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From a school district that has 300 smartboards!

This looks like a great contest. (Plus you can win the kind of computer I have on my desk and it is awesome.) Here's information from the sponsor of this essay contest. I also suggest you get photos and take videos and you can share on your own school website or blog. "The Legacy Project's 14th annual essay contest changes lives and communities as it connects generations and gives students a powerful purpose for writing - listening to and learning from a life . Students learn about real life from real people, and often end up making unexpected friendships along the way. Here's one amazing example of a past winning essay: http://www.legacyproject.org/contests/winners12.html#tulsa Here's a closer look at the educational value of the contest and 21st Century learning skills, with quotes from students and teachers across the country: http://www.legacyproject.org/contests/ltalhowenter.html To enter the Listen to a Life Contest, students 8-18 years interview a grandparent or grandfriend 50 years or older about the older person's hopes and goals through their life, how they achieved their goals and overcame obstacles, or key life experiences. The young person then writes a 300-word essay based on the interview. The Grand Prize is a Lenovo ThinkCentre computer, along with 10 Legacy Awards of a keepsake timepiece from Expressions of Time. The contest runs to March 28, 2014. Students and teachers can find out more about the Listen to a Life Essay Contest, including complete contest rules, at www.legacyproject.org. This national contest is run by the Legacy Project, a big-picture learning project, and the nonprofit Generations United in Washington, DC.

Ransomware is a new kind of malware. The worst Ransomware to hit in some time is the Crypto virus. This virus encrypts your hard drive and you have to send them a $300 certificate (untraceable) so they'll give you the encryption key to decrypt your drive and get your data back. In an interesting twist, the US government disabled the servers running this ransomware scan and now all of the people with the virus have no hope of getting their decryption keys. This is another reason you should be very careful NOT to open suspicious attachments even from legitimate sounding sources. (Many of these messages appeared to be from Fedex and UPS.) The greatest internet filter ever created is the human brain. Educate teachers and others - not through fear but through a skeptical empowerment that always thinks before it clicks and especially before it downloads.

"Constraints drive innovation and force focus," according to 37Signals in their popular "Getting Real" book. If that's true, then Copyblogger's Twitter Writing Contest, announced a couple of weeks ago, should have had writers brimming with creativity. The task? Write a short story in 140 characters. Not less than 140 characters, exactly 140 characters. That's no easy task, but the contest still fielded over 300 entries. Today, Copyblogger revealed the winners.

This is a child friendly version of go animate which is moderated and therefore perfect for kids. I have also been updating my own website with over 300 free web tools reviewed and linked. If you haven't been for a while it could well be worth a visit. http://web2educationuk.wetpaint.com

Welcome to the Letters to Santa Project!  This was the very first project conducted in 1985 on our pioneering FrEdMail Network (using Apple IIe and 300 baud modems). It continues to be an annual Global Schoolhouse favorite. Around the world, Santa Claus plays an important role in a multitude of cultures. In the United States, he has become a true American folk icon. When you register for this project, we match you up with a partner classroom with which your students exchange their "Santa Letters:" Younger students write letters "to" Santa; Older students impersonate Santa and send their carefully crafted replies.

Great book for business and schools. And, it FREE!

Online "how to" podcasting from Apple.