[ECP] Educational CyberPlayGround K-12 Newsletter Headlines and Resources
- From: Educational CyberPlayGround <admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: K12NewsLetters@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:00:00 -0400
Greetings,
Happy Reading for Today.
<Karen>
1)
CoSN Opens Nominations for 2008 Awards:
Honoring School District, Individual & Public Servant Leadership
The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) is accepting online
nominations for three of the association's most prestigious awards - the
Withrow Award for a CTO/district technology leader, the TEAM Award, and
the Excellence in Public Service Award. These awards are given annually
to an individual, a school district team, and a public servant who
exemplifies leadership and innovation in education technology. The
awards will be presented during CoSN's 13th Annual K-12 School
Networking Conference, themed "Visionary Leadership: Scaffolding 21st
Century Learning with Technology," being held March 9-11, 2008, in
Arlington, VA.
The deadline for submissions is Friday, November 30, 2007, and
nominations can be made for the Withrow Award at
www.cosn.org/about/awards/withrow.cfm, the Team Award at
www.cosn.org/about/awards/team.cfm, and the Excellence in Public Service
Award at http://www.cosn.org/about/awards/excellence.cfm. Best
practices for the TEAM Award nomination can be found at
http://www.cosn.org/about/awards/bestpractices.cfm. Past recipients of
these awards are on the CoSN website under each Awards section.
Nominations are open to members of CoSN as well as non-members.
Self-nominations are encouraged. For more information about the
conference, please visit www.k12schoolnetworking.org/2008/cfp.cfm
2)
Virtual School Clearinghouse
http://vs.education.ufl.edu/virtualschool/
The Virtual School Clearinghouse (VSC) is a website documenting a
collaborative research project sponsored by the AT&T Foundation and
the University of Florida. VSC seeks to aggregate and analyze data
from virtual schools, particularly focusing on state-led virtual
schools in the 9 state AT&T region. Drawing on existing research and
current virtual school practice, the VSC provides multiple tools and
metrics vital for school improvement.
Within this site, you will find collections of resources including
research on virtual schooling, instruments used to evaluate virtual
schooling, and websites dedicated to the topic. As a guest, you may
browse these resources. Freely join as a registered guest and you may
add and comment on resources. If you are a virtual school, contact us
to share your data, and you will have free access to data analyses
tools and evaluation instruments. These tools will help provide
timely, continuous feedback for data-driven decision making and
evaluation of existing policies and practice.
3)
Go Green Database
http://www.edutopia.org/go-green
Students, teachers, administrators, and environmental activists have
found ways to integrate knowledge and awareness of Earth's fragility
into classwork and community service, carefully blending concern with
action to help kids feel engaged and hopeful. We try to do the same
with this Go Green Database, a directory that can be searched by
topic, grade level, cost, or location -- and supplemented with your
contributions and comments.
4)
School in Maine looking for other schools to challenge in building
The Village School in Maine (a grade 3-5 school with about 675) is currently
building their part of the planetfesto.org virtual ribbon--a segment long
enough to circle their gym. They want to challenge another school to see how
high a percentage of students and staff they can achieve. Ideally, the
school would be in a different part of the US, or abroad. To see the Village
School's great contributions, go to www.planetfesto.org and search by
village school.
Planetfesto's purpose is to build an environmental educational and action
movement that creates a virtual ribbon long enough to wrap around the earth.
To do pieces of the ribbon, students simply choose a photo on the site (or
upload their own photo or drawing), say why they love the planet, and what
they're personally going to do to protect it (we have plenty of ideas on the
site if students don't have their own). If they are stumped, there is plenty
of inspiration just watching the ribbon scroll by, with impassioned
declarations of love and individual action from all over the world. People
from 37 countries have created pieces of the ribbon.
Some recent new features for schools:
-- search the ribbon and view a custom subset of just your school,
location, or community. Teachers are often projecting their piece of the
ribbon, like a movie.
-- rank individual pieces of the ribbon and view the most popular
worldwide, and also by country
-- music (with more to come!)
The site was created as a totally volunteer effort by a family in
California. Planetfesto was named one of the Natural Resources Defense
Council's web sites of the week at:
http://www.nrdc.org/reference/picks/pick0703.asp. We've also been featured
in the E-bulletin of the National Association of Independent Schools.
If interested, please contact nancy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, or Chris Crawford at
chrisc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We're at www.planetfesto.org. For more information about planetfesto contact
Nancy Raff at 510/595-1888.
5)
Art Wolinsky
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/News/ArtWolinsky.htm
The latest PEW report on Teens and Online Stranger Contact was
released on the 14th. Among the non-surprises were the facts that
teens who create social profiles or post photos online are more
likely to be contacted online by people they do not know and that
girls are more likely to have unwanted encounters than boys.
While this might be classified as a "Doh!" moment, there's more to it
than meets the mind and can serve as an obvious reminder to take a
closer look at any statistics offered by anyone, including me.
6)
Webkinz and Neopets and Disney's acquisition of ClubPenguin
http://www.news.com/Virtual-world-makers-aim-to-hook-kids/2009-1025-6213355.html
More kids are flocking to imaginative, character-driven environments.
53% of children on the Web will belong to a virtual world within four
years, more than
doubling the current population of 8.2 million members,"
WebbliWorld.com, GaiaOnline.com, Stardoll.com, Whyville.net
Are kids ready for ads in such spaces?"
http://www.news.com/Are-kids-ready-for-ads-in-virtual-worlds/2009-1024_3-6213661.html
interactive advertising goes beyond cereal boxes and TV spots to
immersive games and
other forms of direct involvement for children.
7)
Americans want computers more than peace for the holiday gift.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-10-15-computers-holiday-wishlist_N.htm
8)
Internet Crimes Against Children task force
http://www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/8255
"The Department of Justice announced that 13 new state and local law
enforcement
agencies will receive more than $3 million" to form the task forces
in Alaska, California,
Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota,
Rhode Island,
South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia.
9)
Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education
Arts Education and Advocacy
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Arts/
9)
Poets & Writers
http://www.pw.org/
With offices in New York and Los Angeles, Poets & Writers, Inc. covers the
world of creative writers across the United States. Created in 1970, it
remains the largest nonprofit literary organization serving poets, fiction
writers, and creative nonfiction writers. Visitors to the site can read
selected pieces from their magazine, and they can also learn about various
funding opportunities for readings and workshops. Writers will also want to
sign up for the Speakeasy Message Forum. Here users can discuss such timely
topics as David Sedaris, the publishing world, and the state of modern
poetry. One of the most useful areas of the site is the "Top Ten Questions
Writers Ask". This area provides answers to queries such as "Do I Need An
Agent?" and "Should I pursue an MFA?"
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