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A digital portfolio is a computer-based collection of student performance over time. Portfolios make classroom learning more accessible to parents, administrators, and other district support staff because they provide a window into student learning. A portfolio showcases both student achievement and student learning over time.

"John Taylor, retired superintendent of schools in Lancaster, S.C., offers this history of the above essay which he wrote while leading that district: "The parody was originally titled 'Absolutely the Best Dentists.' It was written and sent to every newspaper and legislator in South Carolina a number of years ago in an attempt to point out the absurdities inherent in South Carolina's then new accountability act which was focused on 'absolute' performance and threatened retention for every child who couldn't meet very challenging grade level standards. (Not to mention severe penalties for 'poorly performing' schools, teachers ands administrators.) Since then it has traveled widely to the point that I have not been able to keep up with the uses; but I know it has appeared in teacher association publications in at least three Canadian Provinces and in Australia, as well as dozens in the USA. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) seems to have given the story a new life." Thus: No Dentist Left Behind. The essay remains on the Lancaster County School District's Web site."

"This blog is for elementary students to share their comments. There will be a new post every Monday. Students are encouraged to write often and as much as they wish in response to the post." Blog created by Sue Sheffer, "retired" technology integrator from Central York School District.

"I have been reviewing many questions recently about storing data in the Cloud. With so many districts moving to Google Apps I decided to put together some resources on data ownership and privacy."

This article features a Bring Your Own Laptop pilot.

A jolly good collection of SMART training resources from a school district.

for SMART brand folks

The Bandwidth Planner is intended to help school principals and district CTOs plan their bandwidth needs, demystify bandwidth for nontechnical educators, and bridge the knowledge gap between educators and technologists to improve strategic technology planning. More specifically, the planner:

This blog will be maintained by several technology coaches from various school districts. It is our hope that each day we can provide an activity, tech tip or project idea that we have observed in our school.

Nationally recognized media educator Frank Baker offers workshops (staff and student) to help districts and schools meet state standards which include media literacy.

Atomic Learning's Tech Skills Assessment helps you gauge technology skill levels, demonstrating skills can actually be applied. How is the Tech Skills Assessment unique? * Focused on how to use technology and how to apply it * Correlated to ISTE NETS-S 2007 standards * Easy identification of areas of greatest instructional need * Includes curriculum projects to target technology gaps * Comprehensive reporting system scalable to the needs of a district of any size * Can be completed in a single class period * Available with a subscription to the Technology Skills Collection

Very well designed rubric for website block/unblock requests for a school district.

will be stealing this for our web filter review committee

CFDA provides a full listing of all Federal programs available to State and local governments (including the District of Columbia); federally-recognized Indian tribal governments; Territories (and possessions) of the United States; domestic public, quasi-public, and private profit and nonprofit organizations and institutions; specialized groups; and individuals.

Teachers in the classroom make the decisions closest to the field of instruction and it is teachers that have been the greatest rights---rights that even their districts do not have. This Copyright Chart was designed to inform teachers of what they may do under the law. Please reproduce it as necessary

In defending this exam idea, one person said that she felt it was BETTER to give these tests than one PSSA test every three years. "Wouldn't you rather take the test when you can still remember the material?" Hmmm. Think about that for a couple of minutes.

In defending this exam idea, one person said that she felt it was BETTER to give these tests than one PSSA test every three years. "Wouldn't you rather take the test when you can still remember the material?"

Founded in 1999, Thinkronize is a leader in the digital delivery of K-12 educational content. Thinkronize, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, is dedicated to enhancing the education of today's youth with highly effective technologies that deliver the rich educational value of the Internet to every child in a safe, relevant, easy-to-use format. Thinkronize was first to market with its standards-based educational search engine, netTrekker d.i., the #1 educational search engine in K-12 schools. Utilizing the services of Academic Benchmarks, the premier provider of comprehensive standards-based K-12 educational databases, alignment tools, and integration services, netTrekker d.i. is currently used in over 21,000 schools nationwide. The company's consumer product, netTrekker home, gives parents and students whose school or district has not yet purchased a netTrekker d.i. subscription access to its 180,000+ educator-selected resources.

Put together by the Davis Joint Unified School District - a large collection of links to multimedia resources.

Stay in touch over the summer! If your district email supports email forwarding then you may forward your email to cell phone. Ok, maybe you don't want to do this! ;)

"This is a post from my www.tweenteacher.com website. I had just seen Robert Marzano speak at the CUE conference (Computer Using Educators). I've posted before about my long journey down the Interactive Whiteboard road, but this keynote renewed my excitement even while I struggle alone as the only ELA teacher in my district with an IWB. Enjoy." (see link to actual Marzano presentation in the comments, too)

The Reflective Principal: A Taxonomy of Reflection (Part IV) Reflection can be a challenging endeavor. It's not something that's fostered in school - typically someone else tells you how you're doing! Principals (and instructional leaders) are often so caught up in the meeting the demands of the day, that they rarely have the luxury to muse on how things went. Self-assessment is clouded by the need to meet competing demands from multiple stakeholders. In an effort to help schools become more reflective learning environments, I've developed this "Taxonomy of Reflection" - modeled on Bloom's approach. It's posted in four installments: 1. A Taxonomy of Reflection 2. The Reflective Student 3. The Reflective Teacher 4. The Reflective Principal It's very much a work in progress, and I invite your comments and suggestions. I'm especially interested in whether you think the parallel construction to Bloom holds up through each of the three examples - student, teacher, and principal. I think we have something to learn from each perspective. 4. The Reflective Principal Each level of reflection is structured to parallel Bloom's taxonomy. (See installment 1 for more on the model) Assume that a principal (or instructional leader) looked back on an initiative (or program, decision, project, etc) they have just implemented. What sample questions might they ask themselves as they move from lower to higher order reflection? (Note: I'm not suggesting that all questions are asked after every initiative - feel free to pick a few that work for you.) Bloom's Remembering : What did I do? Principal Reflection: What role did I play in implementing this program? What role did others play? What steps did I take? Is the program now operational and being implemented? Was it completed on time? Are assessment measures in place? Bloom's Understanding: What was

As funding becomes tighter and schools are looking for ways to save, switching to Google Apps for Education makes sense for many school districts. The decision is one that is often preceded by a lot of questions from school boards and school administrators. To answer some of the more common questions like "are there ads on Google Apps for Education?" and "what about COPPA compliance?" Google has released a PDF addressing those common questions.