I have replaced the scrolling news items on the homepage.  These were annoying and didn’t help get people the news they wanted to read. 

The news items are generated via an RSS feed on the School Matters News portal website.  The RSS feed is then parsed and displayed in the homepage.

It’s great because I only have to update the news site and then it automatically updates the homepage.

The new method for displaying news items on the homepage just links to the title of the news item.  I currently have it set to display 10 from the district and 5 from the PTSA.

I also added this same code on the Dearborn High School Website.  DHS is using a Blog for daily announcements and it generates a RSS feed of all the articles.  On the DHS website you can see the latest daily announcements generated on a blog displayed in the website. 

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Let’s take a look at the various tools for teachers and students in the Dearborn Schools:

• Moodle/iLearn - iLearn is a tool for creating online classrooms.  From quizzes to personal journals and discussions, iLearn helps students and teachers keep in touch and extend learning from the classroom into the home.  There are many uses outside of just an online classroom such as using iLearn for clubs, voting/polls, and more.

• Wordpress/iBlog - Classroom websites have never been easier to maintain and create.  With iBlog, teachers have the ability to instantly create a classroom website to inform parents about class & school activities.  There is no special software needed other than a browser and internet connection.  Teachers can upload photos, documents and more and the iBlog software handles all the tricky web coding to make the website work.  Teachers can even podcast with the iBlog system.
• Scuttle/iSeek - Imagine a website where there are hundreds of teacher approved website links.  iSeek is a resource for parents, students and other teachers to share educational website links used in the classroom.
• EduSpace - EduSpace is a student ePortfolio system that takes advantage of all the web 2.0 features such as RSS feeds, blogs, file storage, bookmark sharing, wiki, and even podcasting.  Students can use this to collaborate on projects by forming groups and working on common documents all at once to create reports, etc.  Students can create profiles with documents and projects they have created and connect with other students with similar interest.  EduSpace is a personal learning environment where groups can be formed and knowledge can be shared with students.  Every student will be able to create a blog to work on writing skills.  With every aspect of EduSpace, students determine what to share and what to keep private.
• Joomla/School Matters News Portal - The news portal allows for interactive features such as email newsletters, parent forums and discussions, photo galleries, and document sharing. 
• Video Sharing - Coming soon!  Our latest addition to the Dearborn Schools website is video sharing.  We have many students and teachers producing video and multimedia content.  Now we will have a website to share these productions with the world.  Much like youtube, videos can be stored and converted into flash videos which can be embedded in any website.  This will be great for WDHS Video students who create such quality videos.  They will now have a place to share them.

We are working on a complete ecosystem of web publishing tools available to staff.  No matter what the teacher or student need, we are looking to fill that with a tool to make it simple and easy.  It is also just neat to be using such cutting-edge tools.

Chris

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I am pretty close to getting the video sharing website up and running.  I am in contact with a student from WDHS and it looks like they will be interested in using the new website to host their student video projects.  I can also see teachers uploading student projects, schools creating videos, embedding videos into websites much like youtube, and more.  This will be a great addition to our website toolbox.

We have a variety of tools for educators and students to use.  I will have to write a seperate post on all the tools teachers can use.

Chris

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