Easier Scheduling for Parent-Teacher Conferences

Three of our blog readers recommend programs they've developed/and or they recommend to help teachers and school administrators with parent-teacher conference scheduling. Parent Locker offers parent-teacher scheduling plus tools such as gradebooks, photo albums, calendars, chat, and more. PTCWizard, which concentrates upon scheduling only, does PT scheduling and team scheduling. PTConference handles Parent-Teacher conference scheduling and provides a method of distributing information to parents. If you are looking for parent-teacher conference software or online scheduling programs, you'll want to investigate these three products to see if they will help you take the drudgery out of scheduling conferences.

Keeping Up with Tech by Watching Videos

As educators we hear so much about tools and sites we can use, but often time to learn everything we want to learn isn't available. We go to conventions and workshops, and think, "I'm going to master that" but we don't get around to it. One way to keep up is to try some of the free educational videos online that describe some of things you want to learn. Perhaps you are interested in developing online surveys, using Podcasts in your classroom, investigating Second Life, creating blogs, or using Delicious, Blackboard, Flash, PhotoShop or.... ? Russell Stannard, who writes about the Web and multimedia, offers a series of free videos to help you tackle the topics you've not found time for. If you are interested in ELT/ESL teaching videos, you'll also find a number of useful ones on the Stannard site.

A New Planet: The World's Largest Whiteboard Community

 
If you use an interactive white board in your classroom or are hoping to get one, Promethean Planet is the perfect place to visit. It's packed with teacher features ready to put to work. -And if you have some great whiteboard lessons to share, you might just win an iPod. You must be a member to download materials from Promethian, but registration is free. Just sign up to upload your best lessons and download flipchart lessons, resource packs, Weblinks, best practice suggestions, tips and tricks, and other resources developed especially for Promethian Planet.  Already with about 150,000 members worldwide, this site that's received recognition for its innovative pedagogy, is a perfect way to expand ideas for use of interactive whiteboards in your classroom. Check out the July theme: "Sports and Olympics"-there's a new theme each month that will keep you up-to-date in the latest ideas to make your whiteboard lessons dynamically interactive, not simply a display of content.

Buy a Whiteboard: Get a Student Response System

Turning Technologies LLC is bundling student response systems with its mimeo® interactive whiteboard solutions. The two products complement each other and enable you to get students more involved in learning. Response systems are fun for your students and help you gain a better understanding of how your lessons are going and if your students are mastering the concepts presented. Think of the excitement that these two technologies could bring to interactive lessons! Turning Technologies LLC also offers a grant program for K-12 where teachers can apply to for a student response system grant.

Not the Whole Video!

For years teachers have been hearing, "Don't play the entire video. Play the parts that fit your lesson." That, of course, is easier said than done. Sometimes it's just not all that easy to find the part of a video that is just right for your lesson. Discovery Education Streaming Video makes it easy. Let's say you want to have a discussion on the problems of teenage driving with your students. If your school subscribes to Discovery Streaming, then you might want to use the video Drive It Right, which is divided into clips such as Drinking and Driving, Speeding, The Teenage Brain, etc. Just click on the clip you want and up it comes to your computer screen in Window Media or QuickTime. -Or maybe you want to explain to your Grade 4 students about perimeter, circumference, and area? You might select one of the math clips in Discovering Math: Measurement (Grades 3-5), and your students will learn how to calculate the circumference of a Frisbee. Besides the videos and clips that kids can watch, there are over a thousand editable clips available for your students to enhance.

When the Sun is Lavender-ish

Spaceweather.com is a great place to keep up with earth and space science and with current events and related history. For example, when the sun seems purple, it probably means that the air is filled with smoke particles from fires or volcanoes. Spaceweather (July 6, 2008) shows a picture of the sun, which was taken in Southern California. The sky looks purple and the sun pink. Blue moons, brown skies, and lavender suns were seen back in 1950 and were caused by fires in Alberta, Canada. The strange colors occurred as far away as England. Your students will enjoy exploring reasons for the different colors and why people report flying saucers during such occurrences. Photos of the many fires in California can be accessed at the sbcfire site.

Do Kids Still Want to Change the World?

As the economy fluctuates and parents and students worry about the future, what is happening to student dreams of making our world a better place? Think about all those student loans-loans that will take years to pay for. Are students opting for job-security and financial security over community service? The New York Times article by Sara Rimer Big Paycheck or Service? Students Are Put to the Test discusses how several selective colleges are trying to encourage students to consider careers in community service over financially lucrative careers. Some of the colleges are offering public service fellowships and internships. Some are recruiting students for community service such as teaching in low-income schools for a few years. The move is an effort to counter what has become a path from selective colleges to top-paying jobs on Wall Street. Are kids revising their dreams when they think practically about their financial future? What does all this mean to K-12 schools?

A Really Easy-to-Use Database: Bento to the Rescue

If you are using Mac OS X Leopard, you'll certainly want to take a look at Bento. It's a personal database with an iTunes-like interface. When you load it onto your computer, it automatically enters your address book and calendar information into its database. Those who have used FileMaker will find Bento much less complicated. That's because it's designed for you. It comes with 20 ready-to-use templates to help you get organized with just about any type of project. Besides working on your computer, it can be used with iPhone and .Mac through the Address Book and iCal. Your information can be displayed in a number of ways such as spreadsheet format or form format. Why not take a tour of Bento or watch the video to see if this product is for you? For less than $50, it looks like a great way for us educators, without much spare time, to get organized.

Want to Learn to Podcast?

It's not difficult to create a podcast but that depends upon the type of podcast and how professional (or splashy) you want it to be. Tech for Teachers - Podcasting Classes provides a nice introduction to examples of podcast use in education. You can watch an easy-to-understand video describing podcasting, check out classes at Cal Berkeley, and visit a school in New Mexico that's putting Microsoft's Zune to use in podcasting. One of the easiest ways to put a podcast together is to use Apple's Garage Band software. If you need them, you'll find tutorials on the Apple site.  About.com has a step-by-step tutorial for learning to create for all those MP3 players, and Power to Learn's Jim Lengel has some excellent guidelines to help you with podcasting. . Have you created any podcasts for your students and/or are your students creating podcasts for assigments? Think about creating a podcast as your summer technology project. If so, we'd love to hear about your successes, and even problems with, podcasting.

Follett Digital Classroom - Shared Resources

At NECC (National Education Computing Conference) in San Antonio in July 2008, Follett introduced its Digital Classroom. The Classroom functions as a closed system in which students, teachers and parents can interact safely. Its Web-based, can be used in all subject areas, and saves content into Follett space online. One teacher said it took just 18 minutes to set up and get ready to use. When using the Classroom, students can find not only Follett Digital Resources, but resources teachers may be using from other publishers. It sounds like this system, complete with its management systems, collaborative tools, storage space and access to resources, is well worth examining.  Check the Follett site for more information after mid-July 2008.