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Julie and I are excited about participating in the ISTE Eduverse Talks next Tuesday 5PM SLT. Here are the show details. Just think, if you come in, you can see HOW BAD I am at operating my avatar. (Actually, I don't think I"m as bad as I think, but my strength is definitely scripting.) Julie is having to get up at 2 am to make this happen but she is such an amazing dear -- she is doing it! We are SOOOOOO excited and hope you'll take a venture into SL to join us. We're so excited. Maybe you'll join us. If not, their blog will have the video and audio. Hey, and if you come, I"ll hang around afterwards -- would love to acquire some notecards about your projects. Let's post these in my office in the C.A.V.E. or any where else. When we talk about flattening, it is not just about these projects but all of the projects going on out there -- so share your notecard and we'll find a place to collect and share them all. HOpe to meet you soon! I'm CoolCat Whitman on Second Life (and ReactionGrid -- my favorite home for virtual worlds.)

The following list of ICT tools was crowd sourced from individual educationalists and not companies when the question 'What Indispensible ICT tools do you use in education' was asked  and is not meant to be exhaustive in any way.   

When I saw Jeremy Davis recently, he told me of an educator who uses cell phones in the classroom. In fact, this teacher requires that the cell phone be out and ON the desk. In plain site. Not hidden in a pocket or backpack. So if the student is using it, the teacher KNOWS. And if the student is using it when they shouldn't… Well, that's when there are consequences.

2006... What if we didn't let pods in the classroom. A great look back at quotes that I've used in presentations to emphasize that we are not doing any good if you try to hold on to the way things 'were' rather than looking to the future and asking 'what if' - see the opportunities not the obstacles!

If you post future status updates on sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and more telling the world what you are GOING to do, where you are GOING to be, and for how long, you open yourself up to a number of risks. The world does not care what you are doing, and those that are watching, are the people you do not want to care.

If you think that your password protected or private social web page means that nobody but you or your friends can see what you post, you do NOT understand digital safety, responsibility or awareness and could already be at risk.

If you do not understand, comprehend, and believe that everything you do with ANY form of digital technology is public and permanent, and you do not have a respect for the "21st Century Flame," or "2.1C", you will get burned!

"Charles Basch, a professor of health education at Teachers College of Columbia University, presented highlights from his research on the relationship between student health and achievement. Basch's research identifies major health risks that have a negative impact on learning, including asthma, teen pregnancy, poor vision and a lack of breakfast. "It's not a coincidence that children in the 5,000 lowest-performing schools are the same ones that experience the greatest health disparities," he said."

As a Kindergarten teacher, when a child entered my classroom never having held a pair of scissors or not knowing how to tie her shoes, I felt it was my responsibility to teach those skills with support and guidance. It was not for me to judge that that child hadn't been taught those skills at home before coming to school, but to assist in equipping the child with the skills that would be needed as she moved forth in life.

Though the economy may be on the road to recovery, public school funding is not. Across the nation, schools are being asked to make do with less money in an effort to control school district debt caused by funding cuts at both the state and national levels. School funding and its issues have been heard at the polls as voters must decide whether or not to approve tax increases or changes in distribution of tax revenues in order to help stem the tide of massive budget cuts. In Ohio this past spring nearly 44% of the tax issues on the ballots were for schools. School funding issues are a major concern for administrators and educators.

As more people connect via Skype, the demand for live streaming is there. I think conferences can either acknowledge this and make it possible or they will continue to see us do it ourselves, taking bandwidth. The tough thing is that sometimes licenses are tricky and presenters may not want it recorded - this information is not usually shared publicly as it should be. Great read for administrators

Interesting article about a teacher receiving an unsatisfactory evaluation for not keeping lesson plans in the designated location.

account training becomes an added advantage if you do not wish to hire your personal accountant to manage your accounts. Accounting involves a lot of activities like book-keeping, preparing balance sheet, maintaining tax records and payroll and so on. There is no way you can avoid these tasks. Every functional organisation has to stick to these activities for the smooth functioning of the firm. Many organisations in the past have suffered from enormous losses only because their employees did not have the required accounting training and thus were unable to handle the accounting services and important financial documents and statements. For overall success, any firm should have a firm grip over the company's accounts and financial position. You can do a lot of things to ensure you are always informed about your company's financial position. First and foremost, you can ask experienced professionals from your company to undergo accounting training courses. By brushing up their knowledge through accounting training courses, these professionals will be in a better position to handle the accounting of the firm. Another option you have is to outsource the task to outside professionals who are competent enough to handle the accounting job. Apart from this, you can also hire accounting firms who can assure you transparency in all the dealings apart from impeccable services. By outsourcing your work to an outside firm, you can save a lot of time of your firm which can be utilised for other management tasks. However, you have to be ready to shell out a bomb to avail of these services and hence it is always a good thing to have your company's own professionals well versed in this task. Once your company professionals go through competent accounting training courses at a reputed accounting training centre, they can be ready to handle different tasks like preparing sales tax reports, creating monthly or mid-monthly reports, calculating reports with perfect sales figure,

Digital writing is still a fringe idea. As with most things, unless their writing and writing in online spaces, they'll simply see writing as a course to be taught and not as essential to being a human being in 2011.

Photo cards are a powerful new way to tweet. Photos scroll by -- have you wondered how some are photo cards and some are Tweets with links? Here's how you get your photo card on Twitter -- it needs to be the right dimensions (funny dimensions don't get it.) I've also found that you should add them directly on Twitter and not through an app. Read this information on how you have Photocards - some of these are for developers but if you want your pics to be cards and not links, you'll want to note the dimensions and that file sizes should be less than 1 MB as well.

"Failure happens. We should come to expect it and dealt with it when it happens. But learning to welcome failure? That is a big ask and one which many of us are not comfortable in doing. Yet there is a growing movement of educators who think that failure is not only a learning opportunity but something which should be celebrated. How does this fit into a schooling system which has been intolerant of failure from both staff and pupils, and punish those who attempt to reach higher and but don't succeed?"

"Reflecting on what has been learnt (or not learnt) is vital for our pupils to know where to focus their efforts next. In the same way, reflecting upon one's teaching craft is vital to improvement. Yet too many of us feel we do not have time to reflect because we have to move onto the next lesson or admin task. How can we create the time to pick apart our lessons and what are the best methods to do so?"

"We all have mental health. Talk around mental health should be high priority in schools and we have to start with ourselves, realising that mental health is a continuum; it is not static. Positive mental health is a gift, one that should not be taken for granted, and wellbeing is something that needs to be worked at, just like physical health. "

"I am of an age where if, as a child, you said you were bored the answer was likely to be, "Only boring people are bored," and be left to find something to do. There was always something to do, go outside and throw a tennis ball against a wall, go out on your bike, do some colouring, play with the Lego, do a jigsaw OR if you really got bored do your homework or tidy your bedroom! Nowadays it seems that the majority of children do not often seem to say that they are bored. They don't often have to find their own entertainment, use their imagination or even have several hours at a time that are not pre-filled with activities. Parents (normally) want to do their best for their children. Charlie wants to do football - that's 5:30 on Wednesday, Sammie wants to do ballet - that's 4:00 on Thursday, extra maths, Judo, trampolining, swimming, cubs… the list goes on, frequently only limited by the time to fit the activities for 2/3/4 children into a week."