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The best option, of course, is professional development on the use of a netbook for staff and students (these are so inexpensive that I have no doubt that Parent-Teacher Organizations will want to buy them for students to use in and out of school; I've already had one request for this!). Some quick ideas:Pass out USB Flash drives with anti-malware/anti-viral free tools that can be installed. Passing out USB Flash drives with the school logo and contact information, maybe a web site address to find more tools and tips online, can be a positive way to interact with your audience. Some districts are getting custom USB drives from providers like PexagonTech.com (http://pexagontech.com) or Ram-It.com (http://tinyurl.com/cmkzum).Or, if you rather not use USB solutions, start setting your students up with digital lockers using solutions like Xythos.com, Gaggle.net, or Acma.com.Schedule a "Bring Your Netbook to School" Night and encourage safe computing.

Creative Web Tools For and By Kids is a project designed for students, ages 9 to 14, to use emerging technologies for engaging, thinking, learning, collaborating, creating, and innovating. The focus is on the use of free, open-source, or minimal cost tools, so the project can be replicated.  An underlying goal is to demonstrate how advanced technological applications for enhancing learning can be implemented with only a computer and Internet access.  

On April 22, 2009 he was officially designated as the United Nations Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador (UNEP) and received the ‘Earth Champion’ award for his commitment towards the environment and his work on public environmental awareness. On Friday June 5, 2009 he released internationaly his new movie, "Home", a movie about the dangers human activities create to planet earth. On the night of the release many theaters offered screening for free and a giant open-air screening on Paris champ-de-mars drawed 20 000 spectators. Beautiful aerial photography, an omnipresent music score and great post-production make this movie more emotional than most previous movies about the subject. The simultaneous TV broadcast of the movie on France 2 TV channel draw more than 8 million people, more than a football match featuring France's national team (this is very unusual to beat a football match with the national team). The following sunday, at European Elections, ecologists made an unexpectedly high score and failed short of being France's second political party. Although the poll did predict that the ecologist would make a big score at these elections, they underestimated it widely. On the night of the elections, many political commentators expressed concerns that the movie screening may have had an immense effects on the results of the elections.

PHOTO OP (Shockwave, 7 MB) is a two-part interactive activity that introduces you to digital photography and digital photo editing. Use the virtual camera to create snapshots and explore lighting, focus, shutter speed, and compositional effects. After you've taken some photos, switch to the Photo Op editor and transform your pictures into something completely different. This Art Zone interactive is suitable for all ages. Young children will find it easy to take simple snapshots and transform or recolor their virtual photos. More advanced users can create complex artistic compositions by layering, applying filters, and experimenting with various special effects, lighting, and blends. If you need help, scroll down for some hints about how to use the program.  If your Internet connection is slow, allow the program to load fully, then come back to play.

Teachers for the 21st Century: making the difference This report aims to improve teacher quality and increase the effectiveness of Australian schools. Issues include professional development, school leadership and management and recognition.

Australian Government Quality Teacher Initiative

To my surprise, yesterday I stumbled upon the slickest Firefox add-on which integrates seamlessly with Picnik! Simply put, it makes taking screenshots a breeze, and greatly speeds up importing images into the Picnik online photo editor.

Now think about the possibility of peering inside another teacher’s classroom to see what wonderful projects and activities were happening.  Could you take an idea or two back to your room?  Absolutely!  That’s the power of following educational blogs.

Applying the conceptsHow can you visualize your presentation like a comic? No, not literally perhaps — but something like the sequential flow of a comic or rough sketches in storyboard form. You can do this on a whiteboard, but one of the best analog ways is with sticky notes (Post its) on a wall on in a notebook (a technique Bert Decker, Nancy Duarte, and others have talked about before as well).

Here is a good short video reviewing the art of the storyboard as it's used in story development and production in the motion picture industry.

Storyboards are an effective, inexpensive way to develop the story. You can "board it up" on the wall and see if it works. Because ideas can be changed easily and quickly, storyboarding works. The key is to put down in your storyboards the minimum amount of information that gives a dynamic and quick read of the content (and the emotions) of the sequence.

The Visible Body is a fantastic, free, program that allows your students to virtually explore all systems of the human body. I first learned about the Visible Body through Kevin Jarrett's blog, he used the program with a 4th grade class, but the Visible Body could just as well be used in a high school setting. In fact, the reason that I thought about the Visible Body today is that a science teacher in my school mentioned that she has used it with her anatomy students.

To use the Visible Body you need to install the Unity Web Player for Mac or PC. Once installed you can explore all of the systems of the body. The Visible Body allows students to view bones, muscles, and organs from various perspectives and see how the parts of the body work together as a system.

Update: Kevin Jarrett reminds us in the comments that if you're going to use Visible Body with younger students be aware that Visible Body is 100% anatomically correct. In that case it's probably best to use Visible Body as a teacher-directed exercise and not a individualized activity.

It struck me as I looked at this list that it’s a lot like what I believe about children and computers: that student choice, plus time for unstructured access to lots of different computing experiences is crucial to developing literacy and fluency with computers. My vision includes a teacher or mentor modeling passion, collaboration, interest in the subject, and offering experiences that challenge students without coercion, tricks, or rankings. If I had to come up with a catchy acronym, I’d call it Sustained Tinkering Time (SST).

So, looking at this list, there are some things that seem really relevant to the kind of computer fluency I would like all students to have. Wouldn’t it be great if students had: Free access to lots of different kinds of books software and hardware The teacher reads works on computer projects too No tests, book reports, logs, comprehension quizzes Comfortable space to read work on computer projects and that this was for all kids, not a reward or remediation?