts/.

This webinar is enhanced from the first session on January 19th and is open to anyone to participate.

Navigating the Real World is a printed manual that will be distributed in late April to all Maine high school students and many 8th graders as well. At its companion web site, www.NavigatingTheRealWorld.org, you can view a substantial number of interviews. Use and help create Navigating the Real World and its associated web site, www.NavigatingTheRealWorld.org. They are being developed by the Maine-based nonprofit, What’s Really Important to Me, Inc. with help from Maine high school and college students.

Help your students learn from the experiences of people who are a few years ahead of them, and give them the opportunity to contribute to a real publication that will reach 80,000 Maine teenagers in schools throughout the state.

Both the site and the printed edition feature the voices of Maine people – in many cases collected by Maine students – who have recent experiences that are valuable to current Maine high school students. These include mistakes made and seen, surprises, what worked and what didn’t, what they wish they had been told, and what they would do differently. Topics include getting a job, work and careers, college and training, serving in the military, money, credit cards and debt, challenges faced, and living on their own. Also included are the perspectives of people who hire and work with new employees. Wherever possible these voices are being gathered and edited by Maine students.

In this webinar you will:

• Learn how you and your students can use the site as a resource for a range of class subjects and guidance topics – including interview segments that are especially interesting, valuable and/or entertaining for high school and middle school students in Jobs for Maine Graduates, alternative education, coop education, English, journalism, career exploration, economics and other classes.
• Learn how your students can do interviews and post them at www.NavigatingTheRealWorld.org for the benefit of others and as a resource for the printed edition.
• Learn other ways that your students can do other editorial assignments that will be published in the printed edition: written features and profiles; research on schools, programs and valuable alternatives; designs, illustrations and cartoons.
• Learn other ways your classes and individual students can help us launch, market and distribute this new publication this spring, over the summer, and in the coming year.

This offers the opportunity for students to learn from people about their real experiences post-schooling, and to help create the first edition of a real publication that can genuinely help their fellow students across the state.

My thanks to everyone who attended the Images In Sequence webinar. Here are links to the recorded sessions and websites mentioned in the sessions:

Session Recordings and Slides:
Afternoon Session Recording: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/p70522594/
Evening Session Recording: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/p30587134/
Session Slides: click here to download

Toolkit:
iPhoto: http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/
Acorn: http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/
Comic Life: http://plasq.com/comiclife/

Three Nontraditional Webcomics:
Randall Munroe — xkcd
David Malki — Wondermark
Emily Horne & Joey Comeau — A Softer World

Photo Source Sites:
morgueFile: http://morguefile.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/

Additional Scott McCloud Resources:
The “Big Triangle”: http://scottmccloud.com/4-inventions/triangle/index.html
Comixpedia’s Summary of the Six Panel-To-Panel Transitions: http://www.comixpedia.org/index.php?title=Panel-to-panel_transitions
Brandy Agerbeck’s Illustration of the Six Panel-To-Panel Transitions: http://www.loosetooth.com/Art/Work/mcad.htm
Comixpedia’s Summary of the Seven Word and Picture Combinations: http://www.comixpedia.org/index.php?title=Word_and_picture_combinations

A Few More Webcomics to Look At and Analyze:
Kate Beaton — Hark! A Vagrant
Evan Dahm — Rice Boy
Josh Neufeld — A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge
Phil & Kaja Foglio — Girl Genius
Aaron Diaz — Dresden Codak
Kazu Kibuishi — Copper
Dale Beran & David Hellman — A Lesson Is Learned, But the Damage Is Irreversible

Sequential art – more commonly known as comics – marries images and text to create a completely new narrative space, with unique storytelling possibilities. However, like all narrative spaces, it also has its own unique grammar, with rules that need to be understood and incorporated into the creative process for stories to make sense. We will look at some of the key rules of this grammar, and put them in action as part of the process of creating webcomics.

This webinar will be offered twice on January 21 — once at 3:15pm, and once at 7:15pm.
To register for the webinar, please click on the following link: Registration.
If you have not participated in one of these sessions before, guidance and support regarding how to access these webinars is available by clicking on the following link: Support.

Webinar: Tuesday, January 19th at 3:15pm and 7:15pm.

Click HERE to register for the events.

Bridge the gap between school and the real world.

Use and help create these new publications: Navigating the Real World and its associated web site, www.NavigatingTheRealWorld.org.  They are being developed by the Maine-based nonprofit, What’s Really Important to Me, Inc. with help from Maine high school and college students.

It’s a challenging world out there.  Help your students learn from the experiences of people who are a few years ahead of them. Navigating the Real World is a printed annual publication that will be distributed in late April to all Maine high school students and many 8th graders as well.  At its companion web site, www.NavigatingTheRealWorld.org, you can view a substantial number of interviews.

Both the site and the printed annual feature the voices of Maine people – in many cases collected by Maine students – who have recent experiences that are valuable to current Maine high school students.  These include mistakes made and seen, surprises, what worked and what didn’t, what they wish they had been told, and what they would do differently.  Topics include getting a job, work and careers, college and training, serving in the military, money, credit cards and debt, challenges faced, and living on their own.  Also included are the perspectives of people who hire and work with new employees.  Wherever possible these voices are being gathered and edited by Maine students.

In this webinar you will learn how you and your students can use the site as a resource.  You will also learn how your students can do interviews and post them at www.NavigatingTheRealWorld.org for the benefit of others and as a resource for the printed annual.  We want their help to gather the stories from a broad range of Maine people.

You will also learn how your students can contribute writing and other content directly for inclusion in the printed edition of “Navigating the Real World” and otherwise help us launch this publication successfully. This offers the opportunity for students to learn from people about their real experiences post-schooling, and to help create the first edition of a real publication that can genuinely help their fellow students across the state.

From “Once Upon A Time” to “Happily Ever After”, every child knows the “proper” way to tell a bedtime story — and woe be unto the narrator that knowingly or unknowingly deviates from the expected framework. Some narrative frameworks have utility that goes well beyond soothing sleepless toddlers, though: these frameworks will form the focus of this session. We will also see how to integrate them into a digital toolkit, and how to use them as a basis for collaborative digital storytelling.

Joining this Webinar

• This webinar will be offered twice on December 3 — once at 3:15pm, and once at 7:15pm.
• To register for the webinar, please click on the following link: Registration.
• If you have not participated in one of these sessions before, guidance and support regarding how to access these webinars is available by clicking on the following link: Support.

How simple can a digital story be? Does it always require text? Audio? Could it be as simple as… five images? We’ll look at Five Card Nancy and Five Card Flickr, and see what they tell us about the structure of digital stories and how to use them in the classroom. Then, we’ll refract the “five card” approach through the lens of the Center for Digital Storytelling’s “seven storytelling elements”, and construct a (very) short story that effectively integrates images, audio, and video.

Joining this webinar

Make sure to choose the correct time for the webinar you want to attend and click on the link provided:

Thursday, October 22 – 3:15pm Webinar: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/mlti102209a/

Thursday, October 22 – 7:15pm Webinar: http://stateofmaine.na4.acrobat.com/mlti102209e/

Please follow these steps to connect to the meeting:

• Click on the link for the webinar you want to attend.
• Enter your name in the box when prompted.
• In order to listen and speak during the meeting, you will need to be connected by telephone as well as the Internet. To help you connect by phone, a box will appear asking for your phone number so the Connect conference room can call you back. If you have a telephone with a direct-dial phone number, please accept this option, enter your phone number, and we will call you right back.
• If you have a telephone with no direct-line phone number (if your phone is only reached by a switchboard), please click on CANCEL when the call-back box appears, then dial-in to the meeting using this access combination:
  • Dial-In: 1-800-201-2375
  • Pass-Code: 714892

To participate in the web conference, you will need:

• a computer with a broadband connection to the internet (Cable, DSL, or WiFi); Dial-Up will not work!
• Adobe Flash Player (Flash 7 or later) installed on your computer; most computers already have the Flash Player installed – however, if yours does not, or if your Flash Player is in need of updating (version 6 or older), you can download the player for free from Adobe by clicking on this link: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/?promoid=BUIGP; this is a safe and quick download.
• An open phone line; we recommend using a hands-free headset or speakerphone.