I know that education is all about the students; you know that education is all about the students; we know that education is all about the students. Thank you, Katy B, for your gentle reminder!

For the last two months or so, my focus has been on rather menial tasks — taking inventory, locating missing technology, surveying old technology, moving technology, setting up moved computers, prepping old laptops for testing, connecting printers and computers, distributing new technology — airliners, laptops, documents cameras… and the list goes on and on! Thank you, Katy B, for your gentle reminder!

Our primary purpose is to engage our students in active learning, challenging them to prepare themselves to succeed in the 21st Century. In Virginia Beach, Compass 2015 has lofty objectives:

• to successfully prepare and graduate every student, and
• to ensure that, by 2015, 95 percent or more of VBCPS students will graduate having mastered the skills that they need to succeed as 21st century learners, workers and citizens.

To that end, I was focused on  preparing the technology in our new building to meet those objectives. In my earnest efforts to get things up and running, I began to focus too much on the technical “stuff” and forgot that I must make instruction a priority. Thank you, Katy B, for your gentle reminder.

Although Monday begins another week of technical demands and training, as SOL testing is this week along with two days of training for the new da Vinci virtual world, I promise to make any requests that relate to student learning my first priority. Thank you, Katy B, for your gentle reminder.

As educators, you can also help me help you. As you prepare for the use of technology in your classrooms:

• Plan ahead.
• Remember that we all have different rights and more rights than the students.
• Try your technology lesson in your classroom before introducing it to your students; just because it “works” at home does not mean that it will work behind our filters and firewall.
• Have a student try to connect to your links well before the day of the lesson; many sites that are available to teachers are not available to students. Most educationally related sites that are blocked can be unblocked, if you will send the blocked message to your technical support (in our school division, that is your CRS) several days before needed. 
• The Help Desk at the Department of Technology is in transition. The old HEAT system has been replaced with a new Self-Service system. You will be able to enter your own technical requests without making a phone call to the Help Desk; your request will be routed to the Computer Resource Specialists. If we can solve your problem, we will; if not, we will send it on to the Department of Technology. Please be patient during this transition, as we have already seen that it is taking longer to “fix” some problems.
• Your LMS and CRS are here to help. Thank you, Katy B, for your gentle reminder.

Literacy, the ability to read and write, has many online sites like The Literacy Project. Teachers of all disciplines must encourage students to read and write, and we must provide them with a variety of ways to do both. For many of us the feeling we get putting pen to paper is almost indescribable; for others, especially those raised in this age of technology, pressing keys on the keyboard or cell phone seems more natural. Some students journal through their text messaging; in Japan, cell-phone novels/books have been composed on a cell phone’s keyboard. Read more at Quill & Quire about this phenomenon called keitai shousetsu.

Provide students with writing prompts via email (coming shortly, we hope, to our students locally), SharePoint assignments, blogs, wikis, podcasts… Providing students with the ability to blog or collaborate online through wikis accomplishes many goals including:

• Extending learning beyond the four walls of a classroom.
• Making students active learners; participation is required.
• Requiring students to write, by default increasing student writing competencies.
• Creating an authentic task in a real-world setting. Nationally and internationally recognized authors are reading student posts and responding.

Some blogging links:

• Links to School Bloggers
• Sue’s top five tips from Edublogs
• Getting more out of blogging from Edublogs
• 50 useful blogging tools for teachers
• Blogging tutorial

As the new year approaches, our new building nears completion and we face new technology in every classroom. The SmartBoard is a prominent part of each classroom and provides us with the opportunity to engage our students using technology every day. Department heads have received instructional training for using the SmartBoard and the AirLiner, and training is in place on January 4th for the technical side of using the equipment. On staff is a certified SmartBoard trainer, so more training is coming. In the meantime, check out these sites:

• SmartTech
• SmartBoard Resources
• Engaging Learners the SmartBoard Way
• 284,000 more sites from a Google search

Twittering, podcasting, blogging, posting, reading, researching, keeping up with the news and sports, finding and communicating with friends, making new friends, buying and selling, comparing, writing, mashing, googling, binging, banking, investing, learning, sharing…. While reading my tweets today, I was reminded how much is available to us through technology. Take a few minutes to view a few of these links:

• Videos for using SMART boards in the classroom
• Videoconferencing to bring the world to students
• Marco Torres engaging students through digital media
• Essential tools for collaboration with students
• Teach literacy across the curriculum, fast and free
• Visual Bloom’s with 21st Century tools
• 15 things all classrooms should have
• Top 100 tools for learning by category
• 50 best inventions of 2009 – Time
• 24 things to do when launching a  new blog
• 60 second recap – 60 seconds to learn about a book or contribute a recap of your own
• 10 Gadgets to make Google Wave more productive and fun
• Google Wave reading list
• Students speak their minds through digital media

Project Gutenberg is an Internet site that allows you without cost to read online or download (to your computer, iPod, Kindle or other device) over 30,000 ebooks. The books are ones whose copyrights have expired. There are other sites listed here http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Partners,_Affiliates_and_Resources and libraries like one of the oldest at the University of Virginia that also offer this resource.

How long as it been since you have read Goethe’s Faust or another classic? There is no need to leave the comfort of your home; just visit one of the sites to read it online or download it.