ISTE-NASA Education Project Application Deadline, January 15

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">ISTE and NASA are collaborating to provide a great project for Middle and High School teachers who are enthusiastic about SPACE.  The selected teachers will work together in groups to produce educational materials for teachers and students about the Earth’s  magnetosphere. The final projects stand a chance to be featured at the ISTE 2012 annual conference and exposition, and may also be selected for publication on the NASA website. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Are you a Middle or High School teacher that fits these requirements? Here is a great project opportunity for you.  Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Here is more information:</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTvQMtesDGQP4XTd2Zt7GSnGx1p2Vd700R7uuJDa4ovoDqm8iQ7GFUcAD3xClfIZMzdF-lKzppb0-gIoxKMysEmjJTyl0p9lKiOxn0i61AXBOsUIx47i25JbwMw3opVgOf_fupgVe5hA/s1600-h/image%25255B16%25255D.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgURuaVepOaP6BqEnf0i1uHXY4ifhBIWRGWUC07IQhPzah2Ceg0gHtdWEksda5d8qE4AtZjAfOUbWAUn01rKCVWgWQfgLIbQyWlzqCIfJkjKsoLoq1RhbWapjDEQjSYXj9ykHlWwMh5Ee8/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="513" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5GtTVOlRv7Cwmo99GUaXjfrDNe2vF8IXx0GPDsBIbuM2_LPWJQffGgVLpsR_41-78tHxDr2opid05Pb2Gl13Pnrf_t-5__xZiqV5Siv9l1b7AUJFGwf3qeEjaBwdMcS-CNYeyroSX6zY/s1600-h/image%25255B18%25255D.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="473" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2uRCKUO7qYwl6EjWv6UY8-IL1ZGERBPC-wRDDyNn2ZJCSS7GVArt8uuqHiR16wt-MbW6dxCIHfw12Cv-0Wez-SdNA0HPnlEQO1oA9WxMMVgjybn2GE5G4h7ExygKiU8920m5WSSi55PA/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="513" /></a></div>

Collaboration Competitions Project-based learning Technology integration ISTE-NASA Education Project Application Deadline, January 15

ISTE and NASA are collaborating to provide a great project for Middle and High School teachers who are enthusiastic about SPACE.  The select...

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Get ready for World Maths Day!

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>This is a guest post written by Lisa G who is an ITC teacher in Cape Town. Lisa was a Microsoft Innovative finalist in South Africa in 2011 and she keeps an interesting ITC blog <a href="http://icteducator.blogspot.com/" title="http://icteducator.blogspot.com/">http://icteducator.blogspot.com/</a>. I saw this post on her blog this week and asked her if I could use it as a guest post. Last year I wanted to participate in World Maths Day but didn’t get registered in time. So, don’t be like me…prepare well in advance. You’ll need to start now!</i></span></div><br /><span style="font-size: small;">World Maths Day is coming up on 7 March 2012.  Have you considered participating?</span><br /><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">As a school we have taken part and it was a great experience for everyone. Its really simple. All you need to do is get permission from parents, register the children, and then follow the instructions that are very clearly laid out on their <a href="http://www.worldmathsday.com/">website</a></span><span style="font-size: small;">. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">It looks from the Pre-registration that one now signs up for World Spelling/Maths/Science Day.  Even better!</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrFTWxT3VwMvRISIZeCKfMwLdLP4xT5MRFuZagBPdFgaKZfDItywVcZo8Kkbdw6QtL1gG-rKSQc2TsD9n4xwEJZZekJC9j4BqLYKmL5cBk4BMTklgYI4owMKB0CqfvUvnSPwxUr2TPLKI/s1600-h/image%25255B3%25255D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvadO11IyQR9DFHrmJUofVSjMxrHB1smsjC6DIHE5rGpUhaKW1pWr8Mz6wF7QgE3YE4tpDYu7NbsvP-qhdhIuOVuMgt6ivj_BJsrSEBhtaSsfy80-FDTwse-qzZb_SBMooQCASRaq_Ca4/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="448" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I registered the children who wanted to take part, and then each day from the time that "<i>practice</i>" begins, they can come in and get used to how the whole event works. I do this so that it is not a surprise when they get to the timed event - they are confident and ready for action!  What I also enjoy about this, is that they can log on at home and continue to practice or compete after school in their own time.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The best was listening to their excited shrieks of "<i>I'm playing against Japan</i>!" or "<i>I am playing against India!</i>" or "<i>I am playing against someone in Australia</i>!"  Suddenly the world was bigger than our ICT Lab and we embraced every moment of it!  We got a report back on how each child did and how we achieved as a school. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I am really looking forward to registering our learners for these events again this year. Why don't you? </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Wishing all a wonderfully educational 2012!</span> </div></div>

Maths Technology integration Get ready for World Maths Day!

This is a guest post written by Lisa G who is an ITC teacher in Cape Town. Lisa was a Microsoft Innovative finalist in South Africa in 2011 ...

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A fantastic way of integrating technology into your Social Sciences curriculum

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently I have taken interest in integration the curriculum with Social Sciences so I started doing a websearch. Its amazing what treasures you come across when you do that. After looking through and bookmarking an enormous amount of sites including the Edublogs 2011 winner sites, I came across a social studies Ning site that had won one of the Edublogs awards. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><a href="http://sschat.ning.com/">http://sschat.ning.com/</a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtLDUkvq3pfueuu4OSEq94zrEvaBDalFJ57xUcDP8my6_c3rhKI-uaxSojf7HU1vfajHvCWvHRI3qvsiWWTjAHXPy6KYZKtXZNbXGjI40DN2LNkhr-0X9fqU9R9mqJVeRzcx9YuoEzVUY/s1600-h/image%25255B2%25255D.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="367" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_LELa5xOB7aIn80ux60H_Pp0w77XG16KUTPpzLI2guxgP6v_9RDpP19BbJujTBKLR_2GcgLdTQeXVMmHBkELOJ9vUpRGRrBP4SYVybhCrFeGfoVfAOW9TTi_rnMuVEMaK3s_iv22wK8U/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="466" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">After looking around the Ning I came across a family, the <i>van Soyes</i>,  who will be taking a 400-day around-the-world journey to raise geo-literacy in K-12 students. They will be publishing emails, photos and video from 50 counties and 6 continents.  Wow, they already have an enormous collection of amazing stuff from just preparing for their travels and they have documented it so well. I thought I would record some of it here as it gives great ideas for the classroom.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">Embed PDFs into blogs or wikis</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here is a sample from where they plan to be in February. They have created their documents colourfully in a word processor it seems, and have then converted them to PDFs. They then embedded them into their website. </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><a href="http://www.trekkingtheplanet.net/docs/W02_Hawaii_Education_Module.pdf">http://www.trekkingtheplanet.net/docs/W02_Hawaii_Education_Module.pdf</a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMvq6pBtoizAPWeTd933HV-_txpsHIq4t2UlCgyS-Tckl1N1URj8_0Mw3WxQEWMAtkr3TCFr7n9VNGYdKPfYt10DKtdkghyphenhyphenoeMrqu-L5asvczI01SqhyS5VeHo5XjSMiMnCsJKKlESWNc/s1600-h/image21.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="548" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbx7wXwF3RnQcXPcQ3NVdtB7Xm8rQoaxrpR7UjOStpNK2oWsaQKXYeQ_oXW8FPI8eno8-5AENJS781x0_BLgzLYjqd5Ck_F_hPWoxmA983MervNpIhkm7RjL2yYe_NEEyl0WOTDEBPDI/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="477" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">Actually it looks as though they have been very busy with their planning as they have already done all their research and documented it ready for when they actually get there.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfTGEMkpZVS2VBV_2Trhi243dLgvWv125C-sciYnk8Y0KcNyl1LLXYpGj1fY-EnfSPzEgP1yz9YuEKfukQpCuTYNQVNOQdZFv7La_nOiqm1zNAhGbta4SN7LHBKcgqwm9f_haK0VReWTU/s1600-h/image28.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="563" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRdJFa9ZpeIbGnegajWMhAXW4ayCFJvDYvmU8iwcvwVfEoGxtqnasgiw5VAfaiItGCHMjvQh7OuG8BtMiVv2xtXJ2qjQmVkRXQhG6HQPchn5wRpZAN659csSq5ZqqlVeLsx9tGgkQmRAo/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="437" /></a><br /><br /><u><b>Classroom idea</b></u><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">This gives me the idea of getting the learners to study a country using a programme like Microsoft Word to record the details details. They then turn it into a PDF and place it on a blog or wiki. </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">Make use of podcasts</span></b><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">The <i>van Soyes</i> have a beautiful website for recording their travels with podcasts, webcasts etc. This will be a good website to keep in mind. They would also like to visit schools along the way. I have just checked and they won’t be visiting South Africa unfortunately or we could have arranged for them to visit a school or two!</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><a href="http://www.trekkingtheplanet.net/">http://www.trekkingtheplanet.net/</a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDI1AIyeSKnQ-QvhvzpgaohUE3vIN8wo_x9WQfxaQQ6Trzr-UYDw2RxI23j0jumd89PYRrb85jxevCqGohfYdN0jV83uqVvuay8zqzSmNwRBiiENQdubLm35-mPzPuNGPgohlrPSGvapg/s1600-h/image22.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QSAIk11VVurx-5gSCHfgHTt8a6xzWQTLrB0FGOxa3bwYHoD8lyo5Uk1dwBi11PX0PeeBviCL6TyqnSTCWSVUrGU9MS58gx2Ns_W-NU4KRVqEcNYA0pDx_Eg6UVQxqq-x1vjB0dmYKNM/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="482" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><u><br /></u></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><u><b>Classroom idea</b></u><br />This gives me the idea that using audio podcasts and getting the learners to make short videos about various aspects of a trip can add great interest to classroom work. </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">Make use of webcasts</span></b><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">I see on their website that they made a webcast giving background to their intended journey. You can view it here:</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><a href="http://www.spreecast.com/events/trekkingplanet">http://www.spreecast.com/events/trekkingplanet</a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZfYPGwKbVBdInQfmrGHAhrV1nDQmXZ5717onp2kfDTseDKq5OS8-ZkSmLz85OnnRxUj6XbYLA_DSrHXmgo-De_OSvi6fWQw61XfDTf3H0xVvtFer2JPUUVnc2HEq0uFmbTK0LX1Kha_0/s1600-h/image33.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="523" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNgcsQvIUZHUZTJLwhSPUroOrAwvHnCAIhEjMFC-XUX99C-Kqf95Z5YmXhj9OKxR0Gd-0MelLSZDt6HZ_PWd2f8wfTwAk5QjzdysZomYbhbnFKHxbnW47PBWjcZrqSLcxrPUZJBBd7efU/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="387" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><u><b>Classroom idea</b><br /></u>This gives me the idea of using a programme such as Spreecast for webcasts, (<a href="http://www.spreecast.com/">http://www.spreecast.com</a>)  I have just taken a look at it, and it is a social video platform that allows  people to broadcast together.  It says:<br />Up to 4 people on camera at once. <br />*Unlimited number of people can view (can also be private). <br />*Recorded live and immediately available for playback. <br />*Viewers: Chat, ask questions, join in on camera! <br />*Creators: You control who goes on camera and when. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, this is a project I for one will take a great interest in next year. Why not join me? </span></div>

Technology integration A fantastic way of integrating technology into your Social Sciences curriculum

Recently I have taken interest in integration the curriculum with Social Sciences so I started doing a websearch. Its amazing what treasures...

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