Monday, February 11, 2008

Internet Safety at WJHS

For the past 6 weeks I've been involved teaching an internet safety class at WJHS. The class time included some instruction and conversations about cyberbullying as well. Ask a 5th grader to tell you what they learned. The class was so engaging for me that I added a post to the TechLearning.com/blog for my entry this month. You can find the information and class activities at my Moodle page at WJHS called Internet Safety.
 Join in the conversation.

TechnortiProfile

Blogged with Flock

Monday, December 03, 2007

How to get free text message for school closings.

Here are some free online resources you can sign up for to hear about schools closings.

WCSH6- this one requires your cell phone to accept text messages, it took me less than 5 mins. to sign up.

WMTW- this one requires an email address to get the alert, it took my less than 5 mins. to sign up.

MaineToday.com
-this is the Maine newspapers and you need to sign up to be a member first, then select to be notified about storm closings, this took about 10 min. to sign up.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Technology changes our perspective all the time.



This is an image taken onboard Kaguya, a Japanese probe, on our moon. The rest of the details are from NASA. " The Moon's surface is a region near its south pole. On Earth, you can see Australia (center) and Asia (low right). The upper side of the Earth is the Southern Hemispher, thus Australia looks "upside down". Credit: JAXA/NHK.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Latest Links for Teachers!


Here are my site suggestions for this week!

A collection of great teacher/student resources from Eduhound and Time Magazine.



Great resources by the teacher for the teachers.



Register and join Teacher Domain, sponsored by WGBH



There are a wealth of free video resources. This one caught my eye! Metals in Hydrochloric Acid


If you have heard of the 1-1 laptop for third world countries, for the next 12 days there is an opportunity for anyone to purchase one for themselves and donate one to a third world country( this means it is a 200.00 donation) as part of the 399.00 price. You can read more details here. I've ordered mine and can't wait to find out which country will get my donated one.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving break and I will have more ideas after that.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Route 21, which way?


Are you looking for Route 21? If not, then you should be, check this link and see what you think.
More later.

Blogged with Flock

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

District Technology Fall Newsletter 2007

Check this link for the district technology newsletter.

Blogged with Flock

November a Giving Month

November for our family is a giving month. I would like to promote these giving ideas.

Click here to help feed the world. What happens at this website, you have a chance to click the click here to give free food button. Then 100% of the sponsor money goes to charity. How do they do this? Well, the site also promotes some sales of items that they are hoping you will stop by and purchase. However, the beginning for all of us can be click and someone will be getting some food.

The next giving idea
This one I particularly like. You can read about how this works in detail.  Basically,  I am going to purchase a laptop and when I do, a laptop will also be purchased and given to a student in a designated country.  I will have a laptop that my students can use and I will feel good about providing for another.

The final idea, not as magnanimous however, it is important to our community. Take part in this online survey as a student, parent or teacher. This survey gives our community a voice and some very good data which will go a long way to improving how we use technology in our district. Thanks for giving back.

Blogged with Flock

Monday, October 15, 2007

New Tools for Adding a blog post.

All I do it type my message and edit, then post.
Here is a great website. WOCSD District

Blogged with Flock

Big news October 15, 2007

You can take part in a FreeOnline workshop this week and next. K12OnlineConference
Take part in the national SpeakUP Netday survey. This gives our district great information about how we are using technology compared to our answers from last year and compared to the USA. It is very helpful in planning.
Click here SpeakupSurvey 2007
Our password is wocsd

Sunday, October 14, 2007


First snow of the Sugarloaf 07-08 Season! One more month until skiing!

ACTEM07 Will Richardson's Opening

This is the 20th year for the ACTEM technology educators workshop.

Listening to Will Richardson's keynote.

Technology:

changes in politics with YouTube, myspace, blogs as social networks

changes in journalism, the world has instant connection with their cell phone and cameras.

75% of media is shared peer to peer

Prince gave out 100,000 copies of his new CD.

Read Wikinomics!

Not about competition in business about collaboration and cooperation.

Looking at Clustr map, and why do all these folks come and visit Will's blog. All have some connection to the thoughts, the conversations and the thinking. Humbled by the fact that after 18 years in a high school, and then looking at the map, why?

The past 6 years of blogging has provided more growth, than all his course work in all the years.Kids are figuring this out. Look at the size of their classroom.

TakingITGlobal- online community for youth about world issues.

Fanfiction- you can add to the book.

Where kids write and have reviews and connections. doing this on their own. Kids make networks of people who are passionate about their favorite topic.

Who is teaching kids myspace?

Someone needs to model and teach myspace/online presence.

We need to build social spaces and model how to do this.

Clarance Fischer is building spaces for his students.

He has them start at Nata Village in South Africa, ravaged by AIDS and HIV. Clarance has his students blog about this. Nnow they are having students from Nata Village commenting on her blog, one of Clarance's students.

44645, text for google, way to get an answer to every question you need an answer to.

MIT Opencourseware- http://ocw.mit.edu

Need to find the information when you need it, need to know the ways to find the information, all information.

Go to Wikipedia and spend a couple hours digging deep.

How many teach Wikipedia? We have to think differently about what if we need kids to memorize the content.

If we as educators, can not find who owns a website and publishes it, then we are illiterate. We need to teach students how to do this, we need to do this.

How to get teachers to connect to experts from outside the the classroom.

Will's project with Secret Life Of Bees. http://weblogs.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/bees

Sue Monks Kidd, joined his clasroom blog and she answered questions. She taught Will's class more about SLB than he ever could.

YesIcanscience.com Great science project where kids interact with scientists.

Vicki's Flat Classroom Project, exceptional Flat Classroom project
.



Radio WillowWeb elementary kids podcasting the classroom news.

Our kids are not waiting for us to catch up. We need to go there with the students.

We need to learn to model the safe, ethical ways to use these tools.Most teachers haven't put the new tools in their own practice. Teachers are just digitizing the old worksheets and putting into the same ole same ole into technology. We need to support teachers in finding new ways for students to collaborate creatively and safely.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Getting Ready for K12online conference

Usually, when I go to a conference I blog my notes and reflections. Seems funny to be sitting in my home office, participating in an online keynote for the k12online conference.(Follow the previous link to learn how you can get credit for participating in this online conference.) However, since I am so used to backchanneling during a presentation, or blogging, I decided that this should be the same even though I am home and participating in this. Why am I not backchanneling or skype chatting while viewing this? (Although I am watching the twitter comments to see what others are saying about David's keynote.) Well, since it is an asynchronous presentation, others who are viewing this could be at a different spot in the presentation, so I will blog, and post and reflect with others later.This certainly captures David Warlick's whole premise, we need to create our own boundaries, our own rules. I can no longer just sit and git. I need to be actively participating and creating even when I am listening.
-are we are parent's future?
-are our students their parent's future, their teacher's future?
-loved David's son video, gotta know the territory!
-do we know our territory?
-we cut off our students when they enter our classrooms, we chop their tentacles, their network
-are we over-managing our environment in our classrooms, are we cutting our students off from their networks?
-ouch an encyclopedia with outdated material compared to wikipedia constant updates and  new content
-I am waiting for the little ladies! too!
-our info-savvy students,  are without the benefit of gravity!, they always have a neighborhood at their fingertips
-new information landscape-we educators need to learn how to harness this-in our content areas
-unpredictable future- we educators are preparing students for an unpredictable future, teach them to teach themselves
Oh, the little old lady!
Outtakes!
Thanks David for kicking off the k12online conference!
If you would like to view the keynote, follow the URL.
http://k12online.wm.edu/davidw.mp4


Blogged with Flock

Friday, September 28, 2007

My 3 reasons to join the K12Online Conference

You can see other reasons here! http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=120
1. I could take online workshops anytime I wanted.
2. I was able to comment to, listen to, view presentations with others from around the planet.
3. I was able to sign up for graduate credit!!!

I had so much fun attending last I, I signed on and was to chose to present. Join in the fun.

Check out the teasers and choose your own staff development.
http://k12onlineconference.org/?cat=15

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Great Research Sites for students K-6.

Here are some good research sites for kids, they may need some supervision to get things in the correct search spaces.
Kids Tools for searching the Internet

KidsClick!- designed by librarians

Time for Kids Homework Helper

EnchantedLearning

Big6Kids a great place to organize

Marvel KIDS- Maine's virtual Library- you will need your library card and bar code number!
At Marvel, you will also be able to search by reading level.

Yahooligans- now Yahoo Kids

Ask Jeeves for Kids

CIA Factbook

These are the first research sites that come to the front of the pack. Remember that although these sites are rated for children K-6, there are still items that may not be appropriate for your student. Internet research should always be done with adults supervising.l

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

I just loved this statement. When was the last time you felt like this?

My good friend Jose R, made this remark on his blog this week. I just love how everything came together for him. I asked if I could share and well, open source!

I think I first heard the term; "Open Source Learning" in chat in the Webcast Academy.  I thought I knew what it was. I figured it referred to us choose what content we wanted to learn on the internet.  I heard Will Richardson refer to ideas on the Read-Write Web and the like.  I also keep up with other superbloggers like Wesley Fryer, Miguel Ghulin, David Warlick, Christopher Sessums, Steven Downes just to name a few.  I even particpated in K12Online last year and Web Heads in Action Online Conference this year along with Necc2007 not to mention everything happening at edtechtalk.  Nevertheless understanding comes through the practice or application and not theory.  Not until Webcast Academy did I begin to understand Open Source Learning. It just all clicked today.  I got a call from Kevin Sandridge a teacher in central Florida, we had a long talk about web 2.0 and implications for Second Language Learners, Yesterday Susan was asking about classes to recruit for youthbridges. I had a conversation with Chris Craft about a project on digital storytelling on Friday.  And Today it just came all together.  Dennis was uploading his file to Webcast Academy. It didn't show up in the flash player.  I thought I would help out.  How hard could it be.  80 minutes later with Susan patiently waiting on the sidelines we defeated the audacity gremlins and sucessfully uploaded the file.  I felt great and was happy to be able to contribute.  Open Source Learning means building on collective knowledge.  NOW, I've GOT IT!

­ I hope you get a chance to try this out for yourself. Leave a comment if you have a reflection about this.

Over and Out,
Cheryl

Blogged with Flock

Sunday, August 12, 2007

This is a good thing! This is my professional development!

81%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Mingle2 - Dating Site

Eight Random Things Meme

I was tagged by my great Canadian friend Sharon Peters and Wes Fryer, so here goes.
Here are the Rules:

    * Post these rules before you give your facts
    * List 8 random facts about yourself
    * At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
    * Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.

Okay, 8 random things about me. This could be fun.

1. I love skiing, just love it, 50+ days a year.
2. During the summer, I spend time gardening.
3. My High School English teachers did not think I was a good writer, I think I have finally stopped believing      that.
4. I am a Webhead class of 2006.
5. Although I am a Women of Web 2.0, my husband and I have 3 young men in our house.
6. My ipod has more podcasts than songs and photos combined.
7. I love to make up passwords for people!
8. I have yet to find my comfort zone, I am always living on the edge.

Well, that was fun! Now for my victims!
Alice Barr,  Michael Richards, Jason Hando, Chrissy Hellyer, Melinda Miller, Susan Ettenheim
Hope you have fun!

Blogged with Flock

Thursday, August 02, 2007

MLTI-emints workshop in Castine, ME August 2007

Technorati

This workshop is really happening. There are so many new tools that have been put into place since June. I will share them as I find and experience them.

I've been in workshops with David Warlick today and I"ve learned lots about the tools and people who are using them. There are so many new things.

This morning at low tide I found the most unreal sea stars or star fish of many sizes and many colors.I've made a bubbleshare feed for you to see what I saw.




technorati tags:

Blogged with Flock