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"iSchool: a closer look at Manhattan Beach Unified's iPad pilot program email Does Manhattan Beach Unified's iPad pilot program represent the future of education? Kindergarten students at Grand View Elementary School use iPads two times a week. Photo by Alene Tchekmedyian Kindergarten students at Grand View Elementary School use iPads two times a week. Photo by Alene Tchekmedyian Just before 8 a.m. one recent Tuesday, Andy Caine wheeled a waist-high cart into his second-floor history classroom at Mira Costa High School, as the Beach Boys' "I Get Around" played faintly in the background. On the syllabus for the day: the First Amendment. As the first period bell rang, Caine unlocked the cart. "Come and get 'em," Caine said to his class of seniors, and stood behind his podium, on which he's pasted a sticker reading, "Think for yourself. Question Authority." The students put aside their pens and notebooks and lined up at the cart to pick up an unconventional tool that school districts across the nation have been implementing into classrooms. Each student grabbed an iPad and returned to his or her seat. Caine is one of 43 Manhattan Beach Unified School District teachers chosen to try the $500,000 iPad pilot program, which started last fall. At Mira Costa, two English, math, science and social studies teachers use iPads, along with eight science teachers at Manhattan Beach Middle School and 27 teachers of different grade levels at each elementary school. The district purchased 560 student iPads (32 gigabytes and costing around $700 each), in addition to iPads for pilot teachers and administrators. A quarter of the pilot costs are grant funded, while the district supports the rest. Later this year, the School Board will decide whether, and in what capacity, to continue the pilot. Caine and pilot teachers implement iPads into their curricula two to three times a week, a total of 30 to 90 minutes. "I would use them every day if I had the po

This video shows the winner of "Ukraine's Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch. The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about £75,000. She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated. It is replaced by a woman's face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman's face appears. She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier. This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house. In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye. The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine , resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million. Kseniya Simonova says: "I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there's surely no bigger compliment." Please take time out to see this amazing piece of art. click on the link below - http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vOhf3OvRXKg

" Other fab ideas from the same site: * Trading cards * Jigsaws * Pop art * Hockneyizer * Calendar john sutton: http://www.twitter.com/hgjohn 7.Make a photostory and add audio Scanned in images can be inserted into Photostory to develop a story with voice recordings and audio. The image to the left is from a scanned storyboard which the children put into the programme and then recorded the story adding music afterwards. Bill Lord www.twitter.com/@joga5 8 Create a twitpic. we brort aw toys to scool and we tuk sum fotos. Let the world know what you are doing! This is a twitpic from @giraffeclass - a Year 1 class which tweets to give the children a different audience and purpose for their writing. It has become a daily part of their routine."

" Other fab ideas from the same site: * Trading cards * Jigsaws * Pop art * Hockneyizer * Calendar john sutton: http://www.twitter.com/hgjohn 7.Make a photostory and add audio Scanned in images can be inserted into Photostory to develop a story with voice recordings and audio. The image to the left is from a scanned storyboard which the children put into the programme and then recorded the story adding music afterwards. Bill Lord www.twitter.com/@joga5 8 Create a twitpic. we brort aw toys to scool and we tuk sum fotos. Let the world know what you are doing! This is a twitpic from @giraffeclass - a Year 1 class which tweets to give the children a different audience and purpose for their writing. It has become a daily part of their routine."

ScreenRecorder Author: boopyman // Category: Apps ScreenRecorder is a very useful little utility that lets you take video captures of your screen. This app is almost a necessity whenever you need to make a video on your iPhone without the use of a computer. Some examples of what you might need this application for are making a tutorial, a demo, or just an explanatory video for a friend who needs some help on his device. You could even use this app as a "Notes" application, with the only difference being that instead of having to write everything down, you can just film it! As a plus, you can record your voice with a microphone and email the video for viewing on a computer!

Planet Quest Alien Safari is a great interactive site for kids. It lets you go on an adventure by exploring different "life zones" around the world. By visiting these, you will find all different types of organisms that are living on our planet. Students get to learn about what the organisms reveal about finding life in space. So, they will learn which can survive without sunlight, which have a high radiation dose, the most acidic and the ones that live the furthest underground, for example. By clicking on a life zone on the 3D Earth, you can watch a video introduction to that organism. This website is a great classroom and research tool. You can use it to simply explore all the things around you, or use it as a starter for deeper learning and researching on a specific subject or topic. Students can really get creative by writing stories and other works of writing based on the subjects and organisms they have been learning about. This site is a great tool to use in the classroom on an interactive whiteboard. With the music and interactive nature of the site, the whole class can get involved with learning about the various organisms. Go on a safari without leaving the room!

"A raccoon with the word "why" Phylo is a project that began as a reaction to the following nugget of information: Kids know more about Pokemon creatures than they do about real creatures*. We think there's something wrong with that. Apparently, so do many others. picture of a bird with the word "what" Phylo is: (1) a card game that makes use of the wonderful, complex, and inspiring things that inform the notion of biodiversity; (2) an exercise in crowd sourcing, open access, and open game development; and (3) FREAKIN' AWESOME! picture of a plant with the word "who" The phylo project is the product of the kind and (frankly) amazing contributions of many many individuals who have given art, science expertise, gaming advice, programming chops, and more. A card usually begins its life by someone submitting art to this Flickr pool, but you can also develop new games, help out with programming, or providing general feedback by leaving comments on the blog or forum. picture of a lady bug and the word "how" You can Start quickly by printing yourself a starter deck and checking out a set of rules. Alternatively, you can just collect and print the cards by going to the card section and "select"ing the ones you like."

Preston Girls' Secondary College Reading Wiki to show and share with students and teachers how web 2.0 tools can inspire students to respond to set texts in a more creative way. Making book trailers Filming their own '60 second recap Making animotos Creating toondoos Using Flickr to make a showbag Developing a glog Creating a Google Lit Trip Making a Prezi Creating VoiceThreads and responding in Twitterature style are just some examples of how students can creatively respond to a book. Each link explains how the tools can be embedded into the curriculum and shows examples of how other people have used these sites to develop a book response. Some responses are better than others and it would be good to discuss with students beforehand what made certain examples better than others. For some of the presentations, students may need a Flip camera (such as 60 second recap) however the rest of the presentations could use photos and images from the internet. A lesson on Creative Commons and Wikimedia before students are let loose would help them understand their responsibilities in terms of selecting appropriate images and music to use. Once finished, students could show their presentations to each other and have them critique their work. Permissions allowing, presentations could also be uploaded to the school website or shown on parent information evenings or parent/teacher nights. Challenge: My challenge to you is to ask students to use one of these tools (can be in conjunction with a written response) in their next text response.

"In the face of the "new normal" of decreased budgets and increased expectations, many administrators are turning to technology to enhance teaching and learning while mitigating the consequences of consecutive years of budget cuts. Mobile learning, in particular, has attracted a great deal of attention for its potential to engage students by leveraging the technology environment they have grown accustomed to in their non-school lives; its potential to scale personalized learning and reduce the digital divide; its potential to extend learning beyond the four walls of the classroom and the limited hours of the school day; and its potential to enable new pedagogies based on the affordances of these devices that students already carry at their fingertips.Still, the field of mobile learning is still emerging and there are many questions to be addressed when contemplating a mobile learning implementation. How do we create a program with a sustainable impact on teaching and learning, rather than a superficial adoption of the currently "hot" technology? What are the steps involved in implementing a mobile learning program? How do we optimize the investment of our technology dollars? How do we choose devices, networks, and software for our implementation? What are the security considerations in implementing a mobile learning program? What are the policy considerations for a mobile learning program? What are the professional development considerations? What are the teaching models associated with mobile learning? What are the options for funding a mobile learning program?"

"Student blogging is not a project, but a process. We are continuously striving to refine, improve and re-evaluate. As I am meeting with teachers individually, I can't stress enough the importance of READING other blogs (professional, student, blogs about your hobby, blogs about other interests you have etc.). I am trying to filter and funnel quality blogs in education, their grade level and areas of interest to them as I come across them, so they can build a quality RSS Reader. BUT.. we need their help in having a basic understanding of blogs, its pedagogical uses, as a platform of a new writing genre (digital writing) and how our blogfolios fit into your curriculum and the BIG PICTURE of LEARNING. The blogfolios are not a platform to use only for a particular subject, but should give evidence of learning for each student. "

Twitter Resources for Teachers You've heard the buzz on the Twitter phenomenon. Everybody seems to be hooked by this micro blogging service. It's been a catalyst for marketing in multinational companies, personal branding for entrepreneurs, and a simple advertising tool for the small businesses. Professionals from the education sphere seem to be catching up to the trends of technolgoy. Whether you're innovating teaching strategies for the university or looking for education jobs online, Twitter is one versatile venue where both teachers and students converse meaningfully. Don't take our word for it, here are some expert guides and tips on how to use this magnificent social networking site to your learning advantage. Articles on Twitter In Education 1. Teaching Twitter to the Teachers - To use twitter effectively, you need a reason to start with. 2. Twitter Tweets for Higher Education - Doing a little online searching (emphasis on the little), the author of this blog has found the following items related to Twitter and education. 3. 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education - Blog By Carol - Based on a list by Chris Brogan - 50 ideas for using Twitter in Business. 4. Using Twitter as an Education Tool - Are you using Twitter yet? If not, you may want to read how other educators are using Twitter as an education tool. 5. Twitter Transforms Teaching - Twitter's now tapped as a teaching and learning tool with opportunities to motivate students and advance achievement. 6. Teaching with Twitter - Steve Wheeler's 10 top uses of Twitter for education. 7. Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real Time Education - 18 people Lon S. Cohen (writer and social media strategist. He is @obilon on Twitter) following for a real time education. 8. Educational Tool: Twitter - 'Twitter in the Classroom' techniques by Christine Morris. 9. Twenty-Five Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom - Excellent presentation by Creative Commons 10. N

Maybe you want to know how you would look like with a different hair cut, in a famous picture or in a cd cover... Many of us have tried to manipulate pictures in order to try something different or just to have fun but not only it takes loads of hard work but also the results aren't usually all that great. Well, not anymore. With FACEinHOLE.com you can easily and in a matter of seconds create a totally "new look" for you and your friends. You just have to select a scenario, upload and adjust a photo (or use your webcam) and there you have it; a great FACEinHOLE that you can send to your friends, post in your blog or make available to the world. Maybe you are wondering how much would this priceless tool cost? The answer is: totally and absolutely free!

"Adam brings life to your dusty old static documents. With a flick of your wrist and a click of a button, you can add videos, HTML, stylized text and more to a static PDF or image file. In less than 20 minutes, you can have a dynamic web page to showcase your products, services and multimedia content. It's uber simple, from print to web in four ridiculously easy steps. Upload a PDF or Image file Add Hotspots to your Document Insert content into the Hotspot (video, text, music, HTML) Put the link code on your website. SHAZAM! In a matter of moments, you've taken that boring non-interactive document and turned it into a valuable sales and marketing tool for your organization. Neat huh? Watch Adam work his mojo and see for yourself."

"Children's Fiction6 · education2 · Jane Ross2 · A Frog in the Marsh · A Memoir · Andrea Santilli & Woodlawn Beach Middle School 7th Grade Advanced Life Science Students 2011_2012 · Brenna Kanski & Don Kanski · Catch a Dragonfly · Challenge Based Learning in Indonesia · Creatures · Dave Brown & Stuart Hunnable · Esther Goes & Emily Anne Goes · Family & Relationships · I Can Swim Now · Jacob's Angle · Jane Ross & John Tambunan · John Tambunan & Jane Ross · Kazia Orkiszewski · Language Arts & Disciplines · Little Fish · Lomba Kapal · Marjorie a. Bocks · Math Our Way · Mr. Lehotay & Mr. Black · Mr. Smith · Mr. Smith's 5th Grade Class · Peter and Amy Go On a Picnic · Peter Goes On Vacation · Plants and More! · poetry · Samantha Harley Goes · Samantha Harley Goes & Emily Anne Goes · Sara Lissa Paulson & PS 347's 1st grade class 202 · Sara Lissa Paulson & PS 347's Kindergarten class K-207 · Social Science · Taruli Tambunan · Taruli Tambunan & John Tambunan · Ten Silly Poems (or Perhaps Nine I'm Actually Not Sure} · There's A Dragon In My Garage · There's a Hippo In My Bathtub · The Two Kids and Desert Town · "

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Skype Call Hooray! Our second Skype call with Mrs. Wells' 4th graders in Ozawkie, Kansas went much better. I found my web camera, so they were able to see us this time. Since both Mrs. Wells and I were participating in Jen Wagner's project entitled Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, we decided to have our students read the book together during the Skype video call. My students read the left hand pages, and her students read the right hand pages. After the reading was over my class surprised her class with a song. Two of my students were our cameramen. Corey, handled the web camera so our Skype buddies in Kansas could see us, and Wayne used our Flip camera to make a video of the event. We had a few sound issues, and need to learn how to use the Flip camera better. I also need to invest in a better microphone. I created the videos for viewing using Windows Movie Maker. We hope you enjoy the videos. Feel free to leave us a comment.

it2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can: * Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go, * Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer, * View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen, * Print out the stories and poems to make your own book. There are four ways to get started with Lit2Go: 1. Browse by Author. You can pick your stories by the author's last name. 2. Browse by Title. You can pick your stories by title. 3. Search Database. You can search the collection by title, author, keywords or reading level. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom. 4. Launch iTunes. If you have iTunes software installed on your computer, you can download many of the selections directly into your iTunes library. The free iTunes application for either Macintosh or Windows computers may be downloaded directly from Apple, Inc.

it2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can: * Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go, * Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer, * View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen, * Print out the stories and poems to make your own book. There are four ways to get started with Lit2Go: 1. Browse by Author. You can pick your stories by the author's last name. 2. Browse by Title. You can pick your stories by title. 3. Search Database. You can search the collection by title, author, keywords or reading level. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom. 4. Launch iTunes. If you have iTunes software installed on your computer, you can download many of the selections directly into your iTunes library. The free iTunes application for either Macintosh or Windows computers may be downloaded directly from Apple, Inc.

"Ever wonder what it would be like if we let our students pick the tools we use in class? This collection of web 2.0 tools is just that- a list of tools and ideas for what students see as being useful for their learning in and out of school. To begin the project, 8th grade students were engaged in a conversation about what school would look like if all of the rules we currently had were disbanded. They were no longer bound by walls, schedules, age restrictions or standardized tests. No technology was outlawed. It was a bit of a hurdle for them...after eight years of the current school arrangement, it was difficult for them to imagine anything else. With a little encouragement and a push they rose to the occasion, and here are the tools they think we ought to consider using. As this is a dynamic site, there may be some entries in need of editing. We will get to them! We left the duplicates in for emphasis as well as different points of view. Enjoy!"

"A short time ago I published a list of "starter apps" for the iPad, most of them free. I've had several questions about how I created this app list, so I made a video describing the process. The method I describe isn't the only way to build an app list document or to share a favorite collection of apps with others. For example, you could save a step and just drag and drop the title of the app into a document once you find the app in the store. It will become a live link and look like this - Merriam-Webster Dictionary HD"

Related Posts Delicious Finally Jumps on the Mobile Web Fad Delicious, Yahoo's highly popular web bookmarking service, has finally launched a mobile version. They're calling it a beta production (or more accurate, a... Yahoo MyWeb Shuts Down, Becomes Delicious Yahoo announced the imminent closure of its bookmarking service MyWeb this weekend...and yet it seems unlikely the product will be missed by many. ... Dwellicious: Do You Want a Delicious for Real Estate? Delicious remains the most recognisable name in social bookmarking, but does it serve niche markets as ably as specialized tools could? Boca Raton,... Delicious Sidebar for IE is Here. Almost as Cool as Firefox. Even though many of you were excited about the Delicious add-on for Firefox 3, there are still some Internet Explorer users that would like... * View my o My Posts o Facebook o Twitter o MySpace o Digg o Delicious Toolbox: 80+ Updated Tools and Resources February 20th, 2009 | by Sean P. AuneView Comments delicious-logoDelicious (Delicious), a powerful social bookmarking tool, has been around for what seems like forever, and while it may not get as much press as Digg (Digg), it still has an extremely active and loyal group of users. There are a number of tools out there that cater to these users, some of which still even stick by the old del.icio.us moniker. Here are over 80 tools for everything from your mobile device to your blog, and more, that can help you view your bookmarks in new and unique ways, backup your bookmarks in a secure location, take your bookmarks with you on the go, blog about your most recent saves, and then some.

Touchcards is an iPhone app that supports loading cards from Quizlet and StudyStack, two of the most popular flash card sharing sites on the web. Thousands of great free sets are already available, and you can always create your own. You get the benefits of the hard work you or other people have put into creating sets on Quizlet and StudyStack, but also have the freedom to study the cards on your own. If the flashcards are edited and changed after you've imported them, you can easily re-sync them with Touchcards, so you'll always be up-to-date. If you need to create your own flash cards and don't want to use Quizlet.com or StudyStack.com, you can create a simple spreadsheet in Google Docs, with one column for questions (the front of a card) and one column for answers (the flipside of a card). Publish your spreadsheet as a web page and tell Touchcards where to find the set. Touchcards is easy to use and interactive, relying on swipes, taps, and shakes to study a flash card set. You can make your own cards in Google Docs or through Quizlet and StudyStack (both sites are free to use and have active communities). Thousands of free flash cards are already available, covering topics in math, Spanish, French, English, music, anatomy, the GRE, MCAT, SAT, LSAT, weather, body parts, history, algebra, geometry, chemistry, accounting, and many more. Flashcards can be an integral part of learning new material. It's important to mentally anticipate the answer or definition to a given card. Doing this increases retention of knowledge and facilitates building a mental model around the material. In short, you'll do better on tests.

Weblist is a new way to gather and organize content on the web. Create your list of URLs centered on a specific theme and we will combine it to one easy to navigate URL. Once you have created your list you can save it as a smart bookmark or as a customizable home page, share it with friends via email or through the top social media networks, and post it on your blog. Weblist is a great place to discover new user edited content across the web. Find lists in any subject from musical playlists to lists of informative scientific articles and anything in between. Weblist is a free service and registration is optional. If you choose to register as a user your entire list will be saved under your account and you will be able to edit, delete and add to your lists. Coming soon: Firefox add-on, user voting list, site widgets, and more.. stay tuned.