Curriculum links and thoughts

Just a quick post regarding a couple of sites that I've run across:

I think JDM or JDS featured the Wiki that discusses the vision of education in 2020. There are several interesting topics in here, including if/what to filter, which has been discussed among our districts as well.

Someone at SREB noted the 'curriki' site. This is a site where one can find and contribute free and open source curriculum content.

Forms feature in Google Docs

At the last TIS meeting, Brenda Nix spent a few minutes on the ease of creating a form in a Google Docs spreadsheet. You can then send the form (NOT the spreadsheet) out via email and any user, GDocs or no, can respond to the form. Better yet, their results will be recorded into your spreadsheet upon their response. It took about 15 minutes to learn and looks to be a quick and easy way to collect small pieces of data from a group of users. The Google Docs team blogged about this feature upon its release last year. Give it a shot!

Am I a twit for not tweeting on Twitter?

Two blog followers are featured in this Network World article on CIO's who Twitter. John McMillen and John David Son were featured in that article and it makes me feel like I'm a bit behind the times. If they can tweet about their blogs, at least I can blog about Twitter.

I've also learned that a South Henderson Middle School teacher is using a blog and Twitter to share with others as her students attend the upcoming Presidential inauguration. Apparently, they have also web-conferenced with the BBC and will be sharing their videos and photos with the BBC to (hopefully) be used on UK news stories related to the event. Obviously, parents can also use the site to keep up with their child's progress on the project and see the experience "in their eyes". Good stuff!

ISTE draft NETS for Administrators

I got this email recently, which gives districts the chance to comment on the proposed NETS standards for administrators:

ISTE released the draft NETS for Administrators 2009 in early January and is seeking comment from you to strengthen and improve them before publishing them in June. We are welcoming feedback until the end of March. Please consider participating in the online survey:

www.iste.org/nets-survey; or

leading a NETS Refresh Forum for colleagues at meetings or conferences. Use the NETS Refresh toolkit, which comes with instructions and forum materials:

www.iste.org/nets-toolkit

ISTE wants to hear from you!

Obama stimulus plan and 21st-century classrooms

From the second page of this eSchoolNews article:

In a letter sent to its members after Obama's speech, the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) said it has been "working closely with the Obama-Biden transition team and responding to many questions regarding costs of implementing technology-rich classrooms, including the hardware, software, content, professional development, and IT support."

The letter continued: "We have also been able to share data and research on why this will [not only] stimulate the economy, but also accelerate transformation in schools."

According to SETDA's calculations, it would cost about $11,695 to equip a single classroom with 21st-century technology. With an estimated 844,409 Title I-eligible classrooms that haven't been fully equipped, that works out to a cost of about $9.9 billion to outfit all of the nation's K-12 classrooms--or less than 2 percent of a stimulus package worth a total of $800 billion.

$11,695 seems like a great deal of money per classroom. I'm thinking some of our folks have outfitted a room for a fraction of this cost. The article mentions content, software, PD and IT support. I'm not sure how much all of that adds to the cost and it would be tough to quantify on a per-classroom basis. I think some of my districts were wondering if this might mean computer hardware and wireless network implementations. This article would suggest that it may be focused on other things, though I suppose one could argue that a notebook/tablet and wireless access are critical parts of a 21st-century classroom.

Wireless needs and learning from others...

It's always interesting when you get into a technology-related conversation and realize just how little you know. It's even more humbling when that conversation occurs with someone working outside of the technology business.

I got into a conversation with my preacher after church last night. A member was donating a few computers from his business and wanted to make me aware. I assumed that this might lead to me needing to get these machines networked together. I talk to the preacher to ascertain his plans for these donated machines.

Ten minutes later, my jaw is on the ground as he is talking to me about the Lifehacker website, third-party firmware such as Tomato and a discussion of parabolic directional antennas - even cantennas made from Pringles cans for WarDriving, all of which he had naturally heard of before. I was floored to say the least.

I get the feeling I'm headed down this road, but I bet he's done this as well: