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I loved njtechteacher's reflections on the 31 day comment challenge started by Sue Waters (see their amazing wiki ) Ann says: " This is something I tend to do as I read blogs and post comments. Blog comments fall into three categories for me: I respond with my feelings on a post, I write to congratulate someone on something they are doing, I am uncertain about what was written about and I leave a question. The use of Cocomment and co.mment both help me see when people respond. This had not always been my practice. It was, looking back, more of a hit and run process." Commenting is something important to me and I believe has been essential to my own blog. (See How to comment like a King (or Queen) ). Commenting and realizing that you have a voice is so very important. So, as a tribute to Sue today and these amazing women who have coordinated the 31 Day comment challenge ( Sue Waters , Silvia Tolisano , Michele Martin and Kim Cofino ) -- I ask everyone leaving thi...

Good learning never stops. This summer, my children have time that they spend each day learning but I work really hard to make it fun! I fell in love with Hunkin's Home Experiments and plan to have my children pick one and plan to do for the other two. These are also great for school. What experiment sites do you like? tag: science , experiment , learning , websites , education , teaching

Unlimited calls to landlines – any time, day or night. International callers you can sign up for unlimited calls to landlines in 34 countries for like 6.95 a month (not us funds -- look at it for translation.) If you call other countries a lot, this is worth taking a look. tags: education , skype

Samsung's Hope for Education - Win $200,000 for technology This is a cool grant requiring a 100 word essay about how technology benefits and helps education and is one I'll be doing in the fall -- it is only open to schools in the US but it is public and private -- check the website for rules and good luck. Info from their site: "Each year, Samsung's Hope for Education holds a contest where students from schools nationwide can write a 100-word essay about how technology benefits and helps education. In 2008, the top winner receives a grand prize of over $200,000 worth of Samsung technology, Microsoft software and cash grants from DIRECTV, as well as the SCHOOL CHOICE® educational television programming package. Entries are open now. Contest will run until August 31, 2008." tags: education , grants , edu_news , administrator , all_teachers Tales of an Inner-City Teacher: Crunch Time.... I love the pictures on this blog showing the students using the computer, on th...

Phenomenal video! What a great way to summarize the learning in a professional development course for a school! What a great way to let the teachers at your school understand what all of this means. These teachers made this video and guess what... now they will be blogged around the world. Pass them along by going to the original page and grabbing the "embed" code. Paste it on your blog in a post and add your thoughts. Viola! via a tweet from http://twitter.com/carcher, Christine from Ramblings of a Technology Coordinator . Whoo hoo, Christine, you've got it going on! Amazing teachers! Wow! What will you do today? tag: education , teaching , inspiration , learning

Wow, I am flabbergasted just to be included on this list by edutopia as part of their 2008 Readers Survey . It always makes me nervous to have my name listed alongside the great perpetual bloggers ( Edublogs , David Warlick's 2 Cents Worth ) since I'm such a newcomer. (2 1/2 years is nothing!) (Of course this list seems a bit mixed since Edublogs is a platform, I wonder if they meant to link to Sue Waters blog instead of the Edublogs homepage?) So, thank you readers of Edutopia who put my name on this list. I am honored and grateful. I wish I could say that I want to become more or be something spectacular but all I really am is me. I'm flawed, sometimes don't have enough time to blog, and I can't seem to keep the dishes washed and laundry done. And yet blogging and teaching for me are inexorably intertwined and now neither of them could ever be separated from who I am. Although I'm a blogger, teacher, Mom, wife and more, I'm really just so grateful fo...

I love making new friends but for some reason it seems very challenging to find new teacher blogs. As I've talked to teacher bloggers, these are some of the reasons I hear for teachers not sharing their links more openly. Why I think More Teachers Don't Share Their Blog with Others Humility. I think many teachers are naturally humble and perhaps don't share their blogs outright. They don't want to be misconstrued as just another teacher who is looking for a "ticket out" of the classroom. (I'm happy in the classroom but enjoy a few excursions a year.) Inferiority. Or, teachers might just feel like their blog isn't good enough. "I'll wait until I'm better at it." No, you're fine now, jump in! Don't have an inferiority complex. I've gotten in trouble many a time for saying, "I'm just a teacher" and don't you make my mistake. You're not just a teacher -- you're a teacher, for goodness sakes an...

Alfred Thompson the Cyberspace People Watcher: Online Activities Have Offline Consequences Great post by Alfred Thompson, "the" microsoft education blogger. I think he hits the nail on the head with this one. Great post! tags: ad4dcss , education , digital_responsibilities , cyberethics 17 Principles of Building Good Relationships With Bloggers Great article about how to build good relationships with bloggers. I wish the countless people I've never heard of who e-mail me to write about their product would read this one. It is about building relationships! tags: education , blog , edublogger , edublog

Twitter is out AGAIN! So, I hate to do this, but here is another alert that really belongs in my twitter. In 17 minutes we will be hosting the Teacher Summit in Elluminate. Please join us as the teachers reflect.

If you're online -- in about 19 minutes at approximately 11 am EDT, Julie Lindsay and I will be joining Steve Hargadon to do the Classroom Live presentation we've been planning to do for some time. It is free and open and in elluminate. If you wish to join us, come on. If not, the recording will be available later. Hope to see you there.

HotCity Wireless HotCity Wireless, a non-profit organization, has been established to promote the use of low-cost wireless technology as a media and tool for economic, social and educational advancement to underprivileged citizens in the Philippines. Organizations such as this that work to provide access should be encouraged. Wow! tags: education , ad4dcss , digital_access FireShot - Take screenshots of web pages with Firefox extension! Cool cool cool firefox extension that creates and edits screenshots of web pages. Soo cool! tags: education , geeks4 , tools , edu_newapp WED home - World Environment Day World Environment Day - -share what you'redoing -- this is June 5th - it is for New Zealand but it is something I think that others may participate in. tags: education , environment A Living Archives A cool project for middle school students - Living archives is fascinating. tags: education , learning , history , flatclassroom , curriculum , edu_news Japan urges limiting kids'...

We know not where the digital revolution may take us. We do know the great inventors of history dreamed impossible dreams and took steps to make it happen... electricity, the light bulb, the telephone, the Internet... virtual worlds, humanoid robots, 3 d virtual immersive worlds, intelligent agents. These things all seem impossible as do time travel, true interplanetary space travel, and colonizing other planets. Yet impossible dreams lived by impossible dreamers and backed up by a lot of hard work often have a way of happening. My impossible dreams? That we could have a flat classroom project followed up by a face to face meeting of the award winning students. (Believe it or not, this is something Julie and I ARE working on now -- seeking ways to make this happen.) True, sustainable, collaborative projects that run year round with students moving in and out of them as fits the curriculum and communicating with others. Legacy projects in virtual worlds where students create things an...

A special episode of Classroom 2.0 LIVE Conversations will "air" live 5/28/2008 at 8am Pacific / 11am Eastern / 3pm GMT. Julie Lindsay and and I will discuss our global collaborative programs, Flat Classrooms and the Horizon Project. Here is Steve's announcement on Classroom 2.0 about this: "In the two years that Julie and Vicki have been collaborating, their five global collaborative projects have included more than 20 classrooms and 500 students from a variety of cultures, backgrounds, and geographic locations. Their Flat Classroom project was featured in the latest edition of Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat, upon which it was based. Julie joins us from Qatar, Vicki from Georgia, USA. There will be time for audience Q & A. To attend the Elluminate session, see the link at http://www.classroom20wiki.com /live+conversations/ . Or use the direct login URL: https://sas.elluminate.com/m .jnlp?sid=1101&password=M .8DAFD346DA4B268DC185FED846655...

My Page - NECC 2008 My NECC page including my current calendar and schedule. tags: NECC , education And the Walls Came Down: Viral Professional Development - NECC 2008 Just started the discussion for the viral pd session at NECC over at the NECC 2008 Ning -- watching some interesting discussions take place -- join in and converse. If you have a session, you're asked to create a discussion -- I hope they'll show us our tags so that we can tag and find sessions easily. tags: necc , education , ad4dcss , virtualcollab , professionaldevelopment , edu_news Ning “the” Thing » CogDogBlog Interesting observations from Alan Levine about those of us who use Nings for our projects. It truly becomes "the" ning. tags: Ning , education , connectingpeople , virtualcollab

Every teacher knows that the end of the school year is usually as scary as hiding under the bed with Chucky the wonder doll coming after you! I'm a bit behind over here, however, took some time to talk with my friend Alan Levine (aka CogDog) about some of the projects that we've done recently as well as the pros and cons. (Just proof that cats and dogs can work together ;-) I'd like to share the video with you and plan to be blogging quite a bit AFTER I can get my laundry done! http://media.nmc.org/2008/05 /vicki-davis-flatclassroom.mov http://media.nmc.org/2008/05 /vicki-davis-grassroots-video .mov http://media.nmc.org/2008/05 /vicki-davis-collaboration -webs.mov Hope you're having a great memorial day! I also find very interesting Alan's ruminations about "The Ning" -- he is right on, I think. For those of us who use Ning for class projects, The Ning and The Wiki are really The Thing -- the glue that holds us together and without which we could not f...

Classroom Innovation - Sallie Hill - BRVGS A cool video from a teacher about how she is innovating in her classroom. This is an application for Google Teacher Academy and was made on Animoto and uploaded to Google Video. Great job! More applications for events and organizations are moving to the video format. Knowing how to produce compelling video will help your students get scholarships and you move ahead. Learn how to tell digital stories. Oh, and I'm so excited, it looks like I'll be at Google teacher academy in June -- it is going to be great! tags: education , technology , techintegrator , professionaldevelopment , edu_trends

Fluid - Free Site Specific Browser for Mac OS X Leopard Mac users, I've heard this is a great tool. tags: techintegrator , technology , professionaldevelopment , education K12 Online Conference 2008 | K12Online08 Call for Proposals: Amplifying Possibilities Time for K12 online conference proposals: "We are pleased to announce the call for proposals for the third annual “K12 Online Conference” for educators around the world interested in the use of web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year’s conference is scheduled for October 20-24 and October 27-31 of 2008, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 13. The conference theme for 2008 is “Amplifying Possibilities.” Participation in the conference (as in the past) is entirely free. Conference materials are published in English and available for worldwide distribution and use under a Creative Commons license. Some changes in the requirements for presentations are being made this ye...

Find more photos like this on Horizon Project 2008 These graphics are just some of the "jpeg" files that students will take with them into elluminate today for the Westwood student summits for the 2008 Horizon Project . Each student will present in elluminate and may take with them one graphic file. This is the photo album on the Horizon Ning of these files that I'm compiling for the event. Today we should be presenting from around 10:45 (class starts at 10:29 but it will take a moment to get in the room) until 11:15 and again from around 1:40 until 2:10. Each student will take a moment to discuss what they've learned and we will also take questions from the "audience." This is free and open for participation using our elluminate room . Please feel free to join us and see what the students have to say. How do I join? Click on the elluminate link after 10:15 am EST. Follow the instructions (sometimes your IT dept has to give you permission to install the...

Reflection - Horizon Project 2008 This 10th grade student has written an exceptional post-project reflection. I hope you'll take time to read it. Here is an excerpt: "There is no doubt that this technology is dangerous. It is apparent that few people, not adults, not teenagers, truly understand how collaboration, conduct, and manners affect the internet. This project has to teach others that as well. It is necessary to know how to handle yourself on the internet. That’s why Horizon Project is so important. We have to educate tomorrow’s leaders how to use new technology without abusing it. The highlight of this project is the education we are giving every single person who has been a part of the Horizon Project." tags: education , hz08 , technology , digitalcitizenship , ad4dcss , digital_safety Ning Status This is where they post the status and maintenace downtimes for Ning, if you ever have an outage or a plant o demo it, you might want to check it out. tags: education...

I'm laughing so hard that I am crying. This student for the horizon project seemed not to be doing much filming. That is because she was literally taking over the county with this short 8 minute film. Find more videos like this on Horizon Project 2008 Her point was to demonstrate the emotions of those who are using Youtube and grassroots video and how many times it can give false impressions of grandeur to those who become "youtube" stars. I am just amazed she did this film in 2 weeks! During the course of this film she: Had a police officer "arrest" her friend (it was staged except her aunt didn't know and came driving up as the actress was leaving! It scared her!) Hypnotized her math teacher Included our headmaster (in the orange shirt halfway through) Used greenscreen Got her father to be on the film at the end. She really did a nice job. We did encourage the students to use creativity to get their point across and one not knowing the topic might th...

westwood » Will's eFoilo This is a very interesting way that the student chose to link his Google doc and quite inventive. He created an HTML page and embedded it in the page instead of making the Google Doc public. What a great way to do this. tags: education , Google westwood » Victoria's eFolio Another excellent efolio project from my student -- take a look at the Doodle For Google at the bottom and how she related the opportunity to speaking out for the crisis in Darfur. This is amazing work! tags: education , bestpractices , techintegrator , technology , professionaldevelopment Cyber Security - Digi Teen Seeing my students blog like this one on cyber security makes me realize that effective online communication and writing is important. I'm proud of my student bloggers and glad that we've made time to blog this year! tags: blogging , education , bestpractices , cybersafety , blog , ad4dcss NASCAR News I really am enjoying this student's blog about NASCAR -- ...

Besides the fact that I DON'T LIKE how I look in this film (I'm hitting the gym this summer), my student Jamie C. did a nice job with this film for horizon on Social Operating systems. It was just featured on the home page by AFI Screen Nation (to enter the contest you have to be in the US, although any student anywhere may still submit videos. Who knows, a real Hollywood producer or actor may even leave you a message!) He is trying to highlight the evolution from social networks to social operating systems and I think he's done a nice job. (Even if he did have to use me!) This is an example of a film that was made in tools I would never have "prescribed" if I truly was a "prescriptive" computer science teacher. He used Paint (for animations,) PowerPoint (for jpgs), Movie Maker, Audacity (to remix Beethoven), and a webcam (to grab his teacher for a quick interview.) Good job, Jamie! If you want to peruse more videos, drop by the Ning where they are...

WorldWide Telescope New World Wide Telescope from Microsoft. Another alternative to Google Sky - it looks pretty cool. tags: astronomy , science , education , technology , edu_newapp , all_teachers , techintegrator

Today was the fourth "class" in our digiteen project. In this project, students researched the nine aspects of digital citizenship and had to create an offline action project . Some students chose to work with middle school students and others chose elementary age. Each group is responsible for 20 minutes of "training" and discussion with the age group they have selected. Today was the second day of the fourth grade student training. Yesterday we talked about the ways they can access the Internet including the new smaller laptops for kids AND cell phones. They discussed how to report problems in webkins and the importance of being wary of public chat rooms and "checking out" offline before adding them online. We also discussed xbox and wii live and safe ways to play online (by finding friends ahead of time.) Students cautioned the younger students about chatting via xbox live with headsets to strangers. (a completely unmonitored activity.) Yesterday...

AFI ScreenNation - Video Contest If you've made great video this year in class, it would be exciting to take your award winners and submit it for this contest. Students can win a sony handy cam. This would be a great reward for your best video projects this year. Just make sure you have permission. tags: education , techintegrator , edu_news , all_teachers , contest Connecting People Via The Network - Horizon Project 2008 I enjoyed this video a lot from Ren at Goodland High School. I particularly liked the contrast of the computers at the beginning of the video. I think he did a nice job. tags: hz08 , connectingpeople , education , innovation

This week a student from the Horizon Project had a very heartfelt blog post. Every time we do these projects we have one or two teams who don't "engage" and a few students who just "goof off" and wander aimlessly. (This is where a good teacher comes in.) The student says : "If you are reading this right now, I thank you, because no one seems to understand the concept of communication. We have all these problems regarding completion, because people are wondering what they are supposed to be doing. Well, if you don't check the discussion on the wiki pages, or if you don't check your group, well, then it is awfully hard to know much of anything, now isn't it? Because people are not taking the time to look into what they are supposed to be doing, or they are not taking time to contact their project managers, there is a little bit of a problem, in terms of horizon project completion. Project Managers and Assistant Project Managers can only do so muc...

This story is so moving and amazing and was forwarded to me by my new friend Amanda Stone from the Hoover City School District. Tucker Beam is an eight year old in Amanda's Alabama town. This is the story in Amanda's words: " We declared May 9, 2008 Tucker Beam Day in Hoover, Alabama (South Shades Crest Elementary). We have been planning this event for some time....mom can not work during this time and we do not want her to worry about money. We have raised over 28,000 dollars. ***I don't even know you and I am just sharing my heart with you...sorry. When we found out that he could not be at the school....I immediately starting working on the technology. We skyped [him] in....and well, tears poured out across our gym. We had 1,000 kids in our gym when he came up on the big screen. He was able to watch the ceremonies and his second grade class sang "This Little Light of Mine"...there he was ....an 8 year old, ....with the biggest smile on his face. T...

I haven't had a Funday Monday in a while, so its time again. I asked on twitter last week for some funny posts and these just made me roll. #1 Social Networking Parody Sent in by: jalam from the Random Thoughts Blog My Rating: PG My Laugh Rating: 9 stars out of 10 It is so funny because it is so true. #2 - Rowan Atkinson Live parodies Shakespearean Tragedy Sent in by: adrianbruce from Australia (has a cool games website ) Rating: G up until 3/4 of way through The first half of this is hilarious to me. #3 The Overzealous Principal by Rowan Atkinson Sent in by: adrianbruce Rating: PG (for one word at the end) This is so funny. #4 Wii Fit Parody From: kpruitt Rating: G So, have a little funday with your Monday. tag: funday Monday , humor , videos , jokes

Lenovo Support & downloads - Downgrading from Windows Vista to Windows XP Information on how to downgrade Mom's IBM thinkpad to Windows XP. tags: todo , Windows , vistaxp , education

Last Mother's Day I was commissioned to pick out the best laptop in the world for Mom by Dad. I did, or so I thought. It is an amazing IBM Thinkpad and we got everything for her. Mom is a former computer teacher and pretty proficient, but she has a temperamental satellite internet connection and doesn't like to be a "geek," she raised one (me) so she's earned the right to let me do it. So, we went with Vista because that was "the thing" (and IBM recommended it - now they've posted information on downgrading on their site however Mom just called and they said "there is nothing we can do for you legally, mam, and if you downgrade you will have a mess." ) Buying Vista was a big mistake! It has been nothing but trouble! It upgrades and updates every moment. The joke was when my sister got broadband cellular this week that I would borrow the card and blog on trips, she'd teach her online course for SCAD and Mom chimed in and said, ...

We're putting out a call for help on the Horizon Project . We have deadlines fast approaching and would appreciate your help. Each video has a portion called an "outsourced video." This outsourced piece comes from another place in the world. Ideally, this comes from the other students, but sometimes students struggle with getting these up and have technical problems. This is how you can help and learn something too. Fulfilling an outsourced Video Request 1) Take a look at our outsourced video requests on the Wiki. 2) When you find a video you wish to sign up for, follow the instructions on this video to sign up: Find more videos like this on Horizon Project 2008 3) Join our Ning (just let me know why you're joining and fill in the profile) 4) Film your video. (Please give the licensing and attribution information on the description. They must know who to cite and that you give them permission to use the film.) 5) Upload the video to the Ning. Find more videos...