Cell phones and what the japanese government is doing about it.

Japanese government becoming "involved" in the overuse of cell phones by japanese teenagers. This program emphasizes cell phone addiction. 1/3 of japanese 6th graders and cell phones and 2/3rds of 9th graders have them. Interestingly, one panel wants to take texting off the phones? How about using texting iN school? How about letting them define words on it instead of using a dictionary? How about letting them use it in the classroom? Seems kind of like damming up the Mississippi - it may work for a while, but eventually, the dam is going to break. Yes, this is something to talk about and discuss... internet and cell phone addiction is a real issue with many kids I talk to reporting that they literally sleep with it under their pillow. However, just getting rid of texting, I don't think that is a good idea. As with anything in human history, every tool may be used for good or bad.

Page for discussion of the viral professional development session at NECC.

Just started the discussion for the viral pd session at NECC over at the NECC 2008 Ning -- watching some interesting discussions take place -- join in and converse. If you have a session, you're asked to create a discussion -- I hope they'll show us our tags so that we can tag and find sessions easily.

A cool video from a teacher about how she is innovating in her classroom. This is an application for Google Teacher Academy and was made on Animoto and uploaded to Google Video. Great job! More applications for events and organizations are moving to the video format. Knowing how to produce compelling video will help your students get scholarships and you move ahead. Learn how to tell digital stories. Oh, and I'm so excited, it looks like I'll be at Google teacher academy in June -- it is going to be great!

Excellent video applying for Google Teacher Academy on June 25th

Mac users, I've heard this is a great tool.

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.

Exceptional post about why global collaborative projects are important

This student has written an exceptional post-project reflection. I hope you'll take time to read it. Here is an excerpt: "There is no doubt that this technology is dangerous. It is apparent that few people, not adults, not teenagers, truly understand how collaboration, conduct, and manners affect the internet. This project has to teach others that as well. It is necessary to know how to handle yourself on the internet. That's why Horizon Project is so important. We have to educate tomorrow's leaders how to use new technology without abusing it. The highlight of this project is the education we are giving every single person who has been a part of the Horizon Project."

This is where they post the status and maintenace downtimes for Ning, if you ever have an outage or a plant o demo it, you might want to check it out.

Another example of a best practice of an e-folio from my students.

Another excellent efolio project from my student -- take a look at the Doodle For Google at the bottom and how she related the opportunity to speaking out for the crisis in Darfur. This is amazing work!

One of my best efolios from this year's ninth grade class.

One of my best efolios this year from the Ninth grade. Very nice.

The course planning wiki for the digiteen action project from my ninth graders for the middle school. They've done a nice job of planning and sharing the materials. I like their google presentation which has evolved significantly over the last three weeks.

The digital citizenship course planning wiki made by my ninth graders to teach the middle school about digital citizenship.

Great post from Sue Waters on how to use a personalized start page. Nice post.

Great post on using an RSS reader, Sue calls it a "personalized start page."

I love this blog post by parent Vicky Hennigan over at remarkable parents. She's done a great job talking about how kids adjust their expectations because they don'tw ant to fail.

A blog post about kids who are afraid to fail.

New World Wide Telescope from Microsoft. Another alternative to Google Sky - it looks pretty cool.

An alternative to google sky, this is a world wide telescope from Microsoft.

If you've made great video this year in class, it would be exciting to take your award winners and submit it for this contest. Students can win a sony handy cam. This would be a great reward for your best video projects this year. Just make sure you have permission.

This is a great contest for video award winners!

Cool website from a professional developer in australia with a lot of links to websites he's tested.

Cool websites.

yWriter is a free, highly rated, novel writing program that I found through a very complimentary review in PC Magazine. It is for the PC. Just save your file as an RTF with chapter headings and it will import right into ywriter.

This fascinating tool for writing novels has other applications for writing books with chapters.

The online word processor from Adobe. This is one to watch because of testing and future compatibility with Adobe Air, a "plugin" that will let you take things offline and be online, although the word processor runs in a web browser. We are much closer to this environment.

Online word processor from adobe. Future versions plan to integrate Adobe Air.

Microsoft Office Live - free site for online extension to microsoft. Office Live Small business gives you a free website and other things to manage your business.

Microsoft Office live is an online extension of Microsoft Office. I'm going to test this so that I can compare to other services. My students told me today, "If you have us test and compare and contrast, you should at least look at this as well." OK, I'm going in. If you have Word on site it could be a place to collaborate with those who want a familiar environment. I'll let you know! (Oh, and this also links to Office Live Small Business to create professional websites and manage your business. Interesting.

Excellent post discussing free speech rights of public employees.

Great discussion emerging on Jon Becker's blog about free speech and blogging of public employees. I learned as much from the comments as the blog post itself.

Getting started with Google Docs in the classroom document.

Getting started with Google Docs in the Classroom