In this workshop, participants will discuss what Google Documents are and then create a project. Google Applications is a tool which has many uses inside and outside the classroom. It can be used for collaborative writing, revising documents and presentations, and sharing and publishing student work online.

...And as an educator who firmly believes in the right of free and universal access to information, it would be disgraceful to mark this year and not criticize the attempts by Chinese officials to write that ugly chapter out of the history of their country. Likewise it is disgraceful when developed countries celebrate the Chinese ascension as an economic power while casting a blind eye - or a knowing glance - in the direction of the Tiananmen dead

Content filters are knee-high fences around the Internet: They may trip up older folks, but teens leap right over. Walk the halls of a public school, and students will readily share tips for evading filters, some of which would be good work-arounds for the Great Firewall of China

The ISTE Classroom Observation Tool (ICOT) is a FREE online tool that provides a set of questions to guide classroom observations of a number of key components of technology integration

Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.

We looked at ways to allow teachers to buy their own laptop at a greatly reduced rate (something like 1/3 or 1/4 of retail), thinking that would give them sufficient ownership and encourage them to take responsibility. However, there were too many benefits that we'd have to give up... like educational pricing on hardware and software licensing. So the school needs to be the clear owner of laptops.

Two Ph.D. students and their professors have developed an open-source system for tracking the location of a lost or stolen laptop that does not rely on a proprietary, central tracking service--providing some competition for commercial software developers. One leading commercial developer, however, says the open-source version lacks a number of essential features and, therefore, is less effective in deterring laptop thefts and recovering laptops that do go missing.

Many schools are already inundated with curriculum initiatives, state mandates, and technology infusion programs designed to improve instruction and promote student academic success. The last thing they need is another new initiative to add to a litany of reform efforts. What makes LoTi different?

I've been getting this question a lot lately from administrators, parents, and taxpayers. The question isn't malicious, but rather comes from folks with a vested interest in making sure that our technology dollars directly benefit students. Does giving teachers laptops directly benefit students? For people who aren't actively teaching in a classroom, that's a hard question to answer.\n\nI don't think it's very hard for teachers to answer the question, though, especially at the secondary level. For most people entering the business world, there is no question that they will have a computer on their desk when they are hired. It might be a laptop, a desktop, a shared desktop facilitated with some sort of flextime arrangement, or even a computer allowance so that the new hire can buy a machine that makes them the most productive. However, it's not terribly likely that they'll just be handed a dry erase marker and a whiteboard, pointed towards a copy machine, and told to go for it.

Google SketchUp Teacher Guide FUN projects you can use in your classroom, using FREE Google SketchUp software For each project shown, you can view project details in HTML or PDF format.

A survey by Symantec Corp. suggests that parents are unaware of their children's internet activity.

SMeech Welcome to my Blitter. A blitter is the combination of blogging and my use of Twitter. I have found that twitter tends to serve my personal needs a little more than full time blogging. Thus, I am combining my blog and Twits into my own blitter. As always... My philosophy stays true... Technology in Education isn't the Future... It is the Present!

Grassroots Creativity: Helping Everyone Become a Creative Thinker by Dr. Mitchel Resnick (MIT Media Lab)

In education circles, the term learning community has become commonplace. It is being used to mean any number of things, such as extending classroom practice into the community; bringing community personnel into the school to enhance the curriculum and learning tasks for students; or engaging students, teachers, and administrators simultaneously in learning - to suggest just a few.