Note: at any time if you need to see a larger version of the images below, just click on the image.

Sending an email via blind copy allows you to send an email to several people without those people being able to see the other recipients' email address. It also prevents recipients from knowing if there were other people who received the email.

Here's how to do it:

First, select the email that you'd like to forward, or create a new one.

Next, if you're forwarding, click the "forward" button (it might just be a right arrow if your window is smaller). If you're creating a new email just skip to the next step.

If you can't see a BCC field click on the button to show it (as shown below)

This last step is the most important! Address the email to YOURSELF. In the BCC field, list the recipents' email addresses or the address group to whom you're sending the email. Then, just click "send."

We are pleased to present Where on Earth is SWATTEC? Inspired by Where is Matt (http://is.gd/ctCy5) this video presents the greatest teachers in the world and the students who's lives have been touched by the SWATTEC program. While pictures may paint words, videos inspire dreams. Enjoy!

We are pleased to present Where on Earth is SWATTEC? Inspired by Where is Matt (http://is.gd/ctCy5) this video presents the greatest teachers in the world and the students who's lives have been touched by the SWATTEC program. While pictures may paint word, videos inspire dreams. Enjoy!

I received the following email on the California Education Technology Professionals Association (CETPA) listserve the other day:

----- Message from xxx@yyyy.zzz ---------
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:13:49 -0700
From: Tech Coord <xxx@yyyy.zzz>
Subject: [edtech] Interactive Boards
To: edtech@lists.cetpa-k12.org

In case you wonder about the hype and what can be done with interactive boards, check out what this math teacher does:

http://www.urlesque.com/2010/04/06/math-teacher-pranks/?icid=main|htmlws-main

~Tech Coord

And I must confess, I lost it. My response:

From: CETPA [mailto:CETPA] On Behalf Of Jim Klein
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2010 10:04 AM
To: edtech@lists.cetpa-k12.org
Subject: Re: [edtech] Interactive Boards

Excellent proof that a great teacher will make excellent use of whatever tools you give them. You could give a great teacher a chainsaw and they would find a way to "carve out" a useful lesson with it. The real question is, what are the best tools for learning - not teaching. If it's an IWB, then I'm all for it. However, there is little evidence that this is the case (for those who would rush to Marzano, the study has been widely debunked as poorly constructed and designed to produce the results Promethean was looking for - see http://edinsanity.com/?s=marzano for further review).

I believe that the best learning tool for a student is a personal, connected device. For the cost of an IWB install, I can get 15 kids netbooks that will be far more powerful learning/production/creativity tools. I can buy the rest for the cost of response systems and doc cams added to that IWB. And I have no doubt, through direct experience, that personal devices offer the only real potential to transform the learning environment into the technology-rich, participatory space we all seek. The more access students have to technology, the more opportunities they have to learn/participate/grow.

The long and the short of it is if the teacher touches the technology more than the students, then it has little chance of transforming the learning environment. IWBs make teachers and administrators feel good about their technology use, but in most districts amount to little more than a photo op for district leaders when it comes to real, transformational change.

We need to stop using the phrase "teaching and learning" because that creates the perception that learning is all about delivery and reception, producers and consumers, and ultimately leads to the pursuit of delivery technologies such as this, which have no hope of producing any lasting improvement or change. Instead, we need to start using the phrase "participatory learning environments" where students take an active role in and responsibility for their own learning. If all we seek is to reform school, then by all means, improve content delivery using the same structures you already have in place. It's easy and uncontroversial. If, however, we seek transformation, then we must choose to take on that which is hard. To challenge habits and traditions. To take on socio-political structures that would seek to maintain the status quo. Only then will we see schools become relevant again. Only then will school once again be a place where students want to be, where they are excited to learn, and where they will develop the entrepreneurial, self reliant, creative skills that will lead them to success, no matter what their endeavor.

--
Jim Klein
Director Information Services & Technology LPIC1, CNA/CNE 4-6, RHCT/RHCE
Saugus Union School District
http://www.saugususd.org
http://community.saugususd.org/jklein 

"Finis Origine Pendet"

Did I overreact? Probably. It was just a fun prank that had nothing to do with IWBs. But I couldn't help it. I've grown so weary of all the conjecture, unfounded claims, and hype over such an ineffective waste of money, especially in our current fiscal condition. If we really want to invest scarce technology dollars in the most impactful, transformative way possible, an IWB is the last thing to buy, not the first.

Credit to Gary Stager for effective use of chainsaws by teachers.

As you may already be aware, the State of California has been holding ARRA EETT technology dollars hostage, in an attempt to take these funds and use them for other purposes in Sacramento. According to grant rules and guidelines, by accepting these funds from Washington the state agreed to disburse them in the same fashion as regular EETT Round 8 funds. However, after the entire competitive grant application process was complete and applications were submitted by hundreds of districts (at significant cost to those districts), the CA State Assembly Joint Legislative Budget Committee, led by Senator Denise Ducheny, blocked the disbursement of the funds and sought the advice of the Legislative Analyst's Office, in an effort to redirect them. The Legislative Analyst's Office 2010-11 Budget Recommendations completely ignore the federal guidelines. Districts across the state have been awaiting these funds to move forward with a number of education technology initiatives and to save jobs that will soon be lost as budgets continue to tighten.

To address this issue, a CA State Assembly Budget Subcommittee has been formed, which will be meeting this month on April 20 and April 27 to make a decision on this issue. This is where you come in. We are asking you to join the California Computer Using Educators (CUE), California Education Technology Professionals Association (CETPA), and and the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) in a letter/email writing campaign to urge the subcommittee to disburse these funds quickly and according to the guidelines laid out by the federal government. I have included some sample letters/emails below. Please note: it is extremely important that the legislators receive your letters/emails by April 23rd, so don't delay.

These emails/letters should be sent to the following committee members:

• Wilmer Amina Carter, Chair (D - San Bernardino) – State Capitol P.O. Box 942849 Sacramento, CA 94249-0062 (916) 319-2062 Assemblymember.Carter@assembly.ca.gov
• Bill Berryhill (R - Stockton) – State Capitol Room 4009 Sacramento, CA 94815 (916) 319-2026 Assemblymember.Bill.Berryhill@assembly.ca.gov
• Julia Brownley (D - Santa Monica) - State Capitol P.O. Box 942849 Sacramento, CA 94249-0041 (916) 319-2041 Assemblymember.Brownley@assembly.ca.gov
• Wesley Chesbro (D - Santa Rosa/Eureka) - State Capitol P.O. Box 942849 Sacramento, CA 94249-0001 (916) 319-2001 Assemblymember.Chesbro@assembly.ca.gov
• Sandre Swanson (D - Oakland) - State Capitol P.O. Box 942849 Sacramento, CA 94249-0016 (916) 319-2016 Assemblymember.Swanson@assembly.ca.gov
• Jean Fuller (R - Bakersfield) – State Capitol Room 3098 Sacramento, CA 94815 (916) 319-2032 Assemblymember.Fuller@assembly.ca.gov

It will also be helpful to send one to The Budget Committee Chairs:

• Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny, Chair (D - Imperial County) - State Capitol Room 5035 Sacramento, CA 94248-0001  (916) 651-4040 senator.ducheny@sen.ca.gov
• Bob Blumenfield, Vice Chair (D - San Fernando Valley) - State Capitol P.O. Box 942849 Sacramento, CA 94249-0040 (916) 319-2040 Assemblymember.Blumenfield@assembly.ca.gov

Thank you for your support!

Sample Letters:

Assembly Member Wilmer Carter
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0062

April 8, 2010

Dear Assembly Member Carter,

I am writing to you request the immediately release the EETT/ARRA Federal Title II, Part D funds allocated to California schools.

The California Department of Education (CDE) issued requests for proposals (RFPs) in July of 2009 for school districts to competitively apply for grants to fund applications of technology based on local needs and to address the improvement of student learning and related teacher-professional development. The CDE received and reviewed 188 proposals and selected the qualifying projects that would collectively receive a total of $34,000,000 and had planned to notify districts that were approved for funding in November 2009. Additionally, 1,300 districts were eligible to be approved for EETT/ARRA formula funds totaling another $34,000,000. Finally, the state had allocated funds to the California Technology Assistance Projects (CTAP), the CTAP Portal known as MyCTAP, the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) and Statewide Technology Assistance Projects (SETSs) to provide support to the districts in implementing their EETT/ARRA projects and programs. However, none these programs and projects can be implemented because the California Legislature did not and still has not released the EETT/ARRA funds.

The CDE has clearly complied with the Federal Law in the planning and implementation of the EETT/ARRA funds. The excerpts from Federal guidance document for EETT/ARRA Federal Guidance Document make it clear how the EETT/ARRA funds can and cannot be used:

1. The Ed Tech ARAA funds are subject to the same statutory and regulatory requirements as the Title II-D Ed, Tech funds made available under the regular FY 2009 appropriation and are also subject to specific ARRA accountability and reporting requirements.
2. State may reserve up to 5 percent of its total FY 2009 Ed Tech allocation for State-level activities and must distribute the remaining amount (i.e., at least 95 percent of its total FY 2009 allocation) as follows: At least 50% up to a 100% Competitive Grants and up to 50% Formula Grants.
3. A State may award Ed Tech formula grant funds only to LEAs that receive funds under Part A of Title I.

As of April 8, 2010, EETT funds are still on hold by the Legislature. There is mounting frustration on the part of superintendents, teachers, and principals in districts that applied for EETT/ARRA funding. They do not know if they can still plan on EETT/ARRA funding which was intended for district utilization by the U.S. Department of Education as part of the Stimulus funding earmarked for education last summer.

PLEASE CUSTOMIZE AND ADD INFORMATION ABOUT THE IMPACT THAT THE DELAY IN FUNDING IS CAUSING AT YOUR ORGANIZATION

Assembly Member Wilmer Carter
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0062

April 8, 2010

Dear Assembly Member Carter,

I am writing to you about the EETT C ARRA money for California schools that has not yet been released to the CDE. Here are highlights giving background:

• The state was awarded $71M in funding that could be used for either competitive grant awards to school districts, OR 1/2 for competitive awards and 1/2 for grants to districts based on Title 1 formula.
• The money is for Enhancing Education at the fourth to eighth grade level.
• A State may reserve up to 5 percent of its total FY 2009 Ed Tech allocation for State-level activities and must distribute the remaining amount (i.e., at least 95 percent of its total FY 2009 allocation) as follows: At least 50% up to a 100% Competitive Grants and up to 50% Formula Grants.
• The Ed Tech ARAA funds are subject to the same statutory and regulatory requirements as the Title II-D Ed, Tech funds made available under the regular FY 2009 appropriation and are also subject to specific ARRA accountability and reporting requirements.
• A State may award Ed Tech formula grant funds only to LEAs that receive funds under Part A of Title I.
• Districts have already sent in grant applications for the competitive money, and the CDE has graded them, they just haven’t released results due to the legislature not giving them funding authorization. This means that all the time and money expended was wasted.
• The Legislative Analyst is recommending that the state divert the money to a student records system for Pre-K and High School work readiness. This is not in line with the goals of EETT or the statutory guidelines governing this money.

What I would like is:

• To let you know that many educators and others involved in K-12 education technology are concerned that these funds have not been disbursed, and may be spent this in a way that wasn’t intended and does not follow federal guidelines;
• Your vote on at the Budget Subcommittee #2 Education hearing on this matter to allocate the EETT funds as originally planned by the CDE and as it has been done in the past.

I urge you to make the right decision regarding these funds and vote to have them disbursed immediately, according the the rules and guidelines laid out by the federal government and the CDE. Failure to do so will cost school districts and essential state-wide technology support organizations jobs, deny our teachers critical technology training they desperately need, and will ultimately deny our students the valuable technology skills they will need to keep the state of California competitive in the 21st century.

PLEASE CUSTOMIZE AND ADD INFORMATION ABOUT THE IMPACT THAT THE DELAY IN FUNDING IS CAUSING AT YOUR ORGANIZATION

Special thanks to Alice Mercer and Andrea Bennett (CETPA) for the (borrowed) text in the sample letters :)

As mentioned in my prior post, no netbook review would be complete without a look at what Lenovo has to offer. It took quite a while to get it, and once again my Lenovo rep urged me to look away from this line and toward the Thinkpad line (especially the X100e) due to lack of long term support. At first, I thought this was just marketing, but have come to discover from a number of districts in several states who have deployed anywhere from hundreds to thousands of older S10 models that they are finding Lenovo slow to respond to their service needs and say that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get parts for them, even for units that are less than one year old. Amazingly, my Lenovo rep, who had just returned from visiting a school district with more than 1000 units deployed, shared a similar story of that district's frustration with Lenovo service. I must say, I'm a bit surprised by (and appreciative of) such honesty from a company representative (don't get much of that these days) but I'm also mystified by what appears to be a company-wide strategy to push customers to a more expensive line through disservice. I can only assume it will backfire, as it has with us.

Just the same, the hardware is certainly worthy of a look, so on with the review!More ...

It's hard to believe it's only been about 4 months since I did my last netbook review - so much has changed! It seems as though every vendor has upgraded their netbooks to the Intel Atom N450/470 "Pine View" chipset and significantly redesigned their line of netbooks. We've been tracking this very carefully, as we are within weeks of purchasing several hundred units, with more than 1000 to follow by summer (assuming the state releases the federal money we've been waiting on - but that's another story). 

One of the biggest issues we are facing, at present, is the lack of availability of netbooks with solid state (memory-based) storage. This was an important feature for us, as you will you recall from my prior review, as we want as few moving parts as possible, since moving parts are the ones that fail most often, especially in an environment where there is a high likelihood that they will experience deceleration-trauma/cement poisoning/etc. (ie get dropped.) Vendors, however, face competitive pressures from a rapidly growing market and therefore find themselves competing on specifications, for which hard drives are an inexpensive way to drive up their numbers. As such, none of the vendors who once offered solid-state storage appear to be offering it now, which has forced us to rethink our strategy. More ...

There's an interesting article on the New York Times learning network which talks about a new book by David Shenk.

The book certainly looks interesting. It takes a look at research about the impact of genetics on learning and addresses some of the myths that have formed around "gifted and talented" learners.

Here's the link:

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/teacher-q-does-the-gifted-label-get-in-the-way-of-developing-real-potential/

While so much went on at CUE 2010 in Palm Springs this weekend, I wanted to share some thoughts and information while it is fresh in my mind.  And based on my sinus infections things could go stale very quickly! :)

First off it was just amazing that our District was able to send 17 teachers to the conference funded by our EETT C grant.  It was not originally planned, but with staff development funding in the grant available, we were able to get it approved.  Fourteen of the seventeen teachers were first time attendees and I could see the happy faces on Friday night when when we all met up and I asked, "What was the best thing you saw today?"  For many of the teachers it was difficult to find one thing as their best.  The excitement was abuzz and they were ready to tackle Saturday with enthusiasm.  We got some of them using Twitter and "tweets" were flying back and forth as they days progressed with information about sessions.

Over the next two weeks these teachers will be sharing their experiences and what they have learned at our last staff development day of the grant for this year.  I'm sure they will bring that same enthusiasm back to our training days.  Their move from trainee to trainer has now become complete for many of them.  This sharing will be posted in our SWATTEC wiki  as the training week progresses and teachers will have access to it when they want to go back and look for a resource.  It's always been important to have a place to put all our resources for teachers to have easy access.  Over time this will be even more refined and organized so it is easier to use.

I'd like to give props to our vendors who have been so supportive to our teachers.  They were so excited to see the teachers come by and say hello while the teachers were visiting the exhibit hall.  I've heard that they have actually been spreading the news about our SWATTEC program. 

For many of the 55 teachers in our program, the infusion of all the new technology over the last 2 years has been an uphill struggle, but they have worked very hard to implement the programs and use the new hardware to improve their student achievement.  If the results from last year continue through this year, which I'm sure they will, they have met and exceeded any expectations.  They should be very proud of themselves.  So many props to our classroom teachers. 

Providing quality staff development experiences like CUE is something all teachers should have the opportunity to participate in at least every couple of years. 

A

I find this slideshow to be very helpful in walking kids through what works and what doesn't in Powerpoint design:

http://www.iasted.org/conferences/formatting/Presentations-Tips.ppt

Go here: http://davosaur.edu.glogster.com/swattec-mind-map/

to see this full-screen

Many teachers have asked how to make a contact group. These groups are very handy for emailing grade level teams, office staff, and parents. Here's the lowdown:

Note: for the pictures below, if you need to see the larger version of a picture, click on it to make it bigger.

First of all, open up Zimbra and click on the "Address Book" tab.

Next, find the "New" drop down menu.

Choose "Contact Group"

The next screen is where the real magic happens. You'll give your group a name, select the members for it, and add those members to the group. <click picture to enlarge>

Once you've finished the above steps, all you have to do is save the group.

Now all you need to do to make use of your group is to type the name of your group in the "To:" line of a new email.

As I stressed in my prior post, if we are going to build effective learning environments, the thing we need to focus on is kids - not teachers, administrators, or even parents, but kids. And one of the most important things we must consider when building such environments is motivation, or more specifically, what motivates kids to learn.

Any study in human motivation will undoubtedly lead to Maslow's “Theory of Human Motivation”, which logically concludes that humans are essentially motivated by their needs. Knowing this, as well as how much the world has changed in the last decade, it might be tempting to assume that our students' needs have changed along with the world around them. But have they?

For review, let's have another look at Maslow's theory and see what we can glean from it. According to Maslow, all human motivation is driven by a hierarchy of needs, which are typically represented in the form of a pyramid as in the figure to the right. The pyramid is functionally divided into two halves, with bottom half representing deficiency needs and the top half representing growth needs. While the growth needs are what we care most about as educators, it's important for us to understand the deficiency needs before we even talk about growth. 

The deficiency needs are what one might consider to be the obvious needs, with the bottom being the physiological - I need to eat, I need to sleep, etc. Once those physiological needs are met, then we are concerned about physical safety, followed by thoughts of love and belonging, and finally an interest in our self-esteem or sense of self worth. The important thing to remember is that these needs build on each other in such a way that the means to meet higher needs will not be sought until the lower needs are first met. A person will sacrifice their need for love/belonging, for example, if they feel physically threatened, and so on. The notion here is that the deficiency needs all have to be met before we can even start thinking about our growth needs. While schools are doing a pretty good job in these areas (although I have a particular beef with our obsessive over-emphasis on esteem, ie "everyone's a winner, noone's a loser"), we would be remiss if we didn't ask ourselves the tough questions: "Do my kids feel safe at school?", "Are they getting enough to eat?", "Do I create an environment where kids feel as though they belong?"

Once the deficiency needs are met, then an individual moves on to growth needs. In Maslow's original theory he only has one item above "esteem", and that is "self-actualization" or the desire for self-fulfillment and the ultimate reaching of one's potential. A deeper read into the matter, however, reveals that there are some important considerations that must be met on the road to self-actualization, and that there is an ultimate transcendent destination beyond it, which I have broken out in the chart above. He speaks of the cognitive needs - the need to learn, the need to know, the need to understand, and the need to explore. He uses the word "explore" or "exploration", which is something that I think we've lost much of today in education. Once one moves beyond the cognitive, they move towards aesthetics, such as recognizing beauty and the need for order and patterns. And only after that can one understand the nature of their abilities and endeavor to reach their true potential (self-actualization). But the ultimate goal, the one we should all be striving for, is that point where ego steps out of the way and we transcend to a level where we want to help others reach their potential.

Above all, the important detail to remember is that higher needs only gain focus when the lower needs are met, which means that a student's focus can be ever changing, depending on other influences in their life. It's hard to focus on math when you are worried about survival, but you are immensely interested in learning about survival. Likewise, the ultimate realization of a student's potential and consequential wisdom and transcendence will never be reached if we don't create environments where students fulfill their needs to know, understand, explore, and create.

But the interesting thing about all of this is that despite all the technology in their lives and all the changes in the world around them, kids' needs really haven't changed. They still need the same basic things. What has changed is the tools and influences around them that alter the mechanisms by which those needs are met...

More to follow in subsequent posts...

I had meant to post this back when I was in chpt. 5 of our math series, but I got distracted by the myriad of other stuff- go figure. Anyway, in our math text it seems that all the authors seem to agree that the first multiple of every number is zero. Now, I had been taught that 1 times a number is the "first" multiple of a number. So, unless the number you're looking at is zero, zero is not the multiple of any number.

Apparently it is more complicated than that. In the interest of being correct, I did some research. 0 is a multiple of every integer, but so are negative values of that integer times any other integer. That means truly multiples of 5 are {....-15, -10, -5, 0, 5, 10,...}. So I'm not going to outright say that the book is wrong. I will say that our text took the wrong approach. What we're interested in are not multiples of integers but multiples of natural numbers. After all, isn't the goal to eventually have these students calculating the LCM by comparing the multiples of the two (or more) numbers they're considering? If we teach them that zero is the first multiple now, what do we teach them later? Because they're sure to declare that 0 is the LCM every time. Think about it. Teacher: "What is the smallest number that I can divide both of these numbers by? Make a list, find the first multiple that appears in each, blah blah." If we undermine that method of finding LCM, then everyone will have to calculate it by using prime factorization (arguably not a bad thing).

If you're not in chpt. 5 yet, lucky you. If you've been there and didn't notice, you might want to go back and clarify any misconceptions. 5th grade will thank you for it.

I noticed this when I gave the publisher's test and kids were missing questions (graded with the key) that they had actually answered correctly (by my instruction). I generally use the text for pacing, practice work, and back-up if I don't know the topic as well as I'd like to. I couldn't figure out why during review discussions the kids kept telling me that zero was the first multiple. Sadly, it's in the book without the natural numbers explanation I gave above. I plan on putting a yellow sticky in my book to remind me of this next year.

Illuminations has a great bingo activity on order of operations. It requires very little prep. I've used bingo games to reinforce order of operations in sixth grade before, but most of the pre-done activities are geared for a higher level. This particular one is great for a first pass. There are no exponents to mess with.

http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?id=L730

I thought I would upload a graphic organizer that I like to use for order of operations. No big deal, here, but perhaps it will save you some time if you were thinking of doing something similar.

orderopstemp.xls application/vnd.ms-excel

In anticipation of the upcoming expansion of our SWATTEC program into 5th grade classrooms, we've been reviewing the latest netbook models from a variety of vendors. We've been quite happy with our Asus EeePC 901s in the 4th grade, however these models are no longer available. We would ordinarily be most likely to stick with one vendor, however the limited selection of options in Asus' current line, as well as a general disinterest in working with us from their sales team has lead us to review the offerings from other suppliers. As I know many districts are also presently looking at netbooks, I thought it might be useful to post our assessment of the models we have reviewed.

There are a number of things we look for in a netbook, beginning first and foremost with durability. More ...

I'm a tech guy, as you have probably noticed, and as a tech guy I often find myself spending a lot of time talking about all sorts of great technologies, like social media and Web 2.0 tools, the latest hardware and gadgets, and how to use them to build online communities and develop collaborative practices in the education space. I attend and participate in a number of conferences and webinars on a regular basis, both as a presenter and attendee, and serve on a number of panels and implementation teams, all of which I believe to be valuable. But lately I have been struck by the fact that, even though everyone is gathering together to talk about education, we really aren't talking much about education. We're talking mostly about tools. Think about the last conference or webinar you attended - how much of the conversation revolved around tools and how to use them? I would bet the vast majority. While the geek in me really enjoys learning about what the hot new tool is and how I might make it work, I think as a whole we've jumped the shark on ed tech. Because when we think about ourselves as educators, what we do is not really about tools, is it? It's about kids. It's about helping kids to learn and grow, and to prepare them for the world they are about to enter.

Yet many of us seem to believe that if we can just get the right set of tools into the classroom we can solve all of education's problems. So we take out our whiteboards and replace them with super-whiteboards, and we swap out our overhead projectors for document cameras, and we sprinkle in some classroom responders, just for good measure. We do all this because we genuinely believe that it will make all the difference in the world, mostly because somebody told us that the reason kids aren't learning in the 21st century is because we aren't interesting enough. And I think that's wrong. I don't think that's right at all.

I think the problem that we're having is not that we haven't figured out the right set of tools, I think it's that we're not focusing on the right things. We're not taking a look at technology and it's role in the future of education and asking the right questions.

I was following along with a discussion panel this year at NECC (now ISTE) on social networking in education (which is a topic I often speak about) and panelist David Jakes posited what I believe is the right question. And it didn't have anything to do with social networking or web 2.0 or tools or technology. It was simply this: “What does it mean to be well educated in the 21st century?” I think that is the question we really need to start asking.

To answer that question, I believe we need to take a step back and look at how the world has changed all around us – step back and look at the world our kids are entering and consider what they will face when they get there. We need to look again at their needs, their motivations, and their influences and discover what drives them to learn and grow. Only when we do that, can we rightly challenge the assumptions we have used to build our education systems and consider what school in the 21st century should look like.

More to follow in subsequent posts...

I've given a number of presentations lately around the general theme of "Rethinking Laptops and Learning". For those who haven't been able to attend (and even some of those that were) below is a compilation of links to related information and resources.

SaugusUSD SWATTEC Project: http://community.saugususd.org/swattec/page/
SaugusUSD Linux on Netbooks: http://community.saugususd.org/swattec/page/Linux+on+Netbooks
Saugus K12 Social Networking Resources: http://community.saugususd.org/jklein/page/Social+Networking
K12 Social Networking Presentation at Harvard: http://www.slideshare.net/jnetman1/k12-social-networking-harvard

Blog Posts and Commentary:
When do Laptops Become School Supplies? (Jim Klein) http://is.gd/3wWvq
Netbooks and Open-source: Rethinking Laptops and Learning? (Jim Klein): http://is.gd/4fCRU
Linux on Netbooks and Whiskers on Kittens (Karl Fisch) http://is.gd/3wWBf
Transitioning to 1:1 Netbook via BYOL (Wes Fryer) http://is.gd/3wWFY
The Value of Comment Moderation and Feedback... (Wes Fryer) http://is.gd/3wWIC
Quit Substituting Expensive EdTech Gadgets for the “Real Deal” (John Patten) http://is.gd/3wWKH

Key Open Source Projects:
The OpenDisc - http://www.theopendisc.com
Elgg Open Source Social Engine – http://elgg.org
Ubuntu Linux: http://www.ubuntu.com
iTalc Project - http://italc.sourceforge.net

K12 Open Source Resources:
CoSN K12 Open Technologies Initiative: http://k12opentech.org
K12OpenSource.com: http://www.k12opensource.com
K12OpenSource.org: http://www.k12opensource.org
Jim Klein's Open Source Pages: http://community.saugususd.org/jklein/page/Open+Technologies
K12 Open Source Help (Contractor): http://k12opensourcehelp.com

Great Netbooks for Linux:
Asus EeePC: http://eeepc.asus.com
Acer AspireOne: http://us.acer.com
Dell Mini: http://www.dell.com/home/netbooks

Are your kids unmotivated to study for social studies? I've added the next installment of Social Studies Jeopardy: Since Unit 2 (4th grade) is so long I split in half and created a Jeopardy to review Lessons 1-4.  You can access it at http://www.jeopardylabs.com/play/social-studies-unit-2-part-1

You can also create your own Jeopardy games for any subject area at http://www.jeopardylabs.com

Enjoy!

Sarah Sabol

PS: A tip for palying the game: If a question is answered correctly, add the points before clicking "Continue", or the question will remain on the board to be selected again and again.

I created a template for the students to use on their Eeepcs to use as they gather info about the different California regions. I'm intending for them to do some guided internet searching for info (with me), but feel free to use it/change it however you want.

regionsscrapbook.doc application/msword