Box Tops for Education

Take a look at General Mills’ Box Tops for Education website: http://www.boxtops4education.com. Through this program, companies donate ten cents for every mailed in box top clipped from specific food and home products. When an entire school body participates the box tops accumulate and the money adds up fast. This is a much easier way than grant writing for schools to receive funding for supplies they can not afford: from paper and ink to technologies, better internet access, and computers. Have any of your schools participated in this program? On the website you can look up how much money schools have earned through the program. Many schools have earned over $6,000 over the course of 6 years! What are your thoughts on this program? Grant writing is a difficult process that only the trained can do. What are ways other than grant writing for schools to earn money?

Grants Overview

Grants help close the digital divide because they fund expensive computers and technology for schools and homes. This web page http://www.grantsearchengine.com/faq offers a great explanation of grants. Take a look at this website: http://www.cpsb.org/scripts/abshire/grants.asp. Its compilation of links directs you to organizations that are making efforts to help the digital divide. The sites provide grant applications and information. You can specifically select the “Technology Donation Programs” category for a list of technology grant information. What have you learned after looking through the linked sites? Which sites did you find most helpful?

Computer and Internet Usage

The article “Measuring Digital Opportunity for America’s Children” (pages 20-36), that was emailed to everyone, illustrates the importance of computer and Internet access. There are countless vital ways in which people use computers and the Internet for both personal and educational purposes. Those who do not have access to computers miss out on all of the opportunities stated in the article. Do you understand why the digital divide is such a serious issue? What points in the article interest you? How important is Internet access to you?

Digital Divide Overview

Briefly read over this article, especially the section labeled “What is the Digital Divide,” for a fitting overview of the digital divide: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2007/01/digging_deeperyour_guide_to_th.html.

Computers are the tools of 21st century learning, yet many families do not have access to them. Statistically, homes located in rural areas, such as upstate N.Y., (an area where some of us might teach), can not afford home computers. Nowadays all children need to be granted adequate access to computers so that they learn how to use them. Computer skills are necessary to thrive in school and in future careers. What are your thoughts on the digital divide after reading the article or based on any experiences you have had with the effects of the divide? Why is computer access essential for a child to succeed in school? How do you use computers to learn in your everyday life?

Paperless Classrooms & Going Green!

Upon the last day of our blog moderating, we wanted to bring up the issue of going green since investing in a paperless classroom is such a helpful step. 

As future teachers, we realize that it is not only our job to teach students academics, but also give them life knowledge and skills to become educated, successful members of this society. 

We’d like you to consider how a green classroom could encourage and teach students how to care for their environment (in this time of enviromental crisis) and contribute to the saving of our planet.

I know this is brief, but the topic is such an important one to touch on.

–jess

Going Green!

Hey guys! This post might change because Jessica created a page for today but I don’t have her password to post it, and I’d like you all to have something to write about early this afternoon. Our last topic we will be connecting P/C to the Green movement.  This was a hard topic to find clear sources on and I was surprised at that.  Anyways, we can talk about the benefits of P/C and how it saves wasting materials day in and day out but I’d like to talk about the responsibility that, as educators, we have to our students to make a difference in the world.  How can we teach them to use these materials without teaching them the impact (or lack there of) they are having on their world?  What are maybe some other ways our teaching practices can support them in their quest to becoming informed and active citizens? Plus, if you have any other Going Green tips for the classroom, share ‘em! Thanks guys and like I said, Jess may be changing this post today! -Kristin!

PDAs, Pocket PCs and Tablet PCs, Oh My!

 We have talked a lot about different types of technologies and how we can use them in the classroom.  Today we want to share a YouTube clip with you that discusses PDAs, Pocket PCs and Tablet PCs because these are the cream of the crop when it comes to P/C! Check out the video and decide if you think they’d be useful. Let’s try not to think about cost and how many, many school districts can only dream of such technologies.  More so, let’s pretend everyone has these- and how do we keep kids from breaking, losing, swaping and selling these devices? Also think about your life right now, would a device like this help you or do you think you have enough to worry about with your own PC (or mac!)?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFf9Mw3nlsY

Kristin

One Million Different Ways!

Today we will be talking about an assortmant of ways to insert technology in the classroom.  This is different than just the web applications we have already talked about, we’re talking programs and machines (fun, fun!). This slideshow that we have found on Business Week has 11 pieces of technology that can be used in the classroom. We think they are pretty neat.  We’d like for you to browse them and pick one that you are interested in and start talking about it! Hopefully, once people pick the same ones we can start generating some great conversation about why we all liked it.  Also, feel free to talk about ones you thought were a joke!

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/09/classroom/source/1.htm

-Kristin

Internet Public Library

One resource that is super cool is the Internet Public Library! This is a collaborative effort used to put books and articles on the internet: For Free! So take a minute or two to browse around this site, may I suggest that you try and find some text books that you purchased this semester. Afterwards, let’s talk about how a site like this could change education in the classroom as we know it. Also, as an educator how could this site be used to bring non-purchasable (perhaps by the school board) texts to the students (I’m thinking banned books!)?

www.ipl.org

_jessica

Advantages and Disadvantages

Now that we’ve read a little bit about the possibilities of Paperless Classrooms (P/C) lets talk about some advantages and disadvantages. Below is a light article that talks about some advantages and disadvantages. Also let’s refer back to Richardson’s “Blogs, Wikis, Podcastm, and Other Powerful Tools for Classroom” pages 22-23, which talks about Online Filing Cabinets and some benefits of a paperless classroom.

After reading consider the following:

Why do you think students would be more (or less) attracted to this type of learning? Also, keep in mind some of the problems that you have personally encountered with technology and how as teacher in a P/C we could deal with these issues!

http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/Paperless/start.htm

J& K Productions.

–Jessica