Margaret & Deb's miscellaneous musings...

Items of importance or just Friday Fun!

The Iowa Educators Consortium, IEC, is an initiative of the Iowa Area Education Agencies.  This consortium allows Illinois school district staff members to purchase various items, such as digital camera, and camcorders for a discounted price.  You can check out their website for the catalog and more information.

Digital storytelling was a very popular topic at the ICE conference.  Jason Ohler has a comprehensive website with various resources and guidelines on creating digital stories in your classroom.  On his site, he has printable storymapping handouts, rubrics, as well as a template to use with your students. 

 

Representatives from Google discussed products from the Google for Educators site.  Many of these tools are free!  You can learn how to create interactive projects using Google Earth.  You can receive their quarterly educators newsletter with examples of innovative ways that other educators are using these tools in the classroom.  One exciting tool is Google Earth: Google's satellite imagery-based mapping product, represents, in essence, the whole world on a student's computer. It enables users to "fly" from space to street level to find geographic information and explore places around the world. Google Earth is more like a video game than a search engine – it's basically a 3D model of the entire planet that lets you grab, spin and zoom down into any place on Earth.  There are several examples and ideas for teachers to use on the site. 

You must download the Google tools in order to use them.  Please contact the tech managers if you would like any of the tools downloaded to your computer.  Please contact Margaret Johnson, Gina Mannino, or Deb Balayti for more information about using Google Earth in the classroom.
 

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Repeat

From Ray Kouba, eighth grade social studies teacher at Palos South:

For the second year, my family and I will be participating in March of Dimes Walk America.  The money we raise helps save premature and sick babies.  Donating is easy.  You can donate by checking out my personal page at the link below.  Cash and checks are also good.

My personal web page address for donations is....
http://www.walkamerica.org/r5s5k

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Check the ARCHIVES for links from previous Friday FYI pages!

Quotation for the Week

"Wisdom is turning hindsight into foresight."  - Jason Ohler

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