Infinite Thinking Machine

Search Like an Expert: New Google Search Lessons Unveiled at NECC 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Gray) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:45:00 +0000

Released at NECC 2009 are a new series of education friendly lessons .

Looking for something? First stop might be the Google search box. Becoming a skillful searcher is an essential skill for teachers and students in our media rich environments. The search box provides abundant amounts of information quickly at our fingertips. So, how do you use the Google search box to get just the right amount of information, analyze it for authenticity, and get it quickly? The new Google Search Lessons are aimed at helping teachers and students learn the inside scoop about skillful searching.

Check out nine compelling and practical lessons for students to understand and be successful with the Google search process. The lessons are divided into three modules; Understanding Search Engines, Search Techniques and Strategies, and Search Features. Each topic contains three lessons that build on the skills taught in the previous lesson. Teachers can mix and match lessons depending on the skills they want to emphasize. The lessons provide a guide for teachers, inquiry questions, a slide presentation, and search challenges for students.

Web search can be a remarkable research tool for students - and we've heard from educators that they could use some help to teach better search skills in their classroom. Search lesson authors are three Google Certified teachers Lucy Gray, Cheryl Davis, and Kathleen Ferenz. They used the work of Dan Russell, Senior Research Scientist, Search Quality & User Happiness at Google to organize and determine the search content and the domains of search.

The lessons are short, modular and not specific to any discipline so you can mix and match to what best fits the needs of your classroom. Additionally, all lessons come with a companion set of slides (and some with additional resources) to help you guide your in-class discussions.

Module A: Understanding Search Engines

Understanding the fundamentals of how search engines work will help your students become better searchers. This module starts with basic concepts and concludes with something that educators overwhelmingly asked us to cover: teaching students how to judge search results and validate the authority of sources they use

Start your engines (Basic)
Web 101; search engines overview; online content that is indexed and searched.

Which link should I follow? (Intermediate)
How Google search works; anatomy of a search results page.

Believe it or not (Advanced)

Validating site authority; taking a research stance when using a search engine.

Module B: Web Search Technique and Strategies

Search is easy but some practice and technique will take your students a long way. This module will help you teach basic tips and tricks and conclude with methods to deal with even the most challenging searches.

The Keys to Search City (Basic)
How to organize and approach a search.

Your search toolbox (Intermediate)
Best practices for keyword selection and use of search operators.

The advanced search squad (Advanced)
Different types of content indexed by Google; using it to address search challenges.

Module C: Google Web Search Features

We are constantly trying to improve search and making Google more useful. Help your students take full advantage of Google's search technology with a solid understanding of its features and functionality.

Start Out (Basic)
Every day search features, tips and tricks.

Step Up (Intermediate)
Using Google's search options, Advanced Search and operators.

On Top (Advanced)
Taking advantage of language tools; experimental features and more.

More resources:

Google Search - The Essentials
Explore Google Search: Search tips videos, Google search engineer stories, user testimonials
Google Search Help: Basic and advanced Google Web Search help.

Use these lessons in your classroom. Post your thoughts, ideas, and ways in which you use them. We want to hear from you.

Posted by Cheryl Davis, Kathleen Ferenz and Lucy Gray

Friday 5: Twitter 101

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Gray) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:42:00 +0000

I must apologize for the gaps in Friday 5 production! I've had a very busy spring, mostly because I changed jobs about a month ago. I am still working at the University of Chicago, only I am working with a different unit, the Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education. This group is responsible for the development of Everyday Math if you are familiar with this elementary curriculum. I will be working on a variety of projects for CEMSE and I'm thrilled for this opportunity. For you, this will probably mean more Friday 5s on math and science topics!

Anyway, this week's list is prompted by the media buzz surrounding the recent Iranian elections and the influence of Twitter upon the dissemination of information flowing from that region. If you have been living under a rock which many teachers in the US are at this time of year, check out this New York Times article.

To put it simply, Twitter is a microblogging tool in which you post messages of 140 characters or less. Your "tweets" are only seen by those that "follow" you. Your followers usually are friends, family and/or people that have similar interests. You are prompted to answer a question, "What are you doing?" which is taken literally by many people. Hence, you may run into pretty mundane and pointless tweets from people like celebrity Ashton Kutcher (example: "I hate the after working out feeling like I'm gonna throw up feeling. I hate it, but I love it. lol"). Hopefully, you'll see Ashton as a cautionary tale and you'll learn to tweet stuff that your followers will find useful or at least interesting.

When used well, Twitter can be the most powerful professional development tool in your education arsenal. I follow many people and organizations related to areas that interest me: education, technology, Apple, Google, global education etc. I use a tool called Tweetdeck to manage all of this, and with Tweetdeck, I can do searches of other tweets on topics that interest me. For instance, I have a search set up for Everyday Math, global education and citizen science right now. I have discovered a plethora of resources and other people to follow through searching. I also like to share what I find, and giving back to those you follow is an important part of Twitter culture.

At any rate, Twitter is something that you are not going to really get unless you jump in and try it. Explore and stick with using this amazing tool and I think you'll see what all the recent buzz is about. To get started, make a Twitter account and check out the following resources:

1. Twitter in Plain English - a great video that explains Twitter in a nutshell

2. 7 Things You Should Know about Twitter -Educause publishes a series of excellent articles detailing new and emerging technologies.

3. Tweetdeck -Use this third party app to manage Twitter. It's much better than using the Twitter web interface.

4. TwitThis -Install this tool into your browser's toolbar so that you can share web sites on the fly as you surf.

5. Hootsuite -This is a great tool for managing multiple Twitter accounts. Try this out once you've mastered Twitter basics.

6. Twitter Freaks Group -If you get hooked on Twitter and want to learn more about other tools have been developed to harness its power, join my Twitter Freak group and browse the many resources that have been shared to this bookmarking group.

Expanding Your NECC 2009 Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Gray) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:27:00 +0000

View and edit NECC 2009 Washington, DC in a larger map. Please add your recommendations!

It's that time of year again... The International Society for Technology in Education will celebrate its 30th birthday in a few weeks by hosting the National Educational Computing Conference in Washington, D.C. For me, it's a particularly exciting time to be visiting our nation's capital in light of our new president and a renewed focus on improving education.

NECC 2009 promises to be professionally rejuvenating event for anyone interested in educational technology. It is a potentially overwhelming conference with nearly 13,000 attendees and approximately 500 vendors presenting their wares. For the record, educational technology has never been about the tools for me (although I do revel in the cool factor of many technologies), but about leveraging learning for kids. That said, I hope that educators from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests will attend for similar reasons. I would actually like to see the excitement about educational technology filter down more to those who aren't necessarily techie geeks like myself.

For the past few years, I've posted a blog entry highlighting a few tips and tricks for making the most of your NECC experience. Review my ideas for 2007 and for 2008; I still stand by that general advice. Pick an area of focus, spend time planning before you get to Washington with that theme in mind, and give yourself plenty of time to digest everything. Bring your laptop for taking notes and accessing additional content; I suspect more people will be using iPhones for this purpose, however. Finally, get connected with other educators through the plethora of events that are scheduled. For the second year, ISTE has an online community for conference conversation. Networking isn't just for job seekers or administrators anymore!

If you are not able to attend in person, you should be able to participate virtually as well. Some presenters may elect to post their materials online and to stream video feeds of their presentations. At Edubloggercon, an informal "unconference" to be held Saturday, June 27 as a precursor to NECC, many sessions will also be broadcast via tools such as Ustream. Finally, similar sessions called NECC Unplugged will be taking place in the Blogger's Café during the actual conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

In addition to all this, people will be blogging, posting pictures, and twittering away about conference happenings. You can find this stuff by searching various sources using tags (keyword labels) such as NECC, NECC2009, and NECC09. For instance, search Twitter using #NECC and you'll find a steady microblogging stream. I recommend searching Technorati for blog posts and Flickr for photos in a similar manner.

Finally, I like to make the most of any travel experience by doing a little research ahead of time. I usually do a cursory search in iTunes for content related to my destination that I can put on my iPod or iPhone. For instance, I purchased the audiobook of A Cricket in Times Square for my daughter when we traveled to New York City prior to NECC 2005. In 2006, I traveled to Europe with other Apple Distinguished Educators on a project and I brought along a Passport to Europe episode on Berlin and a No Reservations episode on Paris (this show isn't necessarily for kids, by the way). In addition to these items, there are tons of free podcasts available in iTunes if you do a search for your particular destination.

I've taken the liberty of putting together a few Washington DC related resources. I have not reviewed all of these; I just explored and plucked ones that look potentially interesting. If you have any additional recommendations, please add them to the comments. Enjoy and see you in DC. I'll be in the Google booth from time to time and presenting as part of Larry Anderson's Podcasting and Podcatching for the Absolute Beginner panel. Stop by and say hello!

Washington DC and NECC Resources

Lucy's NECC Calendar - Each year, I use the NECC conference planner to plot any sessions interesting to me. I'm focusing on math, science and interactive whiteboards this year.

Lucy's NECC '09 Map - Join this Google Map and add your info and recommendations.

NECC Ning - NECC's online community; attendees and virtual attendees are welcome to join.

GovFresh - one stop shopping for multimedia produced by the U.S. governent. Everything is aggregated in one place; web 2.0 at its finest!

Apps for your iPhone:

iTransDC Metro - (99 cents)
iMetroMap DC (99 cents)
Dubbele.com (99 cents)
Washington DC Public (free)
Washington Post's Going Out Guide (free)
Washington DC Travel Guide (99 cents)
Washington DC - GPS Tour (99 cents)
U.S Historical Documents (99 cents)
iCongress (99 cents)
politicoTrack ($9.99)
Presidents Match Game (99 cents)
USA Presidents (free)

Podcasts:

TV Shows and Movies:

Smithsonian Channel ($1.99 per episode to purchase)
Anthony Bourdrain's No Reservations - Washington DC ($1.99 per episode to purchase)
All the President's Men ($9.99 to purchase, $2.99 to rent)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ($14.99 to purchase only)

YouTube Channels:

Teachers Without Borders off to Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:18:00 +0000

While many educators use Web 2.0 tools to make global connections, some educators are actually making these connections by traveling directly to countries where resources are scarce equipped with XO laptops, digital cameras, Flip Cameras, and incredible commitment to bridging the digital divide. I've invited Sharon Peters to be a guest blogger for Infinite Thinking this month to share with you how she and fellow educators are making global connections through Teachers Without Borders, and how you and your students can participate in their efforts to bridge the digital divide.

---- from Guest blogger Sharon Peters ----

Teachers Without Borders is off to Africa

At 59 million, teachers represent the largest group of educated professionals in the world. If you are able to read this blog post, very likely you are NOT one of the millions of those teachers who lack access to professional development and enrichment resources. Teachers Without Borders (Canada affiliation) is an organization of teachers helping teachers in order to foster and promote adequate teacher training in areas of the world that desperately need it.

In my experience, teachers are also those with the biggest hearts. During the last 12 months, I have had the incredible privilege of working shoulder-to-shoulder with inspiring teachers from Canada, the U.S., South Africa and Kenya as we rolled up our sleeves together and shared resources, methodologies and practices. I have learned so much more from my new colleagues than I contributed and I can see a substantial difference in my own teaching approaches. Last July and August, I served with a team of Canadian teachers facilitating workshops for science, math, English and ICT (Information, Communications and Technology) educators in South Africa and Kenya over a period of six weeks. We were the first teams of TWB Canada to be deployed. My experiences profoundly changed my world view, my priorities and my attitudes about learning - and ultimately affected how I ask my students to consider becoming global citizens.

Frankly, I cannot imagine more effective professional development than to work cross-culturally with other dedicated teachers from around the world. We return to our own educational communities greatly enriched and empowered. To develop relationships with teachers in politically and economically challenging situations permits us to give voice to teachers we may otherwise ignore due to lack of media attention or awareness.

Over a period of nearly seven weeks in July and August, I will be returning to South Africa and Kenya as a team leader of ICT teachers who will facilitate workshops for educators ranging from newly appointed elearning specialists to teachers who have never touched a computer before . Our team faces enormous challenges and will be stretched to the limit in ways we cannot yet imagine. Our team of Americans and Canadians will be joined by in-country facilitators this year. Many of these educators have not yet had the opportunity to facilitate professional growth for their colleagues. Our model is to ask increased participation of in-country educator facilitators every year so that by the fourth year of our presence in a community, we can hand over the PD to the in-country educators.

As an educational technologist, I see the incredible potential that online tools and environments offer to educators to connect, collaborate and share on a global level. Many teachers may not yet have access to the technology or they may lack adequate instruction on how to harness and exploit the tools available to them. Meeting teachers face-to-face in their contexts and creating relationships with them greatly facilitates the possibility of sharing resources and approaches. I witnessed many educators who eagerly desired to learn more technology and computer skills when I was in Africa. There was a profound sense of a need to "catch up" to the developed world, in terms of skills and access to the Internet. My experiences have also forced me to recognize and question how culture and ideology is implicitly embedded in technology tools and approaches. These are very important issues that must be considered as we facilitate content for our workshops. We are in new territory here where there are few guidelines or "how-to" manuals. Fundamentally, though, I think we are on the right track through the model of partnering with in-country educators who provide cultural and historical interpretation.

We need your help!

Teachers Without Borders is a relatively young organization. We are working on a model to build capacity and sustainability. Not all teachers are able at this time in their careers to consider going abroad and working on an overseas team. There are certainly other ways in which you can help.

Consider making a tax-deductible donation. TWB raises money through grants and donations to cover our on the ground expenses while we teachers are asked to raise money toward our travel costs to the host country. As you know, most teachers are not able to pay for this out of pocket. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us cover our travel expenses. If you are in Canada, you can give donations here. If you are in the U.S., please go to this link and be sure to specify that the donation is directed toward the TWB-Canada team members.
Consider making donations of used digital cameras, laptops or flash drives. I will be at NECC in Washington D.C. (probably hanging out at the Bloggers Cafe) in late June and will be happy to connect with anyone who would like to pass resources along to me. John Schinker, another team member, and I will be leaving from NECC to travel to Africa.
Consider making a donation of a Flip camera (or similar camera) to kick off a classroom exchange between your students and students in South Africa. We are partnering with Edunova in the townships of Cape Town to establish classroom-to-classroom partnerships. If you pass along a camera, perhaps with some embedded content on it from your own students, we will give it to a committed teacher in South Africa who will establish and maintain contact with your class.
Consider joining our TWB community to communicate with other global educators and to develop resources for teachers in other parts of the world.

For more information or for an American or Canadian address to which you can send equipment, you can contact me at speters at twbcanada.org and you can follow our blogs throughout July and August:

Jody Meacher:

Zac Chase:

John Schinker - http://www.tasteoftech.net

Lois McGill-Horn

Sharon Peters: http://wearejustlearning.ca

Noble Kelly: http://twbcanada.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=noblek

We Need Our Earth

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Mon, 18 May 2009 00:44:00 +0000

A group of fourth graders from Thomas Fleming Elementary School have been busy rounding up signatures for their petition. The petition was not about getting to wear hats in school or extending recess time (all very worthwhile pursuits). This petition which includes a cover page of a hand drawn earth with a handwritten title "Google Earth- We Need Our Earth" has two goals:

get Google Earth upgraded to the latest version in their school
get more time to play with Google Earth

I learned about these marvelous and curious students while helping a colleague plan a workshop featuring Google Earth uses in elementary and middle school. I learned so much working with David Davidson, tech integrator in Essex Junction, I'm not surprised that the students in his schools are petitioning for more Google Earth time and resources.

The first thing most everyone does when introduced to Google Earth is find their house. But what next? Everyone needs time to explore a new tool, but with this Google Earth Scavenger Hunt, David has students looking for their school, a very tall mountain, a very long river, or the Egyptian pyramids. Using Google Earths "copy image" feature, the students copy and paste their "finds" right into their Scavenger Hunt worksheet as evidence. Not only do the students explore Google Earth, but the teachers take the opportunity to debrief about search techniques or geography concepts.

David helps teachers at his schools use Google Earth to introduce elements found in different physiographic regions. A simple worksheet like this helps their students make observations about population density, tree cover, urban vs. rural, physical features, elevation, etc of different regions of their state or country.

One teacher who has skillfully layered her overhead transparencies to show students connections when you add data to a map now enjoys using premade layers of volcanoes, earthquakes, populations, tectonic plates to create those "Aha" moments.

David, his teachers and their students do not limit their Google Earth uses to the classroom. Students at Hawiatha Elementary School recently completed a community walk with sketchbook in hand to draw sketches of historic buildings in their town. Completing a Google Maps and Google Earth Version of their Community Walk not only allowed students to complete their sketches after the tour, but also gave parents and community a window into the activity.

With the use of a camera and GPS and a pioneering teacher, David helped the students at Westford Elementary School create a virtual multimedia map of the trails in their backyard. Although, creating waypoints is probably not an entry level skill, with the right support the students made a significant contribution to their community.

David is exploring new features such as Google Earth Sky or Google Earth Ocean to expand the activities he helps teachers create to places below and above the earth's surface. He's also pondering the possibilities that Google Earth's TimeLine View will bring to the classroom as it allow you to move back in time.

About the only place David had not taken his students and teachers to using Google Earth, was to the world of make believe. "Finally I have something to add to the planning session," I thought as I described how a group of 7th graders used Google Earth to go beyond the boundaries as defined by today's political maps, and create their own country. After hearing Jim Moulton challenge students at a leadership conference to take on the role of bringing new tools into their classrooms, four 7th grader students in St. Albans Vermont asked their teacher if they could use Google Earth to complete their "Create a Country" assignment (create maps of a fictional country whose characteristics follow the laws of nature based on where you place it on the globe). While their peers created their fictional country using markers and construction paper, these students used Google Earth layers to create maps that showed the physical, political, climate, population, energy uses and more. Their teacher's appreciation of differentiation and the students practice of leadership skills resulted in a 21st century design for a project that's been part of the curriculum for years.

After sharing our own experience and examples and highlighting other fabulous examples such as the award winning Google Lit Trips or the inspirational San Francisco Project, Dave and I concluded our workshop by pointing to just a few of the many resources for educators wanting to use Google Earth in their classrooms. And if you don't find what you want by combing sites like Juicy Geography, Real Word Math, CIA Factbook, Google for Educators, Google Earth Education Community or Google Earth Gallery, you can always use Google's advanced search feature to search by filetype (kmz or kml) on practically any topic you can think of.

But don't wait until you find the perfect Google Earth Lesson or have mastered all the features of Google Earth to explore the power of Google Earth in your classroom. Find one idea that looks interesting and explore it with your students -tap their infinite thinking skills and turn them into curious 21st century explorers of our world using Google Earth.

Friday Five - Tools for Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:03:00 +0000

Sometimes as teachers we are so busy looking for the perfect resource for our students, that we forget to take care of ourselves. By nature, teachers are caretakers and we do often take care of others needs before our own. This week, I was at a face to face meeting with a regional group of tech integrators where we spent some time sharing some tech tools that help us be more successful at our job. I couldn't wait to go home and try some of them and have picked the top 5 I learned about today to share as this week's Friday Five (plus one more cool tool that is coming out of beta this week). And best of all, these tools will not only help you as a teacher, they are great tools for students, too. (Photo Credit: Flickr J O I D)

1 . http://mail.google.com/mail/help/tasks/

If you have not discovered Google Tasks, you should visit the Gmail Lab (under Settings) to turn on TASKS. When you read an email that includes a new item for your to do list, or important information needed to complete that tasks, just click on the Label button to assign this email to a task. Your task list will now contain items that are linked to any email related to that task. And the most satisfying part is being able to check off the tasks as you complete them. Learn more about how to use the Tasks feature in Gmail or on your mobile device in Google's Help Section.

2. http://www.sticky-notes.net/

Whether you use a ToDo list such as Gmail's Tasks or other program to stay organized, there is something about a Sticky Note that helps us with priorities. This little gem is the perfect tool to keep certain items on your radar anytime.

3. http://jingproject.com/

Jing Project is a very helpful program that can be used to make screen captures as still pictures or short 5 minute videos. A picture is worth a thousand words and taking a picture of what is on your computer screen and being able to add lines, arrows, highlights, and additional text really helps increase understanding or provides assessment documentation in digital format. I know some teachers who encourage students to take a screenshot of their work on a popular math game as evidence of learning. I use this tool all the time to create tutorials for students and colleagues. I've even seen some educators document a tech error using Jing and attach it to a help ticket. For $14.95 a year you can go pro which allows the movies to be saved in mp4 format and also saves the videos in smaller file format. This comes in handy when using Jing to gather assessment artifacts.

4. http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

If you want a similar tool that does not require you to install a program, try Screencast O matic.

This tool allows you to create a video of your screen (screencast) without requiring you to install anything. The product is in beta right now.

5. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx

Zoom It is a very small utility that you can install on your computer or keep on a flash drive that will allow you to ZOOM in to any part of your screen at the stroke of a key. Those with Apple computers have had this ability for a while; PC users can now enjoy this capability with Zoom It. You can also provide it to visually impaired students to facilitate their use of computers. There are tools that provide more features for work stations used by visually impaired students, but this handy program on a thumb drive gives them the flexibility of zooming in when using other computers.

6. http://prezi.com/

And for an even more spectacular zooming experience, you need to try Prezi. And starting April 5, you'll get a chance since Prezi goes out of private beta and will be available for you to try the free version of sign up for a Pro account. It allows you to fly around a map of an image, screen shot, and even videos. You can click on an image to zoom in on it or use the mouse to fly around to show different perspective (from big picture to minute details).

Enjoy these tools. Model how to use them effectively for teaching and learning for your peers and students.

Friday Five - Finding Ada (Role Models of Women in Tech)

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:40:00 +0000

How quickly can you answer the question "Who are the leading women in tech?"

This week's Friday Five will not only help you anwer this question, but will also challenge you to contribute to the number of female role models students and adults are exposed to as they explore the areas of science, technology, engineering and math. (often referred to as S.T.E.M.)

How many of you had Ada Lovelace's name at the tip of your tongue?

Ada Lovelace wrote the world's first computer program for the Analytical Engine, a general-purpose machine that Charles Babbage had invented. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software. Ada died an early death in 1852 at the age of 36 and never had a chance to explore her understanding of computing. The high level computer language "Ada" developed by the U.S. Department of Defense was named after her.

If you were not familiar with Ada's significant contribution to the computer world or had trouble naming at least 10 leading women in tech, this week's Friday Five will serve you well. It includes a list of sites where you can easily locate names, pictures, stories of female role models to share with your students or colleagues. And best of all the list is about to expand exponentially!

March 24, 2009 has been designated as Ada LoveLace Day, an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. On that day, thousands of bloggers have pledged to publish a blog post about a women in tech who they admire using the tag AdaLovelaceDay09 for Delicious, Technorati etc. or #ALD09 for Twitter.

The data continues to show that the challenge of attracting women into technology related careers continues. While the causes are complex and the solutions are many, everyone agrees that female role models have a huge impact on the career choices of girls.

“Outstanding women can function as inspirational examples of success,
illustrating the kinds of achievements that are possible for women around them.
They demonstrate that it is possible to overcome traditional gender barriers,
indicating to other women that high levels of success are indeed attainable”,
(Penelope Lockwood, University of Toronto)

One of the most rewarding activities I organize to provide girls exposure to female role models year are the Power Lunch with Women in Tech offered at annual TechSavvyGirls activities. The female role models who attend continue to talk about the value they feel being able to offer advice and inspiration to girls in their formative years. Not only do the girls leave the luncheon with enough pictures, audio, and video to create a webpage about their new role model, but they often refer back to the advice and inspiration they received that day in 'college applications', 'scholarship applications' or in their own mentoring of younger students.

If you desire to organize an activity that will connect girls to role models face to face, organizations like the Society of Women Engineers , AAUW, or other networks of women are great resources for role models. The National Girls Collaborative can help you get started by providing resources, a program directory of organizations and projects and mini grants to support collaborative projects between organizations. The Anita Borg Foundation Tech Bridge Program has compiled a fantastic guide called Get Involved to help prospective role models inspire girls in technology filled with practical suggestions and strategies.

I challenge you to consider how you might use this week's Friday Five Resources to design a classroom activity that introduces female role models to your students (both girls and boys). The images and stories of women in tech are beneficial to all students, and to society as a whole. The next generation of innovators will come from the curiosity and spirit of innovation we inspire in today's students. Helping girls see their future as women in tech will give birth to a more diverse wave of infinite thinkers. What can we as educators do to help?

Perhaps you might display some of the photos on your school bulletin boards.
Perhaps you might assign reading or writing assignments from the collection of stories featuring women in tech
Perhaps you might brainstorm with your students ways to publish your own blog post for AdaLoveLace Day. If you don't have a place to post a blog, you can always post an entry in the comments of this section. Don't forget to tag it--AdaLovelaceDay09
Perhaps you might introduce a lesson on using Technorati or the way "tags" can work to assimilate collective knowledge using the power of tagging.

So I challenge you to use the comments sections to share your ideas of how to use AdaLoveLace Day or to add to the collection of post that will be published. Looking forward to having you join me in fulfilling my #4 on my New Years Resolution post.

Friday Five - Sites with Role Models of Women in Technology

http://www.passionit.info/albums.php
Probably the most impressive and global collection of role models were free albums from all 7 continents.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/132/the-most-influential-women-in-technology.html
The most influential women in technology according to Fast Comapny is broken up into the following categories
Women in Tech: The Executives
Women in Tech: The Entrepreneurs
Women in Tech: The Gamers
Women in Tech: The Evangelists
Women in Tech: The Activists
Women in Tech: The Bloggers
Women in Tech: The Brainiacs
http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2008/11/influential-women-web.html
Fast Company's 2008 picks as Most Influential Women in Web 2.0

http://www.pinkstinks.co.uk/role_models.php
Although, this project appears to be a newcomer and has a smaller collection of role models in the technology area, it uses design elements with higher appeal to younger students.

http://www.sallyridescience.com/for_girls
This collection of role models from the Sally Ride Science Web Site includes role models in several S.T.E.M. careers including
-Contributions of 20th-Century Women to Physics Website:
www.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp
-Role Model Project for Girls sponsored by ACM's Committee on Women in Computing http://women.acm.org/
-The Archives of Women in Science and Engineering Iowa State UniversityWebsite: www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/wise/wise
-Women of NASAWebsite: www.quest.arc.nasa.gov/women/intro.html

Horizon.K12 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Gray) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:29:00 +0000

The Horizon.K12 2009 report was recently issued by the New Media Consortium. I wrote about the process involved in producing this report back in January and thought Infinite Thinking Machine readers would be interested in the final product. Post your reactions and observations in the comments section of this blog! I'll be talking about this report on EdTechTalk's Seedlings web cast with Alice Barr, Cheryl Oakes, and Bob Sprankle on Thursday, March 26.

Horizon.K12 2009

View more presentations from New media Consortium.

Friday Five from Wee Web Wonders

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 03:11:00 +0000

This week's Friday Five come from a group of stellar students from Sahuarita Intermediate School and their rock star teacher, Dr. Jackie Gerstein.

In my recent visit to Arizona, the colors of the flowering cacti, were a notable and inspiring contrast amidst the sparse and arid dessert backdrop- gaining my respect for all that not only survives, but thrives within the parameters of the Southwestern U.S. In a similar fashion, the vibrant classroom of Dr. Jackie Gerstein and her students, was exciting and inspiring against a backdrop of daily newspaper articles featuring stories of budget woes by surrounding Arizona schools, aging computers, inadequate bandwidth, and exhausted supplies where students are bringing in printer ink and paper from home to be able to continue using classroom printers.

Within minutes of arriving at Sahuarita Intermediate School, both Dr. Peggy George and I, we were greeted by two very poised 5th grade students who lead us to a classroom filled with evidence of constructivist learning- a fertile ground for nurturing the infinite thinking machine.

Every student was fully engaged in activities that challenged them to take charge of their leaning. One student was putting the finishing touch on a miniature piano made of craft materials, while her partner was busy programming Pico Cricket sound sensors to play the melody they had composed as part of an interactive digital story they were writing. Another was demonstrating how the hot Arizona sun could be used as solar power in a windmill created with legos. Two fifth grade boys huddled around an aging computer debating the plot of the digital story they were writing using Tikatok's online book publishing site. At other computer stations, students were exploring Tux Paint – an open source software. Others were using the forums in Think.com to critically analyze the potential of Web 2.0 sites for learning. Storyboards and backdrops made of legos, clay, science kits, and other craft materials filled tables and shelves, each to be used with student's original writing in a long term digital storytelling project.

One classroom wall was lined with student created newspapers as evidence that the students had developed interviewing skills to learn more about each other. Another wall was lined with colorful 3-D representations of FIVE word questions that was to guide a self directed research project. In the middle of it all hung a student created hand painted Wordle that captured the essence of the type of learning that filled their day and avatars of the students who drove that learning. The avatars were enlarged versions that the students had traced and colored of the actual avatars these students use to safely participate in collaborative learning environments outside their classroom using a variety of Web 2.0 tools made available to them through their classroom wiki- Wee Web Wonders. Here are just five of the many web sites we saw student using during our visit with Dr. Gerstein and her incredible infinite thinkers.

1. http://www.tikatok.com/

When we arrived in Jackie's classroom, students were using Tikatok to write and
publish their stories. Teachers can set up classroom accounts and manage their
own student accounts. The site includes story starters, prompts, and
collaborative options. Students can share the stories with coauthors, family,
friends. Parents can order printed copy of the students book in hardcover or
softcover.

2. http://www.shelfari.com/

Jackie's students proudly showed us the books they've read using Shelfari
bookshelves. They have become experts at putting widgets that display the books
they read on their project wiki. They also use the site to read reviews of books
or write their own.

3. http://atlantis.crlt.indiana.edu/

During computer time, some of Jackie's students collaborate with students all
over the world in a 3D environment helping the council of the virtual world,
Atlantis, solve problems impacting its water, air, health, and animal life. As
an active member of the Second Life Educational Committee, its easy to
understand how Jackie found Quest Atlantis a very compatible technology tool to
her constructivist teaching.

4. http://www.think.com/

As I walked around the classroom, I noticed one of my favorite sites, Think.com,
on some computer screens. The students were using this very safe social
networking site to post reviews about new web 2.0 links their teacher had
posted. The site is especially supportive of teachers, parents, and students who
want a more private place to collaborate. Oracle has very stringent rules about
participation and offers teachers a setting that allows their students to
interact ONLY with those from the same school. Oracle also checks each teacher's
credential and school affiliation before activating accounts. Teachers are
required to carefully monitor their classroom Think accounts.

5. http://www.mystudiyo.com/

One of the most impressive examples of learning and student leadership I
witnessed during my visit was students using the projector to lead their
classmates through group participation in student designed quizzes about the
topics they were studying. Students used My Studiyo to create quizzes, embed
them on their research wikipages, and then facilitated group decision making
about the answers to each question as they proceeded through the quiz using the
classroom projector. These student presentations were far from the traditional
student presentation. They had mastered the concept of “engaging” the audience.
It was obvious that they had witnessed good modeling from their teacher – Dr.
Gerstein who doesn't know the meaning of “sage on the stage” when it comes to
teaching. These students are defintiely in charge of their learning, and their
teacher is a superb 'designer of learning environments.

I wish I could share all of the great ideas and websites, I learned about during my visit to Sahuarita Intermediate School, but I think I will follow Jackie's philosophy of letting the students be the guides and leaders. Follow their evolving project pages at weewebwonders.pbwiki.com/
and see for yourself the evidence of student centered learning, and if that doesn't blow you away, brace yourself and visit their fantastic role model of self-directed learning by visting Dr. Gerstein's own learning space.

P.S. Thanks to my Personal Learning Network powered by powerful Web 2.0 tools like Twitter, I had the pleasure of meeting both Jackie and Peggy face to face and you have the opportunity to meet their students virtually. Special thanks to Jackie for inviting us into her classroom, and for Peggy to driving all the way from Phoenix to join me in this visit.

Friday 5: A Tale of Two Conferences

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Gray) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:50:00 +0000

With the advent of new communication technologies, it's now possible for educators to participate in professional development by virtually following conference events. While face to face interactions are still important and clearly aren't going away, people can virtually be in several places at once. This occurred last week as Illinois Computing Educators held its annual conference in St. Charles, Illinois, and simultaneously, the National Association of Independent Schools conference took place in nearby Chicago. For some educators, this presented a conundrum of which conference to attend, particularly because keynote presentations at each conference were great draws. Fortunately, through the use of blogs, wikis, streaming video and Twitter, people were able to get a flavor of each conference. And, records created by these tools are still available for virtual and real attendees to revisit as they try to absorb the plethora of information that came out of each event.

I think this is the future of conferences and it is to the benefit of organizations to plot their social media strategy. I personally am more likely to attend a conference in person after getting a taste online and, if people will be physically present that I've added to my personal learning network via these aforementioned tools. Social media is not be an alternative to a conference; the use of such tools helps disseminate important information and spotlights an organization. In this open source, long-tailed world, this is the way to go.

This week's Friday 5 is more like a Friday 9; take a look at some of the material that came out of the ICE and NAIS conferences. Dig around and you might find some useful links and food for thought!

1) ICE web site
http://www.iceberg.org/

2) ICE conference ning
http://myiltce.ning.com/

3) ICE conference wiki
http://iceconference.wiki.zoho.com/

Within this great wiki maintained by Scott Weidig and Luke Allen, you can find streaming video archives of keynote sessions as well as presenter handouts.

4) ICE conference twitterstream
http://tinyurl.com/icetwitter

5) NAIS Web Site
http://tinyurl.com/nais2009

6) NAIS bloggers
KaTrina Wentzel http://blogs.moundsparkacademy.org/nais2009/
Jonathan Martin http://21k12blog.net/
Michael Obel-Omia http://publiusrex.wordpress.com/

7) Sarah Hanawald's liveblogging of the NAIS conference
http://gdsmstech.blogspot.com/2009/02/nais-09-live-reports.html

Sarah used CoverItLive to liveblog for her colleagues back home.

8) NAIS twitterstream
http://tinyurl.com/naistwitter

9) Independent School Educators' Network
http://isenet.ning.com/

Another great online community in which educators can connect. A great deal can be learned from the private school sector and vice versa!

Friday Five: Create, Express, Learn with Primary Source Material

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 03:41:00 +0000

This week, I'd like to share some powerful web resources that use the increasing amount of primary source materials online and have the power to engage students using digital tools and their desire to express themselves.

As an educator who believes in teaching students to honor intellectual property, I'm always looking for sites that include materials students can use to create multimedia projects. Fair use guidelines gives us some flexibility in using multimedia inside our classroom. But in the world of Web 2.0, the audience for these media projects has expanded outside our classroom, with more and more interest in publishing for an authentic global audiences. All one has to do is look at the popularity of You Tube and other video sharing sites to know that young people are highly motivated to express themselves to audiences outside the classroom. Thanks to the Creative Commons license, more and more materials are available online that students can use to create and publish their multimedia productions for a global audience.

This week, I'd like to share 5 sites that go one step further than Creative Commons materials. These sites host primary source materials and encourage young people to use them to produce and publish their own creations. Some even include online tools to help students with the process.

http://www.remixamerica.org/

This site was created by a voter registration organization who wanted to keep the young people they registered involved and engaged. To do this, they provided them with free online tools and raw materials through “America Now” and “America Then” playlists. Remix America encourages students to draw parallels between the present and the past. They hope that viewing seminal speeches and events from American History will inspire young people to express themselves and take action on the issues that matter to them.
Teachers around America have stumbled across Remix America and incorporated the materials in their classroom. One teacher asked her students to take a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and apply it to the 2008 election. Another asked her students to create PSAs on the issues that matter most to them – censorship, war, civil rights. You can browse through “Favorite Remixes” section to see some of these great remixes!

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/diypodcast/

NASA has done something similar to engage students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The NASA's Do-It-Yourself Podcast activity provides students with audio clips, video, and photos related to space. Students can use the NASA materials to produce their own audio or video productions.
http://www.primaryaccess.org/

PrimaryAccess is a web-based tool that offers teachers and students access to digital images and other materials that enable them to construct movies using tools provided by the web site.
Although many of the primary source materials are photograph and still images, the tools provided on the website allows students to add motions to create a movie effect. I first learned about Primary Access while listening to Glen Bull's presentation during the 2008 K-12 online conference.

http://take2videos.org

This project is slightly different in that it not only provides the raw materials for students to produce a video, but also complete an advocacy event. The project requires schools to register and the topic is more focused. According to the project web site “Each year, Take 2 shoots 2-3 months of high definition footage in a different conflict region and creates extensive supporting and background documentation then licenses the package free of charge to qualified educational institutions. Participating schools will complete one small task to help grow Take 2’s infrastructure and undertake at least one advocacy event upon completion of their projects
http://www.kitzu.com/
This website is not yet populated with lots of materials, but has promise in offering students free, educational, copyright-friendly media resources. According to the project website “Students and teachers around the world can access pre-made collections, or "kits," of various digital assets - still images, background music, narratives, video and text. Each kit is built around a common theme, or curricular topic. For students, this becomes the construction paper of the 21st century --allowing them to create reports and projects filled with rich, immersive media for communicating their vision of whatever subjects they chose. AS they master the technology, they will progress from building projects with supplied materials to projects where they find or create their own resources -- a strategy that results in truly authentic assessment as measured by the projects produced."

Have you discovered similar collection of primary source raw materials and tools that encourage students to create and express themselves? I'd love to find more of these.

Friday 5: 21st Century Skills

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Gray) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 04:54:00 +0000

This week, it's my turn to come up with a thoughtful list of resources for teachers, and I have chosen the theme of 21st Century Skills. Recently, in the main stream press and in the edublogger/eduTwitter world, there has been debate about the validity of such a skill set. This particular blog post will not do justice to this ongoing argument, but I do have one observation to add.

I recently had the amazing opportunity to travel to Singapore to visit schools and assist with the 2008 Apple Distinguished Educator Asia Institute. A more comprehensive blog post about my experiences will follow one day (I'm still mulling over everything I experienced), but I was really struck by the attitudes of the people I encountered. It seemed to me, from my conversations with administrators and teachers from Singaporean and international schools, that many agreed with the basic idea that students and teachers today are require to employ a different mindset and set of abilities in this changing world. There was no ongoing debate; it was accepted that education had to change in light of this, and that this change happened through collaboration and exploration of global best practices.

In my opinion, U.S educators need to stop arguing semantics on this topic and need to get down to the business of educating our peers about teaching and learning in the 21st century. Here we are, nearly 10 years into this new millennium, poised to start making meaningful, substantive change happen. Let's get on with it, people! We've got hard work to do!

That said, I'm off my soapbox and I recommend the following resources for investigating the idea of 21st Century Skills:

1) The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner (Tony's website: http://schoolchange.org)

http://tinyurl.com/globalachievementgap

2) The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

http://www.21centuryskills.org

3) 21st Century Literacies: Tools for Reading the World

http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies

4) 21st Century Learning

http://tinyurl.com/21stcenturylearning

5) The Emergent 21st Century Teacher, Mark Treadwell

http://www.i-learnt.com

6) The Metiri Group: What's So Different About the 21st Century?

http://www.metiri.com/features.html

Feel free to offer any other recommendations in the comments here!

Future of Education Interview Series

steve@hargadon.com (Steve Hargadon) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:24:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from SteveHargadon.com)

My "Future of Education" interview series is moving forward in full swing now, and you can see the details at FutureofEducation.com. Tomorrow (Wednesday, February 11, 2009) I interview Julie Evans, the CEO of Project Tomorrow, a national education nonprofit organization (formerly known as NetDay), about what has been learned from Speak Up, the annual national research project facilitated by Project Tomorrow. The Speak Up data represents the largest collection of authentic, unfiltered stakeholder input on education, technology, 21st century skills, schools of the future and science instruction. Education, business, and policy leaders report using the data regularly to inform federal, state, and local education programs. A copy of the "top ten" report is attached to the discussion page at the discussion page at Future of Education. Join me for the interview and a Q & A session--details at the bottom of this post.

On the docket for upcoming interviews are:

Erin Reilly, the Research Director for Project New Media Literacies (NML) (more information)
Keith Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)
John Palfrey, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, on his book Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. (In conjunction with the PBS - Classroom 2.0 Webinar Series.)
Gary Stager, progressive educator and all-around gadfly
Bud Hunt, Ben Wilkoff, and Karl Fisch on "Learning 2.0" and their annual conference on the topic
Mike Huffman and Laura Taylor on the bold experiment in Indiana with Open Source Software

And we're just getting started... :) Recordings of previous events with Tom Friedman, DonTapscott, and Carol Broos are also available on the Future of Education site. Hope you'll consider joining our conversations!

Julie Evans Interview Information:

Date: Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am GMT (next day) (international times here)

Location: In Elluminate. Log in at https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.05AE98D09503B33735A7E36EC6A874 The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early.

To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visithttp://www.elluminate.com/support. The interview will be recorded and the recordings placed in the discussion page at Future of Education linked above.

Lucy and Lucie's Friday Five - Cellphones in Education

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:51:00 +0000

Earlier this school year, I decided to follow in the footsteps of fellow educator, Lucy Gray, by posting a weekly list of websites, called the Friday Five, within my school. Lucy started the Friday Five tradition on her website back in 2006. This list has turned out to be one the most successful professional development methods I've tried this year. It seems like in a world where we are overwhelmed by choice, "more" is not always better. Just ask Barry Schwartz, author of Paradox of Choice. In a world, where the cookie aisle at your store has 285 types of cookies and Google yields millions of results for most queries, educators are welcoming a "short" list of websites related to a theme.

Therefore, Lucy and I have decided to pool our efforts to bring this Friday Five feature to the readers of Infinite Thinking Machine. We hope you will enjoy a 'short' list of five or so websites around a topic or theme related to using technology to help you shape your students into Infinite Thinking Machines.

This week's list comes on the heel of the Horizon 2009 report's predictions, and includes links ranging from broad predictions of the role of cellphones in our future, ways to use them in education, and reminders of the need for increased discussions about safety around their use.
Photo Credit: Flickr Creative Commons: Deeknow

2009 Horizon Report » One Year or Less: Mobile
wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/chapters/mobiles/

The whole Horizon Report is a MUST read for anyone interested in technology, change, new media, and education. Take note of the biggest prediction for ONE year or LESS: MOBILE
An accompanying web site focusing these issues on education is1.
http://horizon.nmc.org/k12/Main_Page
From Toy to Tool: Cell Phones in Learning
www.cellphonesinlearning.com/
(and related interviews or podcast with the author of this site)

Cell Phones in Education - An Interview with Liz Korb - Interviews -
cellphones.org/blog/interviews/cell-phones-in-education-an-interview-with-liz-korb

Cell Phone Books - Reading Is Reading :: The Education Business Blog
www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/02/cell_phone_books_reading_is_re.html
Good Web Post from Wes Fryer with thoughtful insights and resources
http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2008/01/30/opening-minds-about-cell-phones-for-learning/
Guidelines and Instructional Uses for Cellphones in Education

http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com/cellphones
Explore reasons some school districts are embracing the use of cell phones for learning both inside and outside the classroom and examine specific guidelines school districts are utilizing for student cell
phones.
E-School News article about risky behaviors by students related to cell phone use
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/news-by-subject/safety-security/index.cfm?i=54064
A good article in Eschool News about how schools are handling some of
the more recent riskier behaviors related to cell phones.

I hope this collection of sites is useful to those of you currently discussing cellphone use in your school community. And Lucy and I look forward to bringing you next week's Friday Five. Feel free to offer your own related websites in the comments, or suggest some topics for future Friday Fives.

Horizon K12 Report

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Gray) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:04:00 +0000

As part of their Emerging Technologies Initiative, the New Media Consortium annually publishes a document entitled the Horizon Report, which addresses new technologies and associated trends and challenges related to learning institutions. The production of this report is led by NMC staff with assistance from an advisory board. Recently, the NMC has branched into creating specialized reports such as this one addressing the implications of emerging technologies for education in Australia and New Zealand. Currently, work is underway on a K12 global edition of the Horizon Report.

Last week, I had the privilege and pleasure of attending the first advisory board meeting for this particular K12 venture in Dallas, Texas. Advisory board members hailed from around the world and work in various capacities for a variety of organizations. Some work for corporations and non-profits; others were employed by elementary, secondary, and higher education institutions. While much of the preliminary work for the K12 report is completed online through the use of a wiki, this face to face meeting facilitated a remarkable process for digging into the project. NMC documentation refers to this method as a modified Delphi process. (Incidentally, I was able to get a better grasp on the goals of the Horizon Report from this real time meeting, adding evidence to my personal belief that face to face interactions are not completely disappearing from the way we work).

In order to understand this qualitative research process, take a look at the 2009 Horizon Report recently released at ELI Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida. This is the end result of a very defined process that is used and adapted as needed for all Horizon Reports including the current K12 one. Through the use of a wiki, advisory members were given materials to read and reflect upon. Participants were also asked to bookmark potentially relevant web sites using a common tag, and links to this del.icio.us social bookmarking feed are also posted to the wiki. All of this is done virtually, including addressing a research agenda established by NMC leaders Larry Johnson, Alan Levine and Rachel Smith. The questions on this agenda were as follows

What would you list among the established technologies that learning-focused institutions should all be using broadly today to support or enhance teaching, learning, or creative expression?

What technologies that have a solid user base in consumer, entertainment, or other industries should learning-focused institutions be actively looking for ways to apply?

What are the key emerging technologies you see developing to the point that learning-focused institutions should begin to take notice during the next 3 to 5 years? What organizations or companies are the leaders in these technologies?

What do you see as the key challenges related to teaching, learning, or creative expression that learning-focused institutions will face during the next 5 years?

What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in which learning-focused institutions approach our core missions of teaching, research, and service?

Advisory board members not present in Dallas contributed their expertise on the wiki and at our Dallas meeting, members attending added to this collection of knowledge. We vetted trends and challenges, and finally established the emerging technologies that we believe schools should adopt immediately, those that they should be looking to adopt in the two to three year range, and those that worth keeping in mind in terms of long range planning. This process was seamless and resulted a group consensus on these various topics. In general, I felt that we kept to our agenda for the day and produced tangible results by the end of meeting.

Underlying our work was the amazing graphic facilitation by NMC Vice President Rachel Smith. Rachel has a background in art education and she gave further meaning to our discussions by translating information into a graphical format. A large sheet of paper served as a whiteboard for illustrating our introductions and Rachel also transcribed trends, challenges, and technologies already logged in the wiki on to other sheets. These images really engaged us, helped refine our thinking, and will serve as an archive to which we can look back and reflect. This technique served to bridge the virtual work in the wiki (and advisory board members not present) with the face to face meeting agenda.

Graphic facilitation is a field that previously has been unknown to me and I thought it was a very powerful way of gathering information, guiding the decision making process and for reinforcing learning for participants. Rachel mentioned that these facilitators are not just used for meeting work, but also in conjunction with keynote speakers. For more information on graphic facilitation, check out the Center for Graphic Facilitation and the International Forum for Visual Practitioners website.

The work for the K12 Horizon report will continue over the next few weeks with further refinements to the short list of new and emerging technologies. NMC CEO Larry Johnson, CTO Alan Levine and Vice President Rachel Smith will also be engaged with the research and writing of the final report scheduled for release at the annual Consortium for School Networking conference March 10 -12 in Austin, Texas. Also, I will be a guest on the Seedlings podcast to talk about the work of the advisory board sometime in March. It is my hope that this practical document will serve as a catalyst for K12 educational institutions to examine their own practices related to technology and to plan for the future. Now is the time to get ahead of new technologies; we must align ourselves with changes in the way the world works and communicates.

For more information on the New Media Consortium, visit them at http://www.nmc.orge. See also information on the Horizon Project and check out their YouTube channel, their photos in Flickr, and their twitter channel!

Tuning into Educon 2.1, you can, too!

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:57:00 +0000

Last January, I had the privilege of attending and blogging about one of the most invigorating events of my educational career, Educon 2.0 held at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Philadelphia. This exciting event is again being hosted by SLA this weekend (January 23 - 25, 2009).

At Educon 2.1, you will find some of the most well-read, most challenging thinkers and doers in the world of education and technology gathering in Philadelphia for conversations around the following Axioms:

Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.

Our schools must be about co-creating -- together with our students -- the 21st Century Citizen.

Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.

Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate.

Learning can -- and must -- be networked.

Unfortunately, this year I'm not in Philadelphia, but home with flu symptons, but thanks to today's technology I am joining many others by participating virtually. You can, too!

I've been watching a steady stream of snippets from the conference, ranging from links, quotable quotes, and Aha's from my Twitter network. You can, too!

I'm watching a live video stream from Clay Burrell's blog. You can, too!

I will surely, be watching more videos from the conference which will be archived on Educon's conference wiki. You can, too!

Would love to hear from both attendees and virtual participants of Educon about some of your experience with Educon, including reflections and aha's.

Inauguration 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:28:00 +0000

There is certainly no lack of educational activities available for students to participate in celebrating this historic day. Both Lucy Gray and Lucie deLaBruere were unable to limit their weekly Friday Five list to only this week.

But even with this plethora of activities, I saw an opportunity to demonstrate the engagement potential of using a Smartboard and the variety of "game show" type templates that can be downloaded online to teachers in my school. So at the midnight hour, I added content to this PowerPoint Game from http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/PPT-games/ creating a Historical Inauguration Jeopardy Game that you can download to use in your school.

The questions are challenging for even those who've been around for a while. So you might want to modify the rules to engage your students by teaming them with adults who have seen a few Inaugurations. Here are some ideas for playing this Historic Jeopardy Game.

Give students a chance to use the Internet to search for answers. Perhaps use the Jeopardy Music as a timer.
Have two classes challenge each other with their ‘teacher’ where the students picks the question and has the choice to let the teacher answer it for “half the points”.

You might want to start the activity by watching this National Public Radio Slide Show of “First” for Inauguration Day.

This historic day also generated opportunity to show the power of Voice Thread in student learning. a VoiceThread is an online virtual space that has a unique commenting environment for shared media like images and videos. Students can comment by webcam, microphone, telephone, or text. The Inauguration Day Voices project has encouragd educators who have developed VoiceThread projects that capture the voices of individuals exploring and expressing their own perspectives on this historic event to tag them with "inauguration09". Help your students find their voice today by participating in one of several Inauguration Voice Threads or create your own. If your new to Voice Thread, take some time to explore Collette Cassenilli's Voicethread 4 Education wiki, which is filled with tips and tricks for teachers interested in using this powerful tool.

And if you have not stumbled upon the New York Times Interactive Inaugural Words, stop everything you're doing and go check out one of the best examples of how technology provides the tools to redesign learning activities. This site takes a look at the language of presidential inaugural addresses from 1789 to present. The most-used words in each address appear in an interactive chart, sized by number of uses. Words highlighted in yellow were used significantly more in this inaugural address than average. Just hover over each word to see how many times they were used and click on the word to see it used in context (through the years). I challenge readers to use the comment section to share the "questions" they used with their students that challenged their capacity as "Infinite Thinking Machines".

I leave you with a last gem I discovered during my exploration of Interactive Inauguration Activites - the blog of Larry Ferlazzo. Larry's talent for combing the Internet and discovering the best websites for teaching ELL, ESL, and EFl has earned him numerous awards, but more importantly it is filled with invaluable resources for teachers of ALL students on a variety of students, including the Inauguration.

I hope you enjoy this last minute goodies and share how you and your students celebrated this historic day in United States history.

Pondering New Years Resolutions (Digital Access)

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:25:00 +0000

My last post began a series of reflections on the New Year's Resolutions I made on Infinite Thinking Machine back in 2007. It focused on

#1 My resolve to update my collection of keyboarding resources and promote keyboarding skills in ALL students.

This time I'd like to look back at the second of five resolves I made that year.

#2 I resolved to know which students lack access to digital tools at
home.

A few years ago, I was encouraged by the data that we collected about the number of students who have computers and Internet access at home. I was encouraged that in a high poverty area such as ours, almost 90% of our students had access. Computers were becoming more affordable and multi-functional; even families that didn't always see the value in investing in educational tools at home, were purchasing computers as they took on entertainment value.

But this year I became discouraged by an increase in the response “we use to have Internet” or our computer doesn't work anymore. Discretionary items such as “internet access” are being cut from family budgets during increasingly challenging economic times. I also became discouraged when I learned that local public libraries do not have the resources to keep up with increased demands and use. I recently gave a student without home access a thumbdrive to save her work so she could continue it after school at the public library. She returned it the next day and shared that the only computer available to her didn't allow for thumb drives. (Photo Credit)

As we increase computer resources and Internet access in schools, teachers are integrating more technology tools in the classrooms. As a technology integration specialist I am excited about the increased use of tools like Google Earth, wikis, blogs, and social bookmarking in our school. But students with access at home are definitely at an advantage. Although I consider myself sensitive to the population of our students without digital access, I worked on the premise that these students at least had access to these resources in our public libraries. But I recently realized how challenging it is for libraries to keep up with increased demands.

Part of the challenge for libraries is that those who need computers for homework, filling out job applications, or accessing information only available online are competing with an increased use of library computers for accessing MySpace, playing video games, or accessing other entertainment websites. Libraries like those in Palm Beach, Florida are challenged by increased need for computers after the local food stamps office closed, forcing local residents to apply online. (Photo Credit)

The community library in Williston North Dakota reports increased use of its computers as the economy suffers. Upgrading or repairing home computers and keeping Internet access in their family budget has become increasingly difficult for many families.

For years libraries have been balancing the needs of their patrons to have access to essential nonfiction materials with increasing request for fiction; just because the circulation for fiction materials was higher, did not mean they stopped purchasing nonfiction resources. This dilemma continues in a world filled with digital information and entertainment. How do libraries make computers available for both those who seek to use them for entertainment and those who need them for homework or everyday living tasks?

Thus my evaluation of my 2007 resolve has just been expanded to not only inquire about student access at home, but to also find out about the access possible outside the home. Does it exist? To what extent? What are the parameters?

And finally, I resolve to start dialogues between community libraries and schools about how we can better support each other and collaborate towards the goal of greater digital equity in our community.

The Future of Education: The New Secretary of Education's Five Questions

steve@hargadon.com (Steve Hargadon) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:36:00 +0000

I want to encourage you to share your thoughts on the new "Future of Education" Community.

I've started this community to provide an opportunity for those who care about education to share their voices and ideas on charting the course of education in a networked world. It's a place for thoughtful discussion on an incredibly important topic. The site will launch officially at the end of the month with the start of a weekly interview series, but I'm inviting some participation now because of an email Carol Broos sent out.

Carol is one of twelve teachers who have been invited to participate in a round table discussion concerning the direction of education with the new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on January 21. She was sent the following questions, and is asking for feedback and ideas. You can respond either at the new http://www.FutureofEducation.com site or her wiki at http://education20.pbwiki.com/FrontPage. Here are the questions:

1. What is the one most important education issue you wish Secretary Duncan to focus on during his tenure and why?
2. How shall the tenets of the No Child Left Behind act be altered or invigorated? What are its positives? How can its negatives be improved?
3. How should the new administration respond to the nation’s need for better prepared and more qualified teachers?
4.What should the new administration do to increase student engagement in mathematics, the sciences and the arts?
5. How should funding equity issues be addressed?

There is also a discussion topic on what questions were not asked that might have been.

Thank you so much for helping Carol. If you like the idea of this site, and would like to help or have any ideas, please let me know at steve@hargadon.com.

[Cross-posted from www.stevehargadon.com. Driving into the unknown photo by http://flickr.com/photos/miikka_skaffari/2692030222/]

Pondering New Years Resolutions

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:24:00 +0000

New Years Day resolutions are all around us. One of my resolutions is spend more time writing about the educational issues I've been thinking so much about lately – starting with more regular post to Infinite Thinking Machines. But while I'm making my resolution, others are boasting that their resolution is “no resolution” --claiming most resolutions are lofty goals that are never met.

I sat back and asked myself, “what's my stand on resolutions as I enter 2009?”. Am I feeling hopeful or discouraged when I think about “resolutions”? In thinking about this I went back and read my first New Years post on Infinite Thinking Machine (January 2007) and reflected on the progress that came from my resolve. What progress have I made? Do I feel both hopeful and discouraged?

Perhaps the best place to start meeting my resolution to “write more” is with a series of posts that examines my 2007 resolution, why I feel hopeful about, and what I plan to do about the areas I'm discouraged about.

Photo Credit: Flickr Husin.Sani (Creative Commons)

My 2007 resolution focused on digital equity and included 5 areas where I planned to make a difference in making sure “no child was left behind in a digital age”. This week I'm going to reflect on the first of the 5 areas I pledged to focus on in my digital equity resolution, with thoughts on the other 5 areas in upcoming posts.

1. I resolved to update my collection of keyboarding resources and promote keyboarding skills in ALL students.

As I watch the fifth grade teachers bring their students into the computer lab this year, I noticed that many students are writing more freely and quickly filling screens full of text during their visits-- thinking less about finding the “z” and more about the story they're writing. A fifth grade girl called me over to her computer, during her first visit to the computer lab. I thought she needed help; she pointed to a paragraph on the screen and said proudly “I typed this all without looking”. It made me hopeful that my commitment to teaching the 3^rd and 4^th grade teachers HOW to teach keyboarding was making a difference.

But I also saw students still struggling to find the keys and barely finish a paragraph during that same visit. After a little research I found that many of these students had completed less than half of their “Type to Learn” lessons; I found that many of these students had been pulled out for math or literacy intervention during the keyboarding time. It made me discouraged that we had not provided these students with the same tools for success as their peers. Not only do they lack the skill to complete the “quantity” of work expected for their grade levels (a standard that increases as their peers continue to produce longer and longer writing pieces) but they are deprived the opportunity to focus on improving their writing process by having to focus on finding letters on a keyboard instead of the flow of the writing.

I heard an ed tech leader this year say that we should stop wasting time teaching kids and that this skill will come naturally as we give them increased access. I don't disagree that increased access will help; but Michael Phelps didn't win 8 gold medals by having access to a swimming pool. My old typing mentor use to say “Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect”. I'm going to continue to mentor our new generation of elementary teachers in the technique of teaching keyboarding – so that no child gets left behind in an increasingly digital world because they can't keyboard (especially the kids who are being pulled out for different intervention – they need every advantage they can to close the gap).

Elementary teachers! -- One of the most powerful things you can do is to model and to attribute importance to hands on the keyboard and correct techniques as they use computers in your classroom. Find time for students to practice and build keyboarding skill. Reward proper technique with praise, certificates of completion or other incentives for knowing the alphabet without looking. I try to update this wiki on strategies that work for learning to type including links to free keyboarding software that you can send home with students or to this very effective KeyGuide for learning to type.

As I think of what else I can do to grow in this area in 2009, I resolve to add the ability to effectively use voice recognition technology in 2009 so as to better assist students with special needs.

In the next few post, I'll reflect on the progress and the work still to do in the remaining parts of my 2007 resolution -- “making sure “no child was left behind in a digital age”

#1. I resolved to update my collection of keyboarding resources and promote keyboarding skills in ALL students.

#2. I resolved to know which students lack access to digital tools at home.

#3. I resolve to promote sensitivivity to lack of or slow Internet Access.

#4. I resolve to revive the TechSavy Girls program and create new opportunities for girls to build skills and confidence in their use of technology.

#5. I resolve to make Web-based and Open Source Software available to students to increase home access to digital tool.

Brightstorm: Expanding the Reach of Great Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:52:00 +0000

Every wonder what happened to the eccentric star of the original Infinite Thinking Videos - Chris Walsh? Well he hasn't strayed too far from the world of "effective use of video" in education.

He's been busy recruiting rock star teachers that support his belief that video provides a powerful medium to help students learn and helping to build a new online learning network. The network, Brightstorm, has recently launched 19 video based courses lead by expert teachers helping high school students deepen their understanding of college prep content and skills such as Algebra II, Geometry, SAT Math, Writing and History.

Video based courses have been around for a long time, but this implementation aims to match the interest and learning styles of today's high school students with their digital consumptions habits. The countless hours that today's teenagers spend watching You Tube videos attest to their interest in online video as a medium. What Brightstorm had done is recruit stellar educators with a proven track record in instructional design and made their teaching style and expertise available to any student, teachers, and parents for $49 a year. Each 5-hour interactive video courses is broken down into 10-20 minute lessons, with interactive quizzes, challenges, study guides, and discussion groups.

Almost every topic includes courses offered by at least two different teachers. Watching free lessons allows the learner to find the teacher that best matches their learning style. The concept of student choice is key to the Brightstorm philosophy of learning. "Choice is the easiest thing you can do for personalization" states Chris as he describes how students can use the video medium to stop, start, zip through episodes, skip around, and chart their own learning path. "We give learners tools where they are in control and can get what they need when they want. They even have choice around who they get it from."

Helen Beethan and Rhon Sharpe's book "Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age" supports the impact that tools like Brightstorm can have by reporting that "Simply being able to study at a time, place and pace to suit them can profoundly change learners relationsip with conceptual materials."

But within a design that gives learners choice, Brightstorm puts the teacher at the center. Believing that teachers are the most essential ingredient to great learning, Brightstorm has put their energy in finding real teachers that have a proven track record at connecting content to the relevant tasks that kids are doing.

The video courses are not ONLINE courses that replace the 'for credit' course offerings. They don't pretend to offer the full scope and sequence of traditional courses; they don't offer assessments on student performance. Instead, Brightstorm assesses student engagement by reporting on the amount of time students interact with the materials. Brightstorm delivers their video courses directly to learners who could benefit from additional materials to engage them in a way that matches their learning style.

Although Brightstorm markets directly to students and parents, as a teacher, I immediately saw a value added for teachers. A service like Brightstorm can support teachers who are looking for ways to encourage active, independent learning, but find themselves with limited tools wthin the physical environment in which they teach. I could see a teacher using a tool like Brightstorm to "engage disaffected pupils, to allow them to take control of their own learning by enabling interactive, individualised learning at the pace and level appropriate for them." as recommended by Terry Lamb in his keynote address at the Independent Learning Conference (2003).

Any teacher interested in emerging pedagogical models seeks "access to an enabling suite of tools to support greater learner choice and self-direction" as described by John Stephenson's "Learner Managed Learning". Stephenson comments that "new media open up opportunities for different pedagogical approaches to be used. Moreover, they argue, the technology itself is driving pedagogical change towards a more learner managed approach." This along with
lessons learned from pedagogy research support the development of tools like Brightstorm.

Lessons Learned:

We need to provide multiple routes through the materials and allow students to make their own choices.
We need to communicate proactively with the students and provide structured formative feedback on achievement.
We need to allow the students to build on their existing skills and knowledge and to undertake learning activities that are relevant to their interests and learning needs.
We need to provide plenty of opportunities to communicate for those who are most comfortable in a community of learners, whilst allowing those who wish to plough a lone furrow to do so.

I look forward to see how all of those in the learning equation (students, parents, teachers) will benefit from lessons learned in using Brightstorm and other emerging tools that give our students access to resources meeting increased demands of differentiated instruction.

An Electronic Voting Machine: Turning Data Into Information

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:52:00 +0000

With only a few more days until the U.S. Election, I'm sure many American classrooms have been buzzing with election theme activities. Some schools will be collaborating and comparing data using programs such as the National Parent/Student Mock Election Project., [check out your state's ballot] while some classrooms will be tallying paper ballots.

Vermont middle school students from St. Albans City School will be doing a little bit of both. Class lists will be used as a voter checklist during lunch periods where students in Grades 5 – 8 will receive a paper ballot to cast into a ballot box. Kinesthetic learners will benefit from the physical act of going through these motions and touching a real ballot and ballot box.

Next, students will get a chance to cast an electronic vote using Google Forms. The following form will be available on a Google Site loaded on one of several computers located next to the ballot box. These votes will be automatically tallied into a Google spreadsheet that updates blue and red graphs immediately available for teachers to use with their students in Election debriefing sessions.

Some classes are deliberating the pros and cons of electronic voting.
Other classes are comparing their grade's results to the voting results in their community.
Junior high student using Google Apps for your Domain: Eduction Edition will be working with their teachers on the process of turning data into information.

They will examine the process by which each piece of data was collected, analyzed, organized, and presented into meaningful information.
In math class they learn how to create graphs.
In social studies class students are using data representation to discuss social issues. Google Forms allowed them to collect information from other students querying which issues were most important to teens. A core group of students analyzed this data and used Google Docs to organize research in preparation for a school wide assembly featuring their mock debate. The results from the actual mock election will be contrasted to the pre-debate poll data in analyzing the success of their debate.
In science class, students are preparing for a scientific inquiry project that will require the collection, analysis, and presentation of data. Being actively involved in the process of turning data into information gives students real experience as background when designing their own science projects.

Feel free to download this Google spreadsheet template to edit and use in your own school as an electronic voting machine, or simply as an example of how Google Speadsheet can be turned into a voting machine on any topic or issue you're studying.

Insert "countif" into the search box of this link to learn more about working with the countif formulas used in this spreadsheet. The spreadsheet template also models the concept of linking data between sheets where the original data collection worksheet was linked to other sheets to help aggregate data and turn it into information and graphs.

I'm hoping readers will use the comment seaction to share their own spreadsheets templates. Check out this tip on how to add &newcopy when sharing your own spreadsheets links to allow teachers to download a clean copy of your spreadsheets as a tempate in their down Google Docs accounts.]

Amplifying the Possibilities with K12 Online Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Are you looking for ways to amplify possibilities in your classroom this year? How about connecting and learning with other educators from all over the world by participating in one or more of the 40 workshops offered this year in the K12 Online Conference.

The conference started last week, but no need to worry. You can join other educators on this learning journey anytime, anywhere, by pointing your browser to k12onlineconference.org. No travel cost! No leaving your family behind! No lessons plans for substitute teachers! You can participate in your pajamas, on your commute to school, or even during your daily jog.

The K-12 Online Conference is filled with audio, video, slides, handouts featuring innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. The 2008 conference theme is “Amplifying Possibilities”.

Check out the pre-conference keynote or workshops that were posted from October 13 - 24, or join one of the upcoming live events scheduled October 27-31. The easiest way to see the conference offerings at a glance is to check out the Conference Schedule

Start by clicking on workshop titles that catch your interest. Approach the workshop using the methods you learn best.

Perhaps you'd like to scan the handouts?
Perhaps you'd like to explore the presenter's background?
Perhaps you'd like to watch the video or slides on your computers?
Perhaps you'd like to listen to the workshop while you're folding laundry?

You decide.

My preference is to download all the audio clips in a k12onlineconference folder on my computer as they become available. I rename them starting with the date and abbreviated title and make sure my I-Tunes syncs that folder to my IPod. With the latest k12onlineconference workshop audio on my Ipod, I can pick up nuggests of knowledge or inspiration anytime I have some listening time -- while standing in line, on my ride to school, or taking a walk!

I like the fact that I don't have to be sitting at my computer to learn. I take note of the workshops that I want to revisit because the audio left me wanting to know more and "see" the rest of the story. I bookmark the workshops with handy handouts and tag them using my del.icio.us account.

This two week online conference provides me with enough learning material to last all year if I let it. But usually it just whets my appetite for more and leads me to new contacts for my personal learning network and a wealth of networked resources to explore and share.

But best of all, the K12OnlineConference models connected learning. It engages us in opportunities to walk the walk, not just talk the talk of Learning 2.0. Hope you'll amplify the possibilities in your professional learning this year by participating in the 2008 K12OnlineConference. I invite readers to recommend some of their favorite discoveries from this year's conference.

Freedom to Read

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:26:00 +0000

The Book Fair Safari filled our school library all week as it was the host to The Scholastic Book Fair - one of the most popular events in our school. Kudos to our school librarians and community volunteers for encouraging our students to Read, Dream, and Grow (this year's book fair theme). Today was also the the last day of Banned Book Week (September 27 - October 5) which

"celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even
if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the
importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular
viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can
exist only where these two essential conditions are met "

And if Doug Johnson's suggestion was adopted we would also be displaying Blocked Bytes Week Posters and be promoting the Freedom to Read more than just books. A year ago, Wes Fryer posted a chart comparing Internet content filtering he experienced in China, and the Internet content filtering he was experiencing in a U.S. public school district. And earlier this spring, Bud The Teacher, posted a request for designs for a 21st Century version of the “I Read Banned Books” buttons which yielded some wonderful designs and a campaign for reducing filtering constraints in our schools at NECC 2008. All you have to do is read the 90+ comments responding to Will Richardson's recent post - Filtering Fun, to realize that the freedom to read continues to be challenged in our schools today.

But filters are not the only thing limiting our childrens access to 21st century reading. In my work with teachers, I often hear that there is not enough time for using computers in the school day because the school's researched based curriculums mandate large blocks of uninterrupted time working with prescriptive strategies to improve reading and math scores.

When I suggest strategies for integrating technology into classroom literacy time, some teachers question whether these strategies would be "approved" activities. Many of the research based materials were developed around teaching students to read using print media. We need literacy specialists offering professional development in schools to also include strategies that integrate reading digital media. This year the Vermont Reads Summer Institute for teachers included workshops by reading specialist, Julie Coiro, that gave our teachers 'permission' to integrate technology into their literacy time. Our teachers came back from this summer institute with their own print version of Reading the Web by Maya B. Eagleton & Elizabeth Dobler which added credibility to the tech integration strategies I've been promoting for years. Thank you, Julie, Maya, and Elizabeth!

There are many strategies you can learn from these and other reading specialists that can give students the skills and access they need to read in a digital age. Here's one small step you can start with. Try allowing the computer stations in your room to be a choice during sustained silent reading time. Here are a few sites to get you started.

http://storylineonline.net/
The Screen Actors Guild Foundation reads stories aloud to children. This site includes videos,related activities and downloadable activities guide. What a great listening center activity.
http://www.starfall.com/n/level-c/fiction-nonfiction/play.htm?f
Give students access to some online fiction and nonfiction books with pictures for younger readers to read online from Starfall- a site full of reading resources targeted for early readers.
http://www.roythezebra.com/
Roy the Zebra.com includes guided reading stories, interactive whiteboard reading activities, literacy lessons, and resources that have been developed to help emerging readers learn to read.
http://www.biguniverse.com/
Big Universe is a web community devoted to beautiful children's picture books. READ hundreds of offerings from today's best children's book publishers, CREATE e-books with the help of an easy-to-use Author Tool, and CONNECT with other Big Universe members to share your creations and to learn what books they have read, created, or recommend. Parents, teachers, kids, authors, and others can share and learn while they enjoy this educational and entertaining website.
http://www.gutenberg.org/
Have you tried giving students print and audio access to books in the public domain?
Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Look for Huckleberry Finn, Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes… and many many more. For sites that offer audio versions of some of these books check out: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Audio_Books_Project
Or how about having your students record themselves reading aloud and contribute to the project itself.

And don't forget students for whom increased access means having the ability to see and hear what they read online. Try using one of these free websites that read text aloud to students, or install a free utility like Zoom It for students who need help seeing the screen.

Thank you to all of you who are promoting increased access to reading materials for our students and those of you teaching our students the skills they need to read more than books! I've mentioned only a few here, but would love to hear from readers about more resources and strategies to give our students the access and skill to be 21st century readers.

The Open Minds Momentum

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie deLaBruere) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:09:00 +0000

Has Open Source in Education reached a Tipping Point-- “the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable?” Anyone attending the K12 Open Minds Conference would be hard pressed to argue otherwise. “Let’s Declare Victory!” and move on to the next steps was certainly the tone starting with the PreConference Summit (lead by Bryant Patten and Donna Benjamin) and Large Scale Deployment (lead by Steve Hargadon) in Indianapolis, Indiana.

In his book, “The Tipping Point”, Malcom Gladwell, outlines what it takes for an idea, movement, or product to achieve a moment of critical mass: The salesman; The maven; The connector. The K12 Open Minds Conference was an opportunity to witness the incredible energy and synergy when those 3 forces come together in one place. Having students, teachers, tech directors, school leaders, who use open source software for teaching and learning converse and collaborate with the developers of those tools truly created an Open Minds energy throughout the conference. If you missed it, perhaps you can still pick up a few tips, tools, or resources with my takeaways from this conference.

I got a chance to meet teachers like Michelle Librach who lead sessions like Audacious Audacity targeted at teachers. While fellow teachers walked away with practical tips on how to use open source in their classrooms, open source developers got a chance to witness first hand the fruits of their labor.
I overheard NCOSE award winner, Eric Harrison, humbly admit that he sometimes thinks it's surreal that hundreds of classrooms are benefiting from increased access to computers using K12LTSP -- a project he helped develop.
I listened to open conversations about open standards between W alter Bender, developer of open source software, Sugar, and students from Illinois Math and Science Academy who started the first high school chapter for OLPC.
I got a sneak preview of the G-Phone which reminded me of of the authentic opportunity that projects like Google’s Summer of Code provide students to contribute to an open community as they develop authentic 21st century skills. “Let’s not stop with getting kids to work WITH open source… let’s get them to work ON open source development.” advocated Bryant Patten’s (director of National Center for Open Source in Education). “Can you think of any better assessment of the new ISTE NETS for Students than having a student contribute to an Open Source Project? “

ISTE NETS for Students

I applauded when keynote speakers reminded us of the the fact that we need to develop the spirit in inquiry in today's students.

- Alex Inman, advised teachers to “Be quiet. Stop talking and give your students the opportunity to to experience the power of inquiry. Let them DO something. Let them create”.

- Chris Lehman, also stressed the importance of inquiry at his school, The Science Leadership Academy – “a project-based environment where the core values of inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection are emphasized in all classes”.

Dr. David Thornburg

repair a moon buggy with duct tape while wearing oven mitts

I was inspired by those in the trenches like Randy Orwin (band teacher turned network administrator) who’s passion for student learning drives every decision he makes, whether it be “hardware purchases, open source adoption, or filtering”. While some open source evangelists get bogged down trying to decide whether to spend their energy on convincing commercial product developers (like Inspiration) to release a Linux version of their product or convincing educators to adopt a “pure” open source alternative like Free Mind, Randy asks “what’s the best decision I can make for 5th graders right now.” This approach gives Randy more time to develop truly pragmatic educational implementation of the open source products he believes are truly best for student learning. I can’t wait to try the “Nanogong” module that adds audio accessibility to Moodle or the other tips Randy shared such as how to turn a Moodle branded page into a bright, exciting, colorful, entry point for first and second grade students.
I learned a myriad of tips and tricks for supporting Open Office and other Open Source tools in real classrooms.

Thank you , Randy, for the Open Office tip about adding clipart libraries such as (WP Clipart) and (Open Clip Art) to Galleries by categories instead of using the Insert Picture method. The ability to see clipart thumbnails and drag them into Open Office documents will remove one of my biggest barrier to Open Office adoption by teachers! And a big thanks for sharing Solveig Haugland's open office blog -- what a teacher friendly resource for anyone using Open Office.

Also, thank you to Andy Mann and Laura Taylor for being willing to expand your session to include both free and open source software, but to also include lots of invaluable experience about which tools make the most difference in Real Classrooms with ReaL teachers. The enthusiasm and experience you shared from Indiana's InAccess is invaluable to us.

I think the diversity of the audience was one of the strengths of this conference. Yes, it offered plenty of ‘genuine geek time for those genius brains” to network and collaborate. I can’t wait to see what emerges from conversations between folks like those between Robert Arkiletian (developer of a K12LTSP app called FL-Teacher Tool) and Benoit St. Andres (from Revolution Linux). Watching developers collaborate to improve the tools we're excited to use in education has me looking forward to new products and updates.

But mostly this conference brought students, teachers, school leaders, network admins, and developers together to promote open resources, technology and teaching practices in education. And when visionaries like Australia's Donna Benjamin bring the spirit of The Cape Town Open Education Declaration and her incredible facilitation skills to such a group, then the mavens, connectors, and salesmen of Open Source in Education are tipping the scales. And perhaps the next step in this collaboration efforts the TRUST as described by our last keynote speaker, Dr. Brad Wheeler, "build the trust to get the leverage we need to enable greater things to happen on the edge." I am leaving this conference revitalized and hopeful that that our school and industry leaders and network administrators will continue to build the infrastructure and systems we need to leverage the great things that open source developers and teachers are making happen to continue the Open Minds Momentum.