DEN Summer Institute 2012: July 2012

Thursday, July 26, 2012

The End of an Amazing Journey!

Today marked the end of the journey for Sweetie and me. It was so sad to leave all of our new friends. Luckily we still have Edmodo, Facebook, and Twitter to continue our friendships and our professional collaboration. I hope you enjoyed our blog, and perhaps it inspired you to do something outrageous and crazy yourself. They say all good things must come to an end, but I believe for Sweetie and I the good things will continue. We'll go home. Sweetie will be reunited with her friends in the pasture and she'll tell them all about our crazy adventures. Me? Well I'll spend hours sifting through everything I learned and finding ways to integrate at least some of it into my fifth grade class this year. Before you know it, school will start and another wonderful crazy adventure will begin!

Don't forget to visit the DEN where good ideas and good people meet to collaborate and share their love of learning and teaching!
Discovery Education: http://discoveryeducation.com/

Final Roundup and Fryer!

After Rita's final Roundup, Wesley Fryer was our speaker today. His presentation was all about "Playing with Media," and the advantages of using games and play in learning. He then introduced his amazing eight year old daughter who shared "Scratch" (a program for creating games) and "Story Patch," a digital storytelling program. She was a true model of a 21st century learner and made us all aspire to be the kind of teacher who creates students with her confidence.

Rita's Roundup!

Rita's Roundup

Wesley's daughter created this video using an iPad and the app Video Star.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Hoedown DEN Style!

All DENSI participants were invited to a hoedown, and what a hoedown it was! Costumes ranged from cowgirls and cowboys to rodeo clowns and even a bull! Sweetie and I just went dressed as ourselves. Let the pictures and videos that follow tell the story.

Some Line Dancing!!!!

Some outrageous outfits

Should we try to break her out?

Lance and Martha sure are having fun!

Steve Dembo's looking dangerous!

Even the bull can dance!

Princess Porter Palmer put this whole shindig together.
Time for her to sit back and admire her accomplishment
with her good buddy Sweetie at her side!

Unconference Day!

Have you ever heard of an unconference? Wikipedia defines the unconference as, "a participant-driven meeting. Typically at an unconference, the agenda is created by the attendees at the beginning of the meeting. Anyone who wants to initiate a discussion on a topic can claim a time and a space. Unconferences typically feature open discussions rather than having a single speaker at the front of the room giving a talk, although any format is permitted. This form of conference is particularly useful when the attendees generally have a high level of expertise or knowledge in the field the conference convenes to discuss."

DENSI is a perfect place for this type of format. The attendees possess so much knowledge and skill. We spent the week sharing and collaborating during informal times. This was a chance to do it formally.

Check out Beth Burau's blogpost about the event: http://ace.nd.edu/blogs/unconference-an-amazing-pd-experience

Here are some notes from the Elementary App Unconference: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fjEfujAUL0qNuy-o4hHBflVplpZbmSMTfGLEgwu_GBY/edit

With over 60 sessions, Sweetie and I are having a hard time
choosing which sessions to attend.

A session in the lounge

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Another Great Day of Learning!

Tuesday opened with more professional development choices. How will I ever choose which sessions to attend? Luckily I can go online to find resources from all of the presentations at: http://www.livebinders.com/play/present?id=472827

Weather in Bozeman!

Speaker, Paul Andersen shared how he uses gaming in the classroom.

An intense learning session!

Sweetie was wondering what Steve Dembo was working on so we

went over to find out. She couldn't tear herself away. The guy does

amazing things with a computer!

Hanging with the big cheeses: Lance Rougeux, Steve Dembo and
Scott Kinney. They're checking out our blog!

Hall doing his thing with an iPad concoction he made.

We DENsies take this learning serious!

All this learning is exhausting!!!!

Monday, July 23, 2012

The DENmazing Race

Discovery's answer to team building is the DENmazing race! The DEN team puts together a list of challenges and DEN stars compete in teams to complete the challenges. The team to finish first is named champion. The geocaching task generally gives contestants the most trouble, but my team had no problem.

Check out Valerie Burton's blog to read her take on the DENmazing race: http://2blog2share2learn.edublogs.org/2012/07/24/the-densations-compete-in-the-densi2012-denmazing-race/

Here is my team...Me, Sweetie, Tammy Einerson, Lindsay Morhart,
DiAnne Galm, and Howard Martin

Shooting nerf guns was part of the challenge.

Tossing a horseshoe.

Sweetie's choosing her shoes for the bowling challenge.

Sweetie and I waiting for our turn!

Identifying DEN Star members. This part was a piece of cake for me
and Sweetie! We know everybody!

Sweetie is spying on the competition. They seem to be having trouble
with the geocaching portion of the event. hehe

And the winners.....

Here we are being honored in front of everybody!

Time to Share and Learn!

As you can see from the schedule, Monday was a very busy day! The day began with Rita's Roundup, a rousing exercise in line dancing to get our juices flowing. Next came a motivational speech from David Warlick to get our mental juices flowing. Finally, the breakout sessions where a variety of topics were explored. The hardest part...choosing which sessions to attend!!!!

During the opening ceremony, Princess Porter (the amazing organizer of
the whole event) presented Allison Bakken with the DEN Finger. This is a
highly coveted award given to honor a DEN Star for going above and
beyond. Allison definitely did that! A native of Bozeman, she helped DEN
Stars by making countless trips to the airport and she was always available
for a ride to the store to pick up supplies.

DEN Stars voted for this year's mascot (Matt Monjan dressed in a costume.)
Sweetie was so excited to find out the mascot was a horse!

Hard at work learning and sharing!

Sweetie is fascinated!

Time for a little goofing around! Who will win...the mighty Hall Davidson
or the infamous Kathy Schrock?

Team meeting where lots of sharing happens!

If you would like to check out some of the amazing resources from these sessions, check out this Live Binder: http://www.livebinders.com/play/present?id=472827

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Yellowstone

Can you believe the DEN Team planned a trip to Yellowstone? We got to ride on fancy buses and everything. What a great way to bond before all the learning begins. This is going to be one fantastic week!