The Tech Savvy Educator shared a free art program, ArtRage, which I passed on to my daughter. She loves it and took to it in minuets. I feel like a bad mother giving her one more thing to distract her from her school work. She has such a creative spirit now she has one more tool to show it off.
It has been a busy couple of weeks as it always is before a school vacation, there are many loose ends to tie up and holiday celebrations to attend. We complete our first round of the blogging workshops with a grand total of 27 participants. Everyone now has a bloglines and edublogs account. Their current assignment is to read, reflect and write. I am looking forward to what happens next, it is a great group of teachers and administrators and…
The December 8th eSchoolNews article, Ruling: Schools must archive eMail: New rules make eMail, instant messages subject to legal review suggests that provision of student email accounts by schools may become even rarer in the United States. Many free web-based email services are already blocked by school district IT folks, in an ostensible effort to force teachers to use their district-provided (and trackable) email accounts, and encourage students to remain on task with district-assigned computer tasks which DO NOT include…
This morning the winners of the 2006 International Edublog Awards were announced. The online awards ceremony took place as a chat at EdTechTalk and a skypecast. It truly was an international event with people participating from England, Portugal, Canada, Chile and the US among others. One of the winners in the category this blog was nominated in was the Spanish language blog from Chile tilt!, the other co-winner was Ed Tech Journey. I really enjoyed the collaborative nature of the…
We are just starting to get our administrators and teachers up and running in our blogging workshops. A few questions about what makes a good blog and blog post have come up in some email conversations with a few pre-bloggers. David Warlick made a timely post on this matter and offers the following suggestions. When reading a blog, ask: What did the author read in order to write this blog? What did he or she already know and where did…
I am honored and shocked to say that Beth’s Thoughts has made the short list for The 2006 Edublog Awards in the Best Newcomer category. I find myself mixed in with some talented company. Please take some time to check all the nominees and vote for the blogs of your choice. Voting closes midnight GMT Saturday 16 December 2006.
We no longer live in an agrarian or industrial society. Our commodity is information these days. We also understand that each child develops at a different rate, influenced by genetics and environment, yet the structure we use still makes assumptions about learners that simply are not true anymore. This is the root ailment of our failing national education system. The problem is not qualified teachers or a decaying facilities. Instead, our organization or structure no longer applies to our world….