New Tools for a New Age

LOST IN THE WOODS

2008-07-08T20:55:00.002-04:00

Since schools is out I thought I would share some neat sites about all kinds of stuff with you for the summer.

The first is a site called LOST IN THE WOODS, THE 9 RULES FOR SURVIVAL.

It explains what to do if you get: lost in the woods. It's written for children and adults. The nine rules are clear and easy to understand.

Being a city boy I learned a lot.

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DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY?

2008-07-02T09:45:00.003-04:00

I just finished reading a great book that I want to share with you.

Now if you are not an American history buff you can stop reading this blog and click on the "Next Blog" tag at the top of this page.

It's called America's Hidden History. The cover says it is the Untold Tales of The First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped A Nation. It's author is Ken Davis. I've read lots of history books on this subject before but every page of this book had something new on it I hadn't read about before.

I throughly enjoyed it. As a matter of fact when I got done reading it the second time I got out my 5th grade history teaching text and scribbled notes all over it of some of the interesting things I found in the book so I can share them with the kids in the fall.

Mr. Davis shares some great stories about who the first real Pilgrims in America were, an expanded version of Queen Isabella (and her pigs), the amazing story of George Washington's rise to power, how America not only came to war but how she won and several other awesome stories.

Once you pick it up you will not want to put it down. I think I enjoyed the book so much because he takes all these famous and infamous people and share there reasons for why they did what they did.

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Lunar Eclipse Wednesday

2008-02-19T21:35:00.002-05:00

Sorry for not getting this out sooner. There is a Lunar Eclipse tomorrow(Wednesday). Space.com has some pretty good information. I like the page but they have a bit too much advertising on it.

The NASA site is way to complicated for me but you might like it.

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SiEMENS

2008-02-13T21:48:00.003-05:00

If I was 18 again and looking for a career I think I would like to be on the team that makes these amazing commercials.

BOY COULD i USE A DRINK

2008-02-13T21:02:00.002-05:00

QUIKMAPS

2008-02-11T23:25:00.000-05:00

This one is fun. It is called Quikmaps and oddly enough you can check it out at quikmaps.com. I made a map that shows you how to get to the local McDonalds from our school. The directions are a little lacking but if you play around with it for a few minutes you and your kids will figured it out. I can see using this to map the route Columbus took to get to the Americas, mapping the Triangular Trade, Civil War battles and much more.

Give it a try and let us know how you might use it in your classroom.

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day

2008-02-11T22:36:00.001-05:00

You are going to love this site. Larry does a great job of finding all kinds of sites for us to use in our classroom. It's easy to read and well organized. I liked it so much I added it to my Blogger list. Start with his home page and scroll down to check out the last ten posts.

Check out his February 9th post. It is called "The Best Way for Students (And Anyone Else!) To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly, and Painlessly" He's got a bunch of great ideas that I am going to try with my 5th graders. Check out his suggestions to make a movie, write a song, make a map, or create a piece of art.

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day

2008-01-17T16:26:00.000-05:00

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Subscribe to Time Magazine at an 86% discount!

That's me. One the cover of TIME. Here is me on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Subscribe to Rolling Stone Magazine at an 86% discount!

And finally me on the cover of, go figure, Seventeen.

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Subscribe to Seventeen Magazine at a 67% discount!

It's called MagMyPic. See what you can do with it.

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TWO NEW SITES

2008-01-17T16:07:00.000-05:00

As I was cruising around the web searching for something to try with my students I came across two sites you might want to check out.

The first is called the Carrot Clustering Engine. According to it's blurb it:

... will search the Web with www.etools.ch and automatically organize the results into thematic categories

I typed in "vikings" and it did a pretty good job of sorting things out.

Another site I checked out is called Awesome Stories. According to it's blurb:

Enjoy an interactive learning experience as you see thousands of hand-selected and relevant links to pictures, artifacts, manuscripts, documents and other primary sources, IN CONTEXT, within each story. The first eight chapters of every story are available to all.
I was kind of impressed. I clicked on a link called Beowulf-The Story Behind The Movie and read all about the early history of Britain and the events that led to that fateful meeting between two foes. Then I discovered a button to click on and listen as someone with a beautiful voices read it to me.

They have dozens of awesome stories from the past for you to check out.

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LEARNING IS MESSY

2008-01-10T23:08:00.000-05:00

I have to share with you one of my favorite blogs. It is called Learning is Messy and is written by Brian Crosby a fifth grade teacher at Agnes Risley School in Sparks, Nevada. I love the title. It's perfect.

He a man after my own heart. I think we think a lot alike. The only difference is he's doing things I have only thought about doing. He does all kinds of cool things with his class. They don't always work and lately some interesting things have been happening in wonderful world of education in Nevada in general and his classroom specially ( You will have to read his post to find out what I am alluding to.) but he keeps on truckin.

You need to check his blog out. I think its one of the best. The post I am linking to here is about an idea he had that's both hi-tech and low tech. He has his kids using reading tubes to proofread their online stories. Check out the details. I tried it with my class and it is working great.

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DINOUSAURS ANYONE?

2008-01-01T19:08:00.000-05:00

This is the third time I've written this post. I found a fun site about dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum in the UK. I was going to share this game I found and tell you more about the site in general but the more time I spent on site the more cool stuff I found and the more I had to rewrite this post.

I found a lot of information, pictures, videos, and games here. I started with a game called WHAT KIND OF DINOSAUR ARE YOU? and ended up using the DINO DIRECTORY to scope out T-Rex.

The site is a great resource for teachers and students alike. Check it out.

A LOOK BACK

2007-12-24T15:04:00.000-05:00

Well, I think its time for me to take a look back and see where this blog has been and what its future might be.

When I first started blogging here I had no real goal in mind. I was looking for a place to share videos and sites I can't share on my classroom blog because they are blocked out. Sometimes I understood why they were blocked and sometimes I had no clue. But there is a lot of cool stuff out there and I wanted a place to put it until I could use it. I think thats why I started blogging here.

And I pretty much have been using it for that. I've shared all kinds of ideas and tools to try in the classroom. Most of them I have used myself. I also added a few fun sites and videos of things I have found.

I stayed away from turning this blog into a discussion type site. There are lots of others who do it far better than me. You can check them out in one of my sidebars.

I am somewhat disappointed in the lack of comments from people reading my blog. I have had only three comments since I started. One from someone not happy with the blog, one from my wife defending me, and one from me to me.

So after mulling it over a bit I have decided not only to keep writing but to try to get something up at least twice a week. We will see how it goes.

:)

Picture Trail

2007-12-16T17:01:00.001-05:00

Here is the latest new tool you can put in your learning tool bag. It's just one of about 35 effects you can do with you classroom photo's. I have just started using this on my class bog and already the kids want more.

It's from Picture Trail. Picture Trail is one of the many online picture album places you can join nowadays to store, view, and print your pictures. It's the only one I found so far that has a bunch of different ways to share your pictures. You can put them on a rotating cube, a fancy sideshow, or any one of a dozen or two different presentation models.

I am going to start putting up some pictures of my class on my blog every couple days using Picture Trail. I am already thinking of all the different ways to integrate it with reading, writing, and social studies.

EXTREME DINOSAURS

2007-12-08T14:24:00.000-05:00

This month's National Geographic is all about extreme dinosaurs. It's a great article and you and your students will enjoy it. They also feature a great photo gallery, most bizarre dinos, wallpapers, and dino puzzles.

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JC PENNY

2007-12-03T21:20:00.000-05:00

Enjoy. This is from JC Penny.

The Tech Savvy Educator

2007-11-21T22:49:00.000-05:00

I found another great blog you show take a look at. Its called THE TECH SAVVY EDUCATOR. It is written by a guy named Ben Rimes. Ben has a neat perspective on intergrating teaching and technology. I think what I like the best is his Friday posts. On most Fridays he posts a question for us to ponder and discuss. He also finds some pretty good sites to share which brings us around to today topic.

He found a great site that talks about copyright, teachers, and the classroom. It's an easy read. I learned a lot from it and I think you will too. It's called COPYRIGHT AND YOU.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

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DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?

2007-11-21T22:28:00.000-05:00

I thought this was pretty clever and funny. Enjoy.

China not fighting off e-waste nightmare

2007-11-18T23:01:00.000-05:00

When I saw this headline in the Yahoo Story Box it kinda caught my eye. When I clicked on it and read the whole article it definately had my attention. This is an amazing story about what happens to all those computers, moniters, cellphones, washers, and dryers we throw away every year. They don't all disappear into some deep hole or tall mountain or garage... they end up in China.

Here are a couple of intertesting quotes from the article itself.

GUIYU, China - The air smells acrid from the squat gas burners that sit outside homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.

and then there's this...

"China now produces more than 1 million tons of e-waste each year", said Jamie Choi, a toxics campaigner with Greenpeace China in Beijing. "That adds up to roughly 5 million television sets, 4 million fridges, 5 million washing machines, 10 million mobile phones and 5 million personal computers..."

The article goes on to explain the problem and what little is being done to stop it or to help the workers involved. It is a fascinating look at an hidden problem.

If you read the article please hit the comment button and tell me what you think.

jim

Providing a Lifeline

2007-11-18T22:50:00.000-05:00

I was just reading an article in POPULAR MECHANICS that I think you should know about before you toss out your old cellphone.

There is a group called THE WIRELESS FOUNDATION'S CALL TO PROTECT and they have a program where they take your old cellphoes, batteries, chargers and other phone stuff and refurbish them and give them to others to use as "emergency lifeslines for survivors of domestic violence."

So don't toss those old phones, donate it. They will even send you the postage to send it to them.

Give it a try and let me know how it works.

Google Maps

2007-11-10T19:29:00.000-05:00

I know its been around for a while but I am just discovering how cool Google Maps.com is. Google Maps not only allows you and your students to map all kinds of places but lets you add pictures and all kinds of content to a map. It combines maps and satellite imagery to show your students connections they might not see from reading about something in a book. You can even link your places to articles in Wikipedia.

One of the best things about the program is its simplicity. I had it up and running after a few minutes.

I've spent the last couple of hours putting together some project ideas for my kids to try next week. We just finished up a neat project called Coming to America. I had my students do some research to figure out who was the first person in their family to come to America. You can listen to some of their podcasts here. Victoria's is one of the best. My friend, Jim Wenzloff suggested I have my students use Google Maps to create a world wide map of where they all came from. What a great idea. As soon as I have it put together I will edit this post and add a link to it here.

I started two more maps. One I called Places I've Been. It's title is self explanatory. After I show it to the kids I am going to have them make their own. Remember when you take a look at it that its just in its draft stage.

The last one I have created is called Native American Culture Regions. It is a unit in our social studies text. Google Maps allows me to have the kids think about all these different regions in a new way. I also think that it will give them a better idea of the big picture of how these people spread across the Americas. This too is in the draft stage so keep checking back as it grows in detail and content.

My goal is to have the kids quickly become the authors of these journeys around the world.

It is pretty exciting stuff. In the next few days I will share with you all the neat add on programs people have written that enhance an already neat tool.

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Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law

2007-11-08T22:23:00.000-05:00

I just finished listening to this TED talk and I thought I would share it with you. It's entitled "How creativity is being strangled by the law." It's a short 18 minute piece and I think you will like it.

Here's the official blurb:

Larry Lessig gets TEDsters to their feet, whooping and whistling, following this elegant presentation of "three stories and an argument." The Net's most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the "ASCAP cartel" to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. Then, in an homage to cutting-edge artistry, he throws in some of the most hilarious remixes you've ever seen.

He proposes some interesting ideas to fix the problem. Hit the comment button and let me know if you agree.

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POODWADDLE.COM

2007-11-07T23:38:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have a prize for the first person who can tell me what Poodwaddle is or where I can buy one. I have no idea where the name comes from but its kind of a neat name and site. It has a lot of gizmos, gadgets, and widgets to add you your blog. Check out Poodwaddle.com. It has a lot of cool things to make your blog more visually exciting.

Here's a Santa Countdown Clock to add to you your blog. They have quite a few free ones for you to check out. Free always comes with a price. It isn't really free. So be careful

Poodwaddle.com

TUN3R

2007-11-04T21:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, this is really cool. You have to give this one a try. Let's say you are sitting at your computer and you say to yourself "I'd like to listen to some music while I sit here at my computer." There are hundreds of sites to go to. My old favorite (until I discovered TUN3R) was SKY.FM. It's easy and free to use. Then I happened upon TUN3r. It's free internet radio with a touch of past.

Here's their mission statement.

Our goal is connect listeners to new Internet radio 'stations' in a fun, interactive way. We'd like to recapture some of the idle pleasure provided by tuning an analog radio dial.

Give it a try. It is simple to use and a lot of fun. Hit the comment button and let me know what you think.

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LET'S SAY THANKS

2007-10-21T21:18:00.001-04:00

My neighbor sent me this web site today and I thought I would share it with you. I am going to have my class try it tomorrow morning. It's called Let's Say Thanks.

"The mission of Let's Say Thanks is to provide a way for individuals across the country to recognize U.S. troops stationed overseas. By submitting a message through this site you have the opportunity to send a free personalized postcard greeting to deployed servicemen and women.

The postcards, depicting patriotic scenes and hometown images, were selected from a pool of entries from children across the country.

All you have to do is click on your favorite design and either select the message that best expresses your sentiment or draft a personal note. The postcards are then printed on the Xerox iGen3^® Digital Production Press and mailed in care packages by military support organization Give2TheTroops^®.
Xerox is committed to helping people across the nation express their gratitude to our troops overseas. The launch of this program is aimed at reminding them how much Americans appreciate their service"

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

WHO THINKS OF THESE THINGS?

2007-10-19T22:59:00.000-04:00

This is one of the few video's that I watch and say to myself I wish I could come up with a cool idea like that. It is called Creation.

Enjoy.

ANIMOTO REVISITED

2007-10-19T22:36:00.002-04:00

In my last post, I talked about a neat new service called ANIMOTO. I forgot to leave a sample for you to look at. Well, I uploaded some pictures I took during a recent trip of Hawaii to the site and this is what I got.

I was really impressed with how easy and quick it was to do and as you can see, you can embed the videos into your blog.

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ANIMOTO

2007-10-16T18:06:00.000-04:00

Wow, I think you are going to like this site. It's called ANIMOTO.

I heard about it from my friend Jim over at A NEW ADVENTURE. It's hard to describe. I think I would call it powerpoint on steriods. Basically you submit your photos, pick some music, and let them put it all together for you.

I like it a lot. Its great for home and family stuff. You can put together a quick show of all the wedding or birthday pictures you just took and have a show to share with people in ten minutes. The price is right. A short 30-60 second show is free. Anything longer is only three bucks.

I certainly can see using it at school. Sharing camp or assembly photos and things like that, but, I'm not sure I want to do that quite yet. I need to find out more about our districts photo sharing policy.

Here's a short Animoto I made for you to enjoy. Check it out and share your thoughts about picture sharing, the classroom, and the internet. (as you can see its not here yet. I have some tech problems to work on.)

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IT'S BEGUN!!!!!

2007-10-16T17:47:00.000-04:00

http://www.creativemetaphor.com/images/portfolio/illu_icon_microphone.gif

Here is the latest skinny right from the K12 Online people. I've seen David's kickoff speech. It's great. Talk a look. Click on the above link to access any of these pod casts.

Featured Post
CLASSROOM 2.0 KEYNOTE
“Classroom 2.0 or You Live Where?”

Clarence Fisher Snow Lake, Manitoba, Canada Blog: http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/ Bio Clarence has been a classroom teacher for the past 13 years. He blogs professionally at remoteaccess.typepad.com, with his class at thinwalls.edublogs.org and has spoken at conferences across North America. Clarence has won several awards, including one of Canada’ highest teaching awards, the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching for his integration [...]
NEW TOOLS KEYNOTE
“More Than Cool Tools”

Alan Levine Scottsdale, Arizona, USA Blog: http://cogdogblog.com Bio Alan Levine is Vice President, Community and CTO for the New Media Consortium (NMC), an international consortium of more than 250 world-class universities, colleges, museums, research centers, and technology companies dedicated to using new technologies to inspire, energize, stimulate, and support learning and creative expression He is widely recognized nationally and [...]
PRE CONFERENCE KEYNOTE
“Inventing the New Boundaries”

David Warlick Raleigh, North Carolina, USABlog 2¢ Worth — http://2cents.davidwarlick.com/ Connect Learning — http://connectlearning.davidwarlick.com/ Bio David Warlick, a 30 year educator, has been a classroom teacher, district administrator, and staff consultant with the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction. For the past ten years, Mr. Warlick has operated The Landmark Project, a consulting, and innovations firm in Raleigh, [...]
Announcing K12 Online 2007 Conference Schedule

A WOW FOR DAVID WARLICK

2007-10-08T22:29:00.001-04:00

I just got done watching David Warlick's keynote opening speech for the upcoming K12 ONLINE Conference. Wow, you need to listen to it. He put into words a lot of things I have been thinking and he does a lot of things I would like to do, not only with my students but with tchnology. If this is any indication of what the conference is going to be like than i really can't wait for the fun to began.

They have put about 20 two minute teasers up for you to listen to. It will give an idea of what's coming up.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

JUST FOR FUN

2007-09-30T20:45:00.000-04:00

Enjoy!

TONY BUZAN

2007-09-22T11:51:00.000-04:00

Tony Buzan is the inventor of mind mapping and its use in education. In this video he talks about creativity verse curriculum and how it shouldn't be creativity verse curriculum or curriculum verse creativity. I've watched it several times and still am amazed at the new things I pick up from each each time I hear it.

I also was reading the blog Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and he had some interesting things to say about it too.

Tony Buzan on creativity and learning how to learn
The reason I bring this up is because of this video (below) by Tony Buzan, who you may recall is the father of Mindmapping as we know it today (or at least the first to market it by that name). Buzan's presentation is perhaps not the most exciting, but hang with it, it's good. I think you will find the content very interesting.

So enjoy the video and let me know what you think.

SMILE

2007-09-21T20:30:00.000-04:00

Here's another post just for fun. I can really relate to this guy.
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INSTANT POETRY FORM

2007-09-21T20:16:00.000-04:00

A few posts ago I introduced you to a place called INSTANT POETRY FORMS. It's got about 35 different templates to help you kids write poetry. I've used two now and I and the kids like it a lot.

I figured out a new twist. First I have the kids go to our class blog THE SKINNY, and read the directions I have left directing them to the site and which poem I want them to take a shot at. By the way, I usually share some examples of that poetry style a few days earlier to get them thinking about what they'd like to write about. After they compose their poems, I have them copy and paste the poems into the comment section of that blog and now they are published authors. I also pick two or three of the most interesting and podcast them. We are in the middle of completing that project now and when we are done I will link to it.

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HUMAN BRAIN CLOUD

2007-09-21T20:00:00.000-04:00

OK, I am not sure how to use this in an elementary classroom but it sure looks cool. If you come up with a way to incorporate it into a lesson please let us know.

It's called THE HUMAN BRAIN CLOUD. Here's what the site says:

About Human Brain Cloud

Thanks for reading this! I wanted to quickly learn Flash and Javascript while taking a break from making this game , and the result was Human Brain Cloud - a massively multiplayer word association "game" or experiment ... or something. The idea is that given a word, a player types in the first thing that comes to mind and the results are combined into a giant network.

Virtual Stopwatch and Virtual Timer

2007-09-20T22:06:00.000-04:00

Now here is a handy little gizmo that I can't wait to try it in my classroom. It's from Google and it's actually two cool items in one. I cut and paste all the information from their site for you. And the best part of this deal is that it's free.

Click for online... Stopwatch

Click for online... Timer

Our Virtual Stopwatch and Virtual Timer lets Internet users use their PC as a virtual timing device. The Stopwatch counts up from zero, and the Timer counts down to zero. The stopwatch and timer are both based on your PC's internal clock, so we can't guarantee their accuracy.

What are they for?

Use the Virtual Stopwatch or Virtual Timer to count down an ebay auction, time a meeting, experiment, speech, phone call, game, test, etc. Since the stopwatch and timer digits are large, they can be used with groups of people.

What's the Cost?

They're Free. The Virtual Stopwatch and Virtual Timer are ad supported, so they cost you nothing. Bookmark them for fast access.

TimeMe - contact@timeme.com - www.timeme.com

PAUL POTTS

2007-09-20T21:37:00.000-04:00

OK, I know this isn't a new tool or anything you could you in your classroom (but then again who knows). This is an amazing two minute video of the winner of the English version of American Idol. His name is Paul Potts and a more humble guy you will never meet. Enjoy

Paul Potts Sings

MORE TEASERS

2007-09-20T21:13:00.000-04:00

The K12 Online Conference people have been putting some cool two minute teaser video on their site. They asked all the presenters to put together a short blurb about their presentation. After watching them I think the conference is going to be a hit. You need to click on over and take a look at a few of them.

Let me know what you think.

K12 Online Conference

2007-09-13T20:51:00.000-04:00

I'm about to embark on something a little bit different. I've been invited to get together with a cool group of people and share my thoughts and questions on different presentations that I watched online.

I am actually pretty excited about it. The conference is called the K12 Online Conference They have a great cast of presenters lined up. As a matter of fact I copied and pasted the list of who's presenting what and added it to the bottom of the blog. I am amazed not only at who's presenting but also by the wide range of presentations.

The conference is being held over two weeks. They are October 15-19 and October 2-26, 2007. If you would like to know more about the conference just click on this link and you will be whisked away to their site.

Announcing K12 Online 2007 Presenters
July 7th, 2007

The 2006 K-12 Online Conference provided outstanding opportunities for free, collaborative, accessible professional learning for educators around the globe. The 2007 conference is shaping up to provide more exceptional learning opportunities in the same spirit of collaboration and sharing!

This year’s fantastic line up of keynote presenters will create an inviting and welcoming introduction in which the sharing of ideas among diverse learners working in diverse contexts continues. These distinguished folks will not only extend the conversations, but also invite each of us to stretch and grow as they share their expertise and wisdom in their respective strands. We are delighted they have each agreed to accept their roles as keynote presenters.

The presentations accompanying the keynotes for each strand have been selected by “blind” peer review committees coordinated by each strand convener. The committees’ tasks were extremely difficult as the quality of proposals was again outstanding. We thank everyone who submitted a proposal. We are elated to announce the K12 Online 2007 presenters whose creativity, depth of thought and innovation promise to make K12 Online 2007 exemplary.

The presenters by strand are:

Classroom 2.0:

Silvia Tolisano
“Travel Through Space and Time”

Drew Murphy
“Step by Step- Building a Web2.0 Classroom”

Chris Harbeck
“Release the Hounds”

Vance Stevens, Nelba Quintana, Doris Molero, Sasa Sirk, and Rita Zeinstejer
“Motivating Student Writers by Fostering Collaboration through Tagging and Aggregating”

Wendy Wolfe
“If All My Classes Did This”

Konrad Glogowski
“Assessment and Evaluation”

Anne Davis
“Putting the Pedagogy into the Tools”

Dean Shareski
“Design matters”

Jeff Utecht
“Sustained Blogging in the Classroom”

New Tools:

Liz Kolb
“Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools”

Frank Pirrone
“Collaborative Concept Mapping - Breaking the Bounds of Location and Time… for $0.00 per Seat”

Cheryl Oakes, Bob Sprankle, Alice Barr
“Flat Agents of Change”

Anne Davis
“Learn to Blog : Blog to Learn”

Jason Hando
“LMS 2.0 - Engaging Learners Using More Advanced Techniques and the Odd Mash-up inside Moodle”

Sharon Betts
“Oodles of Googles”

Kevin Jarrett and Sylvia Martinez
“Second Life: K-20 Educators Exploring Virtual Worlds - Panel”

Kurt Paccio and James Gates
“The Electric Slide! Twenty-First Century Style”

April Chamberlain
“Trailfire”

Professional Learning Networks:

Jen Wagner, Cheryl Oakes, Vicki Davis, Sharon Peters
“Webcasting for Educators: Expanding the Conversation”

Brandi Caldwell
“Creating PLE’s with TLC”

Kevin Hodgson and Bonnie Kaplan.
“The Collaborative ABC Project: Using Technology to Tell Stories”

Lee Baber, Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim and Thomas Locke
“Building Online Communities for Youth”

Jeff Utecht
“Online Professional Development”

James Folkestad
“Changing a System: Network Centric Learning Communities”

Sharon Peters, Vincent Jansen
“Building a Yardstick for PD Success: Establishing Key Performance Indicators for Web 2.0 Personal Optimized Learning Environments”

Vinnie Vrotny
“Expanding Horizons - Engaging the Adult Members of your Community (Teachers, Administrators, and Parents) through the Use of Personal/Professional Learning Networks”

Alex Ragone and Arvind Grover
“EdTechTalk: A Network of Homegrown Webcasters”

Obstacles to Opportunities:

Patrick Ledesma
“The Technology Specialist as Teacher Leader: Strategies to Ensure Successful Technology Integration and Student Learning in Schools”

Ben Wilkoff
“Starting From Scratch: Framing Change for All Stakeholders”

Karen Richardson
“Crossing the Copyright Boundary in the Digital Age”

Shawn Nutting
“Creating a Paradigm Shift in Technology”

Lisa Durff
“Pushing the Envelope or How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools on a Shoestring”

John Pearce
”Me blog? No way!!!”

Sylvia Martinez
“Web 2.0 Share the Adventure”

Joseph Bires
“Acceptable Use and the Web 2.0”

Sylvia Martinez
“Challenging Assumptions about Technology Professional Development”

INSTANT POETRY FORMS

2007-09-10T21:58:00.000-04:00

I really like sending kids to gigglepoetry.com to create poetry.

I just found another poetry site that looks pretty good too. I am going to try it out this week with my class. It's called Instant Poetry Forms It's very user friendly and I think the kids will like it a lot.

As you probably have guessed from its name, it provides on line templates and directions to help kids create their own poems. After the kids supply the words the program creates the poem. All they have to do is highlight it, hit print, then selection and its ready to hand in.

Here is a 5W poem I created:

Jim
played tennis with Dan,
at the middle school,
yesterday,
because it was a beautiful day outside.

It has lots of different style and forms to choose from. It doesn't have a spell checker, and maybe thats a good thing.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

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POLLDADDY.COM

2007-09-09T21:39:00.000-04:00

Here is another tool to jazz up your blog with.

Take a look at the poll that's at the bottom of this post.

I created and up-loaded that poll to my blog in about two minutes. It is fun, easy to do, and best of all , its free. There are a lot of polling sites on line for you to choose from but the one I like the best so far is POLLDADDY.COM.

My fifth graders love to take polls. I put them on my class blog all the time. Some of the polls are about things happening in the news, some about what we are studying at the time and some are just for fun.

All you need to do is go to POLLDADDY and start an account. Then follow their goof proof directions and you will be up and running in just a few minutes.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

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TED Talks

2007-09-05T20:55:00.000-04:00

I found an amazing site. It's called TED Talks. I haven't figured out what TED means yet but here is a place you need to check out.

Basically its a storehouse of videos of amazing lectures by the top people in a wide variety of fields. Free for us to download and watch. You can see the the leaders in field of technology, science, arts, global issues and many more.

The one I want to share today is by Sir Ken Robinson. I have not heard of him but I know who he is now. His talk is titled: Do Schools Kill Creativity? He combines humor and challenges in just the right mix. Here is the blurb from the TED page.

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: "If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, please stop whatever you're doing and watch it now."

Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

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The Free Automatic Bibliography Composer

2007-09-01T20:43:00.000-04:00

Now here is a neat program. Your students need no longer worry how to site a source with The Free Automatic Bibliography Composer. All they need to do is answer a few questions and the program puts the source into the correct format. I am reading Walter Isaacson's Einstein. I put all appropriate information and this is what it gave me back.

Isaacson, Walter. Einstein. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. 1-12

It will format books, emails, articles, and about 20 other sources.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

By the way, the book is a fascinating look into the life of an amazing man.

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I FOUND A GOLDMINE!

2007-08-31T15:04:00.000-04:00

I did. It's called Tammy's Technology Tips for Teachers.

It is put together by one Tammy Worcester. It is full of links for all kinds of cool links. I haven't had a chance to look at it all but I saw a lot of creative math and reading links. I already have a couple of new ideas to try in my classroom and I just started looking at her site.

She has a tab called Tech Tip of the Week and another called Ideas and Activities you should check out.

If you find an idea that works (or doesn't) for you, hit the comment button and share your experience.

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

2007-08-21T21:14:00.001-04:00

I teach fifth grade and our class has a class blog. It is called "The Skinny". As I was typing today's post to that blog I though that you might like to know this stuff too. When you are done reading this entry please hop on over to our class blog and check it out.

I haven't confirmed this yet but I just got an email that says that on Monday, August 27th (at 12:30) there will be two moons in the sky.

Well, not two moons . What you will see is our moon and the planet Mars.
Mars is traveling very close to our home planet and it will only be 35 million miles away and although seems like a long ways off, and it is, its going to look pretty big in the sky.
The neat thing about this is that it is not going to happen again until the year 2287. No one alive now will be alive then to see it.
Soooooooooooooo, don't miss out on the chance of a lifetime.
Can anyone tell me why Mars is called the Angry Red Planet?

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> HOW NOT TO POWERPOINT

2007-08-12T22:38:00.000-04:00

PowerPoint can be a great tool to use in the classroom. It can also be easily abused. I know because I've done it. I've shown kids lessons with 20-40 slides in it. I couldn't figure out why they were falling asleep during my amazing PowerPoint show. I now use Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule whenever I put a PowerPoint presentation together. Although Guy's main focus is marketing his rational works for teachers as well.

Don McMillian has put together a funny video to show you some the of the perils of using PowerPoint.

> NAME IN LIGHTS

2007-08-11T16:20:00.000-04:00

They say everyone craves their 60 seconds of fame. Well now you and your kids can have yours. This is a neat little program called Name in Lights. It allows you to put your name up on a billboard. I used it to start my daily blog. How might you use it in your classroom?

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> Truth Happens

2007-08-11T15:40:00.000-04:00

"Despite the ignorance, ridicule and opposition… truth happens."

What a cool piece of video. This is an old Linus ad. Linux and Bill Gates have been at odds with each other for a long time. You can google that story up if you are interested.

I intend to use this with my fifth graders as an introduction to our Civil Rights study. You can use it in science class when your talking about inventing.

Anyone else see a place for it in their curriculum?

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SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM

2007-08-11T15:27:00.000-04:00

No, not that kind of spam, I am think more the Monty Python type of SPAM. Enjoy this easy little game.

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Tips for Starting School

2007-08-11T15:07:00.000-04:00

This post was going to be full of great ideas for getting your school year off to a great start. I had all kinds of neat ideas to share with you. But last night I was cruising the Cool Cat Teacher Blog and discovered Vicki had already written about it. Actually she wrote three great articles about starting school off with a bang so I'm just going to quit talking her and let you check it out.

Setting the Pace
Establishing the Flow
Create the Plan

SHIFT HAPPENS

2007-08-07T21:45:00.000-04:00

I know, not another PowerPoint show, but I think you are going to like this one. It's full of amazing statistics on the digital revolution, our kids, and the kids around the world. This is the show that really got me thinking that its time to start using these new tools for a new age.

Did you know that Apple has sold over 90,000,000 IPODS? That's just Apples. wait till you see how many phones and laptops, and other devices are floating around out there.

This show is by a guy named Karl Fisch. I have not heard him speak but I have read his blog and its pretty interesting. I linked his name to his blog so you can check it out.

This show, by the way, is pretty slick. The graphics are amazing. I showed this to my fifth graders last year. I was amazed at their reaction to it. They saw the implications of the numbers in a whole different way than I did. They also began to think about how important a good education will be for them.

Well, when it's over hit the comment button and let me know what you think.

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Middle Ages Tech Support

2007-08-06T22:33:00.000-04:00

If I had a top ten list of funny tech video's this would be on it. I wish I was clever enough to have written it. After you watch it hit the comment button and let me know what you think.

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2007-08-06T17:11:00.001-04:00

Ok, here is my first attempt at adding video to the blog. This is kinda funny. Especially if you have every received a letter from a relative in Nigeria. Hit the comment button and tell me what you think. It's from The Onion.

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THREE BLOGS TO VISIT

2007-08-06T16:43:00.000-04:00

As I add more blogs to the Blogs I Read section I will take a few minutes and tell you about each of them. The first one I added is called A New Adventure. It's by my friend Jim Wenzloff. He's one of the tech consultants at the MISD. He's the guy that got me into blogging and pod casting and all kinds of neat things. Whenever he finds things on the web that might be a help in the classroom he posts them on the site. He also shares a lot of great ways to integrate tech and teaching.

The next site on my list is called Cool Cat Teacher. It's written by a lady named Vicki Davis. It has links to everything. I will be sharing some of her best ones tomorrow. But don't wait till then. Click on over and check out all the great stuff she has there.

The last one is called How to Change the World. It's written by this guy oddly enough named Guy Kawasaki. He's a marketing guy, not a school teacher but I think a lot of the things he talks about work for us too. If you use PowerPoint in your classroom, you must read his 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint. It will save you from putting countless numbers of kids and adults to sleep over the next few years.

Well, you gotta start somewhere!

2007-08-05T20:41:00.000-04:00

Hello and welcome to my first attempt at blogging for adults. My name is Jim and I teach 5th grade in the Great State of Michigan. I have been blogging with my class for a year now and I love it. I will share more about that with you a little bit later.

It took me two weeks to find the right title for this blog. Picking a title was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. I must of tried out 27 of them before I settled on this one. I was reading a post by my friend Jim Wenzloff. In his post titled Change he talks about how we need to change how we are dealing with technology in our classrooms right now:

"We need to change and change fast. We need to look at our way of doing things and find new ways of meeting the needs or our students. We need to take advantage of “New Tools for a New Age.” I think there are three things educators can do to begin the change..."

It's a great article and you should really read it all. I am ready to make that change and this blog is my first step So that's how I came up with the name. I want to share with you how to use some of those "new tools" and I want you to share with me how you do it.

I would also like to share with you neat stuff I find on the web. Everyday I discover new sites, videos, and blogs that can help us and the kids do things quicker, deeper, and more efficiently.

That's enough for now.

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