Participants will learn how to create virtual environments using SketchUp, FileMaker and QuickTime. These three programs, used together in a creative way, allow teachers and students to build rich and compelling collaborative projects. Emphasis will be placed on organizing and managing projects as much as on use of the programs. The flexible navigation capabilities of the approach presented in this workshop is ideal for projects that involve exploring a place or moving through a variety of locations.

Prerequisites: Participants should ideally have an introductory level knowledge of FileMaker, SketchUp and QuickTime. However, it is more important that participants be comfortable using a variety of computer programs to put together digital documents than that they be competent users of the particular applications used in the workshop.

The familiar white headphones of Apple’s iPod are dangling from 12 million people’s ears, and a large proportion of those ears belong to teenagers. iPods are the de facto standard among students – and their teachers – for portable music listening. But the iPod can do so much more than just play music. More and more teachers are finding creative ways to use their iPods in the classroom, where they are uploading foreign language exercises, recording guest speakers, downloading ebooks and news reports, and listening to or making “podcasts.” In this hands-on workshop, participants will be able to try out some of the iPod utilities and gadgets that teachers can use to enhance a student’s learning experience. We will also create and upload our own test podcast, and share other ways we've used iPods in a school setting.

Prerequisites: Participants should bring their iPods and laptops, along with the necessary iPod gear to charge and sync, as well as any accessories such as the Griffin iTalk or iTrip. It will also be helpful to have a web site where you can upload podcasts. Other MP3 players are welcome, too, as well as Windows or Mac laptops. Even the curious who have no music player are free to come and observe.

Processing is "a programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and sound," which allows teachers and students to skip the often intimidating "technical overhead" involved in getting straight to real programming concepts in a functional and extensible environment. This workshop will introduce the program and its environment, share the work of professionals and students who have worked with the program, and allow the attendees to experience Processing first-hand.

Prerequisites: None necessary. A familiarity with the basics of programming may be helpful.

This session will provide technologists, teachers and librarians with an invaluable online toolkit to be used in any arena: classes, libraries, or faculty development workshops. The session will open with a video segment which aired on CBS 2 NY and will include information on how to use blogs, webquests, and visual communicator software (how to use video in class), free online sites, among other tools for enriching education.

Prerequisites: No skills are needed for this workshop.

Workshop objective: users will be able to set up and configure a Moodle server from start to end. Open source content management systems (CMS) and courseware such as Moodle have come a long way since the early hacking days of this movement. Installing and managing moodle requires little or no UNIX skills. Now, install scripts do most of the work for you. Learn to install PHP, MySQL, Moodle, and then tie them all together into one, dynamic, free Courseware tool for your school. Moodle is an open-source, course management tool based on a constructivist approach.

Prerequisites: Please bring a laptop where software can be installed Understanding what a web server is, and how your school’s works will be helpful, but is not required

Additional comments: Arvind Grover (Hewitt School) will be the co-presenter for this workshop. Discussions will include – How do we justify the use of courseware to faculty and administration, and Open source Content Management Systems (CMS).

In this four hour, hands-on session people will make a simple stop motion animated movie. Using familiar genres of lower school literature; fables, parables, or fairy tales, people will work in pairs to create a story board of characters, setting and plot. Then they will use simple art materials to create the movie elements and use the stop motion capture application, iStopMotion, to create a movie. The words of the story will show on black screens (like silent movies) and the sounds will be musical accompaniment or SFX. This is a great way of integrating technology with language arts or social studies curriculum.

Prerequisites: Familiarity with iMovie is preferable but not required.

Additional comments: Here is a link to the original fables done by 2nd grade children December 2004. This project was done by Arana Shapiro and Stephen Padilla of The School at Columbia University. http://media.theschool.columbia.edu/%7Eipw/streaming/ipw3/fables.mov

Learn the basics of ColdFusion programming. ColdFusion is an easy-to-learn tag based programming language that allows you to make web pages that are truely interactive. It is a great way to make web-based forms for community communications, and one of the easiest ways to move data from one database to another. It can even plug into Flash. ColdFusion now runs on Apple, Windows, Linux, and several flavors of UNIX.

Prerequisites: Some knowledge of programming in any language (BASIC, LOGO, Pascal, C, C++, Java, etc.). Basic understanding of HTML.

View, deconstruct and analyze media (tv, movie, print, audio, video game, website, more). Topics might include democracy, health/wellness, violence, media ownership, bias, product placement, marketing to children/youth, how to collect media, create and present lessons, suggested classroom activities, taking action to promote change. Others from HM would also present and/or lead activities. The session would be highly participatory with some hands-on activity.

Prerequisites: A desire to influence culture.

Additional comments: Participants would benefit from having a laptop with photo and/or video editing software (photoshop/iMovie, et al), but this is NOT required. Session should be limited to 20 people.

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 is an application for developing rich content, user interfaces, and web applications. In four hours, teachers can learn to use beginner concepts, including motion, shape, and guided tweens to learn create basic animations. Students usually enjoy this course because the end result, creating a web animation is all their own. But in order to complete assignments, the student must develop problem solving skills as there are multiple ways to complete tasks. A major benefit of incorporating a Flash unit into your curriculum is that successful students exude confidence and become independent pro-active computer users.

Prerequisites: None are necessary. Participants should download the 30 day trial version of Macromedia Flash MX 2004 from the website. http://www.macromedia.com

Adobe InDesign is rapidly becoming the industry standard for desktop publishing software. It's versatility makes this application adaptable to many desktop publishing needs from simple flyers to literary journals to yearbooks. The Introduction to Adobe InDesign workshop will provide basic knowledge of Adobe InDesign features to help participants get started using InDesign for school desktop publishing needs. The InDesign interface will be explored with particular focus on page layout, text, color and the use of images.Prerequisites: Basic Photoshop skills is helpful

Additional comments: Participants will need to bring a laptop (PC or Mac) with a recent version of InDesign (2.0 or CS) installed to the workshop.
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