Two recent NYT pieces make a case that may surprise you…

The Incredible Power of Books

The Not So Incredible Power of the Computer

Eligible South Carolina middle school teachers are invited to participate in an exciting opportunity to not only be among the first teachers to experience a new PBS TeacherLine online graduate course, but to also help evaluate the course effectiveness.

The course, “Global Climate Change Education for Middle School” (known as the GCC Course) is a 45-hr graduate level course developed with a grant from NASA.

As an incentive for teachers to participate in the evaluation, the $249 course tuition is waived and participants will receive a $100 stipend for completing the course and evaluation!

Please follow this link for all the course details.

At Minaret High School in Madera County, California, every student gets a laptop. Classes are focused on group projects instead of homework and lectures. After school, students and teachers text each other and use online tools to complete assignments.

The high school of the future? Read for yourself.

Warning to Media Specialists and book lovers: The description of the  ‘Media Lounge’ may be upsetting…

Read the Sacramento Bee article here.

From a spare room in his San Francisco Bay Area home, Salman Khan is using the Web to teach math and science to millions with free YouTube videos…

Lucas Gillispie, an instructional tech coordinator for Pender County Schools in NC, uses WOW (common abbreviation for World of Warcraft) with middle school students.  I wasn’t able to attend his session at NCTIES, but he tweeted his wiki explaining how to use WOW with students.  View the wiki here.

World of Warcraft, by the way, is an online multiplayer role playing game.  The user creates a player that can be one of multiple races (orc, troll, human, dwarf, etc) and any type of character (fighter, magic user, healer, etc).  The user enters into a “world” with other people and can talk to them and solve quests with them.  See the Wikipedia article for more details.

We will need to check to see if these 1) will run on our network and 2)are unblocked.

To do a screen capture, use either Screen Toaster or BB Flashback Express.  Screen Toaster has in a built in voice recorder.  Teachers could record lessons for students to review later.  The recorded lessons would also be useful for sick students or those on homebound.  I know Larry used this type of technology to walk faculty through a how-to.  We might consider implementing this as SITT/DITT people to walk teachers through how to use different Web2.0 apps and other applications (like Power Teacher/Power School).

Some free PhotoShop alternatives include Gimp, InkScape, Paint.net, and Tux Paint.  Tux Paint is very good for younger students.

Quizlet is a website that allows you to create your own flash cards.  You can also use other people’s flash cards.  This site was created by a high school student.

Spelling City is a site that has games to help students learn how to spell words.  It reads the word aloud, spells it, and uses the word in a sentence.  Teachers can put their own word list in.

The Powerpoint presentation of this information is here.

Classworks is a web-based integrated learning system that is aligned to state and national standards.  Each school is scheduled to have its own meeting for its Classworks Implentation Plan during the month of March.   Classworks will be implemented this school year in most of our After School programs.  In the fall, it will be implemented into classrooms. 

Presently, the standards which Classworks address are k-12 for Math and ELA.   At some point in the future it may incorporate assignments that address other subject areas, but for now, it is just for Math and ELA.

Classworks can be used for whole class instruction or individualized instruction.  It also has the ability to import MAP scores so that Indvidualized Learning Paths can be created to move students forward in areas where they are deficient.   This makes it especially applicable for remedial work.  However, students can work at, or above or below grade level according to their needs.

The individualized instruction component of Classworks makes it particularly useful for Special Needs teachers.

Many thanks to Carver Jr. High and Chapman Elementary for piloting Classworks in their building beginning this past fall.  They, with the help of our most capable district technology staff, were able to work out several technical issues so that Classworks will run more smoothly for others.  I’m sure we will continue to encounter some technical problems, but we do have several resources for help.  Classworks has a tech support group where we will be able to report our technical issues.   We are still determining proper protocol for reporting these problems.

Additionally, I would like to encourage everyone to take advantage of our 7net forum to get help.  This powerful online community of professionals is a collaborative effort that takes the old saying, “two heads is better than one,” to the nth degree.  7net is just one part of a larger library of shared information available to you.  If you are reading this blog entry then you are already participating in another of its elements.  Click here to visit spart7.info and find more places to get help, not only with Classworks but with any number of topics.

While I was at NCTIES, I saw an amazing board called anEno.  This board is an interactive/smart type board that you can WRITE on with whiteboard markers.  The salesperson said there is a grid, so you can use regular whiteboard markers, and it won’t mess up the interface.  See the Eno website.

However, there are also cheaper alternatives out there.  The Mimio attaches with suction cups to a surface and only costs $600.  It is cross-platform and comes with its own notebook software.  See the Mimio webpage.

I am  sure there are other solutions for not only whiteboards but other technologies that exist in the district.

While you may not use Twitter, you’ve probably heard of it and may know that many people use it regularly. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. All users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS), or external applications.

Discussed at length across TV news networks, in newspapers and magazines, and even featured on an episode of Oprah, Twitter was the darling of the social networking industry last year and can be thought of as Facebook’s main competitor, even though in many ways they are not the same at all. Put simply, Facebook’s about people you used to know; Twitter’s about people you’d like to know better. If you’re familiar with the concept of Facebook’s status update, then you’ve got the gist of Twitter. It’s all about “what’s happening” in the world now.

I’ve been using Twitter for several months now primarily as a news reader to keep up with things I care about a lot. Just about everyone I “follow” on Twitter is some type of news source, such as CNN, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, CNET, etc. Instead of having to go to individual websites to see the latest news, or having to check a RSS Reader online, I’m able to quickly and easily see 140-character blurbs of everything I want to know about everything I care about. The best part is that I’m able to check Twitter on my smartphone, so I’m always up-to-speed on what’s happening now no matter where I am. If I want to read more, there’s usually a link I can click on for a full article or more information. I’ve discovered that using Twitter as a news service is the best way to stay up-to-date in the shortest amount of time. News seems to get posted on Twitter faster than it gets posted on any other online source.

For more information about the many ways you can use Twitter, click here to read this recent New York Times article called “Getting the Most Out of Twitter.”

This could be a useful tool for students to use as they conduct online research. By highlighting and adding notes to the resources they find, students will be able to quickly remember what it was about a website that they thought would be helpful.  Click here to see the awesome highlighter.