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This is a cool grant requiring a 100 word essay about how technology benefits and helps education and is one I'll be doing in the fall -- it is only open to schools in the US but it is public and private -- check the website for rules and good luck. Info from their site: "Each year, Samsung's Hope for Education holds a contest where students from schools nationwide can write a 100-word essay about how technology benefits and helps education. In 2008, the top winner receives a grand prize of over $200,000 worth of Samsung technology, Microsoft software and cash grants from DIRECTV, as well as the SCHOOL CHOICE® educational television programming package. Entries are open now. Contest will run until August 31, 2008."

win a $200,000 grant by having your students write essays. This is exciting.

Welcome to Doodle 4 Google, a competition where we invite K-12 students to play around with our homepage logo and see what new designs they come up with. This year we're inviting U.S. kids to join in the doodling fun, around the intriguing theme "What I Wish for the World." Please visit the official competition website for a full listing of all contest rules and requirements. Only students from registered schools can enter, so be sure your school is registered by March 17, 2010. All doodles must be submitted by March 31, 2010.

Caldav is what lifehacker recommends as an alternative to Google sync (which is going away January 31). I've been searching for an alternative to help our office manager figure out what to do. Lifehacker referenced this on their podcast from this week as still being currently the best way to replace Google calendar sync.

It is finally here. Here are the details on our Flat Classroom global book club. (click the link for more) Every week for 10 weeks we will meet at an alternating time - 12 hours apart. (For the East Coast USA it is Sundays at 6 pm Eastern or Monday mornings at 6 am eastern)  Visit our Book club calendar to convert these times to your Time Zone. Subscribe to this calendar via Google calendar to keep up with events.This is Sunday evenings at 22:00GMT alternating with Monday mornings at 10:00GMT in our Blackboard Collaborate room https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007066&password=M.065891D192F8072208BF5756999CE0 .   The book club is free and everyone is welcome. #flatclass Book Club Meeting Times Week and Date Time Topic of Conversation Week 1: Sunday March 11 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 1 - Flattening Classrooms through Global Collaboration (p 1-17) Chapter 2 - Impact on Learning: Research in the Global Collaborative Classroom (p18-30) Week 2: Monday, March 19 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 3 - Step 1: Connection (p 31-61) Week 3: Sunday, March 25 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 4 - Step 2: Communication (p 62-96) Week 4: Monday, April 2 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 5 - Step 3: Citizenship (p 97-125) Take a break. Week 5: Sunday, April 15 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 6 - Step 4: Contribution and Collaboration (p 126-157) Week 6: Monday, April 23 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 7 - Step 5: Choice (p 158-196) Week 7: Sunday, April 29 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 8 - Step 6: Creation (p197-214) Week 8: Monday, May 7 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 9 - Step 7: Celebration (p 215-234) Week 9: Sunday, May 13 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 10 - Designing and Managing a Global Collaborative Project (p 235-267) Week 10: Monday, May 21 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 11 - Challenge-Based Professional Development (p 268-293) Chapter 12: Rock the World (p 293 - 304)  We're also inviting the educators featured in each chapter to be with us for the conversations about "th

Kelly Tenkely of iLearn Technology has shared a list of great digital storytelling resources that would be great additions to your curriculum.

Time for K12 online conference proposals: "We are pleased to announce the call for proposals for the third annual "K12 Online Conference" for educators around the world interested in the use of web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year's conference is scheduled for October 20-24 and October 27-31 of 2008, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 13. The conference theme for 2008 is "Amplifying Possibilities." Participation in the conference (as in the past) is entirely free. Conference materials are published in English and available for worldwide distribution and use under a Creative Commons license. Some changes in the requirements for presentations are being made this year and are detailed below. The deadline for proposal submission is June 23, 2008. Selected presentations will be announced at NECC 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, USA on July 2.

K12 online 2008 call for proposals.

Program during May to promote effective comments and communications in the blogosphere.

the 31 day comment challenge is a program to promote effective, meaningful comments run by several amazing edubloggers -- this is an example of something that those interested in facilitating effective communications should discuss and participate in.

This essay contest would be an excellent cross curricular project between your technology and writing departments and is for inventors digest and several other sponsors and has as a prize a laptop computer and potential to appear on an Emmy Award winning US TV show -- so join in -- applications due August 31, 2009.

Great contest for technology & composition classes to do together.

they evaluated 390 Teach for America instructors before and after a year of teaching. Those who initially scored high for "grit"-defined as perseverance and a passion for long-term goals, and measured using a short multiple-choice test-were 31 percent more likely than their less gritty peers to spur academic growth in their students.

"July 31, 2011 By David Glenn Cambridge, Mass. This past April in Switzerland, Lawrence Lessig gave an impassioned lecture denouncing publishers' paywalls, which charge fees to read scholarly research, thus blocking most people from access. It was a familiar theme for Mr. Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School who is one of the world's most outspoken critics of intellectual-property laws. But in this speech he gave special attention to JSTOR, a not-for-profit journal archive. He cited a tweet from a scholar who called JSTOR "morally offensive" for charging $20 for a six-page 1932 article from the California Historical Society Quarterly. The JSTOR archive is not usually cast as a leading villain by open-access advocates. But Mr. Lessig surely knew in April something that his Swiss audience did not: Aaron Swartz-a friend and former Harvard colleague of Mr. Lessig's-was under investigation for misappropriating more than 4.8 million scholarly papers and other files from JSTOR. On July 19, exactly three months after Mr. Lessig's speech, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging that Mr. Swartz had abused computer networks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and disrupted JSTOR's servers. If convicted on all counts, Mr. Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison."

Alexis Boisseau - 21 septembre 2011 "Comment sait-on qu'une œuvre fait désormais partie du domaine public et que, tout en restant une création de son auteur original (ce qu'on appelle le «droit moral», qui est éternel), on peut la rééditer ou réinterpréter sans payer de «droits patrimoniaux»? La loi est un bon premier guide, mais elle est tellement truffée d'exceptions qu'on ne peut se soustraire à des recherches parfois très longues. Dans la situation la plus courante, quand l'œuvre est «individuelle», les droits subsistent pour les ayants droits 70 ans après le 1er janvier qui suit la mort de l'auteur. Cette règle est née d'une directive européenne qui n'a été transposée en droit français qu'en 1997 et remplace, pour les œuvres qui n'étaient pas dans le domaine public au 31 décembre 1995 la durée de 50 ans de protection qui était en vigueur avant."

Mary Minow August 01, 2008 Breaking News: Digital Promise legislation passes "Digital Promise Passed by Both Houses of Congress On Thursday, July 31, 2008, the legislation to create the Digital Promise was passed by both the House and Senate as part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. It is expected to be signed into law by President Bush within days. The name has been changed to the "National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies." I much preferred "Digital Promise" but the main thing is that the legislation has passed. What it will do: It will create a Congressionally originated 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation within the U.S. Department of Education. It will have a nine-member independent Board of Directors appointed by the Secretary of Education from nominations by members of Congress. Grants and contracts will be awarded on merit, and policies will be developed following the tested procedures of NSF and NIH. The Center will be able to receive grants, contracts, and philanthropic contributions, as well as federal appropriations. See the National Center section of the bill ."

My Fave: #31 - However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

There's a $1 million teacher prize being given away this next year. You have until August 31, 2014 to nominate a teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.

"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

Goal setting makes you more productive and is something I teach my students as well. Larry Ferlazzo, a quite successful educator in my book, teaches this to his students as well. Citing research that shows how students like tracking their achievements towards goals, shares a goal tracking sheet he is using with students. I'm downloading on my ipad now.