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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

Lisa Nielsen is an educational administrator and permanently certified teacher with more than a decade's worth of experience working in educational innovation at the city, state, and national level. Working as an innovative educator in New York City, Ms. Nielsen was honored as Teacher of the Year and was her district's nominee for Technology Educator of the year. Ms. Nielsen has worked in various capacities in educational innovation at the NYC Department of Education and Teachers College, Columbia University including as manager of instructional technology professional development, literacy coach, instructional technology coach, teacher, librarian, and staff developer. She currently serves as Technology Innovation Manager for the NYC Department of Education. Ms. Nielsen is a Google Certified Teacher, International Edublogger, International EduTwitter, and creator of The Innovative Educator blog, website, learning network, and wiki. In addition to her blog (http://TheInnovativeEducator.blogspot.com), her work is published in "Learning and Leading," and "Tech & Learning," magazine as well as the following online media Tech & Learning, ISTE Connects, Ed Reformer, and The Huffington Post. An outspoken and passionate advocate of innovative education Ms. Nielsen is also covered by local and national media for her views on "Passion (not data) Driven Learning," "Thinking Outside the Ban" and determining ways to harness the power of technology for instruction and providing a voice to educators and students. Her first book "Teaching Generation Text" is set for a fall 2011 release.

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.

"Why is it 'My' Resource Cloud? If you want learners to learn you must first engage them. The concept behind My Resource Cloud is that each educator tailors interactive content to suit the needs of their own learners. Thus increasing enjoyment, allowing for greater individual expression and, above all, making the work of the educator easier and more effective. My Resource Cloud consists of a number of resource sections: My Language Cloud, My Math(s) Cloud, My Science Cloud and My ICT Cloud. My Resource Cloud content and interactivity becomes individual to the users and their students. It is a Cloud Learning Environment (CLE), providing a conceptual bridge for learners between formal education and the personal web. My Resource Cloud allows users to integrate web, printed, mobile and social media based technologies to help motivate learners. Complementary and premium content and services can easily be added and subtracted. Once you select content and interactive ellements you are free to use these with ALL your students. Open and closed social media integration can be easily tailored to your own needs. Enables a tailored learning enviroment where the educator can choose their own blend that fits. "

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

Kevin Honeycutt, I Need My teachers to learn: check this out. The last ten days were a blur. I started in the Chicago suburbs and did a staff development day at a good friends school. I swung by the ICE conference and hung out with friends. Later I stayed with a friend and his family and colored pictures and made music with his kiddos. Next I did online safety presentations for kids and parents int he same location and it was off to Raleigh NC. Starbuck, my dog was with me for the first leg of the journey. Once in Raleigh, I spent three days at the NCTIES conference. I presented and met wonderful teachers but soon it was off to Monroe Louisiana. I spent the day with lots of educators and ate gumbo for lumch. It was goooood gumbo! Finally I traveled home and it was great to see my family again!

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.

Ginger is the leading contextual grammar and Spell Checker on the market today. Based on full-sentence context, Ginger automatically corrects even the most severe spelling and grammatical mistakesat an unmatched success rate. The product operates as an online service and supports MS-Word, MS-Outlook, MS-PowerPoint, Internet Explorer and Firefox.Ginger's key features:* Grammar & Spell Checker- Corrects texts based on the context of each sentence.* Ginger helps users learn from their own mistakes. Tracking the mistakes of each individual user, the Ginger Tutor automatically creates a personalized learning program with tailored lessons and quizzes for each user.* Ginger Text-to-Speech Reader(Premium Version)- Reads aloud texts in emails, documents,and web pages and Improves the user's pronunciation and accent.* Ginger provides assessment & progress reports to students and teachers (School version). The reports include the most frequent mistakes in each topic, as well as a student's progress over time. Teachers can view individual student reports or any group report. This enables the teachers to better tailor their lessons for the level of each student. www.gingersoftware.com

Hey everyone, Please go to link and watch the boys' video, "We're Hungry and You Know It." Not perfect but they worked so hard on it ...and it' s pretty clever! I had absolutely nothing to do with it...Zachary and Tristen (8th graders) really ran the show and saw this project to completion. They need lots of views so share with your friends! I'm a little bit excited since this is our first iMovie attempt, AND the very first time I've ever posted to youtube! In case you weren't aware, our students have been working on a protest against the federally mandated reduction of calories in school lunches. They have been bringing sack lunches to school since August, have written letters to state representatives, emailed the White House, and have received recognition by mail, local news, and some national syndicates who have called the school and picked up the story. They'd like to keep the momentum of the movement going, so please help by spreading the word. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u748SRboxVc

"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."

Welcome to the Google Apps Education Community, a site to share, connect & learn This site is brought to you by Google - especially for Google Apps educators and students. Come join and help us build it! New! View presentations from the Google Teaching Theater at NECC 2009 Tutorials & Tips View videos and tutorials on how you can use Google Apps at your school and in the classroom. Have an idea? Submit your own tips & tricks! Join the discussion Participate in the Community Forum by reading posts, asking questions, helping others, and choosing and sharing the best answers to your questions. Google Apps in Action Vote and submit on the best examples of using Google Apps in education. Get on the map Find other Google Apps educators & students around the world. Stay current Subscribe and read the latest Official Google blogs, the GoogleAtWork twitter account, and the Google Apps Education Community newsletter. Spread the word! Know another Google Apps user? Send them a link to this site to learn more.

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.

"Apple's iOS 5 added new enhancements to its email app. To use them, you'll need to set up your email first. Here's how to do it. Open Settings and select Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Then under Accounts tap on Add Account. Add Account Now tap the email service you want to add. Here I'm going to set up my Hotmail email. Select Service Next, you're prompted to enter your email address, password and description for the account. Tap Next. Email Credentials Now turn on the features you want to have your iPad check. Click Save. Email Features You'll be taken back to the Mail, Contact, Calendars screen. You'll see the account you just added. Tap on it to change settings. New Account Ads by Google Galaxy Nexus Phone google.com/nexus Calling All Dessert Lovers New! Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Sync All of Your Files www.SugarSync.com/Sync_Files No More USBs or Emails to Yourself Auto Sync Files to Your Own Cloud! Hilton Garden Inn ® www.HiltonGardenInn.Hilton.com Book Online or Call (888) 370-0984 for Our Best Rates. Guaranteed! The account screen will come up. Here you can turn features on or off - and delete the account if you want. Mail Selections On the Home Screen you'll see a red notification with the number of messages you have. Tap on it. Mail Notifications Now you can use your email account on your iPad. If you enable iCloud, it will sync your messages, calendar, and contacts between all of you iOS devices and Mac. iOS 5 Inbox New features in iOS 5 include dragging addresses to different fields, formatting message text and an enhanced search. iOS 5 Mail delicious facebook linkedin reddit stumble twitter email About the author Based in Pelican Rapids, MN, Brian Burgess is executive editor at groovyPost. Got an idea for a How To? Email it to Brian at Brian@groovyPost.com. Twitter | Google+ | More Posts Related posts: iOS 4.2.1 Released: Big Changes for iPad, Plus AirPlay and AirPrint for iPh... How

"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?"

"Hopscotch allows kids to create their own games and animations. Kids unleash their creativity with this beautiful, easy-to-use visual programming language. Inspired by MIT's Scratch, the Hopscotch programming language works by dragging and dropping method blocks into scripts. When you're done with a script, press play to see your code in action! As you get more advanced, you can add more objects and use custom events, such as shaking and tilting the iPad, to run your code. Why coding? By the year 2020, there will be a projected 1.4 million computer jobs but only 400,000 CS students. Computer Science is among the highest paid college degrees and programming jobs are growing at 2x the national average. Many of the best coders fell in love with programming as kids at the age of 8, 10 and 12 years old. With Hopscotch, kids can build and perfect their own creations while while obtaining an understanding of the fundamentals of computer science. Learn more about us at http://www.gethopscotch.com and read our blog at http://blog.gethopscotch.com. "

Who is "Reber", anyway? David Reber, a.k.a. - "me". I am a native of Lawrence, Kansas. Alumnus of Hillcrest Elementary School, West Junior High School, Lawrence High School, and The University of Kansas. I hold a BS in Biology from KU, an MS in Science Education from Emporia State University, and a Kansas Teaching License for high school Biology and General Science. I began teaching in Lawrence Public Schools in 1996. After one year at Lawrence High School, I transferred to Free State High School for it's inaugural year in 1997 and have taught there ever since. Courses I've taught include Biology, Advanced Placement Biology, Applied Biology, Plant and Animal Biology, Ecology and Environmental Science, Human Anatomy and Physiology, Human Biology, General Chemistry, and Science Explorations.

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.

The motivation behind Math Mov!es At 13, Ngoc moved to Australia and experienced a different education system, in which people are afraid of mathematics, in contrast to her class in Vietnam, where people love mathematics! After Ngoc graduated from university as a mathematician, Ngoc decided to demystify mathematics. Why are people so afraid of mathematics? How can we apply mathematics thinking to everyday life? Is mathematics really that important and useful? Those are some questions we seek to answer with this website. How the crew was formed Ngoc dragged her computer science friend, Viet Anh, to join the team as the animation expert. Viet Anh called on Son, a student in New York, to split the work, since movie making sure requires a lot of animations! Through Krithika, a friend and relative of one of our coaches, we found Punit, our HTML designer, and Krishna, our graphics designer. And thanks to facebook, Ngoc and Viet Anh found another graphic producer, Linh. So the team was completed! As for the coaches, we can't remember how Salwa and Nagi were drawn into the team. it feels like they have always been with us since day one. Where the Mov!es idea came from First we intended it to be a conventional website, but our coaches require very high standard, pushing our imagination to the max. How can we be different? A team discussion was conducted. Websites so far have been mimicking the tabloid / newspaper format, emphasizing on texts as the main content, but why plain text? Why not use another media, such as pictures and animations? Moving pictures? Movies... Movies!!! There we go! From then on, we became the official movie crew.

"There are new web 2.0 tools appearing every day. Although some of these tools were not originally meant for use in the classroom, they can be extremely effective learning tools for today's technology geared students and their venturesome teachers. Many of these teachers are searching for the latest products and technologies to help them find easier and efficient ways to create productive learning in their students. More and more teachers are using blogs, podcasts and wikis, as another approach to teaching. We have created a list of 100 tools we think will encourage interactivity and engagement, motivate and empower your students, and create differentiation in their learning process. "