Blog Juice for Educational Technology

The second annual Dell survey on information and communications technology in education found that 90% of teachers, compared with 68% a year ago, regard ICT as very important to their school. Nearly 74% of educators in this year’s poll said technology has helped motivate students, while 68% agreed that ICT had made learning more enjoyable […]

Now this is news! I read Paul’s post, ‘The aim in Maine stays plainly in the game’ where
he reports that “Middle schoolers and some 9th and 10th graders across
the state of
Maine will benefit further from Maine’s laptop initiative with free
home internet access.”  Now that is leveling the playing field!
I’d love to see that at the best elementary blogging school in Georgia! Read Paul’s blog to get all the details and enjoy a very creative post. He must have seen “My Fair Lady” recently as I did at the Fox in Atlanta. So to Paul I say…

“New Tools: Blogs, Podcasts and Virtual Classrooms” in the New York Times today gives snippets from educators using these new tools.

Listen to podcasts by  third and
fourth graders in Bob Sprankle’s classroom at Wells Elementary School
in Wells, Me. The online radio show features “Student News,” “The Week in Sports” and “Word of the
Week.” Mr. Sprinkle says, “The kids are incredibly motivated to read, research, and write.”

Next  we hear from Joel Arquillos, a social studies teacher at the Galileo Academy of
Science and Technology in San Francisco,  “I want
to give these kids the tools to say, “Hey, my voice is important in
this world,”  “This
blog helps me do that.” I love that quote.  His 11th-grade Amereican
history students participated in a group blog
as a joint project with David Boardman’s English class at Winthrop High
School in Maine. They discussed issues like drug dealing, gang
violence,urban legends, the new SAT’s, good reasons to skip the prom,
etc.” The diversity of topics was great. Patrick Delaney, Galileo’s
librarian helped the teachers set up the blogs. Nice to hear in a round
about way from Patrick. Patrick is probably one of the first “original
blogging pioneers.” He pointed out how “Having an audience compelled
these kids to step it up a notch.”

I did not find a link to the Skype Foreign Language Lab but I ran
across these interesting Language and International Resources at
Dickinson College that links to blogs and how to use Skype with foreign
language learning. Ahhhh, why wouldn’t we want our students to have
some time to pursue learning branched off of what they have already
learned? Don’t we want them to make connections and build on their knowledge? But that’s a post for another time…..