Spotlight

This site offers the viewer access to use the book: Using Moodle: Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System, by Jason Cole. O'Reilly Community Press. I have a hard copy of this book and refer to it often when I am setting up a course. Having it online will definitely help me when I leave it at school and need it at home! Excellent resource to have available, FREE.

Found this emoticon selection through plurkers: FreeSmileys.com. Look for animated emoticons of all different themes, animals, tv and movie characters and more. Check it out, you won't be able to get away quickly!

Only 12 days and counting until my first teacher day back in the saddle. As I reflect on the summer of learning I have a brain full of new tools, a list of new online friends, hundreds of web sites to share, and not enough time to get projects completed before starting back. I have a whole new vocabulary, as many of you do including, diigo, twitter, twitterverse, plurk, ning, web2.0, DEN, DEN/Star, KTI, NECC, PETE&C, kmz file, and more. Perhaps I should create a dictionary, or point to one that has these words and more within.

Delicious is not a verb, but a noun, plurk is not what you do to your eyebrows, but communicate with others while micro-blogging (there is another one for the dictionary). Twitter is not a bird song, but an action word, diigo is not using a shovel, but sharing and highlighting websites. Just because I ning, does not mean I can't spell (but I really can't), rather that I have joined a wide universe of edTech professionals who share their toys. The DEN is not an exclusive private place to hibernate, but another collaborate site connected to DiscoveryEducation. More, more, more and more.

I have already written my first version of September newsletter TechTalk for our parents and teachers. It will include two web2.0 tools each month, new acquisitions in our library and a tech tip or two. We will see how it is received. I will publish a version here when it is finalized.

Get ready, get set.....start your engines and prepare for the start of a new year. I am always excited to return. How about you?

I have been prodded to try plurk.com in addition to, or in place of, Twitter. I liked Twitter, I could post or lurk and learn. There are people who contribute some really good tips and sites to use in education. Generally after a workshop or conference I find I want to follow some more people and continue to learn from them.

Twitter is easy. I log in leave it floating on my MAC desktop with Twitterific and glance at it once in a while. Sometimes I reply or post, but not very often.

Plurk.com is a bit more engaging. I love the fact that you can follow a thread. But some of it is a bit confusing. It is much more interesting if you follow about 30 or more people. Choose wisely so you can find some quality posts. I know there are a few people in my personal learning network I want to follow. I visited their plurk page to see who they were following and added a few of them to my list. Right now I am following about 40 people and will be adding a few more today.

PBS recently showed a documentary on Jewish-American Immigration. This is a companion site which offers biographies, lesson plans, resources, and historical information about this significant population to emigrate to the US. The information is geared towards middle and high school students. The information is connected to standards in education to help educators mesh this information into their curriculum materials.

If you are looking for a global experience for your students or yourself, this might be one to check out. Girls Helping Girls: "The Empower-a-Girl program is a grassroots sister-team initiative that partners girls in the United States with girls in schools and community organizations in developing countries to work together toward the achievement of our four global goals, which together distill and reflect the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. The only initiative of its kind run by girls, for girls, Empower-a-Girl’s unique and engaging program encompasses four main aspects: cultural exchange, a global education, social change projects, and investment in girls’ development." Quote and image from: www.empoweragirl.org

I wish I had known about this when I was a Girl Scout Leader. This would have been a great experience for girls to directly make a difference in the world.

Last November I came across a post from the Vagabondish blog about clever uses for your digital camera while traveling. Now that there is so much excitement surrounding use of cell phones for education, I want to bring back that "old post" and dress it up some. The post was created by Mike Richard on November 8, 2007 and is called:

"Travel Tips: 12 Clever Uses for Your Digital Camera "

It is definitely worth the read if you have any interest in using cell phones in class or just like finding interesting ideas for products you already own. There are suggestions from blog responses such as taking a photo of where you park your car at an airport (remember Seinfeld and friends lost in the parking garage for the whole episode?), pic of hotel in a foreign city, photo of your kids as you enter an amusement park to show what they are wearing, pic of your group of kids you are leader of on a field trip, pic of a bus route sign or signs as bread crumbs as to where you are going, more and more ideas. You can subscribe so when a new idea is posted, since there are many more than 12 ideas now, you will receive it!

I have heard about all of the Ivy League or top 10 universities who have published podcasts, tours, class lectures and more in the iTunes U library. I wandered around there tonight and found some interesting programs for our school to follow. First I clicked on the iTunes U link in iTunes. Just exploring the opening page could take a day with the variety of information you could read, listen to or watch. One can't help but to see Carnegie-Mellon is at the top of the download list because of the passing of Randy Pausch. If you have been under a rock and don't know his story, download his "last lecture" here for free.

In addition, there are commencement speeches from celebrities like Oprah, studies about energy consumption, becoming a greener household, and stories about nano-technology. With the price of gas so high, people cannot travel to hear or see many cultural events. So in that case, take a virtual tour through a museum. Living close to Philadelphia, I am partial to the Art Museum. Just by typing museum into the search box, a complete list of museum tours will appear. You can go on a talking tour of the National Portrait Gallery to a Zoofari at the San Diego Zoo!

See, hear, and learn. Put it on your own child's iPod and see what they can learn. Better yet, assign it for your students as a listening exercise!

I debated and debated, in my own head about iPhone, no iPhone. After talking with the AT&T rep in the mall, I realized that my current phone plan had one more year to go on Verizon and the buy out would not be worth it. So I settled for the iPod Touch. I need gadgets and fru-fru! The next stop after the Apple Store in Delaware (no tax), was to the $5 and Below store for a cover. They had a good selection too. So I saved $24.99 by not purchasing one at the Apple Store. Next stop, skins!
I happened to see an ad for iPod skins from iStyles.com. It is a perfect fit, easy to apply and looks classy! There are hundreds of styles for many tech toys. This is the rear view of the skin I selected. I bought two for about $14.00 including shipping. There are many places you can purchase skins, but I must say, customer satisfied!

I just signed up for the FREE teacher resource site for PBS.org and after wandering around for a while, I found some good links for election coverage. LINK. I would imagine there will be hundreds of sites and links available for teachers to use in their classroom this year. Start your critique early and find a few sites that you trust, are impartial (HA-HA) and can provide pertinent information for your students.