Nomination for Edublogs 2009 Award

My nominations for the 2009 Edublogs Award are:

The Sizzle in Science — as the Best Resource Sharing Blog. Vote for it at Edublogs.

as the most influencial post. Vote for it here.

USNA or Bust as the Best Individual Blog. Vote for it here.

Blogging for Education: Teachers Without Borders as the Most Influential Blog Post

What are the Eu’s Education Issues?

This from the Netherlands. How’d you like if these were the education issues we faced?

Discriminatory Student Grants Land Netherlands in European Court of Justice

Source: European Commission
Published Thursday, 8 October, 2009 – 13:55

The European Commission is taking the Netherlands to the European Court of Justice over a student grant scheme which discriminates against workers from other EU countries and their families. Dutch legislation imposes a residence requirement for grants to study abroad which puts migrant and frontier workers – including those residing in neighbouring Belgium – at a disadvantage compared to nationals.

“Free movement is a founding principle of the EU which ensures people are not discriminated against on the basis of nationality. Grants to study abroad are a social advantage which should be allocated without discrimination to migrant and frontier workers and their children,” said Vladimír Špidla, EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs. “The Netherlands has failed to modify its rules and respect the right to equal treatment so we are now bringing a case before the Court of Justice,” he added. (more)

‘Race to Top’ Said to Lack Key Science

If America needs anything more than health reform, it’s education reform. Obama’s Race to the Top replaces Bush’s No Child Left Behind. Read on.

Education Week: ‘Race to Top’ Said to Lack Key Science

Will Digital Books Help Education? Yes.

As a teacher, I know digital textbooks are the future. We use two of them in my school this year and–I admit–there are tremendous problems with students and parents accessing/using/accepting the books. This includes the online version of my technology class lessons. It’s been quite a year.

But, in the fullness of time, they will be the standard:

• They’re cheaper, which provides equity to more users
• They’re accessible from anywhere
• They’re lighter–no big backpacks weighed down by too-heavy books

The cons?

• Current availability. That’ll change as more schools demand them for all of the reasons above
• Current quality. Again, demand will solve that issue

There’s a good blog on the topic of digital textbooks here.

Here’s an update on California’s push to digital textbooks:

Turning the Digital Page

California pushes for transition from paper to digital texts.

By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

When California announced a free digital-textbook initiative earlier this year for high school math and science courses across the state, it fueled predictions of the impending demise of the hardcover schoolbook.

“Schwarzenegger Terminates Textbooks,” shouted one newspaper headline, referring to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s push for open online resources as a way to address the state’s budget crisis. (more)

Can Your Fifth Grader Answer This Math Problem?

Thanks to Jeff for this…

Can the level of math education sink any lower?

Teaching Math In 1950:
A logger sold a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960:
A logger sold a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970:
A logger sold a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980:
A logger sold a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 1990:
A logger cut down a beautiful forest, because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? After answering the question, the topic for class participation is: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers.)

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The Result In 2005:
Last week I purchased a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The young woman at the counter took my $2. I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies while looking at the screen on her register.

I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried.

Jeffrey J. McGovern

Attention Moms: A List of the Worst Lunches

According to the Cancer Project, and posted by my friend Jessica on Scribd, here’s a preview (click the image to take you to the full article):

View this document on Scribd

16 Things You Know If You’ve Been Reading This Blog

Computer technology isn’t as hard as it sounds, but it does require consistent use. You can’t learn a skill and stick it on a shelf for three months without it molding. Here’s what you do: Read this blog. I cover the stuff you will use daily. It won’t get stale. Take my test. Try these sixteen.

Basics

• 13 Cool Win 7 Tricks
• How Blogs and Wikis Make Students Better Writers
• 10 Ways Twitter Makes You a Better Writer
• What You Need to Know about Kidproofing the Internet
• Tips for Internet Searches
• Let’s Review… Tech Essentials
• Using an Internet Start Page
• Twenty-one Techie Problems Every Student Can Fix

Great Free Stuff

• Top Ten Free Apps to Install on a New Computer
• 5 Great FREE Programs for Kids
• 4 FREE Online Keyboarding Programs for K, 1
• Five More Must-have Free Apps

How to Hack, Stop a Hack and Know When You’re Hit

• 5 Clues You’ve Been Hacked and What to do About it
• How to Crack your (Lost) Windows Password
• How to Hack Passwords
• Five Little Known Ways to Hack a Computer

10 Ways Twitter Makes You a Better Writer

I wrote a post on how Blogs and Wikis make students better writers–teachers too for that matter–and wanted to follow it up with how tweeting improves writing. Then I found Jennifer’s summary. It pretty well covers what I’d say:

• You learn to be concise
• You learn to be focused
• You have time to check for grammar and spelling

But, the more I thought about it, the more reasons I came up with–well beyond my original three:

1. Writing short messages helps you perfect the art of “headlining”
2. Just 140 characters per message builds discipline. You can’t ramble
3. Your message is seen by tweeple that expect brief, bright, pithy, pointed tweets
4. You quickly learn that PhD words are  great for Scrabble but horrible for Twitter and its reading world
5. It often only takes a few words to make our point
6. Tweets need to be written knowing that tweeple can @reply
7. Your messages may be part of a larger theme via #hashtags

If you’re in a hurry and want a quick version, here’s the concise, pithy version by Jennifer:

How Twitter Makes You A Better Writer

By now you’ve most likely joined Twitter (and if you haven’t, you need to, pronto!). Twitter is not only a great place for businesses and marketers, but it’s also a great place to spruce up your writing skills.

Yes. You read that correctly.

Twitter can make you a better writer. Here’s how.

Twitter forces you to be concise

If you’ve ever used Twitter, you know that you have 140 characters to say whatever you want to say. Now keep in mind, I didn’t say 140 words—or even 140 letters—I said 140 characters.

That’s not a lot of room. Letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation and spaces all count as characters on Twitter.

What all of this means is, you have to be concise. You have to know exactly what you want to say, and say it in as few words as possible.

Many writers, however, are “wordy” and often have long, drawn out descriptions and sentences, so it can be pretty difficult to create a message that’s only 140 characters.

Here’s where Twitter comes in again.

Twitter forces you to exercise your vocabulary

Since you only have 140 characters to get your message across, you’re forced to dust off your dictionary and thesaurus and find new words to use—Words that are shorter, words that are more descriptive, and words that get the job done in 140 characters or less.

Crafting a message for Twitter requires you to “pump up” your verbs (replacing adverbs and adjectives with them), and discover a better, clearer and more concise way to say what you want to say.

Now most people won’t hit 140 characters right away. No, they’ll end up with 160 or 148 characters to start out with (Twitter tells you how many characters you need to remove to make your message fit).

This is the final way that Twitter makes you a better writer.

Twitter forces you to improve your editing skills

Every writer needs to be able to edit their work. And by using Twitter, you can really hone your editing skills and make them top-notch.

It’s almost like playing a game; trying to write a 140-character message and still get your point across in a way that inspires your followers to take action, to click on your link or to “retweet” your post.

I like to think of it as a brainteaser, forcing me to think hard and dig deep down into my vocabulary to find a way to shorten my message.

I’ve been using Twitter since January, and my writing skills have not only improved, but I’ve been writing better copy as well.

Yet another reason you should be using Twitter. Not that you needed one.

Is Handwriting Like Camera Film–So Last Generation

Studies show one in three children struggle with handwriting. I’d guess more, seeing it first hand as a teacher. Sound bad? Consider another study shows that one in five parents say they last penned a letter more than a year ago.

Let’s look at the facts. Students handwrite badly, and don’t use it much when they grow up (think about yourself. How often do you write a long hand letter?). Really, why is handwriting important in this day of keyboards, PDAs, smart phones, spellcheck, word processing? I start students on MS Word in second grade, about the same time their teacher is beginning cursive. Teach kids the rudiments and turn them over to the tech teacher for keyboarding.

I searched for reasons why I was wrong. Here’s what I found:

• 1 in 10 Americans are endangered by the poor handwriting of physicians.
• citizens miss out on $95,000,000 in tax refunds because the taxman can’t read their handwriting
• Poor handwriting costs businesses $200,000,000 in time and money that result in confused and inefficient employees, phone calls made to wrong numbers, and letters delivered to incorrect addresses.

Read on:

Schools: Less cursive, more keyboarding

BROWNSBURG, Ind., Aug. 28 (UPI) —

Officials in an Indiana school district said cursive writing lessons will be scaled down this year in favor of computer keyboarding.

What You Need to Know about Kidproofing the Internet

Kidproof your children online

Keeping your child safe online is a constant question from my parents. They ask about firewall, filters, kidsafe desktops. The only solution, truly, is to pay attention to what’s going on. Here’s some guidance from my friend, Coolcatteacher. She says it better than I could:

Steps to monitoring for parents to consider:

1. Use a filter with some sort of parental control. You know the password and decide what types of activities you will allow them to do.I filter all pornography. After all, what little boy can resist typing “sex” into the Google box. Otherwise, I’m pretty lenient on my filtration. I currently block myspace and such but when they are ready, we will unblock it together and set up the profile together. My children are young for that right now but when they are ready, I want them to ask me so I know that they are using it.
2. Discuss with your child what they can and cannot do online. (more on kidproofing the internet)

How to Talk to Your Child’s Teacher (Parent)

The parent-teacher communication is critical to student success. I was asked to write a guest blog for a wonderful new site called Parentella that addresses that very topic. I’ve reprinted it here as a summary of the many ways that communication can be accomplished. There is no reason why both parties can’t work together for the success of the child.

Parent Teacher Communication: A Teacher’s perspective

I’ve been teaching for over twenty years in different schools, different communities, but one factor transcends grades, classes, and culture: Parents want to be involved with what’s going on at their children’s school. Parent teacher communication is vital and in my experience, it is the number one predictor of success for a student. But parents can’t always get in to the classroom as a volunteer and see what’s written on the white board. They can’t always make the school meetings where the administrators educates parents on the comings and goings of the school. Why? It’s not lack of interest. More likely, they’re working; doing that 8-5 thing that insures the future of their families and pays for their children’s college education.

Knowing the importance of parent involvement, I feel that my job as a teacher includes not just the lessons I share with students but keeping my parents informed on classroom happenings. I need to be as transparent as possible, get as much information as I can out to parents in a manner they can understand and a format they can access. If I could tape my classes and post them on YouTube, or offer a live feed during class, I would. But I can’t, so I try other creative ideas.

Class website

This is teacher directed, but gives me a chance to communicate class activities, pictures, homework, and extra credit opportunities–all the little details that make up a class–with parents. This is a first stop to understanding what’s going on in class.

Class wiki

This is student-directed, student-centered. Students post summaries of their tech class, examples of their work, projects they’ve completed on the wiki for everyone to share. This way, parents see the class through the eyes of the students. And so do I, which is my way of assuring that what I think happened, did.

Twitter

I love twitter because they’re quick, 140 character summaries of activities, announcements, events. They take no time to read and are current.

Emails

I send lots of these out with reminders, updates, FAQs, discussion of issues that are confusing to parents. I often ask if I’m sending too many, but my parents insist they love them.

Open door

I’m available every day after school, without an appointment. Because I have so many other ways to stay in touch, my classroom rarely gets so crowded that I can’t deal with everyone on a personal level.

There’s a new approach parents and teachers might consider. It’s called Parentella, an internet-based program that is a bit like a website but simpler to create and more straightforward. It includes a dashboard as a starting point, a class page, spots for homework, class activities, sign-ups for volunteer events, class news and pictures, and a calendar. Once activated, it’ll even email reminders to volunteers, to parents about events–whatever you set up for that function. It is a modern classroom that enables instant parent teacher connection.

What impressed me the most was how intuitive it is for both teacher and parent to set up and use. There are help files, but for my demo purposes, I never had to go there. Everything that I needed showed up on each screen. I could dig deeper into topics with just a click or upload easily by following step-by-step instructions. In no time, I felt connected to the ‘class’.  The only shortfall is the ads that accompany each page. Most websites allow an ad-free environment for a price, so I’ll bet the clever people who built this program have that figured out.

Other than that, Parentella is a great tool to build online school and class communities. It is a great service for parents and teachers.

Textbooks Should be Digital, not Hard Copies

Digital textbooks are coming, whether publishers want them or not. California announced 17 will be rolled out for the new school year. Not a lot, but a start, and once students and teachers use them, they’re going to love them. Because of budgets, it’ll probably take until the current hard copy textbooks must be replaced, but I predict by then it’ll be a no-brainer, that Amazon and all the others who have digital book readers will come up with a way to get those into the hands of students for little or no cost, to sell their digital books.

A deeper look at the problems oft-quoted as standing in the way of digital shows they are easily solved:

• Everyone can’t read a digital book because of the various formats. Not if you sell the book as a pdf file like Scribd.com does. Then, it’ll pop up on any computer.
• Everyone doesn’t have a computer. First, schools should have a 1:1 ratio of computers/students, but that’s another issue. The money schools save on textbooks will fund either the computers or the readers. Or, as I said, digital textbook publishers will figure out how to solve that problem to sell their books. (An aside on the price of textbooks. If you haven’t bought any college texts lately, Google them. They are the high-end of pricey books)
• Students can’t take notes on digital books. (I can’t believe someone offered this one up) With digital textbooks and unlike current texts, students can highlight and bookmark important parts of a chapter, even copy it to their notes, then erase it all at the end of the school year.

I’ll give you a real-life example. I sell my technology textbook on integrating technology into the classroom for $24.97 on Amazon and $13.97 on Scribd.com.

Here’s another story (read my post about digital textbooks here), this one from NYT, discussing the importance of digital textbooks:

In a Digital Future, Textbooks Are History

By TAMAR LEWIN
At Empire High School in Vail, Ariz., students use computers provided by the school to get their lessons, do their homework and hear podcasts of their teachers’ science lectures.

Down the road, at Cienega High School, students who own laptops can register for “digital sections” of several English, history and science classes. And throughout the district, a Beyond Textbooks initiative encourages teachers to create — and share — lessons that incorporate their own PowerPoint presentations, along with videos and research materials they find by sifting through reliable Internet sites.

Textbooks have not gone the way of the scroll yet, but many educators say that it will not be long before they are replaced by digital versions — or supplanted altogether by lessons assembledfrom the wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos and projects on the Web.

“Kids are wired differently these days,” said Sheryl R. Abshire, chief technology officer for the Calcasieu Parish school system in Lake Charles, La. “They’re digitally nimble. They multitask, transpose and extrapolate. And they think of knowledge as infinite.

“They don’t engage with textbooks that are finite, linear and rote,” Dr. Abshire continued. “Teachers need digital resources to find those documents, those blogs, those wikis that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the textbooks.”

In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this summer announced an initiative that would replace some high school science and math texts with free, “open source” digital versions.
With California in dire straits, the governor hopes free textbooks could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

And given that students already get so much information from the Internet, iPods and Twitter feeds, he said, digital texts could save them from lugging around “antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks.”
The initiative, the first such statewide effort, has attracted widespread attention, since California, together with Texas, dominates the nation’s textbook market.

Many superintendents are enthusiastic.

“In five years, I think the majority of students will be using digital textbooks,” said William M. Habermehl, superintendent of the 500,000-student Orange County schools. “They can be better than traditional textbooks.”
Schools that do not make the switch, Mr. Habermehl said, could lose their constituency.

“We’re still in a brick-and-mortar, 30-students-to-1-teacher paradigm,” Mr. Habermehl said, “but we need to get out of that framework to having 200 or 300 kids taking courses online, at night, 24/7, whenever they want.”
“I don’t believe that charters and vouchers are the threat to schools in Orange County,” he said. “What’s a threat is the digital world — that someone’s going to put together brilliant $200 courses in French, in geometry by the best teachers in the world.”

But the digital future is not quite on the horizon in most classrooms. For one thing, there is still a large digital divide. Not every student has access to a computer, a Kindle electronic reader device or a smartphone, and few districts are wealthy enough to provide them. So digital textbooks could widen the gap between rich and poor.

“A large portion of our kids don’t have computers at home, and it would be way too costly to print out the digital textbooks,” said Tim Ward, assistant superintendent for instruction in California’s 24,000-student Chaffey Joint Union High School District, where almost half the students are from low-income families.

Many educators expect that digital textbooks and online courses will start small, perhaps for those who want to study a subject they cannot fit into their school schedule or for those who need a few more credits to graduate.
Although California education authorities are reviewing 20 open-source high school math and science texts to make sure they meet California’s exacting academic standards in time for use this fall — and will announce this week which ones meet state standards — quick adoption is unlikely.

“I want our teachers to have the best materials available, and with digital textbooks, we could see the best lessons taught by the most dynamic teachers,” said John A. Roach, superintendent of the Carlsbad, Calif., schools. “But they’re not going to replace paper texts right away.”

Whenever it comes, the online onslaught — and the competition from open-source materials — poses a real threat to traditional textbook publishers.

Pearson, the nation’s largest one, submitted four texts in California, all of them already available online, as free supplements to their texts.

“We believe that the world is going digital, but the jury’s still out on how this will evolve,” said Wendy Spiegel, a Pearson spokeswoman. “We’re agnostic, so we’ll provide digital, we’ll provide print, and we’ll see what our customers want.”

Most of the digital texts submitted for review in California came from a nonprofit group, CK-12 Foundation, that develops free “flexbooks” that can be customized to meet state standards, and added to by teachers. Its physics flexbook, a Web-based, open-content compilation, was introduced in Virginia in March.

“The good part of our flexbooks is that they can be anything you want,” said Neeru Khosla, a founder of the group. “You can use them online, you can download them onto a disk, you can print them, you can customize them, you can embed video. When people get over the mind-set issue, they’ll see that there’s no reason to pay $100 a pop for a textbook, when you can have the content you want free.”

The move to open-source materials is well under way in higher education — and may be accelerated by President Obama’s proposal to invest in creating free online courses as part of his push to improve community colleges.

Around the world, hundreds of universities, including M.I.T. and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia, now use and share open-source courses. Connexions, a Rice University nonprofit organization devoted to open-source learning, submitted an algebra text to California.

But given the economy, many educators and technology experts agree that the K-12 digital revolution may be further off.

“There’s a lot of stalled purchasing and decision making right now,” said Mark Schneiderman, director of federal education policy at the Software & Information Industry Association. “But it’s going to happen.”
For all the attention to the California initiative, digital textbooks are only the start of the revolution in educational technology.

“We should be bracing ourselves for way more interactive, way more engaging videos, activities and games,” said Marina Leight of the Center for Digital Education, which promotes digital education through surveys, publications and meetings.

Vail’s Beyond Textbooks effort has moved in that direction. In an Empire High School history class on elections, for example, students created their own political parties, campaign Web sites and videos.

“Students learn the same concepts, but in a different way,” said Matt Donaldson, Empire’s principal.

“We’ve mapped out our state standards,” Mr. Donaldson said, “and our teachers have identified whatever resources they feel best covers them, whether it’s a project they created themselves or an interesting site on the Internet. What they don’t do, generally, is take chapters from textbooks.”

Fifth Grade Photoshop: Change That Background

This one you already know how to do if you’ve been following along. Because it is a must-have in a school environment, I’m going to step it out for you.

• Have your child or students open a photo of themselves in Photoshop
• Use the cropping tools learned here to crop themselves out of the background
• Go to select-inverse to select the individual rather than the background
• Edit-copy (this will copy the student’s cropped picture)
• Open a picture of the background they’ve chosen
• Edit-paste the picture they cropped into the background

Dog pasted in front of pyramids

Dog pasted in front of Stonehenge

Imagine, putting your students in the historic events you study together, in the landforms they learn about in science, or the natural math that appears in nature. Now, with this Photoshop lesson, that’s all possible.

PS–If you don’t have Photoshop, try the free download called GIMP.

Blogging for Education

This post was submitted to Teacher Certification Map to raise awareness for educational charities and the important role they play. It won a contest and the website will now donate $500 to Teachers without Borders. To learn more about the effort, check out Blogging for Education

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Teachers Without Borders

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and will never be.

Thomas Jefferson recognized the relationship between education and freedom hundreds of years ago, so why do we still expect nations to do the glorious mountain building required of their future without the bedrock of teachers? We ask the world to ‘cut carbon emissions’ without teaching them science. We ask them to understand us without teaching them culture. We ask them to consider the consequences of their actions without teaching them history. We ask them to look to the numbers for proof without teaching them math.

Teachers are the world’s fixers. They show us how to use that complicated organ inside our head to solve problems, to get along, to talk to each other.

But, you say, we have no teachers. Teachers Without Borders brings them to you.

It is with difficulty I distill the many activities of these teachers without borders to my three favorites. Let’s just call them the top three:

1. Scholastic’s TeacherShare - allows all Scholastic users (with free sign-up) access  to educational resources at the K-8 level
2. Open Educational Resources (OER). These are free, high-quality, reusable content for teachers around the world. Did I mention Free?
3. A free teacher-training program called the Certificate of Teaching Mastery (CTM). It is self-paced and mentor-supported.

Teachers Without Borders is in twenty-six countries. You can make that twenty-seven.

Education reform: Let’s start by burning all the textbooks – Computerworld Blogs

I don’t understand why textbooks can’t be digital. We have the technology. They could be in pdf format–doesn’t have to be on Kindle or one of those readers that cost a lot to own. And, the brilliant American entrepreneurs could create one that reads like a book–my Scribd books can be read that way, downloaded as a pdf, embedded into a digital document.

View this document on Scribd

Why can’t we do this with textbooks?

When I chatted with a librarian friend about this, she was aghast. Why? Well, the librarian associations were against it. I have to believe when she can give me a better answer, she’ll agree with me.

Here’s another man’s opinion on this subject:

Education reform: Let’s start by burning all the textbooks – Computerworld Blogs

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Check out my other posts:

-- Beginning Graphs in MS Excel How the World Ranks Your Blog A Holiday Card in Publisher A Holiday Card in KidPix A Holiday Story in MS Word for Grades 2-7 A Holiday Flier in Publisher A Holiday Memory in Word or KidPix Big List of Student-Friendly Websites A Holiday Letter for Grades 2-6 How to Become Survivorman–or Bear Grylls–in Third Grade Use MS Word’s Tables to Review for a Chapter Test Teach Animal Adaptations with an MS Word Diagram Nomination for Edublogs 2009 Award Use MS Word’s Diagrams to Teach Animal Characteristics 3 Projects to Integrate Tech into an Animals Unit–Part I How to Use Technology to Teach Landforms FREE Tech Lesson Plans! A Holiday Newsletter in MS Word for Elementary School A Holiday Calendar in MS Word for Elementary School How Do You Use Twitter in Education 11 MS Word Tricks Every Teacher Should Know Saul Alinsky: NEA’s Model for Education Reformers Census Facts About Today’s American Indians How to Check Your Math in Excel Kigose–Does it Satisfy it’s Promise of a Student-Friendly Search Engine? How to Excel if You’re a Beginner II How to Excel if You’re a Beginner–I 20 Websites to Learn Everything About Landforms 5 Tools for the Teacher’s Technology Toolkit 20 Great Research Websites for Kids What are the Eu’s Education Issues? Are You A Critical Thinker? More Free Stuff From Google 10 Great Virtual Field Trips How to… Just About Anything in Technology ‘Race to Top’ Said to Lack Key Science 20 Websites to Learn Everything About the Human Body Will Digital Books Help Education? Yes. How to Teach Internet Basics to Kids Here’s Why People Don’t Stress over Education Anymore How to Teach Email to Kids 10 of the Best Math Websites Out There Common Sense Wins Out: It Takes More Than Praise to Make Kids Smart How to Use Art to Teach Grammar How to Teach Geography with Google Earth–Part II How to Teach Geography with Google Earth–Part I How to Explain Computers In K-5 Hackers Don’t Waste Their Time on Macs Social Media–What the Heck is This All About?? Handwriting vs. Computers: Winner Takes All Can Your Fifth Grader Answer This Math Problem? What Others Say When They Know I’m a Techie Attention Moms: A List of the Worst Lunches How to Use MS Word to Teach Geography National Education Standards? Can You Say Big Brother? How to Use Excel to Teach Math Arrays How to Teach Lats and Longs 4 Ways to Explore the Universe From Your Computer 3 Projects to Teach ‘Who Am I?’ Free Online Tech Classes From MIT and Others Four Online Sites to Teach Mouse Skills 16 Things You Know If You’ve Been Reading This Blog Announcing: The Technology Lab Toolkit Don’t Teach to the Test, But Tie Teacher Pay To Performance? The Official List of Twitter-friendly Words Three Tips to Keep Your PC Safe How Obama Is Changing Education Did Your Computer Freeze? Read This 13 Cool Win 7 Tricks 10 Ways Twitter Makes You a Better Writer Is Handwriting Like Camera Film–So Last Generation How to Stop Hating Your Computer What You Need to Know about Kidproofing the Internet The 25 Best High-Tech Pranks (16-25) How to Protect Your Computer–for Free Microsoft Professional Software Free to Students Two Internet Activites For the First Day of Class Keyboarding Could Give Early Warning of Dementia The 25 Best High-Tech Pranks (1-15) How to Find Reliable Internet Sources How Blogs and Wikis Make Students Better Writers Tips for Internet Searches How to Look Like a Photoshop Pro–in Fifth Grade Why Do People Hack? Another Big City Goes With Google Apps How to Talk to Your Child’s Teacher (Parent) 4 FREE Online Keyboarding Programs for K, 1 642 Hours to Complete Race to the Top Application Obama and Cookies: What’s the Story Middle School Programmers: Meet Alice 5 Clues You’ve Been Hacked and What to do About it How to Get Published if You’re Just Starting Out What Everybody Ought to Know About Technological Literacy Why I like PCs Better Than Macs Textbooks Should be Digital, not Hard Copies Five More Must-have Free Apps Top Ten Free Apps to Install on a New Computer Fifth Grade Photoshop: Change That Background Fifth Grade: Custom Shapes in Photoshop Government IT Departments Still Confused by Cloud Computing Photoshop for Fifth Graders: the Basics Fifth Grade Cropping in Photoshop Blogging for Education Education reform: Let’s start by burning all the textbooks – Computerworld Blogs Do You Know Where Your Sysadmin is Today? Total Firefox Downloads Just Shy Of 1,000,000,000 (yes, 1 billion) Fifth Grade Cloning in Photoshop Education Week: ‘Race to Top’ Guidelines Stress Use of Test Data Obama Mandates Teacher Performance Pay Photoshop for Fifth Graders: Autofixes Photoshop for Fifth Graders: The First Step is Word Use Your Computer Like a Pro–in fifth grade How to Crack your (Lost) Windows Password How to Hack Passwords Blogging for Education What’s Your Carbon Footprint Why People Blog–You’ll be Surprised at the Reasons Costco Pairs With Gazelle for Old Tech Trade-Ins 9 Reasons to Quit Teaching and Ten to Stay Make a Movie–at Any Age Interview with Ask a TechTeacher Programming for You and Me–from MIT Survivors Guilt and Teaching–Why Me? School Reports Contradict Pres. Obama and Ed Sec Duncan Girl Falls Into Manhole While Texting, Parents Sue You Know You’re a Geek if You Know What ‘Defcon’ is Why Some Kids Always Seem to Know the Answers Freebies Learn Publisher Basics II technorati: take notice Marketing 101 Five Little Known Ways to Hack a Computer Google Takes Aim at Microsoft, Introduces OS – Science News | Science Learn Publisher Basics I Get Rid of Computer Fear Education Week: Authors Share Tips on How to Hook Boys on Books Who Reads Blogs? MS Word for Grades 2-5 Warning: Computers can be Addicting Let’s Review… Tech Essentials 5 Great FREE Programs for Kids Top Ten Tech Vocabulary Words What Do You Think is the Hardest Techie Problem? Twenty-one Techie Problems Every Student Can Fix World’s Fastest Typist Time to Start Keyboard Practice Using the Internet–K-2 Using an Internet Start Page Techie Humor Shake Hands with a Computer Introduction to KidPix Summer technology

Obama Mandates Teacher Performance Pay

What a surprise. First CEO pay, GM, now schools. Read on…

WASHINGTON — Dangling the promise of $5 billion in grants, President Barack Obama pressured states to embrace his ideas for overhauling the nation’s schools, ideas that include performance pay for teachers and charter schools.

To get the money, state officials may have to do things they, or the teachers’ unions, dislike. But in a recession that is starving state budgets, the new “Race to the Top” fund is proving impossible for some states to resist.

Already, seven states — Tennessee, Rhode Island, Indiana, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Colorado and Illinois — have lifted restrictions on charter schools so they can compete for the money. (more)

Use Your Computer Like a Pro–in fifth grade

The program that says ‘pro’ more than any other is Adobe Photoshop. Believe it or not, there are a whole list of skills easy enough for a fifth grader (maybe even fourth, but I haven’t had time to test it on them yet). Here they are:

• auto-correct with the auto-correction tools–those quick fixes that make a photo look cleaner
• crop with the lasso and the magic wand
• clone within a picture and to another picture
• change the background (put yourself in front of the Eiffel Tower or on top of Hoover Dam)
• add artistic filters (using the ‘filters’ tool and the ‘actions’ tab)
• paint on a blank canvas, using the paint brush
• add custom shapes (crowns to photos, fences, etc)
• add text to a picture (and format it as you like)

Over the next few weeks, I’ll show you how to do each of these skills. Don’t worry–they’re not nearly as hard as

Cloning within a picture

people say they are!

First though, we start with MS Word’s graphic editing tools.

Changing the background

Using the 'Actions' tab

Cloning from one picture to another

Using the paint brush

Adding autoshapes

Blogging for Education

I have a chance to win $500 for the cause of my choice. I have so many, I want your input. What do you think I should talk about? Here are the details. Read them and then post a comment. Thanks, friends!

Summer Fun: What Happens When You Mix an Intern, $500, and a Non-Profit for Education?

The story: One of our team members, Jeremy, thinks that teachers and friends of teachers can help us locate the best non-profits that focus on education through blogging

The dare: Our intern dared Jeremy to put his money on the line and he’s ponied up $500.

YOU: Prove Jeremy’s theory and win a $500 donation to your favorite non-profit organization focused on education

Nominating a non-profit is simple, and will help them whether you win or not. To nominate:

* 1) Write a blog post naming the Top 3 activities and contributions that describe why you support a particular organization, and why their work is inspiring.

* 2) At the beginning of the post, inform your readers why you are writing the post by including the following blurb:

This post is being submitted to Teacher Certification Map to raise awareness for educational charities and the important role they play. To learn more about the effort, check out Blogging for Education

* 3) Once published, send us an email at blogging4education@certificationmap.com. Please include your name and the link to the post.

The winner will be chosen based on several variables:

1) Potential impact of the organization.
2) Quality of your post (accurate and inspirational? Does it inspire others to support this cause?) and
3) Your passion for the non-profit that you support. Are you taking steps to make sure as many people as possible see your post and understand why you support your cause?

The winner will be announced Monday, July 27th, 2009, and submissions are due by 2pm on July 27th. Once we have chosen an organization, we will make the donation and then recognize both the non-profit and the submitting blog(s) here at the Teacher Certification Map.

Nominations are now open! Who do you think deserves this recognition the most?

Why People Blog–You’ll be Surprised at the Reasons

Not for shopping, which those who should know consider to be the killer app for internet use. The top reasons: to learn, have fun and socialize. Sounds like a teachers dream. Look at this:

9 Reasons to Quit Teaching and Ten to Stay

I found this in The Apple, an interesting website on the ups and downs of teaching.With so many teachers out of work, I’ll bet they’re all going through the decision making process: In balance, is this a win for me?

Face it, you are not as good of a teacher as you could be. You’re not living up to your potential. Nobody is. There are many reasons to quit, here are 9:

1. Bad students
2. Bad administrators
3. Bad curriculum
4. Too much paperwork
5. Too much negativity
6. Too much responsibility
7. Not enough time
8. Not enough credit
9. Not enough PAY

Where am I?

Seth Godin says that you are in The Dip. What’s The Dip?. This is that place where it feels like nothing you do matters. Things were going so well until you hit The Dip. It’s when you get to that point where you realize that indeed, the honeymoon is over. When the tide has turned and things are not as easy as they once were? The Dip is where both champions and quitters are proven. The picture shows you where The Dip is. (for the reasons to stay, read on)