Adding a Signature to Your Email

This short video shows the steps to create an email signature in Mo Valley Webmail.

All About Podcasting and Blogging

This collection of information about podcasting and blogging will likely give you the opportunity to learn more about these popular and growing topics than you ever wanted to know.

Go... Podcasting and Blogging Information

Kansas House Passes Bill to Control Cyber-Bullies

KansasCity.com reports the the Kansas House passed legislation that would require schools to extend their anti-bullying efforts to include cyber-bullying.

Read more...
House passes bill to expand school anti-bullying programs

Pile or File?

Are you a "piler" or a "filer"? Is your inbox a seemingly endless list of mail extending who knows har far into the past or does it contain only the last few messages you've received? How do you process email?

"your inbox, the fact is that if you simply leave everything there and let it get pushed down by new messages that are coming in, you're almost certainly not giving enough thought to the things that hit your inbox. For pilers, the only clue as to whether an email has been dealt with is whether it is marked as read or unread. But all too often we read emails when we are not currently in a position to do anything about them. Even if we're careful about going back and marking messages as unread, they still get pushed down, out of sight, out of mind."

Read more ... Piling vs. Filing - Emailers Anonymous - Download Squad

TimesMachine - New York Times

The New York Times has scanned and made available free online every issue of the paper from V1, N1, Sept 18, 1851 through Dec 30, 1922.

Pages are displayed just as they appeared originally. What a source of primary information!

TimesMachine - New York Times

Striking Back at Students' Online Pranks

Teachers and schools are striking back at students who mischievously attack them online. These ""pranksters are being slammed with suspensions, expulsions, even civil lawsuits, and criminal arrests.
Tech-savvy teenagers are increasingly paying a heavy price – including criminal arrest – for parodying their teachers on the Internet.

Tired of fat jokes and false accusations of teacher-lounge partying or worse, teachers and principals are fighting back against digital ridicule and slander by their students – often with civil lawsuits and long-term suspensions or permanent expulsions.

A National School Boards Association (NSBA) study says that as many as one-third of American teens regularly post inappropriate language or manipulated images on the Web. Most online pranks deride other students. But a NSBA November 2006 survey reported 26 percent of teachers and principals being targeted.

Read the rest of the story at Christian Science Monitor Online...
Teachers strike back at students' online pranks | csmonitor.com

2008-09 MVSD Calendar

School Calendar 08-09

Homework or Busywork? Attitudes Soften, but Quality Still Questioned : February 2008 : THE Journal

This article summarizes the results of a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive, the "MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: The Homework Experience."

"While far fewer students now seem to consider homework busywork, they are not exactly excited by what they're being assigned either. More than half (55 percent) think their homework is not interesting (62 percent in secondary, 44 percent in elementary). When asked which subject had the "most interesting" homework, 14 percent of students said "none." Of those who would name a subject, the plurality gave it to science, at 23 percent. Math came in second at 21 percent. Social studies/history received 15 percent of the vote; and English/reading received 14 percent."

Read more ... Homework or Busywork? Attitudes Soften, but Quality Still Questioned : February 2008 : THE Journal

Capturing YouTube Video

This short screencast shows you how to capture video from YouTube and most other sites using the KeepVid website.

Safety and Social Networking

This Techlearning article by Alec Couros (University of Regina, Canada) examines the issues related to using social networking in education.

"Once the fear of safety is removed, social networking sites can open up broad and exciting new worlds of learning for both educators and students. Innovative teachers are recognizing the potential of tools such as MySpace and Facebook to bridge cultural gaps and create authentic 21st-century learning environments."

Techlearning >> Safety and Social Networking > February 15, 2008

Making Better Use of Technology in Education

Todd Ritter (Download Squad) suggests five ways to improve technology in education, from the Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference Monday in Hershey.

"It's important for our educators to understand and adapt new technologies so that students can benefit from read/write instruction instead of a stale, read-only education."

• Stay informed
• Focus on the process, not the product
• IT professionals who understand education
• Become a user of technology
• Don't fear change

PBS on iTunes

Some of PBS's most popular stations have turned to iTunes U, a dedicated area of the iTunes Store to make their content easily available to the public. The content, including educational video clips, lectures, interviews, teacher's guides and a variety of other materials, is located in the Beyond Campus section of iTunes U.

Educators will find material such as

• an underwater journey through a coral reef
• documentary examinations of Europe, Africa and Asia
• video clips of a solar eclipse
• in-depth interviews with leading authors
• an overview of digital storytelling techniques
• lesson plans for Ken Burns's documentary THE WAR

The stations see this as an opportunity to expand the reach of their educational broadcasting and plan to add fresh content on a regular basis. The iTunes U presence also allows these stations to reach beyond their normal geographic boundaries.

Getting Home

Did you realize you can get your browser to open to any web page you like? If you're using Firefox, you can even set multiple home pages.

Follow this link for simple insructions on how to do it ...
Techlearning &>> Home, Home on the Page > February 12, 2008

Pile of File?

Are you a "piler" or a "filer"? Is your inbox a seemingly endless list of mail extending who knows how far into the past or does it contain only the last few messages you've received? How do you process email?

"... your inbox, the fact is that if you simply leave everything there and let it get pushed down by new messages that are coming in, you're almost certainly not giving enough thought to the things that hit your inbox. For pilers, the only clue as to whether an email has been dealt with is whether it is marked as read or unread. But all too often we read emails when we are not currently in a position to do anything about them. Even if we're careful about going back and marking messages as unread, they still get pushed down, out of sight, out of mind."

Read more ... Piling vs. Filing - Emailers Anonymous - Download Squad

What Are You Doing In That Computer Lab?

A teacher, Larry Ferlazzo, shares his experiences and offers some advice for getting the most out of computer lab sessions.

Techlearning >> What Are You Doing In That Computer Lab? > February 1, 2008