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I've started reading a young adult novel, "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow about a very tech-savvy high school boy. Good story, big-brother-ish in post 911 America. I feel I understand it better after our full week of tech immersion last week. Ginny Timm

I wanted to add 2 **you tube** videos about our students' future with technology: and another one: Kathie Pavin
 * A Vision of K-12 Students Today** at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8
 * Did You Know? 2.0 at** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U&feature=rec-fresh.. they rocked my world about technology. Thanks Deb and Chris for bringing into the world of the digital learner!


 * Paula P was finally approved for the site . . . yay!

Mary Lynn was here.

I feel rushed and exhausted. It's been a long and very full week. I will need to sift through all my scribbled notes and see if I can make some order out of it so that it's useable and find-able for school work. Ginny T.

I just wanted to share a site that I found that is specifically for parents to use with their kids. The age range is young (4-8 or 9 ish, I think). It is [|www.lil-fingers.com]. See what you think. Sheri S.

Heart-warming video on You Tube - The Story of Christian the Lion. Holly T. I was here. Ginny Timm

I was here Toril Nelson I was here Kathie Pavin

Rubrics (including Spanish) for almost every grade, class and level. They may be easily modified. (submitted by Kathy Casey) http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

Great Free Music Site(submitted by J. Pease) http://www.incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/

Great Internet Sites for Teachers (**submitted by Chris W.)

**   CESA #5 Technology Planning Resources – Project Trails [|http://itmc.cesa5.k12.wi.us/trails/district_plan/plan.htm] CESA #4 Technology Planning Resources http://www.cesa4.k12.wi.us/programs-services/itech/techplanresources.htm CESA #12 Information & Technology Literacy Page http://www.cesa12.k12.wi.us/itls/ enGauge http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/ NCRTEC Guiding Questions for Technology Planning http://www.ncrtec.org/capacity/guidewww/gqhome.htm Pittsville School District Curriculum Development – ITLS http://www.pittsville.k12.wi.us/Teacher/Curriculum/Index.html ** E-rate ** The Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund http://www.universalservice.org/sl/ Wisconsin E-rate Information http://dpi.wi.gov/pld/erate.html **Wisconsin** **Educational Resources** BadgerLink http://www.badgerlink.net/ BadgerNet Converged Network http://www.doa.state.wi.us/pagesubtext_detail.asp?linksubcatid=1030&linkcatid=308&linkid= Department of Public Instruction http://www.dpi.wi.gov/ DPI Instructional Media and Technology Home Page http://dpi.wi.gov/imt/index.html DPI Publications Catalog/What's New http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/pubsales/new.html ECB – Educational Communications Board http://www.ecb.org/ IDEAS - Wisconsin http://www.ideas.wisconsin.edu/search.cfm WINSS Successful School Guide http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/sig/index.html WiscNet Home Page http://www.wiscnet.net/ Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative http://www.wati.org/ ** National Resources ** ALA Resources for Kids http://www.ala.org/gwstemplate.cfm?section=greatwebsites&template=/cfapps/gws/displaysection.cfm&sec=24 CoSN - Consortium for School Networking http://www.cosn.org/ enGauge http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/ Federal Resources for Educational Excellence http://www.ed.gov/free/index.html Gateway to 21st Century Skills http://thegateway.org/ ISTE – International Society for Technology in Education http://www.iste.org/template.cfm National Educational Technology Standards Project http://cnets.iste.org/ NCRTEC Lesson Planner http://www.ncrtec.org/tl/lp/ NCRTEC Scoring Guide for Student Projects http://www.ncrtec.org/tl/sgsp/index.html Thinkfinity (formerly MarcoPolo Internet Content for the Classroom) http://marcopolo-education.org/home.aspx US Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/fund/landing.jhtml?src=ln ** Network Security ** NetDay Original Resources http://www.netday.org/research_netday.htm AskEric http://www.eric.ed.gov/ Academic Employment Network http://www.academploy.com/ Awesome Library http://www.awesomelibrary.org/Classroom/Technology/Technology.html Bellcow, Inc. http://www.bellcow.com/ Big6 http://www.big6.com/showcategory.php?cid=19 Blogger http://www.blogger.com/start Blue Web'n http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/ BrainPOP - Health, Science, Technology Animation and Educational Site for Kids. http://www.brainpop.com/ Busy Teacher's Web Site K-12 http://www.ceismc.gatech.edu/busyt/ Classroom Connect [|http://www.classroom.net] Clip Art Listing http://www.teacherfiles.com/clip_art.htm CNN Interactive http://cnn.com/index.html Digital Dictionary http://www.cesa4.k12.wi.us/programs-services/itech/links-resources/digitaldictionary/index.htm Education Index http://www.educationindex.com/ Education World http://www.education-world.com/ Education - WWW Virtual Library http://www.csu.edu.au/education/library.html EduScapes [|http://eduscapes.com] ePals http://www.epals.com/ Filamentality http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/ Free Stuff - http://www.teachercreated.com/free/ FunBrain http://www.funbrain.com/ Graphic Organizers http://www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-6293.html http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/actbank/torganiz.htm http://www.writedesignonline.com/organizers/  HomepageUnivers**e** - Names, Tools, Hosting http://homepageuniverse.com/ HowStuffWorks - Learn how Everything Works! http://www.howstuffworks.com/ Instructor Magazine Online http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor.htm Jim Moulton’s Educator Resources http://jimmoulton.org/educator.html Journaling Activities http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/actbank/tjournal.htm Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators -- Web site evaluation tools __ http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/ __ Kids, Teacher, Resources [|http://www.iage.com/kidlink.shtm] Lesson plans, worksheets, clip art http://learningpage.com/ Online Activities Center http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/ Oh Kids! http://www.oplin.lib.oh.us/oh_kids PBS Online http://www.pbs.org/ Project Based Learning Checklists http://pblchecklist.4teachers.org/ Proquest K-12 Homework Help http://www.proquestk12.com/curr/homework/default.shtml Scholastic.com - sites for teachers, kids and families http://www.scholastic.com/ STC Teacher Resources - Resource for teachers in any discipline to use 3D computer graphics in their courses http://www.cs.brown.edu/stc/outrea/greenhouse/home.html Teacher Created Materials on the Web! [|http://www.teachercreated.com] Teachers First http://www.teachersfirst.com/ Teacher/Pathfinder Educational Internet Village http://teacherpathfinder.org/ Teachers Edition Online http://www.teachnet.com/ techLEARNING.com | Technology - Resource Links for all curricular areas http://www.techlearning.com/content/reviews/articles/hotlist_curric.html The Internet Schoolhouse http://www.onr.com/schoolhouse/is.html The Amazing Picture Machine http://www.ncrtec.org/picture.htm The Virtual Schoolhouse http://www.ibiblio.org/cisco/schoolhouse/ Thinkfinity [|http://marcopolo-education.org /] ThinkQuest Library http://www.thinkquest.org/library/ WebQuest Page http://webquest.sdsu.edu/ Welcome to Friends and Flags - Join to exchange information with other countries--classes signing up for this next year http://www.friendsandflags.org/ Welcome to MiddleWeb - Focused on Middle School http://www.middleweb.com/ Worksheets, Teaching Tips, and Rubrics from TeAch-nology.com http://teach-nology.com/
 * Information and Technology Planning Resources
 * Educator Sites **
 * Educator Sites **

This wiki is made using wikispaces for educators. Will Richardson refers to these new technologies as "The Toolbox" (from __Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Tool for Classrooms__)

= **Our Toolbox** =

Blogs/Weblogs
[|Blogging in Education] http://www.bloglines.com/topblogs [|http://edublogawards.com/]

Sites for creating your own blog-- Blogger (a google site) [|http://www.blogger.com] Note: your address will be "[|http://whatevernameyouchoose.blogspot.com]" so give some thought to what you want the first part of your address to be!

Wikis:
Sites for creating your own wikis-- Here is a wiki on the features of wikispaces for teachers: http://www.wikispaces.com/help+teachers#toc8.
 * pbwikis
 * http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers: Use the Educator space because it has no ads and offers a higher level of service for free.
 * JotSpot now owned by Google and called Google Sites http://sites.google.com/site/sites/

http://www.classroom20wiki.com/
 * Wikis for educators' professional development:

What are potential concerns about using wikis?
Wiki pages have the potential to be very useful for educators. However, their strengths can also be limitations. Because they can be edited by anyone, wikis are subject to vandals—individuals posting inappropriate content that distracts from the purpose of the wiki page. To address this issue, most wikis offer a "notify" feature that automatically notifies wiki monitors/administrators of any changes. Monitors can then delete irrelevant or inappropriate content. In addition, publicly-accessible wikis are vulnerable to spam. One solution to this problem is to password-protect your wiki pages. As for wikis in the classroom, there's still the age-old issue of one student doing all the work on a collaborative project. Teachers should closely watch changes to the wiki (through the wiki history feature) to get a clear understanding of student contributions.

**Rich Site Summary (RSS)**
Will Richardson call this the "New Killer App for Educators." He has lots of ideas for using rss feeds in the classroom.

Aggregators
Use an aggregator to collect your RSS feeds. Bloglines.com Google Reader

Social Bookmarking
The Common Craft explanation of social bookmarking: http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english
 * Delicious [|www.delicious.com]

[|More and More del.icio.us]
via [|The Annick LIVEbrary Blog]

Del.icio.us keeps growing and the most recent growth has been in education, with teachers and librarians from K-12 to college. Del.icio.us is the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies' [|number one tool of 2008]. In a [|post] on the del.icio.us blog, Britta Gustafson shares her favorite bookmarks on the use of del.icio.us in education: TeachingHacks.com also has a recommended [|wiki] page on using del.icio.us. (It is temporarily unavailable.) With the openness and potential of social bookmarking, we can show students that learning is not confined to four walls or childhood and that expert opinions can be found in typical and not-so-typical places. And it has excellent homeschooling or summer use.
 * In a Library Journal [|article] from 2007, Melissa Rethlefsen writes of librarians using del.icio.us to "bridge the gap between the library's need to offer authoritative, well-organized information and their patrons' web experience." Often, librarians turn to del.icio.us and similar tools to guide library users to quality sources on the Web and away from what one librarian called "unedited and ill-founded and repetitive single-page resources." Some librarians use tag clouds as replacements for subject guides, making it easier for less computer-savvy librarians to participate in highlighting library collections and resources. Del.icio.us links can also be centered around current news topics or items for an in-class or homework project. "Task tagging" allows librarians or teachers to bundle tags for particular classes, topics or projects. Many of these ideas and uses are great for middle school classrooms and libraries. And because it is Web-based, teachers, students, and librarians can have access to their bookmarks wherever they are.
 * In "Tag--You're Delicious!," posted at [|Learning.now], Andy Carvin gives a rundown for newbies what del.icio.us is, how it works and what you can do with it. He discusses the portability and the power of tagging for personal use and networking, using his blog and del.icio.us account links as examples.
 * Classroom 2.0 has a [|wiki] on social bookmarking. One link will bring you to an ongoing Classroom 2.0 discussion board on using social bookmarking in teaching. Lesson plans are available to show how del.icio.us can be used with students, including guidance on teaching them personal safety and privacy. There's also a list of links to social bookmarking sites other than del.icio.us, including Edutagger, made specifically for K-12 use. A list of links offers up articles and blog posts on how and why to use social bookmarking with your classes.

How do you use social bookmarking? Do you prefer del.icio.us over other options like Furl or Mag.nolia? What about Diigo, which combines social bookmarking with highlighting and sticky notes?

[|SOURCE: "Who says librarians (and teachers) don't like tags?" 3/12/08] [|SOURCE: "Tags Help Make Libraries Del.icio.us" 9/15/07]


 * Diigo [|www.diigo.com]

Sound Sources:

 * New sound source: [|Soungle]

Voki [|www.voki.com]

Voicethread [|www.voicethread.com]

[|Using VoiceThreads with Bill Ferriter]
via [|The Annick LIVEbrary Blog]

Laila Weir writes in [|Edutopia] on sixth-grade language arts and social studies teacher Bill Ferriter and his use of VoiceThreads with his students at Salem Middle School in North Carolina. Ferriter had a hunch it would work since his students already spent time online outside the classroom. With VoiceThreads, he has been able to extend learning and interaction beyond the classroom walls and regular school hours.

VoiceThreads are "interactive media albums" that contain images, documents or videos that viewers can comment on in one of three ways: by typing a comment, recording an audio or video response, or drawing directly on the image, document or video. VoiceThread is easy to learn and use, a boon for teachers new to Web 2.0 tools and for students who may have varying levels of experience with technology. (A secure site for teachers and students, [|Ed.VoiceThread], has a fee-based service but one that "should pass even stringent school Web filters.")

Ferriter started small, posting VoiceThreads on a number of topics connected to classroom work and letting students respond voluntarily. He got so many responses, he knew he was onto something. Students are more likely to participate in a digital discussion where shyness and fears of embarrassment, very strong in middle school, are eliminated by nature. Students can also think ahead of time about their responses, something that isn't usually possible in an in-class discussion.

Students can participate in multiple conversations, eliminating another in-class discussion problem according to Ferriter: "In a classroom conversation, there's generally one strand of conversation going at any one time, and if you're bored by that particular strand, you're completely disengaged." One VoiceThread on Darfur elicited thoughtful responses and a lot of participation--Ferriter got over 60 comments from 36 of his 53 students.

The VoiceThread site has great tutorials to get you and students started. VoiceThreads can be private or published and can be embedded in a class or teacher website. Because you can use a telephone to leave an audio response, the need for microphones or webcams are eliminated for students or schools that don't have them. And this also makes the discussion accessible to students of varying levels of ability and technological experience. Ferriter has a [|wiki] that has examples of VoiceThreads and lots of great tips for getting started.

[|SOURCE: "VoiceThreads: Extending the Classroom with Interactive Multimedia Albums" 04/16/08] Educators' voicethread [|Ed.VoiceThread]

Podcasts:
Audacity for pcs Garageband for macs Podomatic [|https://www.podomatic.com] for posting your podcasts

http://learninginhand.com/podcasting/ This website contains steps in creating podcasts with some helpful tips for classroom use along with a link to Audacity. In addition, the site includes a variety of podcasts for listening. For podcasts, this site links to Podcast Alley, Learn Out Loud, The Education Podcast Network and Educational Podcasting. (editor: Joy Bennett)

Online Photo Sites

 * Fotoflexer An online photo editing tool [|www.fotoflexer.com]
 * Piknik another online photo editor
 * Rock You [|http://www.rockyou.com] slide show maker
 * Bubble Share http://www.bubbleshare.com/ slide show with speech bubbles

Finding photos:
 * Flickr Look for Creative Commons licensed photos to use in your presentations
 * Wisconsin State Historical Society
 * Library of Congress
 * Ideas

[|Copyright- and Hassle-Free Images]
via [|The Annick LIVEbrary Blog] by noreply@blogger.com (Dedra Johnson) on 5/15/08

Recently, a picture on this blog had to be removed. It was found through a Creative Commons search and carried permission for re-use. It turned out that the person who posted the image and labeled it for others to use didn't own the image.

The owner contacted this blog and the picture was removed, then replaced. When pulling together a class project, blog, wiki, video or Ning, it is important to not violate owner's rights or copyrights -- it can cause trouble for you and your students down the road. Errors are usually easy to fix but with a little work, you can avoid the hassle by directing your students and yourself to sites that have worry-free images for you to use.

There are dozens of sources for copyright-free images on the Web, some just for educators, some focused on particular image types or disciplines. Take a look at these sites for starters: This wiki with a really long title has an enormous list of links for pages that offer images: Copyright-Friendly and Copyleft Images and Sound (Mostly!) for Use in Media Projects and Web Pages, Blogs, Wikis, etc.
 * [|Flickr's Creative Commons pool] is probably the best known source for images. Photographers allow varying levels of use of their images. Often, you can use an image as long as you give credit to the photographer and are not earning money with the image. Using the advanced search can help you find images that are free to use with proper credit.
 * Also pretty well known is [|Creative Commons] search which taps Flickr, Google, Yahoo and other portals for images that have varying Creative Commons licenses. This search casts an even wider net than the Flickr pool, above.
 * [|Pics4Learning] has copyright-free images in 48 different categories, ranging from American Sign Language to fractals to tools and machinery. The images in Pics4Learning have been donated by educators, students and photographers. It was created as part of the Partners in Education program by Tech4Learning, and the Orange County Public Schools Technology Development Unit.
 * [|OpenPhoto] also has a great collection of free stock images. You can browse categories or use the search engine to find specific types of images.
 * [|U.S. Government Photos and Graphics] at USA.gov has images and graphics that can be used and reproduced without permission. Look carefully at your chosen image, though; some images are licenced. The images come from government departments like Agriculture, Customs, Defense, NASA and the Indian Health Service.
 * [|Wikimedia Commons] has over 2 million "freely usable" images, video files and audio files. You can search by type of file or browse categories. Always check the copyright or Creative Commons license before using any image.
 * The Library of Congress [|American Memory] collection is a great source of historical images but you must be careful about copyrights. Some images are free to use while others can only be used with the copyright owner's permission and possible fees. There is an advertising category that has great images for media literacy activities.

Read carefully, and pick wisely, and be prepared for mistakes made by others or unclear permissions. In those cases, removing the copyrighted image is the best fix. If you are contacted by the owner of an image about a blog, wiki or student project, the same policy applies -- defer to the copyright owner and remove and/or replace the image. With so many options available, you and your students have plenty of image choices free of charge and worries.

SOURCE: "Copyright-Friendly and Copyleft Images and Sound (Mostly!) for Use in Media Projects and Web Pages, Blogs, Wikis, etc." 5/2008 //photo courtesy of [|openDemocracy]//, used under this [|Creative Commons license]

Tutorials

 * Common Craft "Our business is explanations" http://www.commoncraft.com/
 * Atomic Learning a subscription website with video tutorials [|www.atomiclearning.com]
 * 21st Century Tools Tutorials wiki http://21ctools.wikispaces.com/

Social Networking (also useful in getting help and finding answers)

 * The CUE community for computer using educators http://community.cue.org/
 * Classroom 2.0 [|Welcome to Classroom20.com], the social networking site for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education. This is a Ning.

[|What I Hate about Twitter] http://www.feedly.com/feedly#entry/-4441753126358435881 Twitter for Beginners by Mike Sansone
 * Twitter The "What are you doing?" site [|www.twitter.com] Allows only 140 character messages in response to the question: What are you doing?


 * Ning This link is for educators http://education.ning.com/

Google Tools:
Google Docs Google Presentation Google Spreadsheet Google Reader Google Blogger igoogle--customize your own homepage Google Notebook

Lesson Plans and Ideas
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6561014.html?nid=2413&rid=& How Kindergartners can learn from web2.0 [|Story Spine]

Udtechtoolkit http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/ A wiki collecting tools for Universal Design for Learning.