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Andrew Marcinek Director of Technology and EducatorU.org Co-founder, Boston, MA An acceptable use policy is a document that is present in every school district around the country. The purpose of this policy is to provide safe parameters for exploring digital resources and using school-issued devices properly. The article talks about the importance of developing internet use guidelines that students can understand by avoiding overly complicated words that may confuse or intimidate students. These guidelines should focus on how students should use the technology rather than focusing on what they should not be doing. The article also focuses on the importance of involving parents and helping them understand how their children should be using technology. Furthermore, the article mentions the importance of being aware of the new apps and their implications in the lives of students. This allows school districts to stay one step ahead and decide whether or not they want students to have access to these apps.

This valuable article by Nicole Krueger explores five tips on how to develop a professional learning network amongst fellow educators from all around the world. Michelle has stressed to us in class how so many teachers have "discovered these vibrant learning communities" through means of networking sites such as Pinterest, Twitter, Edmodo, Diigo, Google Classroom, and much more. This assignment, of bookmarking and sharing information, epitomizes the importance of this article as we are enabling one another to grow from each other's ideas.Thus, I think for our class and other educators alike it is important to "dedicate time for networking, joining networks, attending conferences and edcamps, sharing ideas, and asking connected educators for help." The ability of such vast wealths of knowledge to be shared globally between many teachers can only implicate stronger connections and better points of reference for all educators in the future. 

Project ReimaginED is based of of Sarah Winchester's idea for her eighth grade students workshop which allowed students to comment and grade each others works anonymously. This was a great idea and could be a tremendous help to anyone need a technological helper in their creative writing class or if the class is new and not comfortable with each other yet. Project ReImaginED is a contest for teachers to show off their ways of infusing technology into their classrooms in order to win. Winchester's idea allowed the students to express their ideas without having to share their identity so some may be more inclined to say more than the usual, "It was nice. I liked it." When they have to workshop their peers. Project ReimaginED "allows teachers to see what their peers have already or plan to implement in their classrooms and encourages teachers to try technologies in ways they have never imagined." It does not say what the prize is for winning. 

This is a good example of how a teacher used technology and tech tools to not only teach her students but coincide with the common core curriculum. Her tip is to use an assignment that her students can use to complete as a grade as well as understanding and focusing on analytical thinking, decoding a document, and being able to explain a math problem.

This article may be helpful to us because it relates to all of us as teachers and talks about the resources we use in class that allows us to do our job. In the world we use tools for everything, for example we need knives, spoons,forks,pots,ingredients to cook and if we didn't have them we couldn't eat. The same goes for education. The tools we use in classrooms change how we teach and make us the teachers we are.

Shirley, I like how this article shows a timeline of tools in the past that have impacted education and our society. It is also very true when the author says that tools like IPads now a days can cloud our thinking. Teachers can over use IPads to teach lessons when there might be better possible strategies available. There is a fine balance when integrating technology that I think comes with experience in handling and implementing technology in the classroom.

Shirley, this article is really interesting! The analogy you stated was spot on in correlation with access to technology in the classroom. The timeline of technology is also really intriguing to look at seeing how the materials used in schools have evolved.

Use the Hightlight extension to highlight important text on specific web pages in different colors! This would be extremely helpful in classrooms, especially when teaching students how to research and find important words and phrases in text!

This definitely seems like a useful tool, not only for teachers but for people who want to share certain parts of an article. I always feel like sharing certain parts of article or stories with friends is tricky to achieve online, but this seems like it would make it much easier, and the fact that there are multiple different colors to choose from makes it that much better

There's a new Chrome extension called "Shove" that lets you drop a web page onto your friend's browser, and vice-versa. Unlike skeevier apps like Peeple, however, it's strictly opt-in. Both parties have to agree to this, the friends can open up any links in their friends browser at any time. It will open up that page immediately and put it as the center tab on the friends browser. There are some security defaults to this, but this extension can be very useful. Students can use it when they are having discussions, and it is an easy way to access a page.

I found this article on 11 good Chrome extensions for teachers and students. Overall these were very helpful and apply to a variety of subjects and grade levels. I think that "Stay Focused" is an excellent extension that limits the time on "time wasting" websites. I already downloaded this extension and think teachers would get great use of this and the other listed extensions.

Great collection of extensions, some I have not seen on other lists

This article explains the inequality in education and how it needs to be taken more seriously by the public. It explains the controversy involving politics and economics of students in the school system. It's referred to as a civil rights issue because of the flagrant educational gaps emerging within America specifically poor urban neighborhoods. The author also states that technology could be a solution to the problem in that it allows for greater and easier access to information.

In this article it is proposed that students being educated in impoverished areas should not be deprived of a better education compared to students in privileged communities. It explains that technology is the main driver to an opportunity for more learning equality in schools.

Today ISTE Standards list digital citizenship as one of aspects, which all members of a school district should support. Today digital technology is growing at a fast rate not only in schools but also in society as a whole. Mike Ribble and his college Gerald Bailey wrote a book called "Digital Citizenship in schools." The book defines 9 key elements on how use technology in school, home and within the community. Among the 9 elements are 3 categories: Respect, Educate and Protect. Respect covers using technology correctly and not stealing others property. Educate covers helping users communicate to each other properly and to use literacy correctly as well as buying items online correctly. Protect covers educating others to know their privacy rights. Mike hopes to have these 9 elements created into a curriculum so teachers can use technology at various levels. Mike wants to make sure that educators make sure to help students understand the issues they may encounter online while also showing the positive impact technology can have.

A brand new article, Technology changing the culture of the classroom is about as up to date on the benefits of technology as you can be. In the Southwest Allen County school district, they take technology very seriously. They have a 1:1 ratio of student to ipad. They also use assigned technology for 1:1 learning and allows students to work at their own, as well as letting them to use their own imaginations and minds to work through critical thinking.They digitize the entire process so that work can be done at school and at home. Digital literacy is becoming just as important a skill to learn as regular academia literacy.

This article shares some key ideas from Sharon Sakai-Miller, author of Innovation Age Learning: Empowering Students by Empowering Teachers. Her book proposes an educational shift from "acquiring knowledge to using it." Students need to learn how to become innovators in the workplace, to devise creative solutions and join the rising tide of "Makers."

Do you spend a lot of time searching for the most effective apps/extensions for your students? With thousands to choose from, how do you decide? The web is filled with collections of recommended apps for special education. Some of the "Best of" lists are better than others.

This article is very interesting because it talks about the top 10 free Google Chrome Extensions for Teachers. It give a brief explanation of what Google Chrome Extensions are which is very helpful for someone who has never heard of this before. Also, each of the top 10 free extensions are listed along with a description. The description explains how it will help the student or teacher as well as a brief explanation of how it works. 

The extension about keeping students organized seems really cool, its something that I would even use on my own computer!

I liked this site. I even downloaded the MYSTUDYLIFE app because I thought it may be helpful in the final stretch of the semester.

A tutorial on useful Chrome extensions for teachers. I like it because it goes over basics like what is an extension and how to install them. It also includes a few how to videos which are helpful.

This one is good because it actually informs you on what an extensive is, and how different extensions can apply to different areas in teaching.

I found this blog post/article about 17 "awesome" educational Chrome extensions. The blog is created by and geared towards teachers. The Chrome extensions listed seem to be really useful, especially "Note Everywhere", which allows users to make notes on webpages that will be saved on that webpage for the next visit.

I really found this interesting how it has all of these guides to different technology based things. This will definitely help other teachers help their students with this technology based subjects needed.

SpeakIt! lets you highlight any text from a website and converts it into speech. With latest text-to-speech abilities added to software, reading through lines of text may now become optional for those who prefer a faster, more accessible alternative. The technology extension can detect over 50 languages. In addition to US and UK English, the extension can also translate text into Spanish, Chinese, French, Italian and Russian, to name a few.

I think this is a very cool extension. It will also become very popular in the world of assistive technology for special needs students I think. Some students may have problems reading especially from computer screens and this will help with those issues both in the classroom and at home.

This article is about the different models and strategies that can assist future teachers in developing lessons that are technology based. It provides models and strategies for Web-based lessons, Multimedia presentations, Telecomputing projects, and Online discussions. I think this is helpful to know because it gives many examples and activities that can aid our instruction as future educators.

This is a short article that stresses the importance and the influence that global collaboration through the use of technology can influence elementary-aged children in the development of a positive learning experience. The use of technology, especially with young learners is becoming more and more popular. Children learn technology quickly and are eager to use it in both at home and in the classroom setting. The article explains the benefits that technology has when introducing it at a global level, such as a broadened world view at such a young age!