Moustache-a-thon

I wanted to put in a plug for my friend Steve who is in a Moustache-a-thon to support the Capitol Letters writing center in DC.

You can donate money to Steve's campaign and watch his progress on the Moustache-a-thon blog. Last week the participants each got a straight-razor shave and each week they will track their progress and post pictures on the blog.

If you're in DC and want to attend one of the check-ins to lend your support, here are the details:
What: Moustache-a-thon Check-ins
Where: Asylum (2416 18th Street NW)
When: 7 p.m. every Tuesday in March
Who: You!

Much like 826 Valencia, where I have been volunteering some of my time, Capitol Letters is a literacy and writing center where students can get after-school tutoring and help with homework. They also have special workshops and opportunities for students to learn about writing and express their creativity in unique ways. It is a great program for a place like DC where the schools don't have the resources to provide these kind of programs. So, it is worthy of your support, especially if you live in the DC area (and I know many of you reading this blog do!)

Adobe Education Leaders

Last week was the Adobe Education Leaders summer institute. We hosted about 75 educators from all over the United States, plus the UK, Germany, Austria, New Zealand, and Australia. These educators are a mix of K-12 teachers, administrators, technology coordinators, and e-learning specialists. But, they all love Adobe products and work to both spread the word about our products within the education community and help us better understand what the K-12 community needs in terms of educational technology solutions.

The AELs spent three full days hearing our plans for the coming year, learning about new products coming out, getting some professional development on how to use our products, and sharing what they have been doing in their classrooms and school districts. It was really neat to hear how these educators are using our products and it gave us lots of ideas of how to help them better and provided some overarching motivation for me. It's always nice to know that what you're doing is actually helpful to some people. 

During the week, we had a bunch of social events, including dinner at Medjool and a night on a dinner cruise around the San Francisco Bay (see the picture above).  

Bubba the Driller

I'm not generally one to shamelessly promote my own work, but prior to coming out West I was doing independent education consulting work and educational multimedia production. There are two big pieces of work that I just have to mention.

I just finished a big interactive online game for elementary school students that was based on a cartoon character that I had helped to develop back when I was in DC working for JOI. Check out the interactive game and let Bubba give you a tour of the JOIDES Resolution, a scientific ocean drilling vessel. I loved creating this project and getting to flex my creative muscles at the same time as teaching little kids about science. Plus, I enlisted top help for the voice of Bubba - my brother!

More very exciting news about my past contract work - Last summer and fall I worked with a teacher from Colorado to create a website and poster that documented an oceanographic expedition to the Indian Ocean. Rory Wilson, a middle school science teacher, participated in the Sea90E expedition and had an interactive website to connect with students all over the world while he was out at sea for 2 months. After he returned, we created an educational poster to highlight the scientific discoveries of the expedition, complete with classroom activities on the back.

Here's the super cool part - the Sea90E website and poster have been nominated as a finalist for the Association of Educational Publishers Distinguished Achievement Awards in the Science Teaching Resources - Posters category. I'm told that just being a finalist is a big deal, and it seem like it is considering most of the other finalists are the huge textbook companies and other organizations that do these types of things all the time. There is an academy awards style banquet in June in DC where they present the awards. I probably won't be able to go, but it sure will be exciting if we win.

Check out these two educational resources and let me know what you think...