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Free Technology for Teachers

Tribute to Steve Hargadon

JOIN this VoiceThread Tribute to Steve Hargadon, the founder of Classroom 2.0. Steve was the 2010 Leadership Award Recipient (CUE)








Apply Online
February 1, 2010
June 1, 2010
October 15, 2010

The following grants are available:

Learning & Leadership Grants
Amount: $2000 (Individuals)
$5000 (Group Collegial Study Projects)
Opportunities for teachers to engage in professional development and facilitate staff developments for their colleagues.

Eligible Individual Study Projects:
  • Summer Institutes
  • Action Research
Eligible Group Study Projects:
  • Collegial Study
  • Mentoring Experiences for New Teachers/Faculty
  • Study Groups
  • Action Research
  • Lesson Study
Student Achievement Grants:
Amount: $5000
Funding to assist teachers in providing instruction to improve academic achievement by engaging students in critical thinking & problem solving lessons that will strengthen their knowledge and meet state standards.

Suggested Proposals:
Assisting low-income or minority students with honors/
advancement placement courses/ or challenging curricula.


Watch
Turns Tweets Into Newspapers

paper.li will turn your personal tweeter streams into your OWN daily newspaper.

This app will incorporate stories, live links, video, and photos in an easy to read newspaper. It will update your newspaper daily. You can send the link to your newspaper to your friends and followers on a daily basis. You can also embed your twitter newspaper into your blog.

paper.li is an app for Twitter and Facebook. However, I found this app difficult to use with Facebook and chose http://www.postpost.com as an excellent alternative. Read the previous post entry regarding the PostPost application for creating a Facebook newspaper.

But YOU be the judge.


PostPost.com
Turns Your Facebook
into A Newspaper




http://www.postpost.com will turn your Facebook entries into your OWN interactive real-time Newspaper. Try it and within 30 seconds you will have a personal newspaper to share with your family and friends. How innovative.

Engineer Girl Essay Contest
“Relief from A Disaster”
Grade 3-12 Deadline March 1, 2011 by 6:00 p.m. (EST)
Win from $100, $250 or $500

What do you need to do?
1. Select an item designed to be used in a disaster zone
2. Research the item for your essay entry.

Grades 3 – 5
§ Describe how it works, key elements, why it was designed that way.
(500 words or less)
Grades 6-8
§ Describe how it works, key elements, why it was designed that way.
§ Describe how different types of engineers (civil, mechanical, electrical, etc.) might have contributed to the final design of this item.
(750 words or less)
Grades 9-12
§ Describe an item that is used for disaster relief.
§ Explain how it works. Point out key elements of the design and
why it was designed that way.
§ Describe how different types of engineers (e.g. civil, mechanical, electrical, etc.)
might have contributed to the final design of this product.
§ Discuss the constraints designers faced in the creation of this product and potential changes/improvements needed if it were used in a different disaster relief scenario.
§ Be sure to include your references.
(1500 words or less)


Got Company Coming In An Hour?
Get help from this podcast from: FlyLady Tools

"Crisis Cleaning 101"

FlyLady adds humor to her helpful tips.

Listen carefully because she will save your diginity. Lol!

Want to check out more of her podcast episodes?

Scroll down on my right hand side of my blog and listen.
Click play and enjoy!

Why All Learners Need Laptops Now!
Credit: Twitter - @wirededucator
Google Docs:
http://bit.ly/e2PiE1
This document is open to anyone who wishes to contribute.

Reasons:
1. textbooks are expensive
2. textbooks are heavy
3. textbook history is incomplete
4. schools are poor
5. digital curriculum is plentiful
6. media is powerful
7. laptops are affordable
8. not all kids learn the same
9. learning should be differentiated
10. hyperlinked writing is powerful
11. creativity is essential
12. learning is 24/7
13. your competitors have them already
14. better windows into learning
15. education is about empowerment
16. republics need critical thinkers
17. our kids deserve them
18. laptops today are equivalent to needing paper and pencil yesterday
19. teachers/students are shackled by the contents of traditional textbooks
20. Students need to be able to connect with others around the world
21. Students need to be able to collaborate electronically with others
22. Students need to be able to use Web 2.0 Tools to learn and problem solve
23. Learning needs to be anytime, anywhere and move at the speed that students want.
24. Students are usually not allowed to use the technology in their pockets..so Laptops!
25. Because learning doesn’t stop at 3:30
26. Because we should be using less paper
27. They are a good motivational tool
28. They facilitate access to an authentic environment & authentic audience
29. They provide an excellent medium for shared learning/project based learning
30. They are a mobile, versatile discovery vehicle tailor-made for experiencing learning opportunities
31. The screen of an Internet-connected laptop is a window to the world’s information
32. They are a great way for students to teach their teachers.
33. Students will begin to push their own learning.
34. Teachers will also see more authentic work.

Contributors:
1. Wesley Fryer, Denton, Texas, USA
2. Al Steeves, Rothesay, New Brunswick, Canada
3. Chris O’Neal, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
4. Terry Kaminski, Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada
5. Trisha Andersen, Loveland, Colorado, USA
6. Mike Renne, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
7. Jeannie Chiasson, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
8. Camilla Elliott, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
9. T. Lewis, New Brunswick, Canada
10. Pam Lowe, Missouri, USA
11. Kurt Paccio, Nazareth, Pennsylvania, USA
12. Kern Kelley, Newport, Maine, USA
13. Reba Gordon Matthews, California, USA

Remixes:
It is asked if you use this list in a blog post, presentation, or other published work, to please link it in the above google doc link. This will allow others to see it and contribute.
Also (if possible) please give attribution credit to this entire group.
1. SlideShare by Wesley Fryer: 1-2 September 2010
2. Techie Teacher Blogspot: 13 December 2010



Xerox is sponsoring the "Let's Say Thanks" project which gives Americans the opportunity to thank our U.S. troops by sending a free personalized postcard http://www.letssaythanks.com/.

The postcards were selected from a pool of entries from children from all over the country. Their submitted entries depict patriotic scenes and hometown images. I absolutely love the children's drawings! I can only imagine how wonderful these cards will make our troops feel when they receive these wonderful gifts of thanks.

The process is very easy:

1. You choose your desired design

2 Select a message from a pre-generated message list OR design a personal note.

3. Xerox then prints the postcards on Xerox iGen3 Digital Production.

4. Xerox will mail the cards in care packages via Give2TheTroops, a military support organization.

Let's give our U.S. a GREAT BIG Thank You through the gift of our children's artwork.
ScreenToaster IS BACK - Oh My!

Wow...one of the best screen capturing web-based tools...SCREENTOASTER...IS BACK.

It has an excellent hosting feature and is very user-friendly. This tool was gone for awhile and we fans had to push on and explore and look for another alternative. And off I went....

Below are 3 web-based alternatives that I had read about on various blogs. But none have compared to Screentoaster at this time.


Screenr - Instant screencasting forTwitter.




ScreenCastle - One-Click screen capturing tool and you are recording.



Screencast-o-matic - (aka "Screencasts")
This is one of the first screencasting web-based applications.


Read more about these tools on Richard Byrne's blog, "Free Technology for Teachers" http://bit.ly/eyJCPQ

Please leave your comments on what other screencasting tools you found. Good luck with your search.