It is with great sadness that I announce that Dearborn Public Schools have decided to cut spending by cutting the media centers. I will be returning to the classroom for the second semester and seeking employment elsewhere for next year. It has been a good ride. too bad it must end in this ignominious fashion.
This week marks the beginning of the K12 Online Conference. This is a great opportunity to get all the input of a great conference over a period of weeks instead of one big data dump. You can attend without leaving your desk. You can see the first presentation, “Going Global: Culture Shock, Convergence and the Future of Education” here. http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=424
The power of Web 2.0 is collaboration with others. At the TAC (disrtict technology comittee) meeting yesterday, I really realized how valuable a team is in moving forward with technology. I don’t really have a building tech team right now, due to the massive layoffs and teacher reassignment. I hope to build a face-to-face building team soon, but in the mean time, I am very grateful to my district tech team and my online personal learning network for supporting me and keeping me up to date.
There has been much talk about New Media Literacies and 21st Century Literacy, but what does all that mean. Howard Rheingold, my favorite crazy genius, gave a pretty good overview, at least of the skill set he considers 21st century literacies. I love the way he talks about the skill of attention.
See his presentation here.
I really wish this blog would allow me to paste the embed code, but it won’t.
Jon Scieszka as a boy
Jon Scieszka, My favorite reading guy has updated his famous “Guys Read” website. It now includes cool book lists with titles like “At Least One Explosion” and Outer Space both With and Without aliens. Another favorite list of mine is Boxers, Wrestlers and Ultimate Fighters because it includes one of my personal favorites, Mondo Lucha A Go-go. If you are a guy, you can’t afford to miss this! Get all your guy friends to give it a try, they might even like it.
A new school year has started and I am looking for new book reviewers. The Middle Books blog will begin posting audio book reviews soon. If you are interseted in posting an audio book review, let me know!
I really like Magnatune! They let you use all sorts of great music for projects, podcasts and remixes of all sorts. Enjoy this lovely Vivaldi played by Lara St. John.
Contraptions is a fun game where you get to be the mad scientist. You have parts and a goal and you can solve the problem any way you can get to work. You can try it here:
Here is one of my contraptions.
http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=8773432
Here is the video of it in action
So have at it and do something interesting this summer.
If you can’t get to Washington D.C., you can still enjoy many fine technolgy presentations on IsteVision.
There is a great little online game called Five Card Flickr . This game gives you sets of random images and asks you to choose five, one from each set. You then have to make a story to go with the images. It is a fun thing to do on a rainy day. Here is the first one I made.
Cynthia Alvarado