While doing some research for this post, I can across an interesting article by Miguel Guhlin that I think does a really great job of explaining the rationale for this post.  In his article, “Spending that Internet Gold”, Guhlin makes a good argument for effective website searching by quoting Dr. Judi Harris:
1. We all begin [...]

Here's a little video that the NJ, NY, PA & ME DEN LC's put together on the 1st day of the 2008 Summer LC Institute. ...

A short video that shows the basic parts of a flower ...

Happy Holidays & a Healthy New Year to All! // created at http://animoto.com ...

Paramount Theater- Asbury Park- Christmas 2008 ...

December 2008 ...

Large hermit found washed up on beach At new Dorp Staten Island .

Here are two very short videos that really do a great job of highlighting the dangers of students posting personal “stuff” on the internet.
After watching, think about how you could use these videos in class with your students.  What types of questions could you ask them to stimulate conversation & reflection?

Authored by Heather Sullivan. Hosted by Edublogs.

Many educators across the country and around the world used today’s Presidential Inauguration of Barak Obama as a teachable moment.  But just because the inauguration itself is over, that doesn’t mean the teaching opportunities attached to it have expired as well.
Here are a couple of quick ideas for how to use free, online tools to talk with your students about the Inauguration of January 20th, 2009 as well as Obama’s impending presidency:

Create a Word Cloud.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Obama’s “Inaugural Speech” Word Cloud
http://www.wordle.net/
Barak Obama’s Complete Inaugural Speech

Alexander’s Inaugural Poem Word Cloud
http://www.wordle.net/
Elizabeth Alexander’s Poem for Barak Obama’s Presidential Inauguration

Create/Add to a Voicethread

What’s a VoiceThread Anyway?

Authored by Heather Sullivan. Hosted by Edublogs.

Ok. Some of you might be tired of hearing me say it, but I’ll say it again anyway.  One of the best ways to learn is through stories.  Stories help us put facts in context and allow us to apply more of our senses to the learning experience.  That’s why I’m so excited about the new, free, curriculum recently released by Microsoft that uses realistic storytelling to help students learn about intellectual property rights and how to be responsible digital citizens.
Here’s the essential thinking behind the curriculum:  Students interact with music, movies, software, and other digital content every day. But, do they really understand the rules that dictate the ethical use of these digital files, and, more importantly, do they understand why these issues are relevant?
The goal of the Digital Citizenship and Creative Content program is to create an awareness of the rights connected with creative content. Because only through education can students gain an understanding of the relevance of and a personal respect for creative rights and grow to become good digital citizens.
Through the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Program, Microsoft reached out to teachers across the country to test the curriculum materials and provide feedback over the past year.  As a member of the program (FYI- any educator can apply ) I was able to take part in that “testing” phase.  Along with 93% of the other teachers who participated, I highly recommend the materials and plan on using them again.  Here are a few of the top reasons I think you should check out the curriculum:

The program focuses on creative rights in the world of digital citizenship so it’s excellent for raising student awareness about proper behavior with technology.     

It’s relevant and fun for students because it enables them to have the experience of creating their own digital property in the form of a ring tone on the student Web site (MyBytes.com). In addition, the curriculum explores the topic

I just can’t say it enough, so I’ll say it again now- EVERYONE learns through stories. That’s why digital storytelling is such a powerful learning/teaching tool! With that in mind, I found out today about an exciting new way that digital storytelling is being used in education.
I received a message this morning from a classroom 2.0 colleague:
I was wondering if you, your educator contacts or students would be interested in participating in a nationwide Vocab Video Contest @ MIT university. We’d really like to get more students involved from NJ! You can view contest details at BrainyFlix.com. Thanks!
So I checked out the contest details & it looks like a really fun and DO-ABLE digital storytelling project.  Here are the basic contest rules:

Make a video about any SAT/ACT vocabulary word of your choosing from this list. On that list, they show you how many videos have been submitted for each word. You are encouraged to choose one without any videos submissions.

1 video for 1 word, but you can make as many videos as you want.

Anyone can enter the competition! Just remember that part of the prize money has to go to a U.S. high school or middle school of your choosing.

All voting will happen at BrainyFlix.com, so make sure your video includes the following text: “Vote for this video at www.BrainyFlix.com/xxxxx”. And substitute the “xxxxx” with your vocab word.

Important contest dates:

Video submission opens: 1/1/2009
Video submission ends: 3/16/2009
Voting opens: 3/23/2009
Voting ends: 4/5/2009
Winners announced: 4/13/2009

The Word List is rich and organized alphabetically ( I had a hard time remembering what some of the words mean :))  Here’s an example video that the contest coordinators, a group of MIT alumni, created:

If SAT vocabulary prep is part of your curriculum, I strongly encourage you to give thsi contest a shot eith your students.  Let’s do our part to get NJ well-represented!  Good Luck & remember to share your v