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The State recently released the Round 7 EETT Competitive grant application. Sylvan will be applying again for this funding. We will be competing with the four other counties in our CTAP6 region. Grants are due to the State by April 23, 2008.
Competitive Grant Information:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopexpress/?promoid=CBTVM
Adobe is getting into the web application market and has taken their popular PhotoShop application and developed a web version. Their web base tool is called Photoshop Express. You can sign up for a free account and give it a try.
http://sylvanconversations.blogspot.com
Dr. Halverson has created a new blog to discuss issue that are important to the Sylvan Union School District family. The current hot topic: budget cuts. This is a very active blog. Almost 90 recommendations have been submitted to the site in less than a month on this topic!
 Other examples of technology being used to foster learning communities includes the use of Moodle by district administrators. Currently there are two Moodle sites dedicated to district administration, S.A.I.L. and “The Inquiry Cycle.” Both sites include active discussions and resoures that are being shared through these administrative Moodle sites.
 I created this little blog to provide teachers with ideas for using technology with their students and during instruction. In addition, I’ll focus on strategies that can also be reused with the “classroom” web page.
 So far I have over a half dozen ideas that can easily be modified using different content. In addition, the blog’s presentation of the content itself hopefully will provide creative ideas for ways teachers can use technology to provide instruction and content to their students. All the software and tools I use are district standards, free, or very low cost (i.e the $30 USB Target web cam.)
Is Moodle too social? Should be prevent students from messaging other students? How can we get more teachers into Moodle? Student feedback regarding Moodle? Teacher feedback regarding Moodle? How can we foster the development of social learning community for teachers? How can we foster the development of a social learning community for students? How can we foster the development of a social learning community for parents?
 What should the next steps be with Moodle?
What’s new in the next version of Moodle (1.9) : http://docs.moodle.org/en/Release_Notes#Moodle_1.9
The OLPC XO laptop project has started internest in other hardware manufactures for low cost laptops. Intel has a product called the Classmate, and now Asus has a product called the EeePc. It’s about $400 and is about the same size as the XO laptop. It will run both Linux and Windows.
You can get more information about this laptop here: http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24
A free server application to allow students and teachers to keep electronic portfolios of work. Mahara works well with Moodle and would provide your students with a structured, protected, environment for storing, sharing and communicating.
A demo is available here: http://demo.mahara.org/
Hearing – Online Virtual Worlds – Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium
Interesting hearing at the US Energy and Commerce – Click here to watch the hearing!
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New tool for sharing image content. How could you use this in the classroom? Would it add engagement to your classroom web site?
Free “Web 2.0″ Resources that could be used to replace current $$$ software. In many cases the only software application you need is a web browser and an Internet connection.
