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Smithsonian has placed a large batch of pictures on Flickr w/ no copyright restrictions.

Smithsonian images on Flickr w/ no copyright restrictions.

There are many who don't understand this one point. I used to have someone who required me to have beautiful lesson plans. They were detailed. I spent more than an hour a day on them. So much time so that sometimes I felt unprepared when the kids actually walked in the door. When those detailed plans were removed and I was allowed to focus on the content created for the students to use and then keep a grid (I keep links, etc. to what I'm doing) - THAT Was when real innovation happened in my classroom. Things like wikis, blogs, etc. happened after those super-restrictive requirements were taken off my shoulders. I had the wrong audience when I had those detailed lesson plans - my audience was the principal at the time. Now, I still have plans but I keep it in a grid in a book and then keep copies of what I use with students in dropbox and other places. I do far more now than then because my focus is the students. Lesson plans aren't bad. However, if you spend your time making the LESSON PLAN itself pretty and perfect then likely you're not spending your actual time PLANNING, printing, collecting, and creating what you'll be doing with your students. Also, when you do things like #geniushour and 20% time projects, you no longer have a lesson plan but a project plan which is an entirely different thing altogether. Don't fault teachers for this.  Teaching is the hardest job everybody thinks they can do and few really can.

So, if restricting access to these devices isn't the answer, how do we address their presence in the classroom and use these devices to engage rather than disengage students' attention? Here are a few suggestions…

If you use Google apps for education you now have access to YouTube for schools. This strips out comments and related videos. While not all videos are ported over, this is a solution for those overly restricted schools.

Free lesson plans that you can filter by age and how many class periods that you have teach as well as the topics. This is by Microsoft so it is using Microsoft projects. This is perfect for those of you who want cool lessons but are restricted from using a lot of the web 2 tools.

Teachers and students in Lamar County can''t be Internet friends this year after the School Board revamped rules prohibiting them from being friends through online social networks. The Lamar County School Board approved the staff policy against online communication and text messaging between teachers and students at its July 7 meeting.

This New York Times article on the Open Content Alliance is an essential article for librarians and media specialists to read. It is also important for those following the fight for information and control of that information. In this case, the Open Content Alliance wants to make books that they scan available to any search engine while Microsoft and google are aggressively approaching libraries for exclusive access to their content. (which could be rescanned by another later, possibly.) Librarians and media specialists should understand this... when will people approach schools to scan annuals or student produced works? Maybe that is a while off, but for now, be aware that it is probably inevitable.

An overview of the Open Content Alliance versus Google and Microsoft battling to take control of the content housed in libraries.

CORE Education is a not for profit educational research, development and implementation organisation in New Zealand. CORE aims to provide educators with the quality professional learning opportunity in an online context. Centre4 acts as the portal to this e-learning world and you are welcome to explore it in the areas that interest you. While many communities are open to the wider public, some areas have restricted access for project participants. Their purposes are indicated below. You will also find a wide range of online conferences and seminars which are both current and archived. We welcome you to participate with us in extending the effective use of learning communities across the wider educational community.

Built for Research Work in Ledes: The smallest unit of a story Quickly enter and navigate Ledes Save rich text descriptions Tag with your own categories Search through full content or by tag Track your progress Secure and Reliable Runs on Google's cloud infrastructure Ledes and Tags restricted to each user Auto-saves edit progress every ten seconds Simple privacy policy: All your data is private; nobody will view it unless a critical bug requires doing so

This is a fantastic web 2.0 tool. Upload images and annotate. You can other embed media inside the annotations. Annotations pop up as you click or hover over the objects you add. You can embed the annotated image into webpage or blog. This could be a useful tool for teachers and students. Lots of scope for creativity with layers etc. You can share to a group and set editing permissions for public or restricted people/groups for collaboration purposes. 

The question our team was to help answer was supposed to be: How can the MS/HS library program and facilities be improved to support student learning and achieve the ISB Vision for Learning? But somehow it changed in a meeting with school officials this afternoon to: Does a school need a library when information can be accessed from the classroom using Internet connected laptops? The new question is uncomfortable, messy, and incredibly important and not restricted by any means to one particular school. It is one to which all library people need a clear and compelling answer.

Our client specializes in Security and Gateway services. A newly created contract position is available for a Blackberry Engineer. As the successful Blackberry Engineer, you will be working with the best of best and part of a team of highly skilled professionals. The project is high profile and part of a highly secured Federal Government portfolio. This is a 6 months contract. You will be required to have both design and implementation of the BlackBerry infrastructure experience across a Federal Government enterprise level. The following mandatory requirements include: *Demonstrated knowledge and experience in designing a BlackBerry Server Infrastructure to support a large Federal Government customer. *Security Clearance Essential (Restricted or Baseline).

"School-based services delivered by teachers and other school-based professionals can help reduce mental health problems in elementary-aged children, reports a study published in the March 2018 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP). "Given the limited accessibility of traditional mental health services for children-particularly for children from minority and economically disadvantaged backgrounds-school-based mental health services are a tremendous vehicle for overcoming barriers to mental health care and meaningfully expanding the reach of supports and services for so many children in need. Treating children in schools can powerfully overcome issues of cost, transportation, and stigma that typically restrict broad utilization of mental health services" said lead author Amanda Sanchez, MS, of the Center for Children and Families at Florida International University."

"Parents who restrict their children's use of new media technologies may be acting counterproductively in the long run, particularly if they invoke afterschool homework time as the reason. Their children's scholastic achievements at college lag behind the academic performance of same-age peers, a University of Zurich study shows."

Very interesting look at how schools are restricting cellphone use in the classroom and The AU policies in place

Sound pedagogical reasons to resist the omnipresence of Blackborg