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Mike Richards is the author of  Notes From Millie D , and a technology teacher/integrator in Arundel Maine. He is one of seven or eight techno-geek-education types in the USA who aren’t in San Antonio this week for NECC. I only know him through blogging, tweeting, and plurking, but his writing/offerings are outstanding. He dusted off the following list over a year ago. It has gotten legs again this week. In June 2007, Mike wrote:

Trying to some spring cleaning I ran across an article from The Journal (June 2005) titled 20 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have. Here is a listing of the 20 skills:

1. Word Processing Skills
2. Spreadsheets Skills
3. Database Skills
4. Electronic Presentation Skills
5. Web Navigation Skills
6. Web Site Design Skills
7. E-Mail Management Skills
8. Digital Cameras
9. Computer Network Knowledge Applicable to your School System
10. File Management & Windows Explorer Skills
11. Downloading Software From the Web (Knowledge including eBooks)
12. Installing Computer Software onto a Computer System
13. WebCT or Blackboard Teaching Skills
14. Videoconferencing skills
15. Computer-Related Storage Devices (Knowledge: disks, CDs, USB drives, zip disks, DVDs, etc.)
16. Scanner Knowledge
17. Knowledge of PDAs
18. Deep Web Knowledge
19. Educational Copyright Knowledge
20. Computer Security Knowledge

At that point, Web 2.0 was just infancy. Making a May 2007 edition what things would you add to the list, but more importantly, what would you take off the list?

How would you alter the list in June 2008?

I have already formulated and distributed a ’skills survey’ to develop resources and expose weaknesses based on the, soon antiquated, NETS-T: One-liners on a chart with boxes to check indicating level of ability. With the new NETS-T in hand, perhaps I can formulate a survey that may be valid, appropriate for a year.

What do you think?

Errol Morris is an innovative documentary filmmaker from the United States. I have  had an ‘Errol Morris Festival’ in my Film Lit class. His newest release, in theaters right now is ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ about the scandalous policy and behavior in the Abu Ghraib Prison:

His ground-breaking “Thin Blue Line” is still causing waves 20 years after it was created. It was the firat documentary to use footage composed by the author to illustrate the crime. If yo have seen this film, you will recognize this image-

As I said, there is still controversy boiling up about this film. Morris has recently been blogging for the New York Times and the interactions have been exaulting and harrowing. Take the time too read the blog entries and comments, please:http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/.

http://www.lynnreedy.com - “This site has been designed to provide technology resources to educators. Its focus is to assist teachers in the integration of technology across the curriculum.”

http://www.community.teqsmart.org/download.php - Tequipment’s Educator Resource Center

http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-us/ - Smart Technologies’ Educators’ Resources and Classroom Solutions

http://exchange.smarttech.com/ - “We’re turning this passion into the SMART Exchange, a community of teachers, administrators and SMART experts sharing ideas, expertise and enthusiasm to create extraordinary moments in the classroom.”

http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/Teachers+Hub/default.htm?WT.mc_id=EdHomeHUB

- “Puzzled about what to do next with your SMART education technology products? There’s no need to be. Our Teachers’ Hub will help you put everything together – one piece at a time.”

http://www.interactivewhiteboard.net.au - “Interactivewhiteboard.net.au aims to be the leading authority on interactive whiteboards and their use in education in Australia. This website is not about sales of products. Rather its aim is to encourage and support teachers and other educators who are committed to interactive learning environments in today’s 21st century classrooms.” Here is the lessons page - http://www.interactivewhiteboard.net.au/lesson.asp.

InteractiveWhiteboards in the Classroom. This page was created with support from a U.S. Department of Education PT3 grant (”Join Together”, P342A030098).

Silvia Tolisano is teacher in Florida. She was born in Germany, and raised in Argentina. Her blog, Langwitches, is liberally salted with a great many links for SMARTboard activities. If you follow the right column in her blog down to ‘Categories’, find SmartBoard, and click it, it will aggregate all of the post she has written about SMARTboards or cited links to them.

http://Talking SMARTboards & Much More - Sharing ideas to use the SMARTboard in a Special Ed classroom. Find her ‘Categories’ on the right and click ’smartboard’.

http://smartboardrevolution.ning.com/ - ” All smart board educators, unite! Let’s share ideas, tips, and lesson files to maximize learning for the children. They are our future. Let’s teach them well and let them…something or other. I can’t think of anything right now.”

Teachers Love SMART Boards - James Hollis is SMARTboard sales and support
person from Illinois, who I came across on Twitter. Jim corrects me below - “I appreciate that you listed my Teachers Love SMART Board blog and I just thought I would mention that I’m not associated with Smart Technologies in any way. I’m just a teacher and technology trainer trying to help teachers use SMART Boards more effectively.”

My Twitter and blog compatriot Clif has challenged me to do a round of PD and to challenge others - I’ll let him tell us:

I’m a big fan of goal setting. It can provide a road map for the short or long-term and can be an effective motivational strategy. I have set a few professional development goals for this summer and have challenged a few of my friends/colleagues to do the same thing. Yesterday I realized that I could set this up as a blog meme and hopefully encourage some of my online friends to achieve a few items from their To Do Lists. There are a myriad of ways to approach this, but I’ve opted to take the short-term, easy-to-assess approach, but I’ll leave some wiggle room for you to customize it to meet your needs. The official information is below.

Directions

Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2008 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.

The Rules

1. Pick 3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
2. For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/01/08).
3. Post the above directions along with your 3 goals on your blog.
4. Title your post Professional Development Meme and link back/trackback to http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/353.
5. Use the following tag/ keyword/ category on your post: pdmeme.
6. Tag 8 others to participate in the meme.
7. Achieve your goals and “develop professionally.”
8. Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.

My Goals

1. Complete another six week course at Ed2go.com: Introduction to CSS and XHTML.
2. Finish developing two new courses: The Rhetoric of Science Fiction & Conflict Resolution.
3. Remake my old school Website into a professional Website.

I Tag…

• Jeff and Dan at WDL
• Josh Allen
• Michelle Bourgeois
• Michael Richards
• SilviaTolisano
• Vicki Davis
• Ryan Bretag

Three Books For Professional Development

A few weeks ago, when I wrote about the latest ISTE books to be published, one of my readers commented and followed up in an e-mail exchange about that post. This person was glad to see the reviews, however she had already picked three books to used in a Summer workshop for teachers. I thought you might choose one of her choices to add to your Summer professional development reading.

Published by Corwin Press in 2006, this book is beginning to show its age a bit already with regards to current implementations and manifestations. HOWEVER, Will Richarson’s wisdom, analysis, and understanding is not going to become outdated. If you are staying up with current developments and implementations you can apply Will’s pedagogy and practice. Get your principal, school boards, students, parents, and colleagues to read chapter nine - “What It all Means” and the epilogue, if they will sit still for it.

This another book published by Corwin Press in 2008. Alan November has been where it all happens a teacher. He is not a thinktanker or ivory tower theorista. That being said, He puts  ICT standards and practice under the microscope and in the spotlight - Critical thinking, research, source validation; finishing strategies and evaluations. You will skim it half-an-hour and read in depth in two hours.

This is the 2006 edition of this book from Penguin. Daniel Pink presents the thesis that this present age - the Age of Technology is not a left brain age as most of us would think as we founder amid a sea of hardware and software looking for a leftbrainer, fair to say, engineer type to teach us not only to swim, but to breathe under water. We don’t need an engineer we need a rightbrainer, a visionary to ease us into the next stage of human development.

Larry Ferlazzo

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ - Larry has average almost three posts per day over the last month. I’m sure that this has gone on for ages. He started with “The Best of…” series that continues on, and he has an awesome English Website.

Silvia Tolisano

http://langwitches.org/blog/ - Silvia posts so many high quality, informative posts that I am amazed. She does her “links of the Day” and average 1.5 posts per day over the last month besdes that “links” post. She has a gift for breaking down software and is tireless in annotating images to amplifiy these efforts.

Miguel Guhlin

Miguels blog “Around the Corner” at http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/index.htm - is a joy to read. He tore loose this weekend and published six posts. His interest is not caregorizeable, but whatever he writes about draws my attention. My favorite from the weekend was “Ubuntu Story”.

I just discovered Teacher Portal this morning. Suzie Vesper, a teacher from New Zealand is the central nervous system of this wiki. It is a deep, rich resource for elementary school teachers and parents.

Lee Speers, an educator from Pennsylvania, published a powerful post today: ‘Thirty Things Good Teachers Do’ in his blog named The World According To Speers.

A wonderful, royalty-free resource is the Educational Technology Clearing House. “ETC is a collaborative project of the Bureau of Instruction and Innovation, Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida. The links included in this clearinghouse appeared to contain useful information at the time they were chosen. If you discover that a site linked from this clearinghouse is no longer relevant, or has inaccurate or inappropriate content, please email the project director .”

1. Yudu Freedom Publishing at http://www.yudufreedom.com/

2. Proppian fairy tale generator - http://www.brown.edu/Courses/FR0133/Fairytale_Generator/gen.html

3. Math Playground http://www.mathplayground.com/

Self audit for the 31 day challenge

Answer the following questions:

• How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?  - 15 to 20 times a week
• Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking? - No
• Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week? - Probably, cuz I comment on what interests me.

I measured up well against Gina’s inventory.

China Miéville is an English writer of both fiction and nonfiction. He’s a graduate of the London School of Economics, and, by the look of the titles in the nonfiction writing, probably a Marxist. His fiction is my focus for this short blurb.

 I saw his latest fiction ‘reviewed’ in Wired. I liked the review so I bought it and before I was a day into started ordering what turned out, for the most, a backlist of his other novels and short story collection. His newset book is Un Lun Dun, a through-the-looking-glass sci fi adventure, with a political subtext for precocious junior readers or adults who may navitate to it via the Harry Potter River. Zanna finds the entrance to this world quite improbably in her neighborhood and finds a place that is not just London’s mirror twin, but the whole world. I persuaded only one of my students to read it in my ‘Rhetoric of Sci Fi’ course, but she wholeheartedly loved it.

Some of his other work is bleak near future, catastrophic worlding and some really strange, over the edge sci fi. Some of the places he takes you have more than rough edges. Frankly, one of the novels had an ending which I found really silly the first time I read it, but it grew on me. These works include Looking for Jake: Stories, King Rat, Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. The last was the only one I had to really stretch to embrace.