SEEDlings

Demoing software and left your laser pointer behind?

Use Mousepose. This free little app uses a function key to turn your mouse into a highlighted circle. You can turn it on and off. You can increase or decrease the size of the circle. It’s handy dandy.

http://boinx.com/mousepose/

I had the good fortune to head to DC this week and do a little training for Apple. I worked a couple days in a computer lab helping 4-6 grade teachers use iLife in the Classroom. I stayed in a cool apartment near the Pentagon with a view of Washington Memorial. I went over to an Apple store and played with the new Macbook. I felt pretty lucky to able to go out and do that work.

These teachers receive three 3-hour sessions per year, which is pretty lucky. This puts an Apple trainer in DC 5 days a week for about 8 or 9 months. This has been going on for 8 years! Each teacher received 3 eMacs in their room along with a printer, which is pretty lucky. (Not as lucky as 1:1, but still lucky.)

However, most of these teachers didn’t have the internet in their classroom. And one woman hadn’t received her supplies for this year yet. Another reported having to go to Kinko’s to get their copying done. I thought of my Maine colleagues and how well supported we are. Hopefully, you’re feeling pretty lucky.

In the training room there was a huge printer capable of printing 44″ wide posters, 60 iBooks, 3 projectors and bunch of ink jet printers that had been sitting in this room for several years! This made me reflect on Maine’s $48 laptop purchasing and redistribution. Felt, (say it with me) lucky to live in a state that takes advantage of their resources.

On my way home I ran into Angus King and had a quick chat with him walking up the ramp. I felt lucky to have had a leader willing to dedicate resources to Maine’s 1:1 and to keep pushing it as a civilian.

I’m off to buy a Powerball ticket.

If you are using FireFox as your web browser and like to use Google for searching the internet, you really want to add CoolIris.

Enjoy!

I just saw this on a blog post from Tim Lauer, a principal in Portland, Oregon. He demonstrates how he used it at his school in this post.

In my day we thought calculators were cool

The Maine Learning Technology Initiative is an innovative program that equips every one of the state’s public middle-school students with a laptop computer. This fall, more than 36,000 students will receive brand-new Apple iBooks pre-installed with great software.

We think the whole thing sounds terrific, so we’re donating Google Earth and SketchUp Pro to Maine for installation on every public-school computer in the state. They accepted, and now it looks like Maine will be the first state in the US to have Google Earth, SketchUp Pro, and the 3D Warehouse available to every student, teacher, librarian, and administrator who wants it.

As you noticed, I’ve tested my administrative authority by changing the theme. This one has a couple of nice features including search, font size, and a calendar. While exploring the different themes I ran into something to be aware of: not all themes work well. In particular, a number of the themes that I tried had no admin login. I had to back up to get back to the admin area, and then find a new theme that would let me (and you) administer the site.

Here’s an exciting opportunity for professional development:
The Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation is hosting a conference in Boston, June 21-23. There will be representatives from 1-1 initiatives all over the world, Angus King is a keynote speaker, and many MLTI staff members will be presenters. I’m presenting a day-long institute, Laptops and Literacy in the 21st Century (shameless self-promotion).

If you’re interested, check it out on the AALF web site.

-Barbara

Thanks for all the great posts.

Alice discovered or knew to look for the power to “bless” your postings. Thank you Alice for taking care of that. Several people sent me e-mails over the weekend asking where their stuff went. I apologize for the delay. I was out of town and off the Net. (The seperation anxiety was extreme.)

For me this raises a question of adminstration. Should everyone simply be given the keys to the admin kingdom or should we parse it out. Right now Alice and I have admin power. Simply because I set it up and Alice was online when I did it. Being an admin lets you post without the step of the moderator.

A case can be made for both sides and I don’t have strong feelings either way. Let me know what you think and we’ll sort it out democratically.

Some pretty interesting educational goodies (and some not so educational) tucked in among these 10th Annual Webby Awards links.

Featuring case studies and how-to articles by leading practitioners in
the world of education.

Download it

David Warlick’s comments

Worth a mention…here is a legal guide for podcasting. Check it out at: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Podcasting_Legal_Guide

~Steph.