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You can find them in the most innocent settings. The dinner table, the classroom, during evening homework hour or an otherwise quiet family walk. Clicking, clacking, beeping, buzzing and whirring. This maneuvering marauder? Mobile phones equipped with text messaging. These devices are exploding in use among the current generation and teens seem programmed to use them constantly. A happy medium exists. Commonsense and responsible use of technology is within reach. To many parents the mobile culture is unfamiliar. We're hosting a Generation Mobile forum next Tuesday bringing together teens, parents, educators and experts. During this event we'll do our best to help parents navigate these challenging issues. We'll discuss cyberbullying, sexting, over use, privacy, and texting-while-driving. The Pew Internet and American Life project will present their findings from a landmark study, "Kids and Mobile Phones."

"The Vision behind WatchKnowLearn is simple: To provide a world-class, online domain on which educators can store, categorize, and rate the best, K - 12 educational videos on the Internet today. And to make this service FREE so teachers, parents and students everywhere may have access to those videos. To make this a reality, we invite teachers, instructors and educators to suggest videos for inclusion into our directory, and then to review, approve, and assign those videos into appropriate categories using a wiki framework and philosophy. The videos are the highest quality found on the Internet, cover all major educational topics from elementary to secondary schools (or age range 1 - 18), and are Kid Safe because they are vetted by teachers. Our Content WatchKnowLearn has indexed approximately 50,000 educational videos, placing them into a directory of over 5,000 categories. The videos are available without any registration or fees to teachers in the classroom, as well as parents and students at home 24/7. Users can dive into our innovative directory or search for videos by subject and age level. Video titles, descriptions, age level information, and ratings are all edited for usefulness. Our Web site invites broad participation in a new kind of wiki system, guided by teachers. WatchKnowLearn does not itself host videos-we serve as a library for links to excellent educational videos that have been selected by educators. Our Team WatchKnowLearn is managed by a non-profit organization located in the Mid-South region of the USA, and is directed by Joe Thomas, Ph.D. (available at Joe@watchknowlearn.org). WatchKnowLearn has a dedicated team of editors who provide oversight of the videos recommended by our diverse user population. Our editors are teachers and educational professionals who have spent many years studying their respective fields of interest. All of our editors possess a strong commitment to providing the highest quality of education to our users."

Most parents and educators are always encouraging our youth to get off the couch and do something! DoSomething.org is an organization that helps teens with social causes they care about. This is the generation of "doers" and this organization provides an avenue for young adults to make a difference in the community they live. They have 3 rules: No money, no car, and no adults! The organization provides tons of resources on their website including a directory of clubs in each state that are already setup, but teens are encouraged to start their own project as well. I came across a video online on "How to Use Social Media for Good" by Monique Coleman, in a section called DoSomething U, which helps people starting not-for-profit organizations or social enterprises. That got me to their site and from there I found all these amazing clubs our youth is organizing and most importantly, doing. They also have the Do Something Awards which were earlier this year on VH1. They select 5 nominees that receive a $1,000 towards their cause and the Grand Prize Winner receives a $100,000 grant for funding for their project. The 2010 Grand Prize winner is Jessica Posner who started a community center in the second largest slum in the world, which is in Kibera Africa where 66% of girls there trade sex for food as early as 6 years old. But not everyone needs to cure cancer or fight AIDS to participate; any student can start a project they care about in their own community or simply search for volunteering opportunities near them. Since one of the rules is no adults, I would suggest sharing the site with your students and letting them run with the ball from there.

Free Classroom Guides and Downloads Get our easy-to-print guides that include useful tips for educators, parents, and school administrators alike.

Improve student behavior and engagement by awarding and recording real-time feedback. Print or email beautiful behavior reports to easily engage parents and staff. Save time by recording behaviors and accomplishments right in class, with just one click: NO extra data entry required. How much does it cost?ClassDojo will be free for teachers who are part of our beta test group. There are a limited number of places available in this group, so sign up below to be a part of it!

A safe way for teachers to text message students and stay in touch with parents. Free.