We've added some great new applications and updates to the EeePCs and community sites that we'd like to make you aware of. EeePC programs will automatically install on your EeePCs the next time they connect to the network.

• Google Earth: Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share with others. Great for all sorts of classroom activities across a variety of disciplines. For a great example and lesson materials on erosion, see David Lindsay's Post here.
• Pencil: Pencil is an animation/drawing software that lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics. Saves files in Flash format (swf) which is easy to embed in a Student Community blog. Could be used for a number of creative activities and demonstrations in the classroom.
• Multimedia support for StarOffice: Software to support a variety of audio/visual media within StarOffice documents and presentations, including a number of video and audio formats. All media types kids can create on their EeePCs using the Sound Recorder (Audacity) and Webcam are supported.
• Scratch support in the Student Community: The Student Community now supports playback of Scratch projects directly in a student blog. A number of students have already posted their projects. For an example of a Scratch project in the blog, click here.

If there are any other things you would like to do with either the EeePCs or the Student/Teacher Communities, be sure to let us know. Feel free to comment here with your ideas/suggestions.

We are pleased to announce that our 21st century learning project, Student Writing Achievement Through Technology Enhanced Collaboration (SWATTEC), has been fully funded and will commence this fall. Through this project, 1,700 fourth grade students at the Saugus Union School District will receive what we are referring to as an Ultra Mobile Device (Asus EeePC), and will engage in collaborative learning through the use of Web 2.0 evaluation, assessment, and social media tools.

The SWATTEC project has been carefully conceived, backed by tremendous research, and will be comprehensively supported through extensive staff development, evaluation, and district-wide support. We embark on this journey with great anticipation and high expectation that the development of a sustainable, one-to-one environment, coupled with the power of Web 2.0 tools will create a culture of transparent technology integration and generate academic, personal, and social gains never before realized in elementary education. We look forward to sharing the results with you.

Rather than post a number of blog entries on the project, I will instead post the details on my wiki pages at http://community.saugususd.org/jklein/page/SWATTEC+Project. Be sure to check back often for updates.

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For the final NECC keynote, Idit Harel Caperton shared her vision for the future of education technology. She is tremendously accomplished, perhaps best known as the co-editor (with Seymour Papert) of the 1991 book, Constructionism, the first book about constructionist learning. 

Idit's presentation was, to say the least, challenging for many of us. She promised to take us on a journey through 3 decades of catalyzing change, 3 days of  the catalysts of change (ie those at NECC who are endeavoring to drive change), and 3 wishes for the future. The overarching theme of the presentation was “The Transformational Power of Social Media Technology in Learning”, which was of particular interest to me, for I am a proponent of the use of social technologies in education. More ...