Tech & Learning (Nov 2010, Vol. 31, No. 4)

techlearning.com

I D E A S A N D T O O L S F O R E D T E C H L E A D E R S | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | $ 6

VOLUME 31 NUMBER 4

Professional Development: blended is better How to turn students into STEM innovators

Lights, Cameras, Action!

Digital video in the classroom

Does more tech = less reading?

Best Web tools for class

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6 Editor’s DeskThe Next Level

8 News & Trends• Next Big Thing: Smiths Detection

X-ray screening

• Does more tech = less reading?

• Small change makes a differenceWhich schools are safest?

• Student programming contest

• E-rate changes promote broadband

• Sites We Like

• 21st-century schools can protect themselves from copyright violation

• Digital storytelling and literacy resources for kids

• A form of change

18 How It’s Done: Medical SchoolingStephen Biscotte has stepped up to the STEM challenge with his PIT Crew: Physicians-In-Training program.

50 They Said It: Talk About the Message By Bob SprankleWhy aren’t parents talking to their kids about TV?

TECH & LEARNING | 3

20 3034 42

contentsNOVEMBER 2010 | VOL. 31 NO. 4

FEATURESTop Web Tools for Enhancing Collaboration It’s not news that collaboration is a proven method of effective teaching, and Web 2.0 has enlarged peer collaboration to a global scale. Here are some of the coolest tools you can use to kick-start collaborative projects in any curriculum. By Özge Karaoglu

SCHOOL CIO Professional Development: Blended is betterTexas recently launched Project Share, a portal offering teachers online professional development, Web 2.0 connectivity, and enriched classroom resources.By Pam Derringer

PRODUCTSPut to the Test: T&L editors take some new products for a test drive.

20 Serif DrawPlus X422 Casio Green Slim XJ-A130 Digital Multimedia Projector24 Ignite! Stick—Made for SMART26 The Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross

The Long ReviewThis month: Meet the students: In action in the classroom

10 Great Ways to Use Digital Video Cameras in the ClassroomEducators are flipping for Flips and other inexpensive digital cameras. Here is a sampling of ways you can use these tools in any curriculum. By Ellen Ullman

November 2010 What’s NewAcuity Enhancements • CAMS Series • Clamshell classmate PC design • CPX8 3LCD video projector • EdWeb 2.0 • ExOS 5.5 • Faronics Anti-Virus • Fluency Tutor • Lutron GRAFIK Eye QS Wireless • Mini Solar Kits • Numonics INTELLIBOARD interactive whiteboard • Peek • PLATO Learning Online Courses • Schoolnet Respond • Thinkspiration • Toon Boom 6 • WriteToLearn 6.0 • Zaner-Bloser Spelling Connections • and more

DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS

30

34

20

28

38

42

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4 | TECH & LEARNING

Professional development, funding, and free stuff: Check out our Web offerings from teachers, administrators, and tech coordinators.

[email protected]

ondemand

UPCOMING WEBINARSTransforming Education: Learning Powered by Technology Thursday, November 4, 4 pm ESTSponsored by Motorola

Web 2.0 Schools Tuesday, November 9, 4 pm ESTA K-12 Computing Blueprint webinar sponsored by Intel

ARCHIVED WEBINARSHow to Set Up a Technology Day in Your District Sponsored by Atomic Learning

Tips to Securing Your Network in a Mobile and Web 2.0 World Sponsored by Lightspeed Systems

EBOOKSKeeping Students Safe Online: What Works Sponsored by Learning.com

A New Generation of Wi-Fi in K-12 Sponsored by Aerohive

Check techlearning.com for updates

THE MOST-READ STORIES ON TECHLEARNING.COM100 Ways Google Can Make You a Better EducatorUsing Sites, Google Earth, Wave, and more, you can turn your classroom into a place where you can share, collaborate, and publish on the Web.

17 Digital Storytelling and Literacy Resources for KidsGuest blogger Shelly Terrell shares her favorite free apps to help kids create their own stories, listen to stories, increase their reading skills, and improving their English proficiency.

Jazz Up Your Powerpoints with AlternativesOzge Karaoglu provides presentation alternatives to Powerpoint that can blow your audience away with more innovative ways of presenting online.

I Can’t Wane My WordlingMichael Gorman knows you might be a Wordle power user, but he thinks you might learn at least one new thing from this Hooked On Wordle Educator.

Top 10 Sites for Creating Digital ComicsDavid Kapuler reports there are many online alternatives to Comic Life or Toon Boom (mostly free) that offer fun ways to develop digital comics.

Are Online Predator Risks Exaggerated? Dean Shareski questions the real danger of online predators, including the statistics that claim one in five children is now approached by online predators.

Survey: Kids Reading Less; Can E-books Help? The 2010 Kids and Family Reading Report shows kids are reading less, but also found indications that technology could be a positive motivator to get kids reading.

Follow us on TWITTER (techlearning) and FACEBOOK (Tech&Learning Magazine)

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editor’s desk

One of the best parts of this job is the regular opportunity to sit with some very smart and influential leaders in public education. It happened again last month at Tech & Learning’s first Tech Forum Atlanta.

The daylong series of sessions, conceived and implemented by longtime Tech & Learning veteran Judy Salpeter, drive our editorial calendar for the coming year. They also provide attendees with the latest and greatest tools and ideas for edtech leaders. Administrators and educators from across the country converged to inspire and learn from each other. Mike Porter, director of technology at Ware County Schools (GA), detailed some of the astounding things his district has achieved thanks to their use of Internet2. Keynote David Jakes, coordinator of instructional technology at Glenbrook South (IL), spelled out the essential steps for smart social media in schools. Edtech luminary David Warlick shared his list of Web tools here: www.delicious.com/dwarlick/web20tools, which promptly took off through the Twitterverse.

By the time you read this, we will have held two other in-person Tech Forum events in New York and Austin, TX. But this year, I’m happy to announce a solution for all those who are geographically impaired or who missed the dates of our live events. On November 17, from 10am to 5pm EST, Tech & Learning will be hosting its first Virtual Tech Forum. The invaluable conversations that occur in our face-to-face gatherings will be transferred into online space, with what I expect to be great results. For more details on the big day and to register, go here: www.techlearning.com/section/VirtualTechForum.aspx

We hope to “see” you there!

THE NEXT LEVEL

Kevin HoganEditorial Director

N THE WEBwww.techlearning.com

6 | TECH & LEARNING

NOVEMBER 2010 | VOL. 31 NO. 4

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news trends by T&L editors

8 | TECH & LEARNING

nextbigthing

See-through safetyAirports aren’t the only places using X-ray screening to search for weapons, narcotics, and explosives. Smiths Detection reports that over the past year, U.S. schools have bought more than $1.1 million worth of its security systems with which to screen students and staff alike. The tech provider’s portable HI-SCAN 5030si and HI-SCAN 6040ds systems produce detailed images of scanned items through high-resolution sensor technology, enabling school safety agents to quickly evaluate bags, backpacks, and other personal items.

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Between the ages of six and

17, the amount of time kids

spend reading books for fun

declines, while the time they

spend going online for fun

and using cell phones to text

or talk increases, according

to the “2010 Kids & Family

Reading Report,” a national

survey conducted by Scho-

lastic and the Harrison Group.

In addition, the report found

parents expressing concern

that the use of electronic and digital

devices negatively affects the time

kids spend:

■ reading books (41%)

■ doing physical activities (40%)

■ engaging with family (33%)

But the study also revealed signs

that technology can help motivate kids

to read: Fifty-seven percent of kids

aged nine to 17 say they are interested

in reading an e-book, and a third of

children in the same age group say

they would read more books for fun

if they had access to e-books on an

electronic device.

Visit www.scholastic.com/readingreport

for the full report.

news trends

10 | TECH & LEARNING

0% None. Classroom is a tech-free zone.

70.83% Pretty good and getting better.

8.33% Hardly any, just the basics.

20.83% We’re almost all computerized. We are truly 21st century.

See more polls at techlearning.com.

T&L ASKS READERSChances are you have more software and computing power at your fingertips than do all the astronauts put together. How much do you actually use in school?

Does more tech = less reading? WHICH SCHOOLS ARE SAFEST? The Safe Search Awards Index,

an annual ranking, administered

by netTrekker, of the 100 school

districts that keep their students

safest when the kids are search-

ing online, has been released.

The 2009–2010 school-year Safe

Search Awards Program was bro-

ken down by small, medium-sized,

and large districts. Orange County

Public Schools in Florida finished

first among the large districts, hav-

ing had more than 5.4 million safe

searches in 2009–2010. Among

the midsize districts, Blue Springs

School District in Missouri led with

1,619,750 searches. Morehouse

Parish School District in Louisiana

came in first among the small dis-

tricts with 429,797 searches.

For the complete list, visit www

.netTrekker.com.

Sites We Like www.trailtribes.org

An excellent resource on the

tribal groups located along

the trails followed by explorers

Lewis and Clark.

STAR INNOVATOR

Walter Payton College Preparatory High School, Chicago, ILRecognized for Math ExcellencePrincipal: Ellen EstradaPublic High SchoolEnrollment: 894www.wpcp.org

Continued on page 2

Intel® Schools of Distinction2010 AWARD WINNER PROFILES

Achieving math and science excellence.

Excellence in mathematics and

science education is at the heart

of our nation’s ability to innovate

and create a viable future.

Intel is committed to the educa-

tion of tomorrow’s innovators—

we celebrate the 2010 winners

of the Intel Schools of Distinction

awards and our Star Innovator,

the Walter Payton College

Preparatory High School in

Chicago, Illinois.

These schools demonstrate daily that students can engage in math and science

education in meaningful ways, transforming both their own lives and their

communities. The dedication and commitment of the schools, teachers, and

communities serve as models for many other schools around the country and

the world.

These pioneers in 21st century education each receive a $10,000 grant from

the Intel Foundation, as well as curriculum materials, professional development

resources, and hardware and software from program sponsors. The Star Innovator

receives an additional $15,000 Intel Foundation grant, as well as additional prod-

ucts and services from the program sponsors.

Visit www.schoolsofdistinction.com and www.k12blueprint.com to learn

more about this exciting opportunity for your school and program sponsors,

and to apply for the 2011 Intel Schools of Distinction award.

observes. Estrada explains, “We learn how students think and learn; we observe and assess pedagogical tech-niques; and we create and model on-going collaboration.” Each day’s lesson is a revision of the best idea to date. It only takes one teacher to see a new use of technology (e.g., modeling complex numbers on geometry soft-ware) for the idea to spread instantly through the course and department.

All mathematics courses incorporate

The motto of Chicago’s Walter Payton College Preparatory High School is “We nurture leaders.” The school’s proven ability to foster leadership qualities in its diverse, urban student body, while achieving excellence in math education make it a stellar choice for the 2010 Intel Schools of Distinction Star Innovator award.

“We seek to offer our students the very best educational experience possible, one that challenges, that fosters creativity and the literacy skills with which to understand and express that creativity, that encourages integrity and the ap-preciation of diversity, and one that uses the latest in educational technology,” says Principal Ellen Estrada.

Payton’s math department engages in Japanese lesson study: teachers collabo-rate on the meticulous design of a single lesson; then the entire department

SPEICAL ADVERTISING SECTION OF TECH AND LEARNING

MS 223, The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology Bronx, NY

Recognized for Math Excellence Principal: Ramon M. GonzalezPublic Middle SchoolEnrollment: 469www.ms223.org

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problem-solving, teaching students to approach unfamiliar material in a spirit of discovery. Extended block lessons once a week and innovative, co-curricular seminars throughout the semester allow students to master skills and focus on advanced or un-usual topics.

Critical thinking skills are a priority—students test hypotheses, assess real world data, and explain and justify conclusions. Mathematics courses in-

clude measurement, data analysis, and modeling activities, using the same digital lab instruments as the sci-ence classes. Algebra I and Geometry courses are almost entirely activity-based while advanced students work together to prove major theorems of number theory and calculus: their “textbook” consists of lists of axioms, theorems to prove, and problem sets.

The results are exemplary: more than 99 percent of Payton students meet

or exceed state math standards. 98 percent graduate, and 95 percent finish college.

Most importantly, Payton’s vision comes alive in its dedicated teachers and energized students. Says Estrada, “Our students ask ‘why’ and ‘why not’, write and act reflectively, and not reflexively, and set and surpass their own standards. We provide them with a global education that nurtures future leaders.”

tion, allowing teachers to focus on areas

where students need help, and engage

students in intensive, small group work.

Real-world examples and applications in

business and technology are integrated

into the mathematics curriculum. Stu-

dents explore technical careers through

classroom experiences, guest speakers,

field trips, internships, and project-based

learning.

The combination of compassion and

high standards is making a difference.

MS 223’s exceptional mathematics pro-

gram has become a source of inspiration

to its students, community, and state.

Says Gonzalez, “We seek to address each

student individually and as a critical

member of our society. Our entire staff

is committed to a school environment

that allows our students to flourish and

grow—intellectually, emotionally, and

socially.”

When Principal Ramon Gonzalez started MS 223: The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology in the Bronx seven years ago, only 12 percent of the students were proficient in math. Now, mathematics achievement has soared—with 86 percent of sixth graders, and 88 percent of seventh graders now scoring proficient or higher on state tests.

practices and ideas for helping individual

students, as well as the ups and downs

of doing this vital yet challenging work

in the South Bronx. Gonzalez sees

teamwork as critical, “It really is a team

at MS 223 and that provides us with

great strength, solid communication, and

an united vision of what we want to

accomplish. The success of the students

is our success, and it’s based on intense

collaboration.”

Instructional strategy is shaped by as-

sessment. Teachers focus on collecting

accurate and useful data on student

progress, and identifying gaps in math-

ematics knowledge or missing skills. This

data then drives differentiated instruc-

Says Gonzalez, “Our school has be-

come a model school in NYC. Other

schools come to see how we empower

our students to achieve at such high

proficiencies. Our students are starting

to get accepted to competitive math

and science high schools, and many of

them are going to high school with math

credits for algebra—which is rare in the

South Bronx.”

Key factors contributing to the school’s

superior math achievement include

teacher collaboration, extensive

professional development, an ongoing

support system for students, and a deep

dedication to students’ success. Teach-

ers collaborate continually, sharing best


Westdale Heights Public Elementary School, Baton Rouge, LA Recognized for Science ExcellencePrincipal: Norma ChurchPublic Middle SchoolEnrollment: 445http://westdaleheights.ebrschools.org

Elementary school children at the Westdale Heights Public Elementary School, in Baton Rouge, love science. It’s easy to see why. Principal Norma Church keeps a real-world focus that is full of interest for these young learners, “Our science instruction is based on hands-on demonstrations, inquiry-based investigations, and real problem solving. Technology—from a SMART* board, and USB microscopes, to digital cameras and a working NOAA weather station—is part of daily instruction.”

Science instruction is integrated into all facets of the curriculum. It has become a vehicle for applying reading, writing, oral discussion, research, higher order thinking skills, problem solving, creative visual and performing arts, inquiry based learning, social and civic responsibility, leadership development, technology, and community involvement.

Students often tell Church, “The science lab is where we learn real science by experimenting, not just using a book.” Their enthusiasm is backed by rigorous science education. Science performance is in the 97th percentile or higher. Les-sons support State curricula standards and benchmarks. A science specialist col-laborates with every grade level teacher

to align lab learning with curriculum goals. Every student is scheduled in the science lab for a minimum of 60 minutes weekly.

Children are required to read science-

accelerated reader program. All children write daily about their experiences in the science curriculum. In grades three

journals with written observations and

with their predictions, observations, data, and conclusions.

At Westdale, jokes Church, “no child is left inside.” The Metamorphosis Children’s Garden grows saplings for the Louisiana State University’s Coastal Roots programs, along with native plants and vegetables. A pond area is used

Monarch Watch project. Students help

-tion data, participate in global conserva-tion efforts, and care for the diverse wildlife that inhabits the school gardens.

This thoroughly engaged student body is equipped at a young age with the tools to solve real-world science problems and participate in a global community. Church sees science as an important tool for creating leaders and committed citizens, “Socially and emotionally, children are engaged in monthly projects that reach out to our community, state, nation, and the world. We are developing leaders—one child at a time.”

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT 3


4 ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT© 2010, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. 1010/EL/CMD/PDF 324419-001

Vision Identifying learning environments that promote 21st century learning skills in math and science. These schools represent a benchmark for academic excellence in elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States.

Basic Requirements

Exemplary math and science learning

environments in the following grade

ranges are eligible:

Finalists and winners are chosen

who best meet or exceed metrics

representing the intersection of:

Partnership for 21st-century Skills in the ICT literacy maps for math and science, and

content standards.

Judges also consider the

following factors:

programs

AwardsEach winning school will receive a $10,000 cash grant from the Intel Foundation, as well as more than $150,000 in products and services from program sponsors.

One of the final six winners will be identified as the Star Innovator for 2011. The Star Innovator achieves demonstrated excellence in math or science and will receive an additional $15,000 cash grant from the Intel Foundation, as well as supplemental services and products from program sponsors.

For more information, visit www.schoolsofdistinction.com

and www.k12blueprint.com.

“Schools today are eager to prepare their students for

engaged citizens in this era of technology and innovation.

We seek to recognize the schools that are doing this best,

and to share their models as broadly as possible.”

WENDY HAWKINS,

Executive Director, Intel Foundation

2011 Intel Schools of Distinction ApplicationAvailable now at: www.schoolsofdistinction.com


Dr. Vallerie Cave, Educational Consultant and former administrator, Risley Early College Academy, GA

David Warlick, Director, the Landmark

Project, NC

NOVEMBER 17, 201011AM – 7 PM EST

Interested in becoming a Virtual Tech Forum sponsor? Email Christina Kalantzis at [email protected]

EXPLORE. LEARN.

CONNECT.

TO REGISTER VISIT WWW.TECHLEARNING.COM/SECTION/VIRTUALTECHFORUM.ASPX

Sponsored by:

Join ’s highly respected, award-winning team for this FREE, exciting virtual event unlike any other. Connect virtually with other ed tech leaders across the country. Learn about exciting new products and interact live with company representatives in the exhibit hall. Listen to thought-provoking and practical webcasts. Chat with peers about hot topics in K-12 education. Win end-of-show prize drawings. Experience the benefits of a live event without having to travel. Access all the cutting-edge information and online demonstrations all year long!

Visit the three Tech & Learning Pavilions to meet like-minded education leaders and focus on a variety of topics vital to 21st century education. Tentative topics include:

CURRICULUM: Students, Classrooms and Learning• Web 2.0 in the classroom• 21st century literacies• Cool tools for communication and collaboration• Technology for English Language Learners

ADMINISTRATION: Leadership, Policy and Funding• One-to-one implementations• Advocacy and PR: Getting the word out• Effective approaches to professional development• Building your own personal/professional

learning networkIT: Implementation, Infrastructure and Support

• Laptops, tablets, netbooks and smartphones: how to choose

• Network security• Virtualization and other cost-saving approaches• AV essentials and breakthroughs

Cathy Swan, Technology Integration Teacher, New

Canaan Public Schools, CT

Dr. Joseph Barrow, Superintendent of

Schools, Ware County, GA

Jill Hobson, Director of Instructional

Technology, Forsyth County Schools, GA

Mike Porter, Director of Technology, Ware County Schools, GA

Willyn Webb, Teacher, Counselor and Adjunct

Professor, Delta, CO

Chris Lehmann, Founding Principal, Science

Leadership Academy, PA

Dr. Michael Hall, VP Educational Services,

Information Transport Solutions, AL

Lisa Nielsen, Technology Innovation Manager, NYC Department of Education

Scott Meech, Technology Facilitator, the Joseph

Sears School, IL

David Jakes, Coordinator of Instructional Technology,

Glenbrook South High School, IL

Educators as well as students must

have a clear understanding of copy-

right regulations so that not only

can they avoid committing violations

themselves, they can also protect their

own work from being used out of

context unlawfully. Here are some

of the chief ways that 21st-century

schools, educators, and students can

safeguard themselves.

10 Be mindful that copyright

regulations apply to various

media. “As a passive reminder that

copyright laws apply to virtually all

copying,” says expert on copyright

law and author Carol Simpson, “get

stickers similar to those that you find

on copy machines and put them on all

equipment capable of making copies.”

9 When using video, get permis-

sion or licenses. “One of the most

frequent causes of cease-and-desist

letters to schools is showing

entertainment films that are

not tied to the curriculum,”

Simpson says. “Such show-

ings require permission

from the copyright owner

or payment of royalties

because they are non-

exempt public per-

formances.”

8 If it’s a consum-

able—that is, some-

thing that is destroyed or

altered by being used for its

intended purpose (and thus is

intended for a single use only)—

don’t copy it. Schools often get in

trouble when teachers make photo-

copies of tear-out sheets in student

handbooks.

7 Lead by example. Instructors have

to cite the sources of the materials

they use in handouts and be sure they

have the necessary permissions when

creating course packets, in order to

model proper behavior for students.

6 Just because it’s eas-

ily accessible doesn’t

mean you can use it

freely. Material on

the Internet is not

exempt from copy-

right policies.

5 Student copyright

should not be

overlooked. Schools should

put the same effort into pro-

tecting students’ work that they

do into not committing violations

with more-commercial resources,

such as textbooks and entertainment.

4 Unpublished work requires cita-

tion. Even if work has not been

formally published, it still has to be

cited when referenced in other work.

3 Utilize your resources. Use soft-

ware programs that check the

originality of students’ work, such as

Turnitin.

2 Policies must be in place. Without

the proper policies and proce-

dures for punishing copyright offens-

es in position, the whole concept of

copyright becomes moot. Educators

and students alike have to understand

copyright policy and the ramifications

of violating it.

1 Teach students the importance

of academic honesty. If students

understand the fundamentals of aca-

demic integrity, including the value

of producing original work, obeying

copyright policies will become second

nature to them.

—Renee Bangerter is a professor

of English at Saddleback College,

Mission Viejo, CA.

Top 10 Ways 21st-Century Schools Can Protect Themselves from Copyright Violation

news trends


SMALL CHANGE MAKES A DIFFERENCEeduTecher.net is a free resource for

teachers, students, and parents that

focuses on using free Web tools in the

classroom. The site has reviewed more

than 1,200 tools and includes more than

45 videos explaining how to use them to

teach. It recently launched “eduTechers

Change the World,” a charity campaign

in which each visitor to the site donates a penny to an aid organization.

At the end of November, the users can vote to decide which charity will

receive the money.

For more details, visit the Change the World page, www.eduTecher.net/change.

Looking for fun resources for teaching

literacy that won’t break your budget?

Here are some of my favorites.

Talking Tom Cat:

Kids talk to Tom,

and he repeats in a

funny voice every-

thing that’s said.

Within seconds, the

students’ words are

recorded as a video

of Tom talking that

can be uploaded to YouTube and

Facebook or sent by email.

StoryKit: Create an electronic story-

book by drawing on the screen, upload-

ing images, recording sound effects

and voices, and more.

Fotobabble: Quickly create and

easily share talking photos in three

steps.

StoryCorps: Listen to the week-

ly interview; share life stories via

email, Facebook, and Twitter; get tips

for recording interviews on mobile

devices.

Read Me Stories—Children’s Books:

A different talking picture book every

day teaches children new concepts

and new words and how to say them.

Puppet Animation Lite: Kids animate

uploaded images or sample puppets

and animate them by choosing Swing,

Elastic, or Scaling; they save the ani-

mation as a GIF to send via email or

Twitter.

Library of Congress Virtual Tour

for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad:

Highlights exhibitions and architectural

features and includes photos, audio,

links, and video.

Animoto: Upload images, choose a

soundtrack from the library, and click

a button to make a 30-second video.

Sync your video with your animoto

.com account, download it for offline

viewing, and make longer videos with

an All-Access Pass.

K12 Timed Read-

ing Practice Lite: 25

short, engaging sto-

ries for K–4 readers

that feature a vari-

ety of fiction and

nonfiction and 10

Flesh-Kincade read-

ing levels.

Tales2Go: Free for 30 days. Instant,

on-demand, and unlimited access to

more than 1,200 stories from leading

audio publishers and storytellers.

Chicktionary Lite: The chicken bobs

its head and clucks when kids use one

of their letters to make a word. The

“beak sneak” option fills in one letter of

each of the words not yet found.

Kid Apps: 13 in 1:

Thirteen applications

including math games,

more than 600 flash

cards, interactive trac-

ing drills, the ABCs,

counting, vocabulary,

number and letter

tracing, a Math Whiz

quiz, a musical-instrument vocabulary,

words for (and pictures of) things

around the house, and more.

—Shelly Terrell is an educator and

guest blogger on techlearning.com.

FREE LITERACY RESOURCESnews trends


Student programming contestFaronics announces its first student programming contest, the Faronics Core

Programming Competition. The FCPC is open to all postsecondary com-

puter science students and provides an opportunity for them to test their

skills and knowledge by building products that integrate with Faronics Core,

a centralized software-deployment and -management platform for Faronics

products. First-place cash prize: $20,000; second-place cash prize: $10,000.

Registration deadline: November 30, 2010

For more information, visit www.faronics.com/fcpc.

Sites We Like: http://blog.tate.org.uk/tate-tales

Students let their imaginations run

wild when they select a painting

from the Tate gallery’s collection.

They can interrupt the painting by

making up a story about it.

$20REBATEPER RADIO

REBATEPER RADIO

$40

By Sascha Zuger

Once initial tech costs are covered,

teachers are trained, parental resis-

tance is handled, and kids find a new

version of “The dog ate my homework”

to excuse their late book reports,

paperless classrooms can start reap-

ing the financial benefits of saving all

those trees. You say you’re not quite

ready to swap heavy backpacks for

flash-drive lanyards? Take a page from

the Visalia Unified School District in

California, and you may find that small

change adds up to big bucks.

Because of budget cuts, the district

asked all departments to find ways they

could do more with less. Al Foytek,

director of IT, discovered that Visalia

USD, which has a population of 27,000

(K–12) students and 25,000 employees

at 44 educational sites, also had more

than 100 labor-intensive, inefficient

paper-based administrative processes.

Foytek used PerfectForms, a Web-

based service ($30 a month) that lets

users build and customize applications

from an existing library, to create sim-

ple online forms for each process. The

savings provided by a single multi-

part and multicolor form, each printed

copy of which cost 75 cents, topped

$10,000 a year.

“It always makes sense to spend

money when it will save even more

money,” Foytek says. “When we can

save money and at the same time

reduce our footprint and preserve

more of our precious resources, it is a

no-brainer; you have to go for it.”

TIPS FOR GOING PAPERLESS■ Automate intranet forms to com-

municate between districts.

■ Post editable forms so teach-

ers can complete them online without

printing.

■ Eliminating filing, stocking, and

distribution saves not only staff hours

but also the secure physical space that

was previously needed to house forms,

records, and paper supplies.

■ Consider switching from Arial

to Century Gothic, a font that uses

roughly 30 percent less ink. One com-

pany offers “eco-font” software, which

shoots tiny holes through each letter,

reducing ink usage by 30 percent.

A FORM OF CHANGE news trends


E-rate changes promote broadbandThe Federal Communi-

cations Commission

has released the long-

anticipated National

Broadband Orders,

which lays out the

agency’s plan to pro-

mote affordable broadband access.

While t`he plan affects a number of

government programs, some of its

most sweeping changes involve

the current E-rate program.

The most significant announce-

ment for E-rate participants is that

the funding cap will be indexed

to general economy inflation in an

effort to stifle depreciation and

increase the number of applicants

vying for Priority 2 funding for inter-

nal connection projects. The com-

mission is also allowing applicants

to open up E-rate–funded services

to the community for after-hours

use so long as it does not interfere

with educational purposes.

For more information on the

E-rate program, visit www.

fundsforlearning.com.

Sites We Like: www.aviary.org/curric/birdor.htmAn investigation of the archaeopteryx,

an animal whose fossilized remains first

led scientists to suggest that birds and

dinosaurs are related, takes learners

through a consideration of all the things

that make a bird a bird and a dinosaur

a dinosaur.

ni-

n

-

pro-

NEW

Ladibug™ Document Cameras Unanimously Chosen as Favorite Classroom Tool!

news trends


Medical SchoolingBy Ellen Ullman

A May 2010 report from the National

Science Board asks teachers to pro-

duce students who have the potential

to become our country’s next genera-

tion of science, technology, engineer-

ing, and mathematics (STEM) innova-

tors. Stephen Biscotte has already

stepped up to the plate with his PIT

Crew: Physicians-In-Training program.

Biscotte, who teaches anatomy

and physiology to seniors at Cave

Spring High School in Roanoke,

Virginia, has his students conduct

clinical trials to determine which

exercise equipment can lead to high-

er levels of fitness. “I want students

to incorporate the technology they’ll

use in future fields into what

they’re learning,” he says.

Realizing that the traditional

lab-and-lecture format was not

enough for today’s tech-savvy stu-

dents, Biscotte invited a physical

trainer, an exercise physiologist,

and a respiratory therapist to come

in and show X-rays to give them

some background. A physician and

a college professor brainstormed

with the students and helped them

design experiments for measuring fit-

ness. While they worked with these

adults, the students also learned

about a variety of STEM careers.

The classes were divided into

small groups that tested freshmen

on various pieces of equipment, such

as stationary bikes and treadmills.

While conducting the experi-

ments, the students learned how to

connect sensors to laptops, collect

and analyze data, and create graphs,

and all about anatomy. “The scientific

method is the big umbrella,” Biscotte

says. “How do you conduct a trial

from start to finish?”

Thanks to $15,000 in grants from

Toshiba, Vernier, and ING, Biscotte

purchased sensors (heart rate, blood

pressure, EKG), a weight machine, a

punching bag, a treadmill, a Wii and a

Wii Fit. “The students were really into

it and loved playing doctor,” he says.

“They felt like experts, and some said

they’d like to go into the health-care

field.” Even better, a couple of stu-

dents from the first PIT Crew are now

in nursing school or studying anatomy.

In addition to the in-class doctor-

ing, Biscotte started an after-school

book club that meets at a coffee

shop every nine weeks. The 20 stu-

dents in the club have excellent dis-

cussions and love the vividly realistic

stories they read.

“The PIT program has been very

beneficial in letting students learn

information and practice skills

that have real-world application,”

says Julian Barnes, coordinator

of science for Roanoke County

Public Schools. “Merging these

two areas—skill attainment and

vocational practice—is difficult yet

most rewarding for the students,

as they are able to see the sig-

nificance and reasoning of their

education.”

How It’s Done

What They UseVernier Logger ProVernier sensors: EKG, Blood

Pressure, Hand-Grip Heart Rate Monitor, Temperature Probes, Spirometer, Hand Dynamometer, Respiration Monitor Belt

Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit

Cave Spring High School students use sensors to collect and analyze data gathered from physical exercise to understand human anatomy better.

TECH & LEARNING | 19

Video is shaping the world around us. Students watch videos all the time, and media literacy is a 21st century skill that involves being able to analyze and under-stand the media they see and to create their own media productions.

Today’s young people enjoy all types of media and are facile with it. When schools capitalize on this affinity by inte-grating technologies into classroom activi-ties, students are more engaged. When students are engaged, they are learning.

Using video forces students to make connections, delve to find deeper mean-ing, and understand issues and processes. They learn to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate as they create. It involves higher order thinking skills, writing, teamwork, planning, producing and sharing using additional technologies.

Video is so versatile that students can learn in every subject area. From creating school-wide daily news broadcasts to class-room documentaries to language practice and filming events, there’s a use for video everywhere. Here’s how to make it happen.

The Process: Prepare, Plan, Present■ Prepare. Use the 10 reasons below to

convince stakeholders that video is THE technology to use.

■ Plan and create. Use the 9 steps below in any subject area or grade level.

■ Present and share. Show everyone what students have accomplished.

10 Reasons to Have Students Create Videos:Video Production:1. is fun – and learning should be fun! 2. engages and excites students.3. helps students to express a real under-

standing of core classroom content.4. helps students retain what they learn. 5. allows students to express their creativity.6. requires students to practice “real-life”

skills of planning and organization, time management, cooperation, communica-tion, problem solving, information syn-thesizing, leadership and followership.

7. utilizes whole curriculum skills: read-ing, researching, writing, speaking, lis-tening and math skills.

8. requires students to think at a higher level.

9. leads students to improve their tech-nology skills.

10. helps them to develop problem-solving skills.

9 Steps to Creating a Video

1. Brainstorm a topic or idea2. Create a plan and rubric: What will

happen? Know what you want for the end project. Who will do what? Know who is accountable for each task. Students take on tasks (producer, writer, director, editor, etc.) and share responsibilities.

3. Scripting: Students write, rewrite, and continue the writing process through multiple drafts. The script must have an introduction, body, conclusion and transitions.

4. Storyboarding/Scripting: Sketch out scenes that the video project will have.

5. Sets/Props and Costumes: Plan the place/ backgrounds the video will use. Make sure there is enough light and free of background noise. Creating Costumes – THINK SIMPLE

6. Rehearse: Students must learn their lines. Create cue cards if needed.

7. Shoot the video8. Editing and Post Production: Use edit-

ing software to put the scenes togeth-er, add music, edit sound, add special effects and credits.

9. Share: Upload to a class or school web-site; Create a DVD; Show at an assembly

ADVERTORIAL

Creating Video in Classrooms

Learn MoreDownload the eBook, Classroom Video: Tools and Strategies to Engage Students in Learning

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PRODUCTREVIEWS

Put to the TestT&L editors take some new products for a test drive


By Carol S. Holzberg

Windows-compatible DrawPlus X4 2D and

3D graphics tools create and polish Web

images, stop-frame and key-frame Flash ani-

mations, logos, photos, and illustrations for

print and digital projects. The latest version

adds several features and enhancements.

QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS: Serif’s

DrawPlus X4 provides a student-friendly alter-

native to Adobe Illustrator. Its graphics tool

kit is available for about half Illustrator’s price.

While DrawPlus has been around for some

time, the latest release adds features to, and

upgrades others in, its collection of standard

Bezier tools; customizable brushes; special-

effect filters; and start-up templates. It even

opens Adobe Illustrator (.ai) files (V9 and later)

and saves key-frame animations in Adobe Flash (SWF) format.

EASE OF USE: Start-up templates, video tutorials, and on-

screen How-To Guides provide step-by-step directions for

a variety of design tasks. Movie tutorials streamed from

the Serif Web site teach users how to create rollover Web

buttons, animated Web banners, and 2-D charts and plans.

CREATIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY: This program supports

text-to-path drawing as well as freehand curve designs. A

touch-sensitive Paintbrush lets users draw with pressure-

sensitive graphics tablets instead of a mouse. They can use

the program’s Connector objects to link boxes and symbols

in technical drawings and organizational charts.

SUITABILITY FOR USE IN A SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT:

This vector-graphics application has a rich tool kit for

logos, Web-page banners, technical drawing, and animation

design. Unlike Adobe Illustrator, which requires at least 1 GB

of RAM and 2 GB hard-drive space, DrawPlus X4 will run on

Windows computers with as little as 512 MB of RAM (though

going to 1 GB will improve performance) and less than 1 GB

hard-drive space.

PRODUCT: DRAWPLUS X4 www.serif.comRetail price: $49.95 (educational pricing) stand-alone; $149 as a program in the integrated Serif Design Suite. Suite site licenses start at $2,200.

OVERALL RATINGDrawPlus X4 is a suitable inexpensive, feature-rich vector-

graphics application for Windows-based schools running

32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, or 7. It

may not be as practical in environments where time and

budget constraints require the integration of software

that offers versions for both Macintosh and Windows.

Top Features This versatile 2-D and 3-D graphics

application integrates a rich collection

of tools for vector artwork.

It supports several layers, gradient

fills, customizable drop shadows,

transparencies for shading and

reflections, and much more.

It’s less expensive than Adobe

Illustrator.

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K12 IS STRENGTHENING THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION THROUGH ONLINE LEARNING OPTIONS

Please call us: 866.903.5122 Or e-mail: [email protected] Visit us at: K12.com/educatorsCOPYRIGHT © 2010 K12 INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. K12 IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF K12 INC.

How? Through K12’s experience delivering two million online courses, an investment of $140 million in our curriculum, and our decade-long track record of success as America’s #1, trusted provider of K–12 online learning. K12’s web-based, fully hosted options range from supplemental courses, to blended online/classroom solutions, to full-time, turnkey online school programs—each with as much support as you need. Bring us your biggest challenges, as schools in most states and D.C. have done.We’re ready to partner with you to strengthen the promise.

PRODUCTREVIEWS


By MaryAnn Karre

Like all the Casio Green Slim Projectors, the XJ-A130 is an

economical, earth-friendly, low-maintenance product that

incorporates a revolutionary light source for amazingly high

brightness that can last 20,000 hours.

QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS: This little dynamo, eco-

friendly, easy to use, economical, and quick to boot, has

everything a school needs in a projector.

EASE OF USE: The XJ-A130 is simple to connect to comput-

ers and DVD and VCR players; input options include HDMI,

component, composite, and mini D-Sub. There is a 1W mono

speaker, but additional speakers may be necessary for large

groups or classrooms. Onscreen menus and a compact but

well-labeled remote make the projector easy to set up and

adjust.

CREATIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY: As part of its “clean and

green” concept, Casio created the Green Slim projectors

with a hybrid light source. Combining blue light emitted by

a blue laser, green light converted from blue laser light with

a fluorescent element, and light emitted by a high-lumen

red LED through a DLP chip onto the screen, the XJ-A130

reproduces colors more vividly and has a brightness of up

to 2,000 lumens and an 1,800:1 contrast ratio. The new

technology also increases the light source to approximately

20,000 hours, Casio says, nearly 10 times that of conven-

tional projectors. This translates to lower operating costs

and less maintenance for the life of the unit. The projector

measures approximately 11.7 x 1.7 x 8.3 inches and weighs

about five pounds, so it’s small and light enough to travel to

conferences or move between classrooms. The Casio pro-

jectors are compatible with HD video formats and HD video

sources including Blu-Ray players, cable converter boxes,

and gaming systems.

SUITABILITY FOR USE IN A SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT: The

XJ-A130 achieves maximum brightness in as little as eight

seconds after powering on, and no cool-down is needed

when it is turned off. The auto-keystone feature automati-

cally corrects distortion, and the projector has a wide-angle

2X zoom lens, both of which permit greater magnification

over shorter distances. A section of the projected image

can be enlarged with a zoom function, or the image can be

frozen or changed to a blank screen. The Casio Web site

offers a 3D virtual demonstration of ways the projectors can

be used in the classroom.

PRODUCT: CASIO GREEN SLIM XJ-A130 DIGITAL MULTIMEDIA PROJECTOR http://greenslimprojector.comRetail price: $799

Top Features The mercury-free hybrid light source

not only delivers a 50 percent increase

in color spectrum for high-impact

presentations with truer colors but also

lasts longer than those of traditional

projector lamps.

Computer RGB, composite video,

component video, and HDMI video/

audio are all supported as input sources.

The XJ-A130 projector features fast

startup and shutdown, so presentations

can be integrated into lessons smoothly

and quickly.

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By MaryAnn Karre

The Ignite! Stick—Made for SMART is a grade-level digital-

content solution, correlated to state standards and based

on subject matter, that provides custom lesson building,

assessments, and interactive materials for fourth through

eighth grades in math, science, and social studies.

QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS: About 3,500 media pieces

provide brief digital lessons combining music, interactive

media, critical-thinking activities, and more across the three

core content areas. The audio clips, humorous interactive

presentations, videos, and quizzes can quickly and easily be

embedded in SMART Notebook lessons to stand alone or be

added to existing lessons.

EASE OF USE: As simple to use as a USB drive, the Stick

requires no installation. Even teachers who are not comfort-

able with technology will find it easy, even exciting. Lessons

can be searched by state standard, or via an index of key

terms, or by drilling down through units of study in each

subject area. Appropriate lesson materials display in related

groups and can be saved in the “saved lessons” area of the

search screen. Handy buttons provide access to a whole-

screen quiz, which can be administered with or without

SMART Response clickers; a timer; a glossary of terms;

teacher guides and printable tests in PDF format; and a fun

interactive money game.

CREATIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY: A teacher can effort-

lessly find something of interest to introduce or reinforce

a topic with, click the Notebook icon, and insert the Flash

video object in SMART Notebook. Without leaving the les-

son, she can use the questions to spark discussion or check

for understanding, and address problem areas in related

material.

SUITABILITY FOR USE IN A SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT : The

Ignite! Stick—Made for SMART will boost the teaching

power of any lesson but is especially effective in classrooms

with SMART Boards and SMART Response systems.

PRODUCT: IGNITE! STICK—MADE FOR SMART www.ignitestick.comRetail price: Elementary (4th or 5th grade) Stick, $249; Middle School (6th, 7th, or 8th grade) Stick, $495.

PRODUCTREVIEWS

OVERALL RATINGIgnite! Is a great name for this compact and easy-to-use

tool, since it adds a spark to SMART Board lessons. The

Stick makes it simple to engage learners and check for

understanding seamlessly with SMART products.


Top Features Objects for the SMART Board are easily

located by subject or state standard and are a snap to embed in SMART Notebook presentations.

The videos, music, graphics, and entertaining presentations engage and motivate hard-to-reach students, no matter what their learning style.

By embedding four or five relevant questions in each Ignite! media piece, teachers can assess learning as the lesson progresses and add similar and reinforcing lessons as needed.

By Carol S. Holzberg

The Pedlar Lady of Gushing

Cross tells the story of a poor

old peddler woman who dis-

covers good fortune by fol-

lowing her dreams. Written

by Jacqueline Roger and

inspired by a 13th-century

Persian folktale, it has time-

less themes found in many

cultures around the world.

Imaginatively adapted for

the iPad by Moving Tales,

this multimedia-rich ver-

sion presents as an inter-

active storybook complete

with voice-over narration (in

Spanish, French or English),

music, animation, and lush

sound effects.

QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS: After children

select a language, there are several ways to

experience the story. They can listen to each

page read aloud and enhanced with music

and sound effects. They can also record their

version of a particular page and hear their

voice narrate the text. A fourth option invites

youngsters to read the story on their own while

hearing music and ambient sound effects but

no narration, choosing the page they wish to

read by selecting it with the Navigation button

on the book’s toolbar.

EASE OF USE: The

storybook is avail-

able through the

iTunes store. Once

downloaded to the

computer, it installs

on the iPad much like

other apps when you

next connect your

iPad to sync. It dis-

plays only in Portrait

mode, and navigation

is intuitive.

CREATIVE USE OF

TECHNOLOGY: The

storybook takes advantage of iPad features

such as tap, swipe and record. While pages

present only in Portrait mode, youngsters can

animate the text by using the iPad’s accelerom-

eter: They can shake the screen while listening

to the narration to cause words and letters to

drop from the top of the page.

SUITABILITY FOR USE IN A SCHOOL

ENVIRONMENT: This interactive storybook rep-

licates the read-aloud experience, encouraging

independent reading in a personalized way.

Children can revisit the story or any one of its

pages at any time and listen to it being read

aloud as often as they like.

Additionally, they can take

charge of their own reading

by recording their interpre-

tation of the text. Student-

recorded text can serve as

a tool for formative assess-

ment, helping teachers pin-

point reading strengths and

weaknesses.

That said, to be truly suc-

cessful in a classroom, future

versions of the story (and

other Moving Tales) should

perhaps include a read-

aloud dictionary, into which

students can key a difficult

word or phrase and listen to

a definition. There are sev-

eral difficult words in this

text. Teachers must be prepared to review these words with

listeners to ensure understanding. It would also be helpful if

narrated words were highlighted on the iPad screen as the

narrator read them aloud, as in the Living Books interactive

storybooks that Random House/Broderbund brought to the

computer screen in the 1990s. When children see words as

they are read aloud, they can begin to associate the sound

of a word with its written form.

PRODUCT: THE PEDLAR LADY OF GUSHING CROSSwww.moving-tales.comRetail price: $4.99 from iTunes store

PRODUCTREVIEWS

OVERALL RATINGRecommended, with the caveat that teachers will have

to review vocabulary with students to make sure they

understand the story.


Top Features It’s affordable.

It can be used for

independent reading,

group instruction and

formative assessment.

It’s a beautifully

rendered text that

can be read again

and again in English,

French or Spanish.

Student Stats, from OnCourse Systems, is the just-right data solution for mid-size school districts. Import virtually any student data—standardized test scores, benchmark assessments, IEPs, even attendance and discipline records—and Student Stats generates classroom reports that teachers can use immediately to craft their lesson plans. For administrators, Student Stats provides student achievement reports by teacher, grade, school and district.

The Student Stats advantage: Web-based—no software to install or update Customizable—reports can meet your district’s needs Secure—control access to student records Affordable—a manageable alternative to large-district data programs Intuitive—Distribute reports to staff with point-and-click simplicity

For more information and a demonstration,

call 800-899-7204 or visit www.oncoursesystems

systems for education

Finally, a data-driven analysis tool that teachers can use for differentiated

instruction in under a week.

PRODUCTREVIEWS


THIS MONTH: MEET THE STUDENTS: IN ACTION IN THE CLASSROOMThe last months of summer and early fall of

the Long Review have all been preparation

for now, as the ultimate reviewers—the kids—

begin to use the Pearson/Dell labs in earnest.

When students arrived back at school this

September, the addition of two new media

labs stuffed with sleek desktops was more

than just a pleasant surprise.

During back-to-school night,

children excitedly tugged

their parents over to have a

turn to “play with the Pearson

stuff.” The teachers fed off

the energy of the children

as they explained to parents

how they have rearranged

schedules in order for stu-

dents to get time on the com-

puters but trying not to sacri-

fice time from other disciplines (perhaps an impossible task).

Even weeks later, the euphoria is sustained. When stu-

dents are asked how they enjoy working with the software,

there are almost unanimous smiles. The log-in process and

initial testing is simple enough for anyone who knows their

way around a mouse and keyboard. The courseware certain-

ly tightens the gap between gaming and curriculum closer

together. Both reading and math instruction is interactive.

Lessons guide students through instruction and practice with

plenty of animation and multimedia effects. A local television

station reported on the Long Review experiment and cap-

tured some initial student reactions: “I like it a lot. When I’m

on math and I have a hard question, it breaks it down for me.”

Skeptics may point out that these initial reactions to

fancy new gear, while natural, is due to nothing more than

technology as novelty and does not address curriculum

mastery, which is true to a

point. Yet there are many

other intangibles at work

here: just having these sort of

tools has done much to bol-

ster the pride of this mostly

urban student population,

a majority of whom are on

free or reduced lunch; hav-

ing students regularly using

the desktops is improving

basic technology literacy;

and most importantly the

kids look forward to “play-

ing with the Pearson stuff,”

which means they like going to school.

The question of whether or not the

Pearson/Dell labs succeed in improving

Village’s moribund test scores will obviously

be over the course of this experiment. One

thing is clear now however: The reviewers

are enthused, intrigued, and engaged at the start.

LAST MONTH: MEET THE TEACHERS: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR FACULTY

NEXT MONTH: CURRICULUM INTEGRATION: MIXING TECHNOLOGY WITH PEDAGOGY

The Long ReviewToo often, reviews of edtech fall short of reality. Sure, speeds and feeds are important to consider, but how does this stuff work in the real world? T&L will try to answer that question this school year when our editors follow the stakeholders at Village Charter School (VCS) in Trenton, NJ as they implement Pearson’s SuccessMaker software on a 40-seat Dell PC desktop network. For a full, comprehensive look at the project, including specific product details and costs, a profile on VCS, supplemental resources, etc., go to techlearning.com and click on The Long Review.

SuccessMaker Reading and Math are interactive courses for grades K-8.

To watch the report visitwww.wzbntv25.com/WZBN_News_

Video_Player.html?dfile=Success_Maker_Software_9-28-10.flv

To walk through a Successmaker in more detail, go to www.pearsonschool.

com/index.cfm?locator=PSZkBm

FEATURESTORY

■ AwesomeHighlighter is the easiest way to highlight

texts on Web pages. When you finish highlighting, you get

a link and share it with others. If you like this, you should

also try Markkit.

■ Board800 is a multi-user-shared interactive white-

board with simultaneous access and drawing capabilities.

Users can use each page independently, and each user can

see the changes on each page.

■ CoSketch is another white-

board that you can collaborate

on to visualize your ideas and

share them as images. The good

thing is that you don’t have to

register or install anything. It

works in all browsers, it’s real

time, and you can get an embed code for your drawing

after you finish.

■ Creately lets you create professional-looking online

diagrams with your colleagues.

■ With CubeTree, you can create wikis, blogs, profiles,

and feeds for your groups.

■ DabbleBoard is a white-

board that enables you to visu-

alize, explore, and collaborate. It

also lets you conduct presenta-

tions and chat, though you can-

not share files.

■ Dimdim is a tool for host-

ing or attending online meetings and Webinars. You can

give presentations, share Web pages, voice, and video; you

can record your own voice without installing anything. t is

a similar tool.

■ DoingText is a

Web-based text edi-

tor for collaborative

writing. You tell others

the URL, and they write

comments and make

changes without signing

up. It lets you track changes

and comments by RSS feed

and export text by embedding in

other pages.

■ Drop.io is a simple real-time sharing and collaboration

tool that lets you share text, video, and audio. You can also

create online collaborative presentations and record your

voice.

■ EditGrid is an online spread-

sheet. You can share the spread-

sheet with other users, many

users can edit at the same time,

and you can embed charts and

tables.

■ EtherPad is a Web-based word processor that lets you

work with others at the same time. When several users are

working on the same documents simultaneously, you can

get feedback immediately. You know who contributed to

the text, and all changes are saved on the server in case

you have to undo.

■ Flashmeeting is a tool for meeting people anywhere in

the world. You book a meeting time and create a password

that you share with others you want to collaborate with, and

voilà! collaboration starts here.

■ FlockDraw is a real-time collaborative-drawing tool.


TOPWeb Tools for Enhancing Collaboration

By Özge Karaoglu

It’s not news that collaboration is a proven method for effective teaching, and Web 2.0 has enlarged the possibility of peer collaboration to a global scale. What follows is some of the coolest tools you can use to kick-start collaborative projects in your district in any curriculum.

WWW.TECHLEARNING.COM


■ Grou.ps lets you create your own social network. You

can create your forum or mailing list; share documents,

files, and your agenda for organizing events; have your own

YouTube; and share links, bookmarks, and photos. You can

chat in real time, you can let the users have subgroups, and

it’s free.

■ If you are using

Twitter, you may want to try

GroupTweet. It lets you turn

your Twitter account into a

group communication tool

with which everyone in the

group uses direct messages.

When a member receives a

DM, GroupTweet turns it into a

new tweet that all followers in the group can see.

■ ImaginationCubed is a multi-user drawing tool.

You can use a pen, stamps, shapes, or lines, or you

can type. You can also change the color of the back-

ground.

■ LucidChart is another way to collaborate on

a document simultaneously. Everyone can see the

changes that have been made to the document. What

makes it different from the other word processors is

that it has built-in group chat.

■ With MeBeam, you can create your chat room. You

just type the name of the room and tell people to meet

you there.

■ With Metanotes, you can create sticky notes on an

online board and collaborate with friends.

■ Mindmeister is an

online collaborative mind-

mapping tool with which

you can brainstorm with

others in real time. You

can create your own mind

maps on an award-winning

interface or share them with

your friends, or collaborate

with others to create a map.

■ Mixbook lets you create picture books with others.

You start creating your own book and then invite a few

friends to build the rest of the book with you.

■ PageFlakes is a personalized social homepage that

you can customize using “flakes,” which are small, movable

widgets of all your Web favorites. You can add Facebook,

Twitter, Flickr, photos, music, videos, a calendar, a to-do list,

a message board, and an RSS feed.

■ PalBee is a free online service that allows you to set

up online video meetings with friends or colleagues. You

also have a whiteboard, and it lets you draw, write texts,

highlight, and erase by using different tools.

■ Phuser is a tool for groups to use to discuss or work

together or privately. You can share photos and files,

choose who joins, and create and track discussions.

■ PrimaryPad is another collaborative tool for schools.

It’s a Web-based processor for collaborating with students

in real time.

■ Protagonize is a community that writes collaborative

interactive fiction. One person starts the story, and others

post chapters to the story that lead it in different directions.

In the end it becomes an evolving story in which everyone

can participate.

■ Protonotes are notes you add to your prototype to

identify areas for discussion and collaboration; it’s more like

a discussion-board wiki.

■ Senduit lets you upload your

files and share them with your

team by means of private links.

■ With Shwp, you can share

your photos and video with peo-

ple you’ve chosen. You can invite

your friends and collaborate with

them by uploading videos and pictures.

■ SpringNote is an online notebook for collaboration.

You can write down your ideas, create to-do lists, sched-

ule, and work together on projects. It also has an iPhone

application.

■ With Stintio, you can create your own chat in seconds.

You can invite people to join simply by sending a link. You

don’t download or install anything. Your chat will be deleted

if it is not active for a while.

■ Stixy lets you create online bulletin boards for col-

laborating with family, friends, and colleagues. You can

share pictures, files, reminders, and notes by using different

widgets whose size and color you can change. It’s fun, free,

easy, and colorful.

■ StoryBirds are

short, simple stories that

connect you with others.

Two or more people can

create a Storybird by

taking turns writing their

own text and inserting

pictures. You can cre-

ate your story with the person sitting next to you or with

someone far away.

■ Survs lets you create online surveys by collaborating

with others in multi-user accounts. You can collect respons-

es and analyze the results with others in real time.

■ TextFlow is a way to review all versions of a docu-

ment instantly to produce a final draft. It compares all the

versions of the text to show you all the suggestions in a

single view.

■ Tgether allows you to

communicate within small

groups by means of emails.

You can share files, track

conversations, and manage

your group. You can share

codes or use third-party applications that Tgther provides.

■ Thinkature places an instant message inside a visual

workspace with voice chat. You can use it as an environ-

ment for collaboration, a meeting room, or a personal

whiteboard.

■ Thinklinker lets you create outlines in your Web

browser. You can collaborate in real time and share outlines.

You can also use chat while collaborating.

■ Twiddla lets you mark Web sites, graphics, and pho-

tos or use a blank canvas to brainstorm. You don’t have to

download or use any plug-ins.

■ Twiducate is a social

networking tool for schools.

You create an online com-

munity for your classroom

and share ideas, discuss,

post questions, create sur-

veys, and keep parents in

the loop.

■ TypeWithMe is collaborative text synchronized as you

type. This means that others with whom you are sharing the

page can see what you are writing as you write it.

■ Useapollo is online image proofing for documents,

graphics, pictures, Web design, maps, and more. You can

see all the documents your team is working on.

■ I’m sure many of you are familiar with VoiceThread. It’s

a tool for conversing by means of different media. It’s one

of the best ways to talk about and share your images, docu-

ments, or videos. You create your Voicethread, and others

leave comments by telephone, text, Webcam, microphone,

and file upload.

■ Voxli allows you to hold

voice conferences online. You

can have a voice chat with as

many as 200 people. You can

invite your teammates merely

by sending a link, and you

don’t have to upload anything.

You can use “push to talk” to

speak even if you are out of your browser.

■ Voxopop is a message-board system that lets you

create talk groups with which you can discuss and collabo-

rate by using your voice. Some of you may remember that

Voxopop was formerly Chinswing. You can listen to public

discussions, though you must join to create your own. You

can easily send group invitations and make your discussion

private, open, or restricted. You can

delete it whenever you want.

■ Wallwisher is an online notice-

board maker. You can use this tool to

make announcements and keep notes. You

can use links, pictures, music, video, and pages.

You don’t have to register.

■ WebCanvas is a collaborative-painting project. You

can paint using basic tools, you can upload or post profes-

sionally drawn images, or you can watch others paint live.

This is an interesting project for artists, though the rest of

us can give it a try too.

■ Webnote is a tool for taking notes on your computer.

You can also share your notes with others by giving the

workspace name or the URL.

■ WeToku is an interview tool that automatically records

the interview to play it back. You can embed it and share it

with others.

■ Wiggio is an online

tool kit that lets you work in

groups easily. You can send

emails, text messages, and

voice mails. It makes it easy

to share files and polls. You can set up video conferences

and also keep a shared calendar as well as keep track of your

group’s tasks and resources.

■ WikiDot is a wiki builder you can use to share content

and documents and collaborate with your students, col-

leagues, and friends. You can create pages, forums, and

separate wikis for groups or students; discuss topics; and

upload files, documents, notes, and images and share them

with others.

■ Wikispaces is the best way to create collaborative

Web pages that you can edit and share. You can watch

Wikis in Plain English by Common Craft or visit the world’s

largest collaborative online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

■ Woices is an interesting tool for sharing “echoes” that

are linked to specific geographic locations or real-life objects.

■ Wridea is an online idea-management service and

a collection of brainstorming tools. You store, manage,

organize, and share your ideas to improve them. You use

the Web interface, or you write an email to your Wridea

address to keep your ideas organized. You have pages and

categories that let you improve your ideas easily and col-

laboratively.

■ WriteBoard is a Web-based text document on which

you can track every edit and change made by other users.

You can roll back to any version and compare versions.

FEATURESTORY

Read more of Özge Karaoglu’s work at Techlearning.com.


By Pam Derringer

No matter what the topic, Texas just

isn’t a one-size-fits-all state. And pro-

fessional development is no exception.

Especially now, when there’s a new

math initiative and many curriculum

changes that require retraining.

To meet the Texas-size challenge,

the state recently launched Project

Share, a portal offering teachers online

professional development, Web 2.0

connectivity, and enriched classroom

resources through links to reposito-

ries like the New York Times (retroac-

tive to 1851) and the Texas Education

site at iTunesU. In addition, the state

conducted several curriculum-specific

academies that were attended by more

than 45,000 teachers for live class-

room training last summer.

“We have 400,000 educators in the

state, and we can’t reach all of them

face-to-face, so we’re offering training

in many formats,” says Anita Givens,

the Texas Education Agency’s associ-

ate commissioner of standards and

programs. The goal, she says, is for

teachers to have the option of face-

to-face training with online follow-up

or vice versa; both the online and the

in-person professional-development

initiatives will be expanded. Ultimately,

teachers will be able to take complete

professional-development modules

through the portal.

Project Share and the summer

academies, Givens says, have in turn

sparked the spontaneous growth of

informal learning communities in which

instructors collaborate with others who

teach the same grade or subject and

encourage one another to try new

strategies in the classroom. The por-

tal (whose use is at the discretion of

each of the state’s 1,265 school dis-

tricts) will include best practices in

teaching and resource dashboards to

help knowledge drive instruction (for

example, video interviews with sci-

entists and simulated science experi-

ments). Eventually it may even be

used to deliver digital textbooks and/

or courses.

34 | SCHOOL CIO SPECIAL SECTION

Professional Development:

Blended is better

Strategies for K-12 Technology Leaders

In the classroom, Givens says, the

Project Share portal will function as a

secure platform for educational discus-

sions offering all the Web 2.0 tools,

such as calendars, email, blogs, and

wiki forums for academic purposes,

and the state will provide training in

responsible use. The portal has already

offered teachers an extraordinary

chance to communicate: A Texas-trivia

question on the site sparked an “expo-

nential” flow of photos, references,

and charts statewide. The increase in

networking and collaboration will be

particularly helpful for rural teachers,

who often work in isolation. “It really

levels the playing field,” Givens says.

Mass district opts for it’s learning portal

Meanwhile, public schools in

Wayland, Massachusetts, recently

launched an unprecedented yearlong

professional-development program

that will integrate technology into the

curriculum. The Wayland Rises profes-

sional-development initiative includes

seven consultant-written modules,

approximately one for each month

and a half, says Leisha Simon, direc-

tor of technology and accountability.

Each topic will be introduced by a live

lecture after which there will be online

reading and video lessons and collabo-

ration with colleagues.

The online segment of the pro-

fessional development is accessed

through it’s learning, an out-of-the-box

portal–education platform with Web

2.0 communication tools that facili-

tate collaboration and individualized

project learning. Wayland chose the

it’s learning platform to teach students

21st-century skills, like collaboration,

communication, and critical thinking,

but will introduce the platform to the

teachers first, through professional

development, and then to the stu-

dents the following academic year.

“The teachers are the students this

year,” Simon says.

Wayland’s staff is using the it’s

learning platform to become famil-

iar with the curriculum-specific tech-

SCHOOL CIO SPECIAL SECTION | 35

Renton (Washington) Public Schools technology facilitator Reinhart Earhart leads a professional development class.

[PD options]Argosy University http://online.argosy.edu

Atomic Learning www.atomiclearning.com

Blackboardwww.blackboard.com

Blossom Learning www.blossomlearning.com

Custom Guide www.customguide.com

Drexel University www.drexel.com

Full Sail University www.fullsail.edu/online

Knowledge Delivery Systems www.kdsi.org

LearnKey www.learnkey.com

Lynda Online Training Lynda.com

Northcentral University www.ncu.edu

Nova Southeastern University www.nova.edu

PBS Teacherline www.pbs.org/teacherline

PD 360 www.schoolimprovement.com

Pearson www.mypearsontraining.com

Renaissance Learning www.renlearn.com

Solution Tree www.solution-tree.com

University of Maryland University College www.umuc.edu

University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Educationwww.gse.upenn.edu

Walden University Online www.waldenulearning.com

nology resources it will incorporate

into instruction next year and to col-

laborate with colleagues and devel-

op courses. In the process, Simon

explains, this year’s Wayland Rises

professional development is modeling

the student-centered, collaborative

learning style that Wayland will adopt

in the classroom next year. “This is

huge and new,” she says. “I don’t know

of any districts offering this kind of

intense, sustained professional devel-

opment, focused on technology, for

an entire year. Usually it’s a one-day

event.”

From the perspective of a CIO, she

says, the Wayland Rises program is a

great way to ensure that technology

tools are not just purchased and sitting

on the shelf but also actively used in

the classroom. In addition, using the it’s

learning portal “takes the headaches

away. It’s in the cloud. If there’s a prob-

lem, I just call the company.”

Videos a great supplement

On the opposite coast, the

14,000-student Renton School District

in Washington State uses a combi-

nation of face-to-face, blended, and

online professional development to

train its teachers. The 1,000-teacher

district has three full-time trainers

who lead large group sessions on

major professional-development ini-

tiatives, according to Brooke Trisler,

director of instructional technology.

After the sessions, the trainers double

Calling it a watershed moment in the history of online K-12 educational product training, Blossom Learning (www.blossomlearning.com) today announced that the Wayne-Westland Community Schools (www.wwcds.net) district, based in Westland, Michigan, has purchased 685 copies of its Online SMART Board Course as part of its commitment to realize the full potential of the school district’s investment in SMART Boards. According to Paul Weatherhead, General Manager of Blossom Learning, the purchase of 685 copies of the 100% online course is among the largest received to date by the online training company.

“We believe that the administration, teachers, and, most importantly, students of the Wayne-Westland Community Schools district are going to benefit enormously as a result of the decision made by Kevin Galbraith, Executive Director of Technology,” Weatherhead said today.

Recently featured by Michigan’s WXYZ-TV Channel 7 as one of the “Best Schools in Michigan,” the Wayne-Westland Community Schools district serves 12,800

students from the communities of Wayne, Westland, Canton, Dearborn Heights, Inkster, and Romulus, Michigan. All of the district’s schools are accredited by the prestigious North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. Wayne-Westland offers award winning, innovative scholastic programs to assure every student a high quality education and a jump-start on college. Wayne-Westland is especially proud of its 14 Golden Apple Award winning schools and two Michigan Blue Ribbon Exemplary School Award winners.

Introduced in January of this year, the Blossom Learning Online SMART Board Course is designed to be a complete and affordable training solution that comes with built-in LMS administrative facilities that allow school districts to facilitate purchases, allocate courses to teachers,

and track individual teacher progress toward completion. The eight-chapter course allows teachers to complete training on their schedule, and completion shouldn’t take any more than two to three weeks. However, teachers will be able to get up and running with the SMART Board within minutes of starting the online course! The course allows teachers to return to the material over and over again until they become proficient, and the course includes PDF-formatted homework practice sessions, end-of-chapter reviews and quizzes that must be completed before proceeding to the next section. By the time they are finished, teachers will have progressed sequentially from the Fundamentals level through the Intermediate and Advanced levels, and receive a personalized Certificate of Completion.

ADVERTORIAL

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Learn Morewww.blossomlearning.comor call 877-390-7560

A Texas Education Agency flyer promotes a professional development course in Algebra 1.

www.schoolcio.com

back and work with teachers one-on-

one to make sure they understand

the material and integrate it into their

lesson plans.

Some teachers, however, have after-

school commitments and aren’t always

available for individual follow-up ses-

sions at the end of the day, so a year

ago Renton added another avenue,

online videos, with extra pay as incen-

tive to use them. Using local tech levy

funds, Renton bought a three-year sub-

scription to Atomic Learning’s library

of 50,000 training videos, which can

be viewed remotely and which cover a

broad range of topics from basics, such

as Excel, Windows 7, and Outlook, to

social media and more technical sub-

jects, like Photoshop. The videos have

been a “huge success,” Trisler says; to

date the staff has watched 45,000 of

them. “They’re top-notch. The teach-

ers love them.” And they offer another

enrichment opportunity for those who

cannot stay for follow-up training.

For the past five years Renton

has also been using SharePoint as

an informal professional-learning net-

work. Participation has varied, Trisler

says, with some teachers enthusiastic

and others resistant, but many have

been using it to post lesson plans,

supplemental materials, hyperlinks,

and images, whatever might be help-

ful to others. Renton will soon upgrade

to Microsoft SharePoint 2010, which

will be much better, as it has a more

user-friendly interface and can inter-

act with the public and with teachers

from other districts. Smaller districts

have used Facebook to share materi-

als, but Renton is too large to monitor

the network’s use in school and is con-

cerned about Facebook’s commercial

solicitation of students. “I’d love to

see a robust free social-networking

site for public education,” Trisler says.

“Some have tried, but the sites haven’t

taken off.”

Some teachers can’t stay after school, so Renton added online videos, with extra pay as incentive to use them.

Mrs. Blossom’s Online SMART Board™ Course• Comprehensive 8 chapter online course

• Affordable, convenient and easy to use

• Learn at your own pace

• Ideal for beginner and advanced SMART Board™ users

• Designed by teachers using real classroomexamples

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Visit www.blossomlearning.com for more information or call toll-free 1-877-390-7560 for volume pricing.

Untitled-4 1 9/17/2010 3:08:52 PM

1 CONDUCT INTERVIEWSThroughout the year, the seniors

in Bob Wood’s current-issues class at

Oakridge High School in Muskegon,

Michigan, ask friends and family to inter-

view them. They hand their interviews in

with an essay in which they elaborate on

what they said in them. Interview top-

ics, chosen by the students, range from

“Should I vote?” to “Gay or straight:

Does it matter?” to “Where do I go from

here?” At the end of the year, Wood

burns the interviews onto CDs.

3 IMPROVE THE SCHOOL-TO-HOME CONNECTION

A third-grade teacher at Village School

in Pacific Palisades, California, record-

ed his students explaining to their

parents how to play a math game.

Now their parents can play the same

game at home. A music teacher at the

school captures snippets of students

to include in a video he sends to par-

ents in lieu of a printed newsletter.

4 CREATE SLIDE SHOWSMary Williams’s chemistry stu-

dents at St. Mary’s High School in

Colorado Springs, Colorado, use

Animoto (www.animoto.com), a free

site that produces video pieces from

phones, video clips, and music, to make

90-second (or longer) slide shows

about the elements in the periodic table.

5 IMMERSE YOUR CLASS IN ANOTHER CULTURE

Christine Berg’s French 4 class at

Rondout Valley High School in Accord,

New York, connected with a school

for young artists in Haiti. Berg sent

the Haitian students a digital video

camera that she obtained through

grant money, and the classes began

exchanging videos. “My students

wrote scripts in French and practiced

reading and listening skills through

email and video exchanges with the

FEATURESTORY

10 Great Ways to Use Digital Video Cameras in the Classroom

2 PRODUCE PSAS, SKITS, AND MOREThe broadcasting crew at Benefield Elementary School in Lawrenceville,

Georgia, records public-service announcements for the school’s live morning

show. Sometimes they perform short skits that focus on vocabulary, word-

play, and idioms, says technology teacher Karen Hartung.


students from Haiti,” Berg says. At the

same time, Berg’s students studied

the geography, climate, politics, and

history of Haiti.

7 RECORD STUDENTSBecky Goerend, a sixth-grade

teacher at Earlham Elementary in Iowa,

records student responses to their

independent-reading assignments.

“In the past they would write their

thoughts in a notebook. Now they can

share them verbally,” says Goerend.

“It’s a simple thing, but

technology motivates. I

have a closet in my classroom

that I use as the recording booth.”

8 FIGURE OUT HOW TO TELL TIMETamara Walker’s students at

Central Elementary School in Suffield,

Ohio, made a video of themselves

teaching other students to tell time.

The video, which has helped four other

classrooms, gave Walker’s students the

chance to be interactive.

9 LEARN TO READThis year, Elizabeth Askine’s

first-grade classes are watching videos

of themselves reading in order to find

and correct their mistakes. They also

write poems and record themselves

reading them.



6 ENTER A CONTESTLast year, Elizabeth Askine’s fourth-grade class at Norwood Elementary in Baltimore, Maryland, entered the Disney

Planet Challenge. For this project-based competition, students had to work together to try to solve an environmental problem

in their community. Askine’s class wrote and performed a script about how littering affects the environment and then used

Flipshare software (www.theflip.com) to create the 15-minute video.

FEATURESTORY

10 PROMOTE ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS

“Last year, to accompany our school-

wide theme of ‘growing up green,’ our

kindergarten teachers created green-

tips videos with students,” says Jayme

Johnson, director of academic tech-

nology at Village School. The kinder-

gartners planned their videos on a sto-

ryboard and then recorded their tips.

tlhalf.indd 1 10/18/2010 10:23:38 AM

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■ HP

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■ KODAK

Mini Video Camera

$100

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■ PANASONIC

HM-TA1

$170

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■ SAMSUNG

HMX-U20SN

$200

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■ SANYO

VPC-PD2BK

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us.sanyo.com

■ SONY

Bloggie camera

$130

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■ TOSHIBA

Camileo S20

$180

us.toshiba.com

Digital Video CamerasHere are a few of the latest low-cost digital video cameras for your classrooms.



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For more information about the advertisers in this issue, please visit www.techlearning.com and click on the Advertiser Index.

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Contact Person: Kwentin Keenan 703-852-4604

8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or General

Business Office of Publisher: NewBay Media L.L.C.,

810 7th Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019-5872

9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses of Publisher,

Editor and Managing Editor: Publisher: Allison Knapp,

1111 Bayhill Drive, Suite 125, San Bruno, CA 94066-3040;

Editor: Kevin Hogan, 810 7th Avenue, 27th Floor,

New York, NY 10019-5872; Managing Editor: Christine Weiser,

810 7th Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019-5872

10. Owner: NewBay Media L.L.C., 810 7th Avenue, 27th Floor,

New York, NY 10019-5872, wholly owned by the Wicks

Group of Companies—405 Park Avenue, Suite 702,

New York, NY 10022

11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security

Holders: None

12. Tax Status: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months

13. Publication Title: Tech & Learning

14. Issue Date for Circulation Data: October-10

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (REQUESTER PUBLICATIONS ONLY)

a. Total number of copies 65,035 72,051

b. Legitimate paid and/or requested distribution (by mail and outside the mail)

(1) Outside-county paid/requested mail subscriptions stated on PS Form 3541 37,715 42,533

(2) In-county paid/requested mail subscriptions stated on PS Form 3541

(3) Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter sales, and other paid or requested distribution outside USPS

(4) Requested copies distributed by other mail classes through the USPS

c. Total paid and/or requested 37,715 42,533

d. Non-requested distribution (by mail and outside the mail)

(1) Outside-county non-requested copies stated on PS Form 3541 26,188 28,196

(2) In-county non-requested Copies stated on PS Form 3541

(3) Non-requested copies distributed through the USPS by other classes of mail

(4) Non-requested copies distributed outside the mail 582 427

e. Total non-requested distribution 26,770 28,623

f. Total distribution 64,485 71,156

g. Copies not distributed 550 895

h. Total 65,035 72,051

i. Percent paid and/or requested 58.5% 59.8%

16. Publication of Statement of Ownership for a Requestor Publication is required and will be printed in the November 2010 issue of this publication.

17. Signature of Vice President/Group Publisher: Adam Goldstein, September 30, 2010

15. Extent and Nature of Circulation

Average No. Copies Each Issue During

Preceding 12 Months

No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest

to Filing Date

Kensington’s PowerBack Battery Case with Kickstand and Dock (www.us.kensington.com) is an all-in-one design that integrates battery charging, a protective casing, a three-position kickstand, and a dock. The built-in charger provides five extra hours of power for the iPad, while the simple slip-on case protects the tablet computer in a compact and easy-to-carry form for use in all environments. The PowerBack’s kickstand adapts to the needs of individual users by offering three convenient viewing modes for the iPad: Portrait mode is best for viewing photos and browsing the Web; landscape mode makes watching videos a joy; and typing mode makes texting and emailing via the iPad easy and comfortable. Other features include built-in speakers and an LED battery fuel gauge.

Hardware/AV

WHAT’SNEW


For more of the latest product releases, visit us online at Techlearning.com.

Lutron Electronics Co., Inc. (www.lutron.com) has announced new features that enhance energy savings, control, and security for the GRAFIK Eye QS Wireless. They include optimized dimming for the Cree LR4 and LR6 LED loads, a time clock that activates presets and after-hours events on connected Energi Savr Nodes, support for large sensor counts and extended reception, two- and three-button Pico controls to provide portable control of a GRAFIK Eye QS, secure access in public locations, and prevention of unauthorized changes in lighting levels and device settings.

Peek (www.getpeek.com) is a mobile device that sends and receives email and text messages anywhere in the United States; no Wi-Fi is necessary. With Peek, you can equip faculty, students, and even students’ families with effective communication tools, expand your communication capabilities without adding extra phone lines or Internet connections, and streamline internal operations by enabling everyone in your organization with mobile email and SMS access. Peek also does real-time email, texting, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as location tracking.

The CPX8 3LCD video projector (www.hitachi-america.us/digitalmedia) weighs less than five pounds and measures just 12” x 8.7”, so it’s easy to carry and use in varied locations. It offers XGA (1,024 x 768) resolution and 2,700 ANSI lumens brightness and includes HDMI, S-Video, and composite video inputs; RGB computer video inputs and outputs; two audio inputs; and an audio output. The projector has a host of features, including buttons for fast remote-control access to frequently used functions, a customizable blank button for instant control, and a blackboard/whiteboard mode that projects lines for whiteboards and blackboards. It includes a Hybrid Filter that permits 5,000 hours between cleanings and a low noise level of 28 dB.

NewTek (www.newtek.com) has announced the TriCaster TCXD850 and TriCaster TCXD300, which let users customize their high-definition live virtual sets. They offer network-style virtual sets developed with proprietary NewTek LiveSet technology. TriCaster VSE is accessed from the HD TriCaster control panel and employs functions familiar to TriCaster users, such as position, scale, rotation, color correction (brightness, hue, contrast, and

saturation), a media browser for image selection, and the T-bar for setting custom starting and end points for zooms.



Mini Solar Kits (www.owirobot.com) encourage creative thinking, problem solving, and a love of science. A mini solar panel activates their whimsical designs and brings them to life. Children not only learn and experiment with cause and effect but also enjoy hands-on science without the carbon emissions. Powered by sunshine or halogen lighting, the kits are perfect for sparking the imaginations of elementary- and middle-school kids who have little or no kit-building experience. The 6-in-1 Educational Solar Kit allows children to snap together 21 parts to create six working models: an airboat, a windmill, a puppy, and two airplanes.

NEC Display Solutions of America (www.necdisplay.com) has announced its Portable Series projectors, the M260X, the M260W, and the M300X (shown). Designed to keep audiences engaged during presentations, the value-driven, eco-friendly portable projectors are ideal for education and small- to medium-sized businesses They deliver remarkably bright images and feature wired and wireless (optional) networking, HDMI and USB inputs, high contrast (2,000:1), and 6,000 hours of lamp life (in ECO ModeT). The Portable Series was created with the environment in mind and includes a carbon-savings meter; energy-saving features, such as Power Save (<1-watt in standby mode); quick startup; and direct power-off. And the projectors offer extended lamp and filter life, benefiting classrooms and boardrooms alike.

The clamshell classmate PC design (www.intel.com) features increased rugged-ness, longer battery life, improved water resistance, and additional anti-microbial protection. It protects better against dam-age from falls from up to 70 centime-ters (the height of many desks) through improved protection from all angles, an easy-to-grasp handle, a special HDD rub-ber cage that reduces the impact of physical shocks and vibration, and special LCD rubber protection for minimizing the impact from being dropped or falling. It also features a water-resistant keyboard and an improved antimicrobial coating that protects against bacteria, mold, mildew, fungi, algae, and yeast by creating a sur-face that retards the growth and colonizing of microorganisms.

The Mighty Scope Pro Pack (www.aveninc.com), a kit with two handheld digital microscopes and a polarizer attachment, is an economical combination for science demonstrations and student use. It enables inspection, analysis, and measurement of magnified images that can be sent to any Windows PC and is suited to biology, earth science, and medical studies. The Pro Pack includes Mighty Scope adjustable from 10x to 200x; Mighty Scope with highest magnification 500x; a polarizer for contrast-enhancing use of the 10x to 200x scope; and acces-sories for hands-free operation.

The Numonics INTELLIBOARD interactive whiteboard (www.numonics.com) allows two students to write on the classroom whiteboard simultaneously during math and science lessons. To differentiate the pens, the second pen operates on a different frequency and is a different color.

Cool School Apps

ALPHABET 1.5 APP(WWW.PIIKEASTREET.COM) Alphabet 1.5 for iOS takes alphabet learning for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers to the next level by giving them plenty of opportunity to interact with the letters. The original artwork and characters draw them in, fun animation and sound effects pique their interest, and memorable, unique interactions keep them coming back for more. This new version of the app includes a slew of other often requested features, like lowercase letters and phonics sounds. The letters are pronounced softly, and the upbeat music and sound effects will have kids dancing, mimicking, and asking Mom and Dad if they can have their own iPads.Price: $2.99Category: English

DOODLE CAM 1.0 APP(WWW.MACPHUN.COM) Take real life in real time and transforms it into cartoon-style videos and photos that can be saved and shared instantly. Users have their choice of 11 effects and seven soundtracks, which can be changed while recording with just a tap of the screen. Whatever a user sees on the iPhone screen is what they get in their photo or video. Price: $1.99Category: visual effects

GEOTIMESCALE ENHANCED/GEOTIMESCALE ENHANCED HD APPS(WWW.TASAGRAPHICARTS.COM)These apps illustrate significant events and periods in Earth’s history. The Geologic Time Scale shows the names of the eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages along with their corresponding dates. Both apps include illustrations and information about significant events. They provide a complete reference for students, educators, professional geologists, and anyone interested in geology. No Internet connection is required.Price: $0.99Category: science

GOODREADER APP(WWW.GOODREADER.NET) This iPad and iPhone app has just added the feature that allows users to annotate any PDF with text, freehand drawings, and several other styles. The feature lets them mark up and share manuals, schematics, meeting notes, and other

materials. Another new feature is the ability to select text on a PDF and copy it to the clipboard, so it’s possible to copy blocks of text from a PDF into a document editor or an email message. The new version of GoodReader also enables users to view or edit all notes, highlights, markups, and drawings created in other applications and properly stored in a PDF file. Price: $2.99 Category: editing

GRAVBOT 1.0 (WW2.TEAMPHOBIC.COM/GAMES)GravBot 1.0 is a physics-based puzzle platformer in which the player decides which way is “up” as a little robot falls and pivots through various levels, each of which presents a different challenge. Find the right path and avoid enemies, spike traps, and laser beams. Use levers, buttons, and elevators to solve the puzzles. Because the game is based on physics, the simplest solution isn’t always obvious, so GravBot 1.0 presents a challenge for gamers of all ages. Price: freeCategory: physics

HELLO-HELLO CHINESE APP(WWW.HELLO-HELLO.COM)A Mandarin Chinese–learning course for the contemporary iPad device, the new app offers 30 conversational lessons based on realistic situations and supplemented with hundreds of flash cards containing words and sentences for vocabulary building. Hello-Hello has built the application with advanced audio, beautiful graphics, and a research-based learning methodology to ensure an enjoyable, easy, and fast learning process for every user who is willing to learn Mandarin Chinese.Price: $9.99 in the iTunes storeCategory: Mandarin, languages

HISTORYTOOLS 1.5.2(WWW.WRITERSDREAMTOOLS.COM) This new iPad and iPhone app displays a day-by-day calendar of historical events, the births and deaths of famous people in history, saints’ feast days, and holidays around the world. The entire database is available offline without a Wi-Fi or GPS connection. Users can add their own personal entries. The app’s 14.2 MB database contains 5,700 events, 6,200 birthdays, 4,000 deaths, and 600 date-specific holidays. It can also be used as a diary in which to save one’s own events and important dates, whether they are family birthdays and anniversaries or events in history of special interest to the user. Price: freeCategory: history

WHAT’SNEW


ILIVEMATH ENTOMOLOGY 4.0 FOR IOS(WWW.IHOMEEDUCATOR.COM)Young children can enjoy the photos and videos shown with this app, which was developed specifically for kindergarten through 7th grade. Early readers can learn about insects, arachnids, and the metamorphosis of butterflies and lady beetles. Higher grades are challenged by mental word problems that require visualizing the basic geometry in insect flight patterns. The app now supports the ability to display the photo and word problem to an entire classroom. It features 100 photos, 40 videos, and a million word problem–answer combinations that teach addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and basic geometry across three levels of difficulty. Price: $4.99Category: science

MOSALINGUA LEARN SPANISH AND FRENCH APPS(WWW.MOSALINGUA.COM) Intended for English speakers, the app uses an effective and addictive teaching method called the Spaced Repetition System, the latest technology in facilitating memorization. MosaLingua consists of 2,700+ flash cards of words and phrases that include audio pronunciations by native speakers. The cards are classified according to category and level of difficulty. Illustrated dialogues help you learn the key phrases you need in particular situations (context learning). The app also includes learning tips and grammar lessons (including conjugations) that allow you to greatly expand your language skills. Price: $0.99Category: languages*you can download the Multitouch Whiteboard Media Kit here: (it contains, 512x512 and 100x100 version of the icon and 6 screenshots) http://www.shiftingmind.com/whiteboard/mediakit.zip

PARK MATH 1.0 APP(WWW.DUCKDUCKMOOSEDESIGN.COM) Featuring seven fun educational activities, the app introduces early math concepts to children in preschool and kindergarten. As children play with Blue Bear and his friends in a park, it teaches counting, addition, subtraction, sorting, and more. The music, arranged and recorded especially for the app, is performed on the cello and the guitar. The app has two levels: Level 1 includes counting up to 20 and addition and subtraction with numbers up to 5, and Level 2 includes counting up to 50 and addition and subtraction with numbers up to 10. Price: $1.99Category: math

PHOTOTOMAC 2.0(WWW.GALARINA.EU)This app for iPhone and iPod touch transfers photos and videos over Wi-Fi to a Mac folder. Transfers can be done in the background on iOS 4. PhotoToMac requires no cables, no Internet connection, no browser, and no emails with attachments. The only requirement is that the iPhone or iPod touch must be on the same Wi-Fi network as the Mac. The app also works on an iPad; it includes support for JPEG photos imported via the iPad Camera Connection Kit.Price: $1.99Category: student learning

RULER 2.0 APP(WWW.RULERAPP.COM) This convenient mobile innovation takes advantage of its non-wood medium to great effect. Save and come back later to see what you measured and when. Convert between inches and centimeters with one tap. Copy and paste values into other apps, like Calculator and Mail. You can even measure long objects by sliding the device and swiping. The app includes a visual guide demonstrating this simple technique.Price: $0.99 cents; free to upgrade to 2.0Category: math

TINY OCEAN 1.1 APP(WWW.MILOCREATIVE.COM) This educational game keeps children entertained and engaged while they learn new words. Children explore a tropical island and a musical underwater world simply by tapping illustrated pictures to play animations and sounds. There are also interactive Flash Cards in the supported languages. By tapping the microphone, parents and children can record their own voices, which play back both on the Flash Cards and in the ocean, stimulating word association and improving pronunciation and speaking skills. Tiny Ocean is great for teaching languages and currently supports English, Spanish, and Greek. Price: $1.99Category: languages

VERNIER VIDEO PHYSICS APP(WWW.VERNIER.COM)Vernier Software & Technology’s new application allows educators to take the video-analysis power of Vernier’s Logger Pro desktop data-collection software out into the field. The software lets them take a video of an object in motion, mark its position frame by frame, and set up the scale using a known distance. Examples of the app’s use in the field include measuring the velocity of a free-throw shot, a child’s swing, a roller-coaster, and a car. Video Physics then draws trajectory, position, and velocity graphs for the object. It is the perfect tool for teaching two-dimensional kinematics. Price: freeCategory: science



Online & Software

ACUITY ENHANCEMENTS(WWW.ACUITYFORSCHOOL.COM) The new enhancements for the Acuity InFormative Assessment solution include a feature that automatically assigns instructional resources to students based on their Acuity assessment results. Available with Acuity’s Predictive, Diagnostic, and Custom Assessments in Math and English Language Arts, this feature personalizes the content delivered to each student. The assigned resources each include three parts: personalized instruction, guided practice items, and a final evaluation assessment. Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: assessment

A.D.A.M. INSIDE OUT HEALTH AND WELLNESS(WWW.ADAMCORP.COM) This is an addition to the A.D.A.M. Education suite of products, which are designed to assist educators in teaching nutrition, the significance of healthy eating, and the importance of incorporating 60 minutes of physical activity into a person’s daily routine. All lessons provide students with a path to self-directed learning that includes animations and interactive resources. Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: health

ADOBE ACROBAT X PRO(WWW.ADOBE.COM/EDUCATION/PRODUCTS/ACROBATPRO) With the new version of Adobe Acrobat X, faculty, administration, and students across districts can collaborate, increase productiv-ity, and share their work. The new Portfolio Wizard allows educators to combine a wide range of content--including video and interactive media--in a single customizable ePortfolio, ideal for distributing course material and assessing student growth. Faculty and staff can save time and standardize processes by automating routine, multistep tasks with new guided actions. Acrobat X Pro and Reader X are scheduled to ship within 30 days, with availability through Adobe Authorized Education Resellers, the Adobe Education Store, and Adobe Direct Sales.Price: Adobe Acrobat X Pro Student and Teacher Edition is $119; vol-ume licensing for Acrobat X Pro starts at $159.Category: Productivity

CAMS & STAMS (WWW.CURRICULUMASSOCIATES.COM) The CAMS (Comprehensive Assessment for Mathematics Strategies) & STAMS (Strategies to Achieve Mathematics Success) series provides a powerful integrated assessment and instruction program which includes engaging interactive

whiteboard activities for skills practice and to ensure student mastery of every concept. Designed for students in grades 3-8, CAMS is a research-based diagnostic tool, including pretests, benchmarks, and post-tests, that help identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, target instruction, and measure progress and mastery of the most important math skills at each grade level. STAMS consists of a series of highly-scaffolded lessons that allow for explicit instruction based on the results from the CAMS series of assessments.Price: The CAMS series and STAMS series contains 25 Student Books and one Teacher Guide, for a total of 50 Student Books and two Teacher Guides for $359.00.Price: $359 for 50 student books and two teacher guides; $39.90 for a pack of 10 student books; $5.95 for each teacher guide. Category: math

CCC! INTERNET-ONLY VERSION 9(WWW.CCCVOD.COM)New Dimension Media has launched an Internet-only model for CCC!, so a school can adopt the system without installing a server or hardware. It offers all the educational programming of the server-based CCC! at special Internet-only pricing. Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: video streaming

EDWEB 2.0(WWW.EDWEB.US)Now an open-source CMS for Education, EdWeb 2.0 is designed to complement a school district’s Web site rather than replace it, providing the district with a more comprehensive Web presence. Additional features include aggregated search, to find links to educational sites input by all teachers in the district; student log-ins, which permit non-anonymous comments by students on teachers’ blogs; a lesson-plan repository, and a share portal for sharing documents.Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: Website authoring

EPALS AND LEARNINGSPACE COLLABORATION(WWW.LEARNINGSPACE.EPALS.COM) ePals, Inc. has announced an advanced caching solution that will provide real-time access to the company’s LearningSpace product, a Web-hosted virtual workspace for creating, sharing, managing, and collaborating on educational content from any location at any time. The solution helps teachers and students create and collaborate on high-bandwidth multimedia projects in a safe environment while it satisfies schools’ bandwidth needs by ensuring reliable access for greater learning experiences. Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: virtual workspace

WHAT’SNEW


EXOS 5.5(WWW.EXINDA.COM)By ensuring the optimal use of available bandwidth and easy diagnosis and resolution of network problems, ExOS 5.5 enables educational institutions to maximize the traffic over their networks without incurring additional infrastructure costs. ExOS software running on the x60 family of WAN Optimization appliances provides the inspection, identification, and reporting functions essential to effective WAN optimization, intelligent acceleration, and traffic shaping. Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: networking

EXPLORE THE BLUE ENHANCEMENTS(WWW.EXPLORETHEBLUE.COM) The Take Me Fishing campaign and Discovery Education have added even more educational tools to the recently updated Explore the Blue Website. The site offers new digital media on the importance of outdoor recreational activities, such as boating and fishing,

and the value of clean and healthy natural resources. It also features custom lesson plans for K–5 students and standards-aligned educational videos for supplementing classroom learning. Educators, parents, and students can visit Explore the Blue to find more than 12,000 places to boat and fish, as well as local services, activities, and events, and much more.Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: video, social studies

FACEBOOK FOR STUDENTS(WWW.ATOMICLEARNING.COM) Facebook for Students highlights the basics of using the most popular social networking site; how to find the site’s educational and useful features—for example, the option of deleting comments or posts—and how and why one would create a group. The product also explains important safety features and provides tips on how to be safe online and how to protect your online persona. These tutorials provide a plethora of knowledge that can’t be gained simply by signing up for Facebook.Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: training, social networking


FARONICS ANTI-VIRUS(WWW.FARONICS.COM)Faronics has announced the release of malware protection that combines anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit technology to provide a coordinated preemptive response to advanced malware. Faronics Anti-Virus integrates with the system-restore solution Faronics Deep Freeze to apply anti-virus updates while computers are protected in a frozen state. Price: A trial version can be downloaded at the Web site. Category: security

FLUENCY TUTOR(WWW.TEXTHELP.COM)With this product, students can independently practice their reading, record themselves reading, answer questions about comprehension, submit assessments to their teachers, and view their progress over time. Teachers can assign individual students and groups passages appropriate to their level for practice and assessment. They can listen to and mark students’ recorded assessments at their convenience and get automatically generated WCPM and prosody scores. Using the data from Fluency Tutor’s reports, teachers can personalize instruction to meet individual students’ needs, and students can see where they have to focus to improve their oral-reading skills. The newest version of Fluency Tutor, which includes passage illustrations, comprehension questions, expanded reporting, and more group options, further enhances both the teacher and student experience.Price: Annual subscriptions start at $2,245.Category: reading

MIXEDINK(WWW.MIXEDINK.COM/EDUCATOR)MixedInk, an online collaborative-writing startup, has launched a suite of features designed for the classroom. With these tools, teachers can enable students to write together, evaluate their classmates’ writing, and learn from their peers. The MixedInk platform invites students to remix each other’s words and ideas while automatically tracking authorship through the collaborative process. By encouraging students to reuse their peers’ ideas, the tool offers an innovative model for classroom collaboration that pushes traditional boundaries. The educator package provides a number of teacher-friendly features including password protection, an interactive report showing each student’s independent contributions, and the ability to remove inappropriate content.Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: writing

NASA AND CK-12 PARTNERSHIP(WWW.CK12.ORG) NASA and the nonprofit CK-12 Foundation have announced a new chapter in CK-12’s 21st Century Physics FlexBook: A Compilation of

Contemporary and Emerging Technologies. The FlexBook represents an important step in keeping science information pertinent and accurate through the emerging trend of online textbooks, or ebooks. The new chapter provides students and teachers with a look at a contemporary NASA space transportation project and explains how simulation-based engineering is used to develop new technology, in this case, the Launch Abort System (LAS), which is managed at NASA Langley. The LAS is a state-of-the-art astronaut escape system created to significantly improve flight-crew safety.Price: available free of charge, visit www.ck12.com to access the book for download.Category: science

PDF TO JPG CONVERTER(WWW.PDFTOJPGCONVERTER.COM)This new freeware converter lets users convert Adobe PDF documents or several documents to image formats such as JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, and TIFF. The utility also allows users to convert multi-page PDFs to several single-page JPG images and to select the output-image DPI. The new converter has an easy tabbed interface that enables converting PDF to image with a few simple clicks. Price: freeCategory: freeware

PLATO LEARNING ONLINE COURSES(WWW.PLATO.COM)PLATO Learning has introduced new content for two of its existing high school science courses. The retooled online courses are designed to meet the needs of both credit-recovery and first-time students seeking semester-long credits in biology and chemistry. The courses benefit students by featuring the latest updates in science education, including inquiry science activities, labs, and online simulations. Further, they were created to support schools’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives. The interdisciplinary STEM approach incorporates these four subjects into one cohesive means of teaching and learning, helping students explore them in a more applicable manner. Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: Science

QUESTIONMARK PERCEPTION(WWW.QUESTIONMARK.COM) Questionmark has added French and Spanish browser-based interfaces to its Perception assessment-management system. The French and Spanish interfaces are part of Service Pack 1 for Questionmark Perception version 5.2, which has provided multilingual participant-facing interfaces in 20 languages and a Translation Management System that streamlines the authoring, management, and delivery of multilingual online quizzes, tests, surveys, and exams. Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: assessment

WHAT’SNEW


SCHOOLNET RESPOND RTI SOFTWARE(WWW.SCHOOLNET.COM) Schoolnet introduces Respond, a comprehensive Response to Intervention (RTI) software solution. By organizing student data in a central location, Respond automates student screening, streamlines the creating of intervention plans and progress monitoring, and provides detailed reports and dashboards that give instructional leaders the tools they need to implement successful RTI programs. With Respond, districts have an open platform for defining their intervention criteria.Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: assessment, RTI

SHMOOP(WWW.SHMOOP.COM)Shmoop has, launched its online SAT prep service, which uses beloved video games, like Oregon Trail, Tetris, and Mario Brothers, as metaphors for various challenges that students will face on the SAT. In fact, Shmoop SAT Prep is itself a bit of a game. Students earn Shmoints for correctly completing portions of the SAT prep course; top Shmoint scorers win Shmoop T-shirts. Shmoop’s SAT prep service contains more than 500 vocabulary words; 1,006 practice problems in SAT reading, writing, and math; and more.Price: $23 a student; contact company for district pricing.Category: SAT prep

STARRMATICA AND EINSTRUCTION PARTNERSHIP(WWW.STARRMATICA.COM)StarrMatica Learning Systems has partnered with eInstruction to provide free interactive content to classrooms nationwide. eInstruction customers will receive a six-month membership in StarrMatica’s online library of interactive content with all new purchases of mobile interactive whiteboards, interactive dual boards, and student response systems. StarrMatica’s online library includes more than 3,800 K–6 reading and math simulations, animations, activities, games and assessments, along with a search engine for finding content by grade, topic, and state-standard, national-core, and textbook curricula. Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: interactive-whiteboard content

THINKSPIRATION(WWW.INSPIRATION.COM)Inspiration Software’s new blog is a forum in which educators and educational experts of all levels of experience and areas of focus can exchange ideas, sharing research, news, trends, and lessons to help students achieve to their greatest potential. Thinkspiration also features the Inspired Calendar, which provides lesson plans and activities to use in employing Inspiration, Kidspiration, and InspireData with students to mark national and international holidays, celebrations, and events. Price: free Category: forum

TOON BOOM 6(WWW.TOONBOOM.COM)Toon Boom Studio 6 expands its animation capabilities with its bone-rigging features. It serves as the most complete launch pad for learning and creating animation, whether at home or in the classroom. As a bonus, Studio 6 comes with several bone-ready templates that users can incorporate into their own projects. This template pack speeds up the process of animating. In addition, it has a 62-minute how-to video that covers step-by-step instructions on creating bone animation.Price: $149.99 (academic price)Category: animation

WRITETOLEARN 6.0(WWW.SCHOOL.WRITETOLEARN.NET) The newest version of Pearson’s online tool for building writing skills and developing reading comprehension enables students to develop skills in essay writing and summarizing that are measured by Pearson’s state-of-the-art Knowledge Analysis Technologies (KAT) engine. WriteToLearn 6.0 now features expanded text-to-speech capability. Using Texthelp Systems’ embedded reading-support technology, SpeechStream, students can have reading passages, feedback on essays, and their own writing read aloud to them. WriteToLearn’s grammar-checking capability has also been expanded to provide students with more feedback on errors. Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: writing

WWW.ENERGYBALANCE101.COMPowered by Discovery Education, this product promotes ways to help young people achieve a healthy weight through energy balance. The curriculum includes lesson plans, resources, and videos aligned to state standards for the K–2 and 3–5 grade ranges. The entire curriculum can be integrated into classroom instruction but is flexible enough that teachers can use the complete scope of resources or select the elements that fit their needs best. Each module includes background information and tips that help teachers, as well as dynamic activities and engaging Discovery Education digital media. Family and community extension resources are also included to facilitate learning beyond the classroom. Price: free to educatorsCategory: health

SPELLING CONNECTIONS(WWW.ZANER-BLOSER.COM/SPELLINGCONNECTIONS)This program provides developmentally appropriate instruction using a five-day plan, an array of assessment options, and technology tools. The research-based word lists provide true differentiated instruction for students at all levels, including English Language Learners. A full complement of exciting interactive games, interactive-whiteboard-ready digital resources, and online practice activities engage today’s media-savvy students and reinforce instruction inside the classroom and at home.Price: Contact company for pricing.Category: reading, writing



By Bob Sprankle

I’ve started carrying out my yearly Internet/Media survey with

my third and fourth graders. It’s a survey that is a mashup

of some of my own questions and questions from Common

Sense Media. The responses and discussions are essential to

take a “pulse” on understanding what has changed since the

previous year, what tools are now being used, and how atti-

tudes and habits have changed.

One positive change this year is that stu-

dents are reporting that they are searching

more with the aid of a parent rather than

independently (one of the things we strongly

encourage at the elementary age level).

One particular response in the survey

hasn’t changed at all. When asked the ques-

tion (created by Common Sense Media)

“Have your parents talked with you about

what media means or what its messages are?” more than

85% of students are reporting “No.” This is similar to what

the data showed last year.

Media Literacy plays a prominent part of the technology

curriculum. We look at advertising, message, medium, etc.

However, if the conversation is only happening at school,

it’s not enough. I’d go so far to say that if the conversation

isn’t continuing or further reinforced at home, then the les-

sons at school are largely ineffective.

After looking at the data together, I asked students to

describe typical shows they watch on TV (including DVD

movies) and what kinds of conversation happens around

them. First, I realized that my 4th graders are watching

some pretty mature content (the Twilight movies and CSI

episodes, for examples). Secondly, when I asked what kind

of conversations they were having with parents around

what happens in the program, they confirmed that there

wasn’t any conversation.

I shared with my students typical conversations I have

with my daughter while watching TV or movies. For exam-

ple, my wife and I had many discussions about whether or

not to allow our daughters to watch the popular young

adult show, Glee, and finally decided to allow it. If this show

isn’t a “stop, turn, and talk” show, I don’t

know what is. Our family has had many really

good conversations due to the issues or

topics that the show has brought up. And I

mean real conversations, like, “What do you

think about that?” or “What would you do in

this situation?” or “What questions do you

have about this issue/topic?” I learned later

that if you go to the review page about Glee,

there’s actually a “Families Can Talk About”

section to help get these conversations started.

Let me be clear here: I’m no super dad, but I believe it’s

important to have conversations about the media, to exam-

ine it, to question it, to talk about our likes and dislikes. The

thing that we have tried to do is show that we value discus-

sions and reflections around the media that we’re exposed

to. We value our daughter’s ideas, her tastes, and dislikes.

What are your thoughts? Whose job is it to talk about the

media our young students are coming in contact with? Are

your students having conversations with their parents? Are

parents aware of what media their students are ingesting?

THE Y SAID I T


Talk About the Message

Join the conversation on Bob Sprankle’s blog at Techlearning.com

If the conversation is only happening at school, it’s not

enough.

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Documents

Tech & Learning (Nov 2010, Vol. 31, No. 4)