Category Archives: Uncategorized

The night before  Spring Break, we kicked off our 100 Mini’s Project. The participating teachers were presented with goals, expectations, presentations and more importantly the mini’s themeselves. We are using the Dell Mini 9 with the prestigious ubuntu (Linux) operating system.

I’m very excited about this project and can’t wait to actually see the mini’s in the hands of students. Here’s a glimse through videos published by Cari Roberts.

These students have access to a full range of applications that can be used to research, organize their ideas, collaborate and share. With the exception of Inspire, all of the applications below are also free and run on most operating systems (Linux, Mac, XP, Vista). So students that have family computers are able to utilize the same applications at home.

• ActivInspire (Activstudio 3)
• FireFox(Internet browser)
• GIMP (like Photoshop)
• Open Office
  • Word
  • Spreadsheets
  • Presentations
• XMind (graphic organizers)
• and much, much more!

Have you seen this symbol? Do you know what it means? Take a look at these videos. They explain what a blog is and how to have news updates automatically sent to you. It’s a great way to keep in touch with your favorite writers and your favorite niche news…like educational linux applications or writer’s workshop kung fu style.

Blogs are a great way for students to read, respond to and produce news.

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Date(s): April 7,14,21,28
(plus an online component for each week)
Time(s):4:00-5:30pm
Location: 6th Avenue Elementary
Credit:0.5 Licensed Semester Hour
Instructor(s):Shannon Wentworth
Description: Activotes are a great way to quickly assess students. This course will teach you the basics of using Activotes in your classroom, from registering devices to different forms of assessments. There will be 6 hours of actual class time, plus an online component which will make up the remaining 1.5 hours.

I was reading one of my favorite blogs (NashWorld) the other night and stumbled upon the work of Punya Mishra from MSU. He has done some amazing work highlighting the need for utilizing relevant technology in the classroom with Lee Shulman‘s work on Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

This morning I presented to the Technical Services Department five of my favorite ways that teachers are using technology in the classroom. Specifically, I focused on the computer, projector and visualizer.  There are thousands of examples to choose from, so it was nice to have a clean way of organizing my ideas. I leaned heavily on Punya’s work for the presentation below and am quite thankful that he shares his talents.

If you are interested, my attempt at blending Punya’s work with presentation is below in the form of a Google presentation. Below, I’ve added links to the 5 parts of Punya’s video. His videos are definitely worth your time. Check it out!

My Presentation on Creative Teachers | Punya Mishra’s Keynote: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5,

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I just heard about a colleague’s computer crashing. This is the 4th time I’ve heard of this in the last few days. This serves as a reminder to us all. If you haven’t backed up your files, this would be a good time to do it.

Here are some suggestions.

1. Drag and drop your important files on to your W drive. Be sure to log in to your computer and then click on “My Computer.” You’ll see your W drive on the list just at the letters.
2. Save your files to a thumb drive / flashdrive. If you plug your thumbdrive in to your computer and it doesn’t recognize it, try this. Disk Management
3. Share everything! Then if you loose your copy, your friends will have copies.
4. Back up your files weekly.

How do you back up your files? Or better yet, what do you do to remind yourself to backup your files?

image: http://flickr.com/photos/bozarth/298165264/