SMART Board Resources

We’re just finishing up a major SMART Board installation in our district. In the last 15 months, we’ve installed more than 180 boards in our district. So far, the reception has been nothing less than astounding. These boards have had a transformational effect on how instruction is delivered in the classroom. Teachers who were fighting against them a year ago have now threatened to quit … Continue reading SMART Board Resources

FirstEnergy Grants

Each year, FirstEnergy awards competitive grants to educators and leaders of youth groups to fund math, science, and technology education projects. Teachers and youth leaders in areas where FirstEnergy has facilities or provides service are eligible to apply for up to $500. They’re specifically looking for projects that focus on electricity, but other math/science/technology projects are also eligible. Preference is given to one-time, one-year projects … Continue reading FirstEnergy Grants

Better Presentations

APM’s Future Tense reported this week on the prevalence of poor Powerpoint design. Nancy Duarte, author of Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations, isn’t afraid to mince words: We have a very putrid PowerPoint pandemic. It’s done so poorly it really doesn’t take that much effort to stand out among your peers or for your cause. A little bit of extra effort … Continue reading Better Presentations

Introduction to Moodle

This week, we’re offering two professional development classes on using technology in the classroom. In the first class, we’re covering a series of interactive web tools including Protopage, Blogging, Podcasting, Wikis, and Moodle. Because he introduces this better than anyone else in our district, we convinced middle school teacher Joe Zenir to introduce this for us. Here’s the video of his presentation: http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/480600   Continue reading Introduction to Moodle

Game Show

On Tuesday, June 4, the EdTech Posse will be joining the Women of Web 2.0 in their weekly webcast at 9:00 PM EDT. The show will include a game show component, where the two teams will compete against each other to will fabulous prizes, which mostly consist of just bragging rights. You can help by submitting game show questions. All of the items in the … Continue reading Game Show

Protecting Kids Online 4: Filtering

Hopefully by this point, you’ve put the cybersafety issue into perspective, implemented some basic measures to protect your kids online, and used resources to help teach kids how to protect themselves. Now it’s time to talk about filtering Internet access. Conceptually, web filters are very simple. When using a filtered computer, requests for web pages, pictures, and other resources are first sent to the filter. … Continue reading Protecting Kids Online 4: Filtering