Jeffco Teachers

Very nice list of ed tech conferences at the bottom (hyperlink to a .doc file) Educational Technology and Related Educational Conferences for January - August 2009

James - I generally suggest a few things with regards to content when I'm starting a new blog.

simple, effective online collaboration

The report extended literacy to "Five New Basics" - English, mathematics, science, social studies, and computer science. A Nation At Risk specified that all high school graduates should be able to "understand the computer as an information, computation and communication device; students should be able to use the computer in the study of the other Basics and for personal and work-related purposes; and students should understand the world of computers, electronics, and related technologies." That was 1983 - twenty- six years ago. I ask you, Ben: Has education produced students with basic knowledge in the core disciplines and computer science TODAY? Are we there yet? OR - are we still at risk for not producing students with the essential skills for success in 1983?

21st Century Skills - worksheet for podcasting, gdocs, digital notetakeing and more...great resource.

A customized search created by Marshall Kirkpatrick to demonstrate how to use social media to get the "best of". This customized google search helps you narrow in on edubloggers out there.

PostRank™ PostRank is a scoring system developed by AideRSS to rank any kind of online content, such as RSS feed items, blog posts, articles, or news stories. PostRank is based on social engagement, which refers to how interesting or relevant people have found an item or category to be. Examples of engagement include writing a blog post in response to someone else, bookmarking an article, leaving a comment on a blog, or clicking a link to read a news item. **scroll down to see how this system of ranking works

30 days to being a better blogger - Steve Dembo

Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its data centres. However, with more than 200m internet searches estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern. A recent report by Gartner, the industry analysts, said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines - about 2% of global CO2 emissions. "Data centres are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable," said Evan Mills, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Banks of servers storing billions of web pages require power.

A clever wiki demonstrating various academic skills - grammar, math, etch. Well done!

ELIZABETH KNITTLE, technology integration specialist for the Barnstable Public School District in Massachusetts, took her first tentative steps in the 3D online virtual world known as Second Life about two years ago. She wasn't impressed. "I looked around and I thought, this is crazy," Knittle recalls. "I just couldn't see the value of it, so I left. But then people starting blogging about it-- a lot of people-- so I had to reconsider. I decided that if I was going to understand this thing and be able to answer questions about it intelligently, I really just had to suck it up and get in there and participate. Once I connected with people inworld, it made all the difference." That early buzz among K-12 educators centered on Second Life's potential as a learning platform. And in the last few years, many colleges, universities, and libraries have established resources in what has become the preeminent multiuser virtual environment (MUVE). Today, more than 100 Second Life "regions" are used for educational purposes.

Basics for Beginners: What is Web 2.0?

** good to share with PLC Copyright for Kids: A Three Part Lesson One of the most challenging aspects of my job is teaching copyright to elementary school kids. They honestly just don't get the idea that they can't take others' work and then claim it as their own. It's widely known that the problem lies with 20th Century teaching in a 21st Century environment: When finding information is no longer a challenge in the age of the Internet, why do we continue to assign research projects that register way-low on Bloom's taxonomy (Remember, Understand)? We need to cater our projects to the higher levels, like analyze, evaluate and create. So if I'm going to walk the walk, I need to create a project that helps students to evaluate, analyze and synthesize information and ideas about COPYRIGHT.

PBS Teachers LIVE! Free Media and Technology Webinars Are you looking for ways to incorporate digital media into your teaching? PBS Teachers is introducing a series of FREE monthly webinars featuring leading education technology experts, authors, or producers of PBS programs who will share ideas on using digital media to engage students in rich learning experiences. January 2009 Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.PBS Teachers is delighted that Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., host of the new WNET documentary Looking for Lincoln will launch the PBS Teachers LIVE! series with Changing Views of History, Changing Views of Race, a discussion of how Americans' understanding of and attitudes toward Lincoln, African American history and culture continue to evolve. Mark your calendar for Changing Views of History, Changing Views of Race with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. WHEN: January 28, 2009 at 8 p.m. EST WHERE: Online. Login information will be e-mailed to you the week of January 26. HOW: All you have to do is sign up to be a PBS Teacher and you will have access to the PBS Teachers LIVE! webinar series as well as PBS Teachers Connect, an online learning community where preK-12 educators can collaborate with their peers, discuss digital media use, and "save" online instructional resources. PBS Teachers members also receive discounts to ShopPBS for Teachers.

Donna Hebert's (Jeffco's own) awsome wiki for digital story telling!

Google just announced that it will gradually phase out Google Notebook and many people are looking for alternatives. Here is a brief side-by-side comparison of Google Notebook and Diigo:

Example of using PicLit as a vocabulary building activity- a slideshare example

PicLits.com: Inspired Picture Writing - webware that you can drag and drop text on top of to create poetry, build vocabulary, brainstorm writing ideas, create writing prompts, etc. Pretty neat!