The StudyDog system is designed from research-based principles described by the National Reading Panel and other reading experts. StudyDog consolidates these principles into the Five Keys for Reading Success, and delivers them in a unique way so children stick with the program for an extended period of time to master the skills being taught.

How can your child get StudyDog for FREE?
The only way is to have your child’s teacher become a StudyDog Reading Angel and, once accepted as a Reading Angel, the teacher notifies StudyDog that
1) Your child would benefit from a scientifically developed reading program and
2) Your child is officially listed as eligible for the National Free Lunch Program.
Once notified, StudyDog will send StudyDog to your home.

Have your child’s teacher go to www.studydog.com and apply to become a Reading Angel. Or, you can print the application and hand it to the teacher to complete.

___ ______

Pre-K Sample __ Consonants Sample__ Spelling Sample

Resources are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Orders must be
received by February 12th, 2010.  Pay only for shipping and handling. {Nothing is ever for free }

Free Books for Read Across America Day:  Order Form at http://www.lefbooks.org

This is a screen shot of some of the apps on my phone.  All of which are available for free from the iTunes store. 1. ShakeSpell-  This app allows you to create as many words as possible from a randomly generated grid that is created by saking the phone/itouch.  Create as many words as possible within  a set time limit.  Words must be three or more characters long.  It’s a fast paced game that will have your students thinking. 2. Word Families- This is a simple app that allows students to select a word family to practice with.  Each word is displayed on at a time wit the option to hear the word pronounced. 3. Sight Words-  This app is similar to Word Families.  Sight words are shown at random wth the option to hear hem pronounced. 4. Math Drills Lite-  This app gives students the opportunity t practice their math facts.  Choose from addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or mixed review. 5. Presidents- Students can scroll through each president’s flash card and view general facts about each one.  It also has a quiz feature to test your knowledge. 6. Capitals- Students can scroll through each state’s flash card and view general facts about each one.  It also has a quiz feature to test your knowledge. 7. USA Free- This i a more extensive app on US history.  Unlike Presidents and Capitals, which are flash cards, this app will give you detailed information on documents, states, maps, anthems, flags, presidents and more.  It also has a quiz feature to test your knowledge. 8. Wordoo Free- This fun app is part slide puzzle, part word game. Slide the tiles to unscramble the letters and form a phrase with a word on each row. Get it right, and you’ll get rewarded with the punchline. Wordoo is not the typical random word game… each puzzle is hand crafted, based on famous quotes, catchy phrases, and current events. 9.  Word Bubble- Unscramble words by tapping the correct sequence of letters. Try to beat your own high score.  You are being timed, so think fast. 10. TanZen Lite- Find your Zen, with this updated version of the classic tangram puzzle game! Tangrams have been challenging minds for centuries, with the deceptively simple goal of combining seven geometric pieces into a shape. 11. Zentomino- This is smilar to TanZen but with the use of shapes, or pentominoes, to fill in different pictures. 12. Dice-  A simple app tat allows the user to select anywhere from one to five dice to roll.  Simply shake your iPhone/iTouch or use the “roll” button on the app.

These are screen shots of  the apps I just mentioned.

You can find additional educational resources  for the iPhone/iTouch at www.michaelnunn.net.

For a list of the Top 50 Apps for Educators, go to the OEBD website.

If you are using a great app that you would like to share, feel free to add it as a comment.

Developing a School Technology Plan

LACOE has created an online Tech Plan Builder to assist you in creating a School Technology Plan.  Your plan should include input from all stakeholders and should cover at least a three-year span.  Set goals and reachable benchmarks along the way with the outcome focused on student achievement and not how much technology you have or need. The website is modeled after the State’s guidelines. Sign up at http://ito.lacoe.edu/tpb.

Digital Voice Awards 2010 Entry Deadline: March 31, 2010

The California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP) Region 11 and Multimedia Services of the Instructional Technology Outreach division at the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) invite K-12 school educators from Los Angeles County to submit exemplary classroom instructional technology projects to the Digital Voice Awards. Information can be found at http://ito.lacoe.edu/dva

California Streaming Digital Photography Contest Deadline: March 14, 2010

The CaliforniaStreaming Digital Photography Contest judges will select up to six student winners and two teacher winners that best reflect the 2010 contest theme: ENERGY!

Winners will have their photographs incorporated into a collectable poster, which will be distributed to classrooms across the state of California. Two teacher winners will receive a 16GB iPod touch and six student winners will receive 16GB iPod nanos. For additional information, go to http://ccetc.net/photocontest

* For a list of current and/or ongoing grants, go to http://www.grantsalert.com/gsft.cfm

Here’s additional site with available grants. http://www.vernier.com/grants/corporate.html

Who is eligible to apply?
Grant applications will be accepted from teachers in grades 3-8 currently teaching in an accredited, non-profit, public school building in the United States. There are no entry fees and no purchase is required. Fifteen (15) classroom awards will be made.

What will recipients receive?
Grant package is valued at over $5,000.00 per classroom award.

• Grant Program

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

As you may or may not know, Local District 4 is no longer at the Harbor Building.  As of September 1st, we are now on the 11th floor of the Beaudry building.  Things are definitely different around here, but we will continue to support all of our schools as best as possible.  Our resources have been diminished so please be patient with us if we do not get back to you right away.  Since we no longer have a large conference room, we will not be having our monthly Tech Coordinator meetings.  If you would like to host a meeting at your school site, please email me so that we can schedule it, otherwise please continue to check our blog for news and updates.

Local District 4 Website
Our Local District 4 Website will be undergoing construction as we update information on it. Please give your input on what more you would like to have access to on our website.

LAUSD District News and Events

Site Computer Inventory MEM-4170.2
All schools should complete the Site Computer inventory by October 1, 2009. For more information, please refer to the memo.
Note: The site used to update a school’s inventory: http://site-computer-inventory.noc.lausd.net/, appears to work only within the firewall.

EdTech Profile
All staff at each school in our local district should update their EdTech profiles at http://edtechprofile.org If the principal at your school would like to designate someone to be the administrator for your school, please have him/her send me an email with that person’s name. An administrator of the school’s edtech profile information can send staff their login information and gather data from the survey.

LAUSD iTunes U
LAUSD is now online on iTunes University. (Please note: This link requires iTunes) The site is still under development and will be populated with more content in the near future.  If you have content you would like to contribute, please contact me.

EdTech at LAUSD
Visit the LAUSD EdTech WebPage for regular updates on Educational Technology resources for LAUSD.

School Websites
Many schools have requested information on how to update their school’s website. There are several great resources available to address this:

iWeb Workshop
On Monday, October 5th, Dave Douglas, Apple Systems Engineer for LAUSD, will be offering a workshop in the  Local District 6 Office from 3:45 to 5:45 on developing your school’s website using Apple’s iWeb software. For more information, download this flyer. This is an easy way for schools to easily update their web presence using free tools and LAUSD’s web server.

School Loop
School Loop is offering free websites for all LAUSD schools. This is a fantastic opportunity to create an interactive website for your school. To find out more, please visit the website

Upcoming Conferences

21st Century Learners Symposium - Friday, October 23, 2009 7:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
LACOE’s Instructional Technology Outreach offers this conference to all educators. The cost is $95 per person or $375.00 for a group of 6. For more information, download this flyer.

CUE Los Angeles Technology Fair - Saturday, November 14, 2009 8:30 – 3:30
Paradise Found at Mulholland Middle School. Registration and more information coming soon!
The keynote speaker this year is Ted Lai.

Thanks to Janice Stearns from LD6 for sharing her resources.

Future Cities is is a national competition you’ll find as fulfilling as it is fun for your students. Now in its second decade, the National Engineers Week Future City Competition is a program developed for seventh and eighth grade students to help them discover and foster interests in math, science and engineering. As you’ll soon discover, it’s a program that’s both challenging and stimulating for everyone involved.  LAUSD is looking for Middle schools teams to compete at the regional in January.  Contact Joe Oliver for more information.  Winning teams get to compete in a national event in Washington DC. Joe.oliver@lausd.net 213-241-1362.

Netbooks

We’ve all heard about the netbook phenomenon. They’re small, low on power, ultra-cheap, super portable and the fastest growing segment of the computer industry.  Now, you can purchase them for your school.  These light weigh computers are configured for student use.  Teachers may use them, but they are not designed to handle district applications.  AreyJones offers three models, HP, Dell and Lenovo.  Prices range from $448 to $465 for the basic model that comes equipped with 1GB of memory and a 160 GB hard drive.  Contact AreyJones at 800-998-9199 for a custom quote or send me an email and I will forward you the standard quote.

Developing a School Technology Plan

If you are updating or creating a School Technology Plan, LACOE has created an online Tech Plan Builder to assist you in the process.  The website is modeled after the State’s guidelines.  Sign up at http://ito.lacoe.edu/tpb.

School Websites

If your school needs a website, there are various ways to go about acquiring one.

•    Have a staff member create one and host it on LAUSD.  Contact Diana Liston (Diana.liston@lausd.net).
•    Contact Educational Networks (http://www.educationalnetworks.net ) to have them create and maintain it for you ($3,000 – $5,000/year).
•    Use SchoolLoop (http://www.schoolloop.com ) to get a school website with individual teacher websites (Free).
•    Use Class Jump (www.classjump.com ) for individual teacher websites only. (Free)

Both SchoolLoop and Class Jump are free and you do not need any website development experience to set one up.

* For a list of current and/or ongoing grants, go to http://www.grantsalert.com/gsft.cfm

• Great Images in NASA. A collection of about a thousand images of historical interest scanned at high-resolution in several sizes.
• NASA multimedia. Includes many high-quality photos as well.
• Photos by Astronauts. A gazillion cool images from space.
• NOAA Photo Library. Search the site or browse through “collections” at the top. Hundreds and hundreds of historical photos in there too.
• Uncle Sam’s Photos. A directory of the U.S Government’s free stock photo sites.
• The (US) National Archives. The National Archives has more than 30 million photos stored in several buildings in the US, many of them are available online. High-rez photos of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights, etc. as well as loads of photos from WWII in general and Japanese American Internment, and so on. I think I have seen some of the WWII images in Ken Burns’ s documentary The War (highly recommended).

• WWII posters. Not too many high-rez images here, but very interesting. Sizes may be good enough for slides.

• Public Domain Pictures. A repository for free public domain photos. Easy to search.

If you know any other public domain sites that offer good quality in the form of historical archives, etc. please share your links in the comments section below. Thanks.

The LEGO® Smart™ Creativity Contest begins with your imagination and ends with great prizes, online recognition, and the chance to share your activity with thousands of students across the nation!

http://www.legoeducation.com/forms/activitycontest.asp

In a previous post, I had mentioned the use of Google Tools for Educators.  Many of you might have looked in to it and some of you probably didn’t see the benefit of using this tool at that time.  I’d like to revisit Google Tools for Educators in this post and invite anyone to share experiences and educational uses of this tool.  Below are a few ways in which you can use these tools in education. 

Google Calendar

• Students can keep track of upcoming events, assignment due dates, field trips, etc.
• Parents can keep track of due dates for assignments, Back to School Night, Parent Conferences, Open House, school council meetings, and so on.
• Principal’s can post important school events to share with teachers, parents and community members.
• Create school schedules for the Library, Computer lab, conference rooms, etc.
• List professional development dates

Google Docs

• Have access to office tools such as word processing, spreadsheets, forms, and presentation software.
• Access your files on any computer.
• Share and collaborate on documents in real time without having to email documents to each other.
• No need to worry about using a PC or a Mac.
• Create Forms to gather feedback, give quizzes, etc.
• Share the weekly bulletin instead of printing it out every week.
• Teachers can review student work without having a stack of papers to go through.
• Upload existing MS Office documents and continue working on them online.
• Office staff can work on MEMOS or any document without worrying about having the correct version of the file.

Google Groups

•      Create online meeting places to share resources.
•      Teachers can use Groups to have online discussions with students.
•      Teachers can have students submit their assignments electronically to the group.
•      Teachers can post assignments and share files with students.
•      Grade level teams can share resources with each other.
•      Administrators can post newsletters, agendas, bulletins etc. for the staff
•      Administrators can have online discussions with staff members and/or parents.
•      Work in a secure environment.

 These are just a few suggestions to help us become more resourceful and save time along the way.  With more possible cuts coming our way, we need to keep our options open and be open to new tools to help us get through the madness.  How are you using Google Tools?