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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

"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?"

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

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.

"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."

Can You Find the Mystery Class Sites? In this global game of hide-and-seek, students search to uncover the secret locations of ten "mystery" sites hiding around the Earth. To guide the investigation, they track changes in day length at the mystery sites and at their hometown, and use other "clues" along the way. As they take this inspiring journey, students unlock the essential questions behind the reasons for seasons and the dramatic changes in day length that result. Mystery Class starts in early February but you can get ready now.

Can You Find the Mystery Class Sites? In this global game of hide-and-seek, students search to uncover the secret locations of ten "mystery" sites hiding around the Earth. To guide the investigation, they track changes in day length at the mystery sites and at their hometown, and use other "clues" along the way. As they take this inspiring journey, students unlock the essential questions behind the reasons for seasons and the dramatic changes in day length that result. Mystery Class starts in early February but you can get ready now.

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!

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

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.

The Summer Challenge Tuesday, July 21, 2009 When I was little, I loved school so much that I would ask my mom to give me homework out of the encyclopedias during the summer. Well in the same tradition, I decided to offer summer homework to the teachers in my division. Totally optional, but there would be a reward in the end--four hours of professional development credit awarded upon the submission of a portfolio containing all eight challenges. To my surprise, several teachers have accepted the challenge. I have even had teachers from other divisions ask for my homework after hearing what the Early Childhood teachers were doing. They are having so much fun! They have proudly shown me some of their projects. Some say they probably won't do the portfolio for credit, but just wanted to complete the challenges to learn something new. I am linking to the project documents here if you would like to take the challenge. Summer is a great time to learn something new!

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.

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.

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

" 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."

"Students are so emerged with technology, sometimes they act as the educators, showing their teachers how to do certain things and use certain tools. This video asks the simple question of if we are paying attention to the way our students learn. Besides being a visual, spatial or audio learner, most students fall under the category of "digital learners." With fascinating facts like the 10,000 hours college graduates have spent playing video games and the 70% of our nation's 4-6 year olds that have used a computer; it is no wonder why students are being classified as digital learners. The video also asks if we as teachers are reaching our students. Are we engaging them? The technologies that students are using so much in their everyday lives should be infused into the classrooms so that we do reach our students and so that we do engage them. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, virtual tours. These are just a few of the dozens of items presented in the video that offer a new way to use technology with our students. It brings up a great point that since our students already know how to use these technologies, we should be using them to teach. Even recent graduates who are no longer in school encourage the idea of using technology to engage students, not enrage them. Podcasts are another great option to teaching. With thousands available in almost any subject, you can teach students without having to stand up and lecture them. This video offers great advice and inspiration for engaging digital learners today."

"Flatclassroom09-3 - Sounding Boards Every fall a global project takes place led by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis. This year over 220 students from 5 countries will research trends in information technology and globalization, write a collaborative research report on a wiki, and produce digital videos about their topics. Sound impressive? Well it is! These students are not graduate level university students. They are in high school. As part of this project, there is a peer reviewing process that takes place later this month. These Sounding Boards are simply a 1 -> 2 -> 3 review done by middle school students. I have my 7th graders do this. My students think they are reviewing college student work. When I show them pictures of the students involved, they are often incredulous. The global project has won ISTE's Online Learning Award (2007) and is included in Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat. Each team produces 5 videos to go with the research report. The wikis and the videos need you to peer review. Each Sounding Board classroom only has to review one team wiki. Sign up on the Flatclassroom page (scroll down) or if you prefer contact me and I will sign you up. I have found my kids love watching the videos. I like to make a wikisite for my classroom and have them do the 1 -> 2 -> 3 reviews that Kim Cofino recommends. So come volunteer! Let's overwhelm the project with our middle school enthusiasm! Navigate to the FlatClassroom09-3 Sounding Boards page and read over the description. Sign up or contact me to do it. Thanks in advance!! "

uquery.com is a new search engine focused on the emerging market of iPhone & iPod Touch applications. We have listened to many requests of the community and the frustration of being able to search and find applications on the iTunes AppStore. With 81,816 applications available on the AppStore, it has become tremendously difficult to find the right application. Our goal is to index and offer a very fast and easy way to find the application that you need. Utilizing new indexing technologies we have created a huge index of all the applications currently available in the United States iTunes AppStore. With features like: filtering by price, date and category and a full-text index of the application description, we allow all iPhone & iPod users to quickly improve their app discovery experience. We strongly believe these applications that we allow to search on our website is considerably changing the way we live our lives, and we would like to improve this experience with an awesome search product. We encourage all iPhone & iPod users to send us feedback on how we can improve our product

The purpose of this resource is to provide "Just in Time" training through an online interface for K-12 educators based on the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). These standards are the basic technology skills every educator should possess. In the process, educators will develop their own skills and discover what students need in order to meet the NETS for Students, as well as the new MMC Online Experience requirement. Participants who fulfill all of the requirements have the opportunity to earn SBCEU's. To learn more about the session, look under the tab "The 21 Things". We hope you take advantage of this unique opportunity.

Apps Taskonomy: Digging Deeper into the Application of Apps he iPad (or iPod touch or iPhone) with its apps opens many new opportunities for learning. At the same time, it offers a slightly different wrapper for older learning opportunities. Both can be worthwhile, but it would be a shame if teachers missed the former for the latter. And, if past experience and research is any indication, educators are much more likely to co-opt the new technology to accomplish the status quo. This activity is designed to help teachers think through both opportunities and to categorize those apps that lend themselves to either or both. Teachers will start by exploring a variety of apps, some that lend themselves to learning content such as math facts or spelling words and others that can be used in open ended content creation such as storytelling or photography. Then, teachers will examine a set of lessons that use these apps. Finally, teachers will use a "taxonomy" such as Bloom's Taxonomy, SAMR, LoTi, ETaP, Prensky, etc. and attempt to classify/categorize where the apps fall. Most likely teachers will need to contextualize the app to a particular use/activity. Ideally, teachers will realize that in most cases it is not the app itself, but the use that detrmines where it falls and that the apps belong in multiple places.

""Educational Networking" is the use of social networking technologies for educational purposes. Because the phrase "social networking" can carry some negative connotations for educators, the phrase "educational networking" may be a way of more objectively discussing the pedagogical value of these tools. The original URL for this site (http://socialnetworksined.wikispaces.com) still works, but http://www.EducationalNetworking.com is now the main URL. The page to list or find a social network devoted to education is here and in the navigation to the left. Also in the navigation are the page for keeping track of articles and blog posts which discuss educational networking, links to discussions on this topic, and pages which could be used for video and podcast tracking. "