This week’s featured website comes recommended by one of our wonderful Oceanography teachers, Cathy L.

http://www.vims.edu/bridge/

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project which keeps track of online trends and usage, almost 90% of all teens are online. Of them, 64% are creating their own online content.

That means that about half of the students in your classes are posting pictures and videos as well as writing for fun on the Internet.

Given our district’s initiative to raise our SAT scores, I can’t help but wonder how we could use Web 2.0 tools to help us in that endeavor. If kids are already online writing on their own, and writing helps improve literacy, what can we do to harness this for school?

There are lots of Web 2.0 tools that incorporate writing and blogging is one such tool. Blogs are very easy to set up and use. Here is a video from Commoncraft that explains blogging “in plain English”.

If you are interested in setting up a class blog, contact your friendly ITRT!

Download Video: Posted by cputnam809 at TeacherTube.com.

Don’t know what Flickr is? It’s one of the most popular photo sharing sites available on the Internet today.  For those of you quick-clickers — you’ve already figured out that the site is, of course, blocked by the county. Web 2.0 tools like Flickr have made publishers out of literally everyone! Problem is, some of the things folks publish don’t quite fit the “appropriate use” policy of our AUP, so it has to be blocked.

All that aside, it is a pretty nice service. And now the Library of Congress has joined the Flickr community! Why is this a big deal? After all, the pictures they posted were already available on the LOC site…

The big deal is that now the world, and I do mean the ENTIRE world, can provide comments, feedback, history, perspective, etc., to accompany the pictures. Does that mean some crap may be posted? Of course! But the tremendous community of knowledge that makes up our little world (and it IS getting smaller, at least as far as technology is concerned) most certainly outweighs the garbage that some goofballs post.

 THAT’S why this is a big deal….

Who could have imagined?

The Essay

Happy Friday! Enjoy!

Carson and the Marmoset

This week’s featured website comes from Tim Stahmer who, in addition to being a technology specialist in a neighboring school district, is the author of the blog, Assorted Stuff. He has compiled a list of the top 101 websites for educators and it looks absolutely awesome! Check it out!

Thanks to Carla S. for providing this week’s Mini-Byte!

It’s that time of the year again! Are your grades close to being done? Are they all weighted less than 20% of the overall spreadsheet? There is an easy way to tell in IGPro. If you don’t have the column activated in IGPro, here are the steps to activate:

1. Select View/Change Columns from the menu bar.
2. Click the Tasks tab.
3. Make sure Statistic 4 is checked and set to display Percent of Spreadsheet.

Happy Grading!

This week’s featured website is Students 2.0. It is an edublog (blogs that only deal with topics relating to education) written and published entirely by students from all around the globe where they express their views about education today. It’s pretty impressive and thought-provoking. Some of what they say may make you squirm in your seat a bit, but the posts are thoughtful and well-written. Be sure to check out the information under the About tab to learn more about their mission.

I love the Format Painter function in MS word. All too often when I copy/paste from one MS Word document into another, the formatting blows up. I end up with numbers where I want bullets, bullets where there should be numbers, and indentations all over the page. I’m thinking that as you all finish up your semester exams for submission and approval, you MIGHT be having some of these same problems.

Format Painter can save the day!

Have you ever wondered what that little paint brush was up in your MS Word toolbar? That’s the “painter”. Once you have a few lines of your document formatted the way you would like them, highlight the lines and click the paintbrush button on the toolbar. Then, highlight the area where you want the same type of formatting. The Format Painter will “paint” the formatting into that area, as well. It’s a quick way to fix your document if the formatting goes haywire.

This was written by a retired school superintendent from South Carolina named John Taylor way back in 2002. It’s been making the rounds for years now and I’m not sure how I could have missed it. Better late than never. Enjoy.

No Dentist Left Behind

Welcome back and happy 2008!

The link for VDOE’s SOL electronic practice tests (ePats) has changed. Last year, we downloaded all these tests to the computers in the library and IT Lab to assist with SOL remediation. This year, a link has been added to our Novell desktop which is great! Now, you and your students can access these practice tests from anywhere in the building! At home, though, your students will still need to download and install the tests they wish to practice with. The link has been updated on our portaportal, and I’ve provided it for you above, as well.