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BLOGROLL
Ed Tech
Language Arts
Gadgets, Mobiles, Etc.
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Buzz
Out Loud
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Chip
Chick
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CNET
News
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Cool
Tools
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Coolness Roundup
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Crave
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Engadget
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Engadget Mobile
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Fisfor
Gadgets
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Gadgettes
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GBM
Tablet PC Forums
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Geek
News Central
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Geeked.
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Geeksugar
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Gizmodo
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Gotta
Be Mobile
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Infinite Thinking Machine
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Inventoids
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JK on
the Run
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Lifehacker
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Make
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Mp3
Insider
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My Tech
Radio
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New
York Times Technology
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PhoneArena
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Pocket
PC Addict
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Pocket
PC Central
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Pocket
PC Thoughts
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Popgadget
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Remote
Access
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Shiny
Shiny
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Slashdot Review
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Tech
Crunch
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Tech
Dirt
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Techie
Diva's Guide to Gadgets
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Technorama
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This
Week in Tech
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TWIT
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USATODAY Tech
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Wired
Top Stories
Podcasting
Web Design / Web Based Apps
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Boagworld Web Design
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Download Squad
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Rule
the Web
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Web
Worker Daily
Social Studies
Futurism
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WHAT'S HAPPENING?
Quarter 2
Deadline for Late or Makeup Work is 12/12/08.
Need to reach the webmaster?
Ms. Shanks -
shankLs@d11.org
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Assignments
Last
day to turn in late or extra credit work is 12/12/08 Only current
work will be accepted after that date.
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6th Grade
7th Grade
8th Grade
Homework
Help
Web Research
Extra Credit Opportunities
Where We Are
REQUIRED
NEW OR USED SUPPLIES FOR COMPUTER ELECTIVES
These Stay in The Lab So They Are Always Available To
You. Bring Your Planner Daily. (If you are using a flash drive bring it
every day, too, so you can consistently back up your work.)
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1 new or used pocket folder
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1 new or used writing utensil
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2 new or used 3.5"
disks
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OR 1
jump/flash/thumb drive/
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USB stick
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5-10 sheets notebook
paper
6th GRADE TASKS - Second Quarter
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First Typing Test
Due (10 pts.) 10/22/08 by 4pm - use
www.learn2type.com.
Put your score in your planner and show it to me if you'd
like credit for it.
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Being Prepared for Class with supplies by 10/24 (2 pts).
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Practice Rules &
Procedures Quiz (5 pts. Effort) 10/21/08 by 4pm.
See me if you were absent on this date and we will excuse
you from it.
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Data/Goal Sheet 1
(10 pts.) 10/27/08 by 4pm. Use the template I have made for
you in Microsoft Word. Directions in my U:/Drive.
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Web
Safety Practice or Paragraph. (10 pts) Week of 10/27.
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Second Typing Test Due
(10 pts.) 11/4/08 by 4pm - use
www.learn2type.com. Put your score in your planner
and show it to me if you'd like credit for it.
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Finding Personal Info on the
Web. 11/05-08 (10 pts). In-class effort and progress.
7th GRADE TASKS - Second Quarter
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First Typing Test
Due (10 pts.) 10/22/08 by 4pm - use
www.learn2type.com. Put your score in your
planner and show it to me if you'd like credit for it.
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Practice Rules &
Procedures Quiz (5 pts. Effort) 10/22/08 by 4pm.
See me if you were absent on this date and we will excuse
you from it.
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Actual Rules &
Procedures Quiz (25 pts.) 10/23/08 by 4pm.
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Data/Goal Sheet 1
(10 pts.) 10/27/08 by 4pm. Create in Word. Directions in my
U:/Drive.
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Spreadsheets Practice or Paragraph. In-class effort and
progress.(10 pts) Week of 10/27.
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Second Typing Test Due
(10 pts.) 11/4/08 by 4pm - use
www.learn2type.com. Put your score in your planner
and show it to me if you'd like credit for it.
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Excel Practice 2 (10 pts.) 11/7/08. In-class effort and
progress.
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NEWS |
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Parents Page
New guidelines for Fair Use!
The Code of Best Practices
in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education, is now available
online.
"Digital
Disconnect" divides kids, educators
Most principals think their schools
prepare students for 21st-century careers -- but students
disagree.
Latest Research On Web Safety
Students want
more use of gaming technology
States: Ed tech is
raising student achievement
National School Board Association Declares Internet Is Not So
Dangerous After All
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8th GRADE TASKS - Second Quarter
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First Typing Test Due
(10 pts.) 10/22/08 by 4pm - use
www.learn2type.com. Put your score in your planner
and show it to me if you'd like credit for it.
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Practice Rules & Procedures
Quiz (5 pts. Effort) 10/21/08 by 4pm. See me if you
were absent on this date and we will excuse you from it.
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Actual Rules & Procedures
Quiz (25 pts.) 10/23/08 by 4pm.
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Data/Goal Sheet 1 (10
pts.) 10/27/08 by 4pm. Create in Word. Directions in my
U:/Drive.
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Movie Maker Practice or Paragraph (Twice). (20 pts) Week
of 10/27.
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Second Typing Test Due
(10 pts.) 11/4/08 by 4pm - use
www.learn2type.com. Put your score in your planner
and show it to me if you'd like credit for it.
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Digital
Story Practice. 11/10 (10 pts). In-class effort and
progress.
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Extra Credit Opportunities
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NEWS & NEW CONTENT (Continued)
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Students want more use of gaming
technology.
Results from Project Tomorrow's annual
Speak Up survey reveal a disconnect between students', adults'
views on technology in schools.
Educators are largely missing out on
what could be a huge opportunity to capitalize on their
students’ appetite for electronic games and simulations to
teach them about core curriculum topics, results from a
new national survey suggest. Project Tomorrow’s fifth
annual Speak Up Survey, the largest annual survey
addressing the attitudes and opinions of K-12 students,
teachers, parents, and school administrators toward the
use of technology in education, reveals that online or
electronic gaming is one of the technologies that students
use most frequently—and that educational gaming is one of
the emerging technologies that students would most like to
see implemented in their schools. Yet, only one in 10
teachers has adopted gaming as an instructional tool.
During the past four years of the survey, the technology
that students most wanted to see implemented in their
classrooms was a personal laptop for each student. For the
first time this year, laptops for students also topped the
list of teachers’ and school leaders’ most desired
technologies. However, this year’s survey also reports
that gaming is now listed by students as a classroom
must-have.
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YouTube tackles bullying online.
The first online anti-bullying
channel has been launched to encourage young people to denounce
the intimidation. YouTube has set up a site where
youngsters can post their own videos and messages. It follows
growing concern about the increase in persecution by e-mail,
mobile phone and on social networking sites, known as
cyberbullying.
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96 percent of teens
use social-networking tools
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Survey reveals schools have a
huge opportunity to harness technology for instruction.
Ninety-six
percent of U.S. students ages 9 to 17 who have internet access
use social-networking technology to connect with their peers,
and one of their most common topics of discussion is education,
according to a new survey. Yet most schools have stringent rules
against nearly all forms of online social networking during the
school day. In light of the survey's findings, school leaders
should consider reexamining their policies and explore ways they
could use social networking for educational purposes, its
authors say.
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States: Ed tech is
raising student achievement.
Results of
$15M in evaluation grants due soon.
This fall, nine states will be
presenting their findings after three years of federally funded
research into technology's impact on teaching and learning--and
an early look at these findings shows some promising results.
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Voters urge teaching of 21st-century
skills.
Results of a new poll commissioned by the Partnership for 21st
Century Skills shows the vast majority of U.S. voters believe
students are ill-equipped to compete in the global learning
environment, and that schools must incorporate 21st-century
skills such as critical thinking and problem solving,
communication and self-direction, and computer and technology
skills into the curriculum. But the upcoming presidential
election, researchers say, presents a perfect opportunity to
charter a new path to success for America's students.
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Fair use' confusion threatens media
literacy.
In an age when
digital images and recordings to supplement and enhance
education are abounding, unnecessary restrictions and a lack of
understanding about copyright law are compromising the goal of
using such technology in the classroom, says a new report. After
interviewing educators, educational media producers and
media-literacy organizations, the report's researchers conclude
that educators have no shared understanding of what constitutes
fair-use practices, and that teachers face conflicting
information about their rights, and their students' rights, to
use copyrighted works.
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Free Office Applications
There are plenty of online office suites to choose from that do
the same, if not better, than ones costing up to $700.
For more,
visit the
Office Apps
page of this site.
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is a
peer-to-peer
Internet telephone
network that allows for users
to
call
other users from their computer and communicate via
microphone, as well as call and
be called from regular phones. Handy features
include: instant messaging, file transfer, voice and video
conferencing.
Instructor's Page
Questions or Comments?
Email Link
Alternate Site:
The Tech Trainer
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TIPS
& TRICKS
Today's Tech Vocabulary
What is Web 2.0?
Free Office Applications
Clustr Map Started 3/8/08
del.icio.us
Cool Tool:
Talking Photos
AUDIO VOCABULARY
This
is a Voki
COMPUTER
HELP LABS:
I
will be happy to give you extra help if you make an appointment. (See me
in class or email me at shankLs@d11.org.) There is after-school tutoring
in the Media Center every Tuesday and Wednesday. You may also come
to the lab during
Knight Light Cyber Cafe on
Thursdays after school to make up work, attend detention or study hall,
or do projects for other classes.
NEWS & NEW CONTENT (Continued)
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This
new report from
American Psychologist, a journal of the American
Psychological Association, challenges some of our commonly-held
beliefs about the topic. Online ‘Predators’ and Their
Victims: Myths, Realities and Implications for Prevention,
is based on a study involving three surveys conducted in 2000
and 2005, including Internet users from age 10 to 17, and
federal, state, and local law enforcement officials. "...In
spite of public concern, the authors found:
*Adolescents’ use of
popular social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook do
not appear to increase their risk of being victimized by online
predators.
Rather, it is risky online interactions such as talking online
about sex to unknown people that increases vulnerability,
according to the researchers.
* Internet
offenders pretended to be teenagers
in only 5 percent of the crimes
studied by researchers.
* Nearly 75 percent of
victims who met offenders face-to-face did so more than once.
*
Online sex offenders are seldom violent, and
cases involving stalking or abduction are very rare.
* Youth who engaged in four
or more risky online behaviors were much more likely to report
receiving online sexual solicitations. The online risky
behaviors included maintaining buddy lists that included
strangers, discussing sex online with people they did not know
in person and being rude or nasty online.
* Boys who are gay or are
questioning their sexuality may be more susceptible to
Internet-initiated sex crimes
than other populations. Researchers found boys
were the victims in nearly one-quarter of criminal cases, and
most cases included facts that suggested victims were gay or
questioning their sexuality.
from Mills, Kim. “‘INTERNET
PREDATOR’ STEREOTYPES DEBUNKED IN NEW STUDY.” APA Online. 18 Feb
2008. American Psychological Association. 21 Feb 2008
http://www.apa.org/releases/sexoffender0208.html
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School
Boards Rule, Internet No Longer Dangerous
The National School Boards Association, which represents 95,000
school board members, just released a report
declaring fears of the internet are
overblown. In fact, after surveying 1,277 students,
"the researchers found exactly one student who reported they'd
actually met a stranger from the internet without their parents'
permission. (They described this as "0.08 percent of all
students.") The report reminds educators that schools initially
banned internet use before they'd realized how educational it
was. Now instead they're urging schools to include social
networks in their curriculum!"
From
Slashdot
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What
is Web 2.0?
The
term
"Web 2.0“
usually refer to web-based teaching activities
that are more interactive, conversational, student-directed, or
project- and inquiry- based. For
more,
visit the
Web 2.0 page
of this site.
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del.icio.us
allows you to
keep
links to your favorite articles, blogs, music, resources, and
more, and access them on the web anywhere.
For more,
visit
del.icio.us
and the
Web 2.0 page
of this site. See also
Social Bookmarking.
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allows you to send and
receive messages via the web, SMS, Instant Message clients, and
by third party applications. Posts can be only 140 text
characters in length. People use Twitter to communicate. This
might be one-to-many, or it can be as part of an online
conversation.
For more,
visit
Twitter
and the
Web 2.0 page
of this site.
Ms. Shanks' Twitter Cloud on April 8, 2008
'Digital Disconnect' divides kids,
educators
Most principals
think their schools prepare students for 21st-century careers -- but
students disagree.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=55665
Students and educators disagree on
whether their schools are preparing graduates adequately for
the jobs of the 21st century, a speaker at an Oct. 15
webcast said.Two-thirds of
principals in a recent survey said they believe their school
is preparing students to be competitive in the global
workforce. But most tech-savvy students didn't share that
view, said Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow (formerly
known as NetDay).
Project Tomorrow surveyed more than
370,000 students, teachers, parents, and administrators
about their views on technology and education during its
Speak Up 2007 research. Of the nearly 320,000 students
surveyed, 24 percent considered themselves to be "advanced
tech users."
"Of these advanced tech users, less
than a quarter of them think their school is preparing them
for jobs in the future," said Evans, speaking at a webcast
sponsored by the Consortium for School Networking.
"The ‘digital disconnect' is alive and
well," Evans added. "Kids tell us they power down to come to
school."
Students who took the survey said the
major obstacles to their use of technology at school include
filters that block the web sites they need and
administrators who impose rules that limit their technology
use.Contrary to what some
people might believe, students say they've noticed more
limits to their use of technology at school in recent years,
not less--a finding that Evans attributed partly to training
that teachers and administrators have undergone.
"Now that teachers know more, they're
more skittish, so to speak, about using the internet in the
classroom," she said. "Students say things were better [for
them] a few years ago."
In the Speak Up survey, students said
they generally use technology for online and computer
gaming, downloading music, communicating through eMail,
instant messaging and texting, or maintaining a personal web
site, such as a Facebook or MySpace page. They said their
technology use for schoolwork usually includes researching
online, checking assignments or grades online, creating
multimedia projects, or communicating with classmates about
assignments.
Project Tomorrow found that mobile
devices, online learning, and gaming are three areas where
schools can use emerging technologies to teach students if
they aren't already.
Many of the students surveyed said
they have access to mobile devices such as cell phones,
laptop computers, MP3 players, or smart phones and PDAs
(personal digital assistants). They said they'd like to use
these mobile devices to communicate, collaborate, create and
share documents, and increase their productivity.
Nearly one in four high school
students has had experience with online learning, according
to the survey--and a significant percentage of younger
students said they were interested in taking a course
online.
Although the majority of high school
students who are interested in taking online courses would
like to do so to earn college credit, students in third
through eighth grade said they were interested in online
classes primarily because these classes would give them
extra help.
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