Spotlight

This story has been around for a few months, but resurfaced again today in the New York Times. A student teacher was denied her education degree from Millersvile University because of a photo she posted on myspace.com and she captioned the photo "drunken pirate". The photo can be viewed on this New York Times page.

Another source of the article: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2029

Stacey comments to Lancaster newspaper

You decide? What would your school do? How would your parents respond to this article? Is it something to be concerned about, or a big deal over nothing?

I hope you all had a great Christmas Day. Being a tech geek, my family has been enabling my habit! They have generously contributed to a GPS device and XMSatellite Radio. Both of which I have adapted to quickly. The GPS was a very confusing process, to narrow down to one device. It talks to me and I can answer my cell phone through it with the BlueTooth connection. I still have not figured out how to play photos on it, but I will. The XM took a while to get going, but once it connected...WoW! Crystal clear connections and a great variety of music, talk and shows. After reading the manual (which most geeks do after a while), I found that I can program some specific stock quotes to stream over the screen.

I can' t remember where I first saw this post, but I came across it again today, so I must share it! If you carry your digital camera different places, here are a few tips of how to use your camera, or cell phone camera to help you along the way. Click HERE.

In a New York Times article by David Progue, he writes about how the youngest generation views copying others material as just fine. There seems to be a strong feeling that anything that is produced, audio, video, written or otherwise is fair game if you can figure out how to beat the copyright schemes on the media. He offers several examples during a talk to college students about copyright infringement, but they don't see it that way! For the full article, click HERE.

I have received this from two different people (thanks MOM). This is fantastic artwork, but WHO did it? After a long search on the internet, I can't find the artist and I would like to cite them for this outstanding work!
If you know who it is, please comment here or send me an email: rmom@mac.com

This is directly from David Warlick's blog -2 Cents Worth

"North Carolina Science Blogging Conference

Dave, Dec 14, 2007 13:50:44 GMT

There are free word processing programs, astronomy, math, mapping, a tetris-like game, and many educational programs to use. Click HERE.

It's hard to tell who decided these were the BEST green gadgets, but none the less, we should all re-examine how green we are!

According to a report done by The Pew Research and American Life Project:

"Think that user generated content is still only the domain of a relatively small few? Well a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that the next generation at least is switched on and producing content.

According to the study, 59% of all American teenagers engage in at least one form of online content creation. Of those 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys however like their video, with 19% of boys posting video online vs. 10% of girls.

Other figures from the study:

• 39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos
• 33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments
• 28% have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19% in 2004.
• 27% maintain their own personal webpage
• 26% remix content they find online into their own creations

Interestingly the presumed dominance of social networking sites (such as Facebook and MySpace) amongst teens was not reflected in the study, which found that only 55% of teens online use a social networking site. The flip side to that is that the presumption that sites such as MySpace may have peaked may be untrue if 45% of teens aren’t using one of these sites already.

The full study is available here (pdf)."

Citation: Lenheart, Amanda, et al. "Teens and Social Media: The use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media." Pew Internet and American Life Project. 19 Dec. 2007. Pew Charitable Trusts, Pew Research. 20 Dec. 2007 .

1. Visit this page and select an activity for your class! The tried and true Lemonade Stand is here and updated! Make a poster with high scores for your room.

2. World Geography - How well do you know your locations? Find out here. This challenge has taken off in our school. One teacher is going to have a sweet sixteen bracket and everything! The finals may be run on a classroom with a SmartBoard for all to see!

Office Max has created one of the most fun digital Christmas cards this year. If you have not received an elf message from someone....enjoy this one!
Watch this and then Elf Yourself.

Parsons New School of Design launched research that will make serious games more mainstream. PETLab is their project that addresses social issues while gaming. This research is funded with a $450,000 grant from the MacAuthor Foundation. some of the projects they are involved with include:

PETLab
Ayiti: The Cost of Life

Watch for more research and development for social gaming and educational connections from many different research teams across the country.

From the eSchool News story: "Recently the U.S. Department of Education launched a new and improved version of the much acclaimed web site, Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE). The new site makes it easier for users to find teaching and learning resources by offering, for the first time, a list of 500 educational topics and a redesigned home page."

I love changing the icons, folder icons and backgrounds on my Mac. Some of the best icons are produced by Pixie Girl. She uses great color, contemporary ideas and are easy to use, oh yeah and FREE! I just explored this site a bit more and found some really creative background as well.

MacDesktops.com is another location to find some photographs to use as backgrounds.

I know there are more sites out there that do the same thing, I just wanted to share these two good ones for the Mac.

There are many sites where you can get information about green products and here are a few I heard about on FoxNews on Saturday:

• http://www.ecoist.com/
• My FoxPhilly green resource page
• MIT Recycling Facts
  

Last evening, December 12, 2007, I had the pleasure to attend a program sponsored by my local school district about Internet Safety. The speaker was nationally recognized, Katie Koestner from Campus Outreach Services. Her talk not only educated the audience about the pitfalls of today's technology abuses, but scared many of them to go home and toss out all electronic devices!! Only kidding there, but it made me take a serious look at several things and you should too!

• Where is your computer located?
• Does your student have a cell phone with a camera? can it take video? Why?
  
• Where is the cell phone when they go to bed? Where does it charge?
• Have you ever seen the photos on your child's phone? the movies?
• Do you have filtering and monitoring software for your home computer?
• Do you have a laptop that your student uses? Where do they use it?
• Have you ever sat and watched YouTube with your kids? Have them show you their favorite videos.
• You should "Google Yourself and your kids" to see what information is out there on the web.
• Teenagers listen to over 10,500 hours of music by the time they are 16. What is influencing them?

I found out that information your child posts on myspace.com or facebook.com or many of the other social networking sites actually 'becomes the property of the site"! That is why Rupert Murdoch has paid over $550 million for myspace.com - content! If you have a budding artist, songwriter, actor, or writer, and they post their material on their own blog, the company then owns it! There is no payout for their intellectual property, myspace.com just keeps it and can publish it for their own profit.

If you want to send something fun to your family, try this new Christmas card at:
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1316950409
Here is mine.