Random

HP's Create-a-Calculator Contest

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A terrific idea, the HP and Scholastic Create-a-Calculator Contest asks K-12 kids to design a better calculator.

Students may already be familiar with the useful and timesaving tasks that calculators can perform. Now, you and your teachers can challenge them to stretch their engineering, math, and design skills to invent the calculator of their dreams! There's no limit: Ideas can range from practical to fantastic, artistic to scientific. Entries may focus on a calculator's cosmetics, design, functionality, or a mixture of all three. Younger kids, for example, may wish to develop the shape, dimensions, colors, or the overall look and feel of a calculator. Older students and those with advanced math skills may wish to gear their entries more toward functionality: technical features, performance factors, or scientific and graphing abilities. They may even want to invent a new application or function key to enhance performance.

[raelity bytes]

Instant Messaging: Away Statements

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Making a Statement, in Absentia Away messaging, a function of instant messaging, has become something of an obsession on college campuses, providing communication, entertainment, procrastination and social life all rolled into one. "Students go online just to read their friends' away messages," said David Jacobson, a professor of anthropology at Brandeis University, who has taught courses examining away messages. "It's a whole new dynamic that's really remarkable."

Book chapters out in the wild.

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The cover of Content Syndication with RSS I find this oddly terrifying, but sample chapters of my book Content Syndication with RSS are appearing all over the web. Support your local syndicator by visiting Syndic8, who have Chapters 2 and 4 for download and Newsgator who has Chapter 2 for online perusal.
[Ben Hammersley.com]

O'Reilly is publishing Ben Hammersley's new book Content Syndication with RSS. A couple of chapters are available for viewing at the sites listed above. Ben's site is a good source of information on issues regarding RSS and how people are using it to share information.

About

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I am the principal at Lewis Elementary School in Portland, Oregon. I use this site mainly to make notes to myself about technology and how it can be used by teachers and students to gain a greater understanding of their world, and as a means to tell their stories...

Questions or comments can be addressed to
tim at lauer dot com

Books and Publications

"Innovative Approaches To Literacy Education: Using The Internet To Support New Literacies" (International Reading Association), Contributor, Chapter 10, Bee Stings, Wooden Blocks, and Web Browsers

Images Laur Betancourt4C"Bringing Children and the Internet Together (Bill Harp professional teaachers library)" Tim Lauer, Kathy Betancourt

Screenshot 04-1Scott Foresman Internet Guide:
ISBN 0-673-62225-8

Recent Articles/Interviews

"What is a Blog? Educators Discover the Newest From of Immediate Communication",
by Craig Colgan , American School Board Journal, July 2005

“Google Maps inspire creativity”
by Corey Murray, eSchool News Online, June 15, 2005.

“How do you communicate with students who have grown up with
technology? Schools are looking to technology for the answer.” by Kevin
Delaney, Wall Street Journal, Jan 17, 2005, pp R4.

Recent Presentations

Lessons Learned: A Panel Discussion about Creating Educational Communities Online,
National Education Computing Conference - June 30, 2005

Effective Weblogs in Education: How to Create, Manage, and Communicate!
National Education Computing Conference - June 28, 2005

Remixing Wikis with Rendezvous, Web Services and SchoolTool,
O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference - March 16, 2005

Where in the World is Buckman School...

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IMG_0304.JPG

Paulina locates Buckman School on an ariel photograph of the Buckman School neighborhood. This was part of a reading activity on writing and following directions using beginning map skills.
[Student News From Room 101]

Lynn Leake's classroom is starting to move with their classroom weblog. We hope to have a new design ready for her in a few days. This will include editing the index template to incorporate RSS feeds from several classroom weblogs that will flow into her main web site...

Test post from Class

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This is a test. This is only a test... Yesterday I taught my class at Pacific University . It is a survey course of technology use in education. It is for pre-service teachers.

As part of the days activities I introduced them to weblogs. Spent some time explaining what they are and how they work. Visited several education related sites include Will Richardson's Journalism class, and Pam Prichard's classroom.

Then had each of them set up a weblog on Blogger. By the end of the class a few of them were using their Blogger site as a note taking space. Example: Marlie's Blogger Site...

Only wish the free edition of Blogger generated RSS. Next term I'm going to have to talk to the IT folks about installing Movable Type for student use...