If you can’t be there (or if you are like me you are only here for a day), here are some nifty, easy resources that will help you join in on some of the really cool and awesome stuff going on in Philly this year.

• ISTE’s Daily Leader: A pdf newspaper that highlights all things ISTE and also announces schedule changes, additions, etc to the program.
• Subscribe to the #ISTE11 Paper.li daily. Powered by the tweets of ISTE attendees, it provides a rich resource of ISTE happenings.  Many tweets also share links to content that is being presented during conference sessions.  Another great thing is that that it will continue to have momenteum at least a couple of weeks after the coference.
• Follow the #ISTE11 Hashtag on twitter. You don’t need to be a tweeter to following #ISTE11 on Twitter. Simply go to the Twitter.com and enter #ISTE11 as a search term and viola, you will have a steady stream of tweeting ISTERs to follow.
• ISTEUnplugged - Steve Hargadon & Friends will be broadcasting sessions from the Bloggers Cafe at ISTE. Unplugged started last year (I think) from Denver and had a great success. Unplugged is like a unconference during the conference where folks can gather and generate their own sessions on the fly, and some are even Ustreamed or viewable via Elluminate/Bb Collaborate  so Tune In!

Are there other great ways to follow ISTE from a far? Share your ideas and links

#ISTE11 is officially/unoffically under way.  EduBloggerCon rocked as usual this morning lead by the amazing Mr. Steve Hargadon.  And now we have TEDxPhiladelphiaED happening. 

I don’t actually touch down in Philly until Tuesday morning and then I will turn around that evening and head back home. So yes folks, I have 12 hours at ISTE this  year, which is still better than 0 hours. I’ve named my impending trip the ISTE Dash & Crash.  (Crash as in sleep people –not trying for a plane, train or car wreck here).  

Collaborative Blogging Anyone? The Twitterverse has been humming with fabulous shares from the events this weekend, so I am thankful for being in the loop from today’s happenings (though nothing beats really being there). There will be plenty of Paper.li feeds to read as well as individual blog posts from attendees to fill in what you are missing. However, what if there was a giant collaborative blog for folks to post their finds and sightings to. What if you could simply email your pics, vids, and thoughts and it would immediately post to a blog?  I have a couple of friends who have tentatively said “heck ya let’s do it” to this idea. So I set up this ISTE Posterous site where we could do just that.  If you are interested in contributing to a collaborative, crowd-sourced ISTE Blog— drop me a line by clicking on the contact info for this site. You can easily email a picture, video, document, or posting to this blog and it will be posted (and tweeted). 

If you are not at ISTE, but merely flowing the webcasts and Tweets, you can participate too! Share your favorite tweets, observations, resources etc.

I am well aware that I should have had my act together on this crowdsourced blog thingy awhile ago to actually guarantee contributors. Next time!  Until then, I have to rely on the genoursity of a few thousand educators willing to contribute their finds and experiences. 

My interest in the topic is two-fold: As a budding scholar myself and as an administrator who must find ways to help faculty bring more technology into their teaching. The recognition of digital works as real scholarship is essential for the advancement of academe. It provides incentive for faculty to take risk while evolving our ideas of scholarly publishing.

Bravo to Dan Cohen & peers for their progressive work in this area and the launch of PressForward. Looking forward to how this unfolds and develops.
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A spring filled with an extra serving of doc coursework (it seemed like a good idea at the time)  and a busier than usual  family spring sports calendar has resulted in a few unanticipated outcomes;  more take out for dinner,  an increased reliance on Amazon Prime for mundane shopping needs and a very sad looking blog.

Yet  thanks to Scoop.it, I now can easily, and  efficiently, share my “Fab Finds” via Twitter, WordPress,  Facebook etc. all while being a curator for my own personal content collections.   I come across many Fab Finds each week, but the publishing of these have suffered.  I’ve been wanting an easier way to quickly share and item without compromising quality within the post.  Scoop.it makes it easy for anyone to publish a link to multiple social media sites while organizing them nicely for continued reference and sharing.

I know Scoop.it isn’t the first site out there to claim such wonderful powers, however Scoop.it is the first site for me that adds some zip into my daily work of mining the interwebs on a variety of Ed Tech, eLearning, k12 and higher education related content.

When you create collections Scoop.it attempts to find additional sites  based on the tags you have assigned to your topics. This is a well-intended feature but not its strength. The power is in the Scoop.it bookmarklet that you place on your browser bar so you can scoop as you go. If you are looking for a curating resource that has a powerful and  accurate,social search,  I recommend Storify. 

Scoop.it is in beta, but I did receive my invite in less than 12 hours upon requesting one.  Check it out today!

Actor Network Theory on Storify

[View the story "Actor Network Theory" on Storify]

From EdTech Diva on Flickr

Here are five sites that each offer a specific purpose and tool set for your face-to-face or online presentation needs. From the most basic (showing an image), to the more sophisticated (multimedia mashups), all of these sites can be used by students and instructors to effectively convey content and foster engagement.

Keeping It Basic

Drop Mocks works with your Google account and is perhaps the simplest tool I’ve seen yet. All you do is just drag your  image file on to the web browser screen and…. viola!  Your presentation is born. If you don’t think anything is that easy, just watch this demo. Each Drop Mock generates a URL for easy sharing.  I appreciate the simplicity and recommend Drop Mocks when you need to create an image-based slide show on the fly. Also, this is a fairly easy tool for young children to use too.

At this time, Drop Mocks only works in the latest versions of Google Chrome or Firefox 4. Also, you can only use common image file formats such as jpg, png, gif, and tiff.  Each drop mock generates a URL for easy sharing, but no embed codes at this time. Despite this, it’s still pretty easy and slick.

Moving Beyond Slides

Prezi was the belle of the ball in 2010 and it seems everyone is still buzzing about this alternative presentation tool. This Prezi ,created by Adam Somlai-Fischer, is both a great prezi example that explains how Prezi’s are different than traditional slideshows. Overall, Prezi allows you to break a way from bulleted text and sequential viewing of your slides. You can still use images (and bulleted text) and you can even embed video.  If you work best brainstorming and organizing with mind maps, then Prezi may feel very fluid and natural to you.

Check out this Learning to Play Math Prezi to get a feel of the potential of Prezi.

Media Mashups Made Easy

I did a review of VuVox last week (full review here). In summary,  VuVox lets you do a lot, without needing a lot of high-tech know-how. Students and teachers can generate impressive multimedia collages and panoramas of their work.  VuVox can easily import RSS feeds, and your photo collections from Flickr, Picasa, and Smug Mug.  Add soundtracks and annotate your creations with comments and links to other websites. I find at its core, you can do a lot with VuVox , whether its making a static presentation, or creating interactive content. View an example from the NIHF STEM School in Akron, Ohio or one about Second Life.

Amplify Your Existing Slides

myBrainShark is the individual, free version, of the Brainshark product suite. Brainshark allows you to upload PowerPoints, MS Word documents, and pictures that you can then narrate and share with friend, co-workers, students, etc (you get the point). The site also provides a podcast and video recording option too.  And….drum roll please, you can add your Prezi into Brainshark too. Brainshark is a  great option if you are looking to personalize and add audio to your work, but do not require responses or audio feedback from your viewers. This is an excellent tool for students to generate presentations in as well. Presenters can even record audio by calling in on their phones. The downside: to use the free version you must leave your content  viewable to the public.

Engage and Interact

I describe VoiceThread as an “audio/visual discussion board.” I often turn to Voicethreads when needing to facilitate discussion about a topic. This is a favorite site for educators desiring a way to create more engagement, interaction, and feedback on academic work. This is also an excellent tool for students to present their own content and solicit feedback.

Unlike the previous examples, Voicethread really is a service that you load your pre-designed content into (usually developed in PowerPoint, but PDFs, image files, documents, and movie files). So while you are not authoring content from scratch in Voicethread, you are using Voicethread to enhance the learning experience by engaging viewers in direct conversation and interaction throughout the piece. Because of its audio and video features, many people forget that Voicethread is a not live broadcasting tool. Comments are recorded and listened to at the viewers convenience. Voicethreads can be made public or private, making this a great choice in the education community.  Some excellent examples include of Voicethread include:

Digital Writing Workshop

Picture Writing (K-3 example)

Voicethread on Integration of Voicethread in Online Learning

Voicethread Integrating SmartBoard Images

There are many, many, more presentations tools to consider. While this posting was more focused on visual and interactive options, other educator favorites include Google Presentation (part of Google docs) and Slideshare for posting Powerpoints for viewing.  In the next year expect to see some new releases  that blend social media features into the presentation experience. I am particularly looking forward to testing Storify.