Optimist Oratorical Competition for 2009

It's a good idea to give your students practice in public speaking. The Optimists International Clubs will help you motivate them to prepare effective speeches and get up and speak before an audience with pizzazz. The Clubs offer an oratorical competition for students who have not turned 16 years old by December 31st of the 2008-2009 school year. This year's theme is "For Me, Optimism Is". If you want your students to be part of this challenge, contact your local Optimist International Club. You can check for information on Club locations on the Optimist site. Speeches must be between 4 and 5 minutes and follow the guidelines specified on the Optimist site. Deadlines for entry are determined by individual clubs, and prizes often include medallions, plaques, cash awards, and scholarships.

Wordle Your Words

How about having your students create Word Clouds? Called Wordle, this free website, lets you paste in whatever words you want. It will take your words and transform them into an artistic word cloud. Your cloud can be changed in form and color. This looks like great tool for practicing vocabulary or spelling or having fun with text and design. Perhaps your students might make word clouds of all the meanings they can generate about a word or all the terms that describe themselves? There's one problem, however. No filtering for inappropriate language is available, so if you use this clever tool, you'll need to carefully supervise your students. Here's a word cloud of this blog entry:

Moodle Courses

Moodle has made its way into college course catalogs, so if you want some help in mastering this free open-source course management system, check to see what's available at your local college or university. The University of Wisconsin, for example, includes a distance learning course called Moodle for Teachers. You'll also find the graduate level course Integrating Moodle into Your Teaching offered by The Learning Curve. A search for courses that you can take to learn Moodle will come up with lots of suggestions, some of which are quite pricey. If you'd like a Moodle guide, there are books about Moodle that you can order from Amazon. Your best bet when you are starting out with this resource is to head to the Moodle site and sign in as a guest. Then you can do the Welcome to Moodle Features Demo Course, read the Moodle Buzz, and take in what's available at the Moodle Demonstration Site.

Surviving e-Rate and e-Rate Forms

Each year when it's time for e-Rate forms to be completed and sent in before the deadline, a collective moan goes up from educators throughout the nation. Yes, it's great to get e-rate funding, but it's definitely no fun filling out all those forms and keeping track of what to do next. eSchool News' Senior Editor Laura Devaney comes to the rescue of those agonizing over e-rate with her article, "How to Survive Another e-Rate Season." To help everyone to tackle e-Rate, Schools and Libraries Division, known as SLD, of the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the group that oversees e-Rate, provides a series of 7-minute videos that includes essential information to demystify forms 470 and 471 and help users find forms. Most of the help is targeted at beginners, but an advanced section is scheduled. There are suggestions such as remembering to wait the 28 days after posting before selecting a provider, sending in correct calculations, following the exact sequence of e-Rate milestones, and carefully reading the letters that come from e-Rate. The 28-day rule is simple to remember, and of course, we should calculate correctly, but those letters and the sequence need attention from the e-Rate folks. Why doesn't e-Rate simplify those mailings and the overall process? It's just too much for a teacher or administrator who is busy working with kids, and even if it's done yearly, it's difficult to remember what you should do when and how you survived the process in years past.

Inspiring Invention Competition: Calling All Inventors

Groups of K-8 and 9-12 students with an adult sponsor may enter the Inspiring Invention Competition. Their job will be to create a 30 second public service announcement (PSA) that challenges other kids to get their creativity going with invention ideas. The focus is on ideas related to games, sports, or hobbies. Groups can use any video editing software or download a trial version of Vegas video editing software. Student groups and adult leaders should carefully follow the guidelines for development and submission. Winners will receive prizes including a host of video development software and content. The competition opened on November 13, 2008 and will close on March 15, 2009.

Want to Create Your Own Quizzes and Games?

Students usually look forward to those days when they have the chance to use their knowledge in a game or challenge-quiz activity. If you'd like some help with creating games and quizzes, check in at Discovery Education's Quiz Center. Discovery also has a Puzzle Maker, a database of Science Fair Questions, and lots more. Student Response Systems such as those available from Turning Technologies and at Educational Insights (Quiz Bowl) let you create databases of questions and answers to use during the classroom competitions. Educational Insights also offers Classroom Jeopardy, which can be purchased with content (cartridges). You might want to check these sites as well for information about creating quizzes and games: Free Tools for Teachers, Teacher Tools, Tools for Educators (Board Games). For really unique game creator software, try Stagecast. It's loads of fun and great for stimulating student creativity.

Looking into the Future of Education through Podcasts

EdNET conferences tackle what's going on in education markets and directions for the future of these markets. These conferences are where developers, businesses, and educators get together to discuss key issues and directions. If you want to be in on the latest thinking related to educational marketing, which means what may be available to schools in the next five years, tune into Apple's free Podcasts of EdNET 2008 sessions. You can hear Mark David Milliron (President of Catalyst Learning International) talk about how all ages will be learning together through " blended learning, mobile devices, gaming, social networking, high-impact presentation technologies, and analytics" and how we can retain the human touch as we move into these types of learning. In another Podcast Thomas Payzant, Harvard School of Education and former school superintendent, takes on globalization, effective education for all students, and the levers of change. You'll also find EdNET Podcasts on widgets and gadgets, open source opportunities, educational optimism, educational transformation through online collaboration, how to afford to differentiate learning—the list continues on with so many really interesting topics. Besides the EdNET Podcasts, Apple provides Podcasts of sessions from a number of conferences including NECC and FETC.

Black History Books for Kids

Black History Books for Kids, features "The African American Experience from Past to Present to Future". It's an award-winning site that offers both fiction and non-fiction selections. When the site opens, a pencil goes across the page printing, "I love to learn about my heritage." Books include the Carole Marsh Mystery Series (Underground Railroad, Biltmore House, Blackbeard the Pirate, Alamo Ghost, Missing Dinosaurs, and more) and the Black Heritage Series (Monumental Moments in American History, The Color Purple and All that Jazz, Black Business, The Best Book of Black Biographies, The Kitchen House, etc). There are also African American History readers filled with content for ages 7-12. A number of the readers include stories of important Blacks both past and present such as Barack Obama, Condoleezza Rice, Harriet Tubman, Jackie Robinson, Louis Armstrong, Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, Sojourner Truth, and Rosa Parks. On the site, you'll also find links to Elections for Kids, Smart Sex Stuff for Kids, Writing Tree for Kids, The Visionary Project, and Kulture Zone.

Eric Carle Photo Book

Have you ever ordered a photo book? You can make them yourself by printing your own, but sometimes there's a special book you'd like to have published. Kodak and Apple make it easy for you to design your own professional edition. Kodak, for example, has added a new photo book to its collection. The book, to be filled with your photos, can be made to have the look of an Eric Carle edition. If you are thinking about creating a children's book for your students or about having a nice memory of a special class, you might want to take a look at this offer. That delightful "very hungry caterpillar" will add fun to your pages. Kodak is currently offering 25% off on books that cost $30 or more. The coupon code is: 25offbooks. The base price of hardcover Kodak books is $34.49 for 10 single-sided or 20 double-sided pages. You can create longer books or different style/theme books or softcover books if you wish; pricing varies according to the number of pages. There is a 35% discount if your order comes to $60 or more. If you use iPhoto, and are interested in creating a photo book, you might also check the book designs available from Apple. You can link directly to them from your iPhoto software.

Cable's Leaders in Learning Awards

Through December 17, 2008, you can submit applications for Cable's Leaders in Learning Awards. The awards come with a $3000 prize and a trip to Washington, D.C. to discuss ideas for education with members of Congress. If you are a teacher or school administrator who has put innovative ideas to work with students, you'll want to sign up to be eligible for the competition. You'll need to submit the application, letters of recommendation, and support materials before the deadline. To better understand what the competition is all about, take a look at the information provided about previous winners and watch the video that you'll find on the site. Think about what you've done to make a change in education. It doesn't have to be related to cable use or technology It can be a big innovation or a small one, but it should be one that makes a difference in your students' education.