From the blog of Melanie Holtzman, “Once Upon a Teacher” -

“If you haven’t faced it yet, it’s time to take a good look at the students you’re teaching. Students sitting in classrooms today are members of the Eye Generation. These students are multi-taskers of their digital, visual tools such as cell phones, ipods, computers and television. They transition from tool to tool without interruption of thought passively taking in their environment’s visuals. These students need to be taught to critically examine the images they are encountering on a daily basis in order to come to important conclusions.”

Melanie’s friends at Stenhouse Publishers have invited the readers of Once Upon a Teacher to participate in a conversation with author, Johanna Riddle about her new book “Engaging the Eye Generation“. What an opportunity! Being able to ask Johanna something about her book or just about teaching visual literacy strategies. And she will answer! Let’s take advantage of it.

The conversation with Johanna will be posted on March 13th, so now is the time to visit Melanie’s blog and send her your questions, wonderings or reflections. Please use the comment section of Melanie’s post to let her know what you think. Melanie encourages, “Let’s dig in and really think about how we’re addressing the needs of our 21st Century Learners. Free learning, instant access to material and questions answered…what are you waiting for?!?”

You can get free access to Johanna’s book online here.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cataniamichele/2855661699

I’m in Chicago (St. Charles, Illinois to be exact) for the ICE (Illinois Computing Educators) Conference and all of the sessions so far have been winners! Dr. Yong Zhao (yes, Michigan’s Dr. Zhao) was their opening keynote. His presentation, “Never Send a Man to do a Machine’s Job: Reconstruct the Relationship between Teachers and Technology” was engaging and interesting. He had the standing room only crowd laughing thoughout his presentation. I’m hoping the ICE team has this archived for us.

One of the sessions I knew I couldn’t miss was Steve Dembo’s presentation “Extreme Makeover: Education Edition.” Steve will be doing a version of this at the MACUL conference in a couple of weeks. This session is really geared for Web 2.0 beginners although there were a couple of tools that were new to me

Many times when showing new tools to teachers, the response is, “I don’t have time to learn that” or “my district can’t afford any new technology” or “that’s too hard for me.” Steve showed several free tools that educators can use immediately, without the steep learning curve that accompanies a lot of software.

• Blabberize
• Edublogs
• crappygraphs (you might not be able to use this at school)
• Twitter
• Let Me Google That For You
• embedding video
• Plodt
• Poll Everywhere
• Prezi (You can apply for a free account but it’s in beta and might not get approved for a while.)

If you have a few minutes try these out. Hopefully, you’ll be able to see Steve share this at MACUL, I hear he’s looking for audience participation

Muskegon ISD has subscribed to the year-long tech webinar series offered by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All webinars are at 4:00 p.m. at Muskegon ISD and are free to all educators. You must register however on the ISD web site. Go to http://www.muskegonisd.org/development.The four offerings for March are:

Wednesday, March 4

Technology For Not Yet Readers with Gail Lovely

As technologies advance, there are new tools and resources for non-readers. Animation, video, sound, and graphics combined with good teaching creates powerful learning opportunities. Join Gail Lovely for this webinar and see some great tools and resources for young non- and almost-readers. Gail will share more than just a series of links, she will emphasize teaching strategies and classroom management of technologies as well as some really cool technological tools! Appropriate for Mac or Windows users.

Tuesday, March 10

Using Technology to Make Every Classroom an Art Classroom with Mark Gura

Visual Art is a highly valuable and much beloved part of traditional public school programs.  Nevertheless, it has always had to struggle to gain a place of prominence among subject areas competing for time and funds. The lack of access to a trained Visual Art teacher, lack of studio space, and the need for expensive and messy materials have made it impossible for many schools to offer the quality Visual Arts instruction they would like to, a situation that a great many teachers, students, and parents would like to see reversed.

Fortunately, the use of technology can change this situation for those who understand how. The increasing ubiquity of simple technology resources like: computers, Internet, and in-place or easy to use free or low cost software offers an opportunity to make the inclusion of Visual Art easier than ever. This webinar will discuss how technology makes Visual Art something that virtually all teachers can include in instructional activities and to greater effect than ever before. Discussed will be equipment, resources, and classroom management logistics–basic techniques–and activities and approaches of obvious value in our current instructional climate.

Wednesday, March 18

Project-Based Learning with Sara Armstrong

Project-based learning strategies engage students, meet standards, and address 21st Century skills. During this session, we will examine examples in which project-based learning has been successfully implemented, learn about resources, share planning documents, and commit to implementation action steps!

The last webinar is on March 24. The topic is International Schools. ISTE hasn’t provided a description yet for this session but we’ll post it here as soon as it becomes available.

A simple definition might be: Thinkfinity is a web site that provides FREE educational resources for everyone. As you explore the site however, you discover that it is much more than that.

The Verizon Foundation has partnered with 9 premier education organizations that produce discipline-specific, standards-based web sites that include lessons for teachers, activities to use in and out of the classroom, games for young children and teens, adult literacy resources and reference materials for anyone in the education field, as well as for parents and after-school practitioners. The Content Partners and their Thinkfinity web sites are:

• ARTSEDGE – John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
• EconEdLink – National Council on Economic Education
• EDSITEment – National Endowment for the Humanities
• Illuminations – The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics
• Literacy Network – American Library Association, National Center for Family Literacy, and ProLiteracy Worldwide
• ReadWriteThink – Internation Reading Association, The National Council or Teachers of English
• Science NetLinks – American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Smithsonian’s History Explorer – Smithsonian National Museum of American History
• Xpeditions – National Geographic Society

All of the content meets rigorous criteria including expert review and standards correlations by state agreements. The activities classroom ready for teachers and engaging for students.

The interface on the Thinkfinity home page makes it easy to search for the resources by key word, state standard, grade level, content partner, or resource type.