Classroom Videoconference with Smithsonian Museum Staff

If your school has videoconferencing capabilities the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum offers two interactive programs. To the Moon and Possibly to Mars, and Kites, Wings and Flying Things bring museum staff and docents, along with artifacts from the Smithsonian collection into the classroom by videoconference. Students interact with the presenters and learn by inquiry. Teachers must participate in a 30 minute pre-lesson video conference and you have to make your reservation at least one month in advance. You can learn more about the programs here.

Be Creative in Finding Stimulus Cash

Education Week's website has an article about different places to access stimulus money. You can read the article here.

The article mentions programs available through the Departments of Labor and Agriculture as well as Education. There are also dollars available through workforce training programs, "recovery zone" bonding programs, and other programs that creative district business managers and superintendents may be able to utilize.

Creative Ways to Fund Technology

While the stimulus package will provide billions in funding for technology in education it's always valuable to discover other sources of technology dollars.

Scholastic's website has an article titled 16 Surprising Ways to Fund Technology with sources and links included.

Number 2 talks about applying online for surplus federal computer equipment. The link in the article is dead but you can check out the new website for CFL (Computers for Learning) here.

Resources from Federal Agencies

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence or FREE is a government site that provides access to incredible information from dozens of federal agencies. There are over 1500 resources organized in four categories: Animations, primary documents, photos and video. The information comes from agencies as diverse as the Peace Corps and the National Security Agency.

One of the things I found at FREE was a link to ARC (Archival Research Catalog), the searchable database of the NARA(the National Archives and Records Administration). There are over 126,000 scanned digital images of important (and not so important) documents from the National Archives. It's a great place to find excellent source material for digital presentations, or just to look around.

How to Create a Community Website

A community website, or wiki is a place where people with similar interests can come together and contribute to a common website. Web design skills are not required thanks to simple push button input of links, pictures, articles etc.

Wetpaint is a site that enables you to set up your own wiki, about anything you want, at no cost.
Here's a video from CommonCraft that explains how it works.

More Resources for Teachers that want to Twitter

If you are a teacher that is considering using Twitter in the classroom or for professional networking you will benefit from visiting this next link. It's the Training and Resource Link page on Twitter for Teachers. It's the most comprehensive list of Twitter information that I've ever seen. Twitter for Teachers is a community collaboration website or wiki dedicated to teaching educators about the hows and whys of Twitter.

This excellent resource was built using wetpaint.com, which deserves a post of it's own.

Elementary School a Paragon of Technology in Education

I had the opportunity this morning to visit with Tim Lauer, Principal of Meriwether Lewis Elementary in Portland, Oregon and co-author of the book Bringing Children and the Internet Together. I had previously posted about Mr. Lauer with a link to an interview he had participated in for 21st Century Learning on EdTechTalk.com.

From the moment I entered their main office, Lewis Elementary stood out from the hundreds of schools that I have visited in the past. Visitors sign in on a laptop computer connected to a label printer that immediately spits out an adhesive visitor's badge printed with the person's name, along with the date and time of arrival.

As I had arrived my customary ten minutes early, I affixed my badge and had time to watch a photo slide show on a flat screen monitor mounted high on the wall outside of the main office. (see photo at bottom, far right) It was apparent before I even met with Mr. Lauer that I had arrived at a school that values the use of technology in many aspects of the elementary environment.

I sat down with Mr. Lauer in his office under the soft glow of his MacBook Pro displaying the most recent school newsletter. After a quick upload and print setup of said newsletter, we got down to discussing the ways that technology is utilized in his school.

Starting on the administrative side, Lewis Elementary uses an electronic attendance system that can produce a student's entire attendance history at the touch of a button. Mr. Lauer also utilizes Twitter (what's Twitter?) to stay in communication with staff and parents. He also uses his website as a place to keep notes about how technology can be used by students (and teachers) to further their understanding of their world. The school has also set up a Google Group to disseminate information about school happenings, as well as links to the electronic versions of all the school newsletters (cool to see the same, freshly posted, newsletter online that I saw on his laptop a couple of hours ago). Teachers are also given time "on the clock" to do class notes so students and parents can see homework assignments, announcements about field trips, and information about general class activities. Teachers are also taking advantage of iphoto '09 which, most impressively, allows teachers to sort their digital photos, by student, using the built-in facial recognition capabilities.

Students are also well served by technology at Lewis Elementary. Second graders are learning to play the piano using MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) keyboards (see photo at bottom, center) connected to computers in Lewis' computer lab (see photo at bottom, left). Third graders visit the computer lab for forty minutes twice a week, while fourth and fifth graders visit for forty minutes four times a week. They learn computer basics such as keyboarding, but also experiment with the digital arts including: Digital photography, video production, even musical scoring using Garage Band.

Music teacher Tony Jamesbarry is integral to the implementation of technology at Lewis. Not only within the musical applications previously mentioned, but architecturally he has students using Google Earth to choose a plot of land using satellite imagery and then Google SketchUp to draw a virtual 3D building on that land. We visited the computer lab as Mr. Jamesbarry had a class working on keyboarding skills with an interactive whiteboard up and waiting for the next lesson. Mr. Lauer pulled out his iPhone and showed me an application that he and Mr. Jamesbarry had discovered that allowed his phone to be used as a touch screen to remotely control the cursor on the whiteboard, wirelessly, from where we stood in the doorway of the lab. I believe I actually said, "Wow!".

But what I found to be most impressive about Mr. Lauer and Lewis Elementary was that they did not fall into the all-too-common trap of focusing on technology to the detriment of other programs. They have an amazing outdoor education center and learning garden, an instrumental music and band program, as well as an extensive visual arts program.

Here is a school that can be held as an example of how elementary schools can implement technology intelligently and thoughtfully. Meriwether Lewis Elementary is a model for how to utilize technology not as novelty, but as a useful resource for teaching, learning, and communication.

Interactive Graphics

I've been creating and using interactive graphics since I started Portable Planetarium in 1998. This is one of my favorites. It's a 360 degree image taken by the Mars Spirit rover from the surface of the planet Mars. My incredibly multi-talented friend J. Steele wrote the JavaScript that allows you to pan around the image by moving your cursor within the picture. You can move left, right, up or down to explore the image as if you are controlling where the camera is pointing.

Note: It's a pretty large file and may take up to a minute to load even with a broadband connectiton.

Here's another one...It's an interactive planetary gallery. You will have to have Flash installed to see it. Roll over the planets to see data about that planet. Click on a planet for a full size image. Click the starfield to see the constellations (can you see and identify the four constellations without clicking?)

More Video and Interactive Resources

Here's a link to free video from National Geographic. There are many different subjects represented. For example, a lesson about blue whales would be so much more effective if it included the video embedded below. It's possibly the first video ever captured of a baby blue whale; already the size of a school bus. The file is just four minutes out of a nearly hour long blue whale documentary. You can also explore an interactive piece here. Or try to tag and track blue whales virtually, here.

Whether an instructor uses the video on an interactive whiteboard, projects it on a screen, or embeds it in a blog, the usefulness of interactive pieces, video, and the tools to present them are a big part of the present and future of technology in education.

Earmark Article in the Oregonian

Here's a link to an article about earmarks in the Oregonian. Interesting to note that in the tenth paragraph the article talks about how school programs are one of the earmarks that garner universal support.

Twitter on NPR

Here's audio of a story about Twitter on Scott Simon's Weekend Edition Saturday (3/1/09). Hear host Scott Simon, nonagenarian Daniel Schorr and NPR's Social Media Specialist Andy Carvin talk about what Twitter is, and how it's used.

Twitter Video Primer

This is a short video called Twitter in Plain English.

Want to know what the twitter is all about?
(congratulations this is the 1,000,000th use of that joke!)



Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

I found the link to that video at Free Technology for Teachers it was produced by the CommonCraft video company.

Interactive Table of the Elements

I Found this link to an interactive table of the elements at Free Technology for Teachers. The blog has a ton of cool technology for teachers...For free...In case anyone failed to pick that up from the title of the blog.

You can roll over actual pictures of all the elements to get the expected information, but I clicked on titanium (TI 22, atomic weight 47.867) and it opens up to dozens and dozens of entries and pictures. Every element drills down to a bunch of other files. You could come back every day for a year and not see everything.

ARRA Dollars for Education

I posted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars by district here a few weeks ago.

For a broader view here's a link to a table showing total dollars going to education and for which areas. State educational technology grants total $650 million. Notice that the numbers on the table are in thousands.

Here's a PDF of allocations by LEA's (local education agency) in Oregon and Washington State here. You can click here for access to the rest of the states.

As in my original post it's important to note that these are estimates. These numbers will change depending on state level adjustments.

You can read more on Hilary Goldmann's excellent blog on ISTE.

Tim Lauer Talks About Technology, Education and Leadership

I've been following Superintendent Neil Rochelle's blog Changing High Schools since I linked to it in a post a few days ago. It's really driven home how important it is to have strong leadership to drive the creation of and to maintain a successful technology program.

Principal Tim Lauer has been involved in technology in the classroom almost from the beginning of the web age. As Technology Director at an art magnet he partnered with a local science museum and was setting up computer labs, building servers and utilizing the web in the classroom in the early to mid 90's. Now he's a Principal at his own tech savvy elementary school.

Here's audio of Mr. Lauer speaking in '07 about technology in education and his leadership role. It's called 21st Century #42 and it's posted at EdTechTalk.com

Sir Ken Robinson-Creativity and Education

After blogging yesterday about streaming video, I've spent many hours since exploring YouTube and TeacherTube.

I found the following video of Sir Ken Robinson talking about creativity and education. It's from the 2006 TED conference. TED (Technology, Education, Design) started in 1984 as a conference to share ideas. Today TED continues to bring together amazing people and their ideas and gives presenters eighteen minutes to share their convictions in what they call TedTalks.

If you haven't seen this video and you have a spare twenty minutes I highly recommend watching it. It's unusual because not only does it impart great ideas about the value of creativity, but it is also truly amusing.

CAUTION: Dry British wit ahead...

Streaming Video

YouTube is a great resource for educational videos as well as video about technology in education. Go to YouTube and do a search for "technology in education" and you'll get dozens of videos to watch. Including this one, a video about foreign language teacher Jose Picaro's top ten tips for using technology in the classroom. Here's one that teaches the Pythagorean Theorem in sixty seconds.

A couple of educators have started a similar website called TeacherTube. It's another resource for sharing instructional video. I really liked this one, a video starring Lawrence Perez that presents students a pre-algebraic introduction to the Distributive Property.

Iroquois Central's Path to Technology

This is an ISTE guest blog by the Superintendent of Western New York's Iroquois Central School District, Neil Rochelle, author of the blog Changing High Schools. It's a great overview of the different ways technology can be utilized in the classroom.
He also talks about the process of implementing technology into his district.

"We started with a few extremely motivated teachers. Blogging was the start. Posting assignments, homework (being absent was not longer an excuse to not having work done!) and even lecture notes. A student would volunteer to be ’scribe’ for the day and post the day’s lecture/class notes."

The first sentence in his quote is the key to almost every successful program I have seen.

Utah to use Stimulus Money for Technology

The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting here that the Utah State Superintendent of Schools and the Governor want to use some of their $500 million in stimulus money for computer labs and technology to boost test scores in Utah's poorest schools. Utah will also receive $57 million for Title I schools. They plan to use the funds for writing instruction software, electronic infrastructure, and English as a second language programs for underprivledged schools.

PBS Teachers Site Holding Free Webinar March 18

The Teachers section of the PBS website is offering a free webinar about using digital media to teach Shakespear to the Net generation. It will take place Wednesday March 18, 5-6:30 PST. You can read more about it here. You can register here and have a reminder with additional login information emailed one week before the event.

Classroom 2.0

Here's an example of what an amazing resource an online community/social network can be...

NCCE 2009 Conference/Interactive Whiteboards

I spent the day at the Ed Options booth at the Northwest Council for Computers in Education conference. Lots of cool equipment on display. I like the interactive whiteboards. Here's a guy that figured out how to make one with a Wii controller and some reflective tape. With a cheap projector and a classroom computer you could have an interactive whiteboard for a few hundred dollars.

Teacher Dale Ehhardt made one and is training and setting them up in other classrooms at his school. He made a slideshow to show how he did it. Check it out here.

Video Network Company Launches Online Community

Wren, which offers video networks and service to schools, has started an online collaboration of educators and parents called Help a Teacher. It offers discussions, links to resources, and information about technology in education. The site was created using Ning, a website that offers free social network setup and hosting. This looks like it could be a great resource if enough people choose to participate.

Arizona Schools get Technology Training Grant

Here's a story about a grant given to six underserved schools around Phoenix, AZ. Funding through the Arizona Regents Reach Out grant and a parnership between The University of Arizona and Arizona State University will train teachers in the use of technology in the classroom.

Video Conferencing and Education

If you were alive in the 70's and you were old enough to predict what education would be like in 2010, you probably pictured two way video communication between students and teachers or experts from anywhere in the world. Iste's guest blogger,6/7th grade teacher, Neil Stephenson posts here about how Skypeing is used in the classroom in ways you may not have imagined back then.

Portland Mayor's Education Coordinator Leaves for Position with Portland Schools Foundation

The Portland Mercury's blog is posting that Nate Schull is leaving his Education Strategies Youth Coordinator post on Portland Mayor Sam Adams' staff. He accepted a position as Director of Community Engagement for the Portland Schools Foundation's Connected By 25 initiative. Both sides said they look forward to working together in the future.

5,000+ Students in Minnesota Take All Classes Online

Here is an article from the Post Bulletin newspaper in Minnesota. It talks about the huge growth of online learning in Minnesota and across the U.S. There are twenty-two certified online schools in the state.

"To think that every kid learns the best sitting in a chair, facing the front of the room isn't the reality anymore." Steve Kerska, Houston MN Public Schools Director of Secondary Options

Minnesota students taking their classes exclusively online have doubled in the past year.

Qwest Hands Out Technology in the Classroom Grants

Qwest the voice, video and data service provider is giving away $200,000 in grants to schools in Colorado. The grants will support technology projects in Colorado classrooms and will go to teachers who are using technology in the classroom in innovative ways. Past winners have used the grants to buy everything from iPods to projectors, laptops and educational software. Qwest is giving away $1,000,000 in teacher and technology grants across the 14 states in their service territory. You can find the list of states and links to more information here.

They also have a program that allows customers who sign up for paperless billing to donate 1% of their bill to the school district of their choice, they call it 1% Back to Schools.

It's great to see a company contributing to education, these programs should stand as an example for other corporations.

Stimulus Dollars by District

Below are some links to estimated figures on how much each school district stands to receive under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The numbers were prepared by the Congressional Research Service and are broken down to reflect dollars received under three programs, Title I, IDEA, and construction for 2009 and 2010. The estimates do not include an additional $79 billion from the State Stabilization Fund aimed at state and local governments to help close budget gaps and fund education and other key services. Of course these numbers are subject to change up until the bill is actually signed by President Obama.

Here are the links for districts in Oregon and Washingon. If you are interested in the numbers for districts in other states you can access all 50 (D.C. and Puerto Rico also) here.

Unique Needs and Challenges of K-12 Online Teachers

Here's a study from Boise State University and the North American Council for Online Learning. It's phase 2 of the Going Virtual! research series, from a national survey of nearly 900 respondents representing K-12 online teachers from a variety of settings including; brick and mortar schools, virtual schools and supplemental programs offering online courses. The study identifies their needs and challenges.

National Writing Project Receives Grant

The National Writing Project (NWP) has received a $300,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation. The NWP is a professional development network that serves writing teachers at all grade levels and subjects. It's mission is to improve student achievment by assisting teachers in improving the way they teach and the way students learn.

The grant from the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur foundation is part of it's digital media and learning initiative. The grant will help support The National Writing Project's Digital Is program, a national effort to provide resources to teachers in their classroom instruction of writing and utilization of new technologies.

“Today’s young people are using a range of digital tools to compose and create in utterly new ways,” said Sharon J. Washington, executive director of the National Writing Project. “It is a game-changing moment for teachers of writing. The very notion of what it means to write is shifting, and educators are faced with adapting their teaching practices to integrate new technologies while redefining writing and learning for the 21st century. We are honored that the MacArthur Foundation is supporting our efforts in this exciting area.”

Teachers are faced with having to adapt the way they teach to include new technology. This grant should help them to do that.

Betty Collum is a teacher in rural Mississippi that is putting this idea into practice in her fifth grade classroom. She uses a class blog so students can discuss literature, write, revise and collaborate on poems and even create podcasts of their poetry. Then the podcasts are put on the Youth Radio blog, Massachusetts writing project teacher Kevin Hodgeson's youth writer's project.

"Technology is motivation for students," says Betty, who is the Technology Liaison for her site. She believes that teachers, too, are motivated when they see how technology can be a tool for writing and learning.

Read all about her innovative classroom practices here.

Who Benefits from Online Learning

This is an article from MinnPost.com out of Minnesota. I'm posting this because the article does a really good job of explaining the benefits of an online education. Including the myriad types of students that may benefit from it. Including:

• Students whose work or family obligations require a flexible schedule

• High achievers who want to move faster than the rest of the class

• Students pursuing a career in music, athletics or the arts

• Students whose high schools don't offer the range of courses they need, such as Advanced Placement

• Children with autism, Asperger's or ADHD, who would benefit from a calmer learning environment

• Previously home-schooled students who want to continue learning with close parental involvement

• Students who are tired of the disruptions and lack of personal attention in today's classrooms

• Students concerned about their safety in school

• Students who have been bullied or subjected to negative peer pressure

It also has some excellent figures about the future of online learning from experts like Clayton Christensen, a Harvard professor, who forecasts that in ten years half of all high school courses will be online. His prediction is from the book he co-authored called, Disrupting Class about how innovation will change the way the world learns.

Some Innovative Uses for Technology in the Classroom

Here is a blog post from a Principal working in alternative and special education in Western New York. It talks about four ways (Digital cameras/video, wireless labs, multimedia software, and streaming video.) to use technology effectively in the classroom. Much of the information comes from the excellent Discovery Education site.

I visited Discovery's streaming video site and watched a great white shark snack on a couple of fur seals, and learned about the Golden Ratio. It's not cheap, but there are thousands of streaming videos covering a broad range of subjects.

Here's a more detailed list of useful "gadgets" from Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators from the Discovery site as well.

Who Provides Curriculum and Content for Online Education

Click chart for full sized version.

*Numbers do not add up to 100% because schools often use more than one provider (See chart below). Data from K-12 Online Learning A 2008 Follow-Up of the Survey of U.S. School District Administrators by the Sloan Consortium


Data from K-12 Online Learning A 2008 Follow-Up of the Survey of U.S. School District Administrators by the Sloan Consortium

How Online Learning Works

Here's a graphic representation of how online learning works. It shows funding sources, governmental participation, public and private sector contributions, even school structure and administration. It's from the current issue of Threshold magazine. This quarterly is an amazing resource.

Threshold is a forward-looking quarterly journal for district, state, and national education leaders. Launched in 2003, it features nationally-recognized experts offering provocative ideas, opinions, and research at the intersection of education and technology. The content for each issue is developed in partnership with a leading education organization with a stake and expertise in the topic at hand, meaning readers are guaranteed authoritative perspectives on the key educational issues of the day.

You can access every edition of Threshold from Fall '03 until the most recent issue here.

Using What They Relate To

I was talking to a middle school science teacher at Little League sign-ups and he was telling me about a program that utilizes a non-school aspect of students lives to teach concepts in original ways. Apparently. the local Triple A ball club the Beavers puts it on in partnership with OMSI, the Portland science museum. They apply art and science to baseball to teach physics among other things. I thought of that program when I saw this post (from marketing blogger Kevin H. Davis) about teachers using podcasts to deliver audio information. Students can listen to it on a computer or download it onto their IPod or other inexpensive portable media player.
Today this is somewhat common on college campuses, but it seems that K-12 is only just starting to take advantage of the technology. I'm not sure how effective it would be, especially for the younger grades, but you'd be sure to earn at least a little bit of respect from the millennials.

Florida's Virtual School law

Here's an article on ohmygov.com about Florida's innovative new law requiring public schools to provide full time virtual schools to all students. This would allow a student in Florida to earn a diploma, theoretically, without ever setting foot in a brick and mortar school. You can read the full text of the law (1002.45) on the Florida Senate website. Or read an article about it by Laura Green at the Palm Beach Post.

The law allows districts to develop their own program, collaborate with other districts, or contract with state approved private online curriculum providers.

The ohmygov.com article sums up some of the advantages:

The benefits of an online education are varied. For starters, because students range in abilities and habits in a given class, online tools allow students to work at their own pace and at their chosen hours. Night owls (a.k.a. teenagers) can work through the night and sleep all day. Gifted students who digest a lesson quickly don't get stuck in the same lesson as those who digest the material more slowly. Students in rural areas can attend programs and classes previously unavailable or difficult to get to. Sick days are also less of a problem in an online world.

This innovative program should go a long way toward legitimizing online education. Hopefully other states will follow suit.

Vital Components

Here's a story from Education Week about some key pieces to successful technology programs and initiatives.

Getting your Superintendent and School Board in the loop is vital according to the article.

Education May Receive Proposed Stimulus Money

There's some public skepticism about the new proposed stimulus package, what with the lavish holiday parties, funded with bailout dollars, fresh in our minds. But it's good to see education will get a share of the package, they're calling it Education for the 21st Century.

How soon until we read about some elementary school throwing a pizza party featuring Wolfgang Puck personally wood firing chorizo pizzas while Jay-Z performs in the multi-purpose room?

Kidding aside, some of the money has been earmarked for renovation and modernization, including technology. Below is some text from the actual Appropriations Committee summary:

Education for the 21st Century: To enable more children to learn in 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries to help our kids compete with any worker in the world, this package provides:

• $41 billion to local school districts through Title I ($13 billion), IDEA ($13 billion), a new School Modernization and Repair Program ($14 billion), and the Education Technology Program ($1 billion).
  
• $79 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cutbacks to key services, including $39 billion to local school districts and public colleges and universities distributed through existing state and federal formulas, $15 billion to states as bonus grants as a reward for meeting key performance measures, and $25 billion to states for other high priority needs such as public safety and other critical services, which may include education.
  
• $15.6 billion to increase the Pell Grant by $500.
  
• $6 billion for higher education modernization.

Teach the Teachers

Starting with a strong curriculum as a base is vital, but the programs that I've seen that prove to be most effective use brilliant and original ways to deliver the curriculum and use the tools available to serve the widest range of student needs. Promisingly, it seems the programs that have proven models of success are willing to share those techniques with other school districts.

On the academic side this program at the University of Maine is a grad level course for future and current K-12 teachers about technology integration (it looks like the course is offered on a non degree basis as well.) The course outcomes are:

• Enhance learning in K-12 classrooms by integrating knowledge of learning and teaching with knowledge of educational technology, media and instructional methods
• Apply and evaluate applications of technology to specific instructional situations and develop materials and strategies needed to enhance learning
• Plan, implement and evaluate mediated instructional and educational technology delivery systems based on knowledge of research
• Evaluate existing instructional technology hardware and software resources in a school or school district and plan, implement and evaluate changes needed to heighten teaching and learning
• Evaluate the instructional technology knowledge and skill levels of teachers, administrators and other school staff and provide needed training and support

We need our future teachers (and current ones too) to be educated about these technical integration issues. This looks like a good program, too bad it's noteworthy for it's rarity.

Tech Savvy President

So, for the first time, we have a president that personally utilizes technology, and understands it's usefulness in daily life. President Obama owns a Blackberry, used the Internet for grassroots campaigning and will use email for daily communication with friends and senior staff members. He is the first president to use email. Presidents have not used email in the past either from unfamiliarity or because the Presidential Records Act makes email communications public.

President Obama has a plan for education of course. It's nice to see that he understands the futility of teaching to a standardized test, and he wants to reform No Child Left Behind improving assessment and accountability. In all the conversations I've had with educators, I've yet to meet a proponent of NCLB in its current form. He also has a Zero to Five plan to help young children and their parents get a head start on education. While our new president has a technology plan as well, he has yet to give a detailed plan on how technology and education should merge.

Christopher Dawson an Education Technology blogger for ZDnet has some good Obama quotes and a discussion about Ed Tech and the new administration in this post.