Mantz's Mission

Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has been influencing children and education for years.  Now PBS has taken an even deeper step into education.  I encourage you to explore PBS for Educators.  Some of the features provided on the website ranges from Professional Development that includes their PBS Teachers Live (free Media and Tech webinars) to Standards based curriculum resources to Family Resources.  Family Resources is composed of PBS for Kids, PBS Parents, and PBS Kids Play.

The designers of the PBS for Teachers website have also featured educational resources including Nova, Masterpiece classics, PBS for Kids, and Graphic Organizers. An additional enhancement offered is the ability to customize based on your resources and grade level.

Finally, I would like to pass on to all educators is this feature provided by PBS.  Educators can find great resources and lesson ideas from the educational packs posted here on PBS.  Here is the definition of an education pack as defined on the PBS website:

An Activity Pack is a set of educational resources focused on a theme and packaged in a widget-format that you can embed in your own class or social media web page.  Each pack includes links to PBS web sites and a set of activities by grade level.

Themes that compile the educational packs include:

• The Arts
• Health and Fitness
• Reading and Language Arts
• Science and Technology
• Social Studies

Each of theme options can be found within specific grade level options composed of Pre-K, K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.  Here is an example of the PBS educational Pack widget that one can embed into a website, blog, or class wiki.  This widget features the theme   “The Civil Right’s Movement in American Literature”.

Besides the ability to embed “Activity Packs” interested parties can post the selected widget directly to a social networking service, social bookmarking website, or even e-mail a friend the resource.

In all, I feel that PBS has truly stepped it up in providing resources for educators across the curriculum while adopting the realm of 21st Century learning and social media.   Therefore, I challenge each and every educator to take time and explore the wealth of resources provided here by PBS for you!

Participating teachers and students can assist in helping “Planet Earth” Go Green! Siemens “We Can Change the World Challenge“ is open for registration through March 15, 2010. The challenge is for students to create solutions for resolving environmental issues by starting with their own community. Participants can choose their appropriate grade level by selecting one of the options available on the Siemens site. Grade levels are broken down as:

1. K-2
2. 3-5
3. 6-8

Upon selecting the appropriate grade level participants will find student resources, step-by-step challenge process guidance, and an interactive classroom. The Siemens Challenge is designed using an inquiry based project that has students identify, research, and communicate their resolution with other participants. Students and Teachers will be competing for $100, 000 in grants and prizes. There is even an chance for them to appear on television as well as the Jumbotron in Times Square of New York City before presenting their project to the United Nations.

To sign-up and participate visit Siemens We Can Change The World.

Educators are always on the look out for something new to introduce and stimulate student learning through engagement.  Discovery Education has provided educators two new great resources: Ready Zone: Continuity of Learning and STEM Connect. These are available in the “Teacher Center” of Discovery Education. 

Ready Zone was created to provide opportunities for ongoing education of students absent long term or in case of school closings.  Educators can use resources and lesson plans as they are written or even modify them to meet standards that need to be stressed.  Resources are broken down by the following grade levels:

• K-2
• 3-5
• 6-8
• 9-12

The curriculum areas of Science, Math, Social Studies, and English/Language Arts are composed of various subtopics permitting a deeper focus for students.  For example, Social Studies is compiled of the options: Civics, Geography, American History, Ancient Civilizations, and World History.  When you select one of the subtopics a new page will appear providing a variety of videos accompanied by lesson plans, worksheets w/answer keys, and possibly a pre-created quiz.

On November 23rd, 2009 President Obama started his initiative “Educate to Innovate” focusing on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).  In support of President Obama’s plan  Discovery Education has collected resources and videos for middle school and high school students and teachers in each of the four “STEM” points of emphasis.  Upon selecting one of the specific disciplines a variety of career related videos and activities (PDF files) will appear on the new page.  There will also be a list of related content provided on each of the individual “STEM” focus pages as illustrated in this image.  

If you would like to view President Obama’s speech on this campaign view the following YouTube video (18:16 in length). 

Intellectual Property is defined as “creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.” by WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). Those of us involved in the wonderful realm of education deal with many facets that can be viewed under this umbrella.  Those facets include the use of images, music, videos created under copyright or even items educators have created and want to market.  The final point I just listed, items created and want to market, is the point of this blog post.

It was posted today on Plurk (one of my PLNs) by amix that Microsoft  China has taken the coding of this social networking service and created an identical version under Microsoft’s name for implementation in Asia.  It is the opinion of several folks across the globe that Microsoft should be held accountable for their actions and that they do not have the right to infringe on another person’s Intellectual Property. After all, Microsoft would have their lawyers contacting you if that was done to one of their products.

Please read this re-post by Amix and consider joining the movement in supporting the right of small groups/individuals to create items without the big companies taking over and acting beyond the laws that apply to everyone.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but blatant theft of code, design, and UI elements is just not cool, especially when the infringing party is the biggest software company in the world. Yes, we’re talking about Microsoft. Blerg.

Here’s the short of what we think has happened:

• Microsoft China officially launched its own microblogging service, MSN Juku/Hompy/Mclub, some time in November, 2009.
• The service’s design and UI is by and large an EXACT copy of Plurk’s innovative left-right timeline scrolling navigation system. (see screen captures below)
• Some 80% of the client and product codebase appears to be stolen directly from Plurk! (see evidence below).
• Plurk was never approached nor collaborated in any capacity with MS on this service.
• As a young startup, we’re stunned, shocked, and unsure what to do next and need your support and suggestions.

We were first tipped off by high profile bloggers and Taiwanese users of our community that Microsoft had just launched a new Chinese microblogging service that looked eerily similar to Plurk. Needless to say we were absolutely shocked and outraged when we first saw with our own eyes the cosmetic similarities Microsoft’s new offering had with Plurk. From the filter tabs, emoticons, qualifier/verb placement, Karma scoring system, media support, new user walkthroughs to pretty much everything else that gives Plurk its trademark appeal, Microsoft China’s offering ripped off our service. See for yourself: (Microsoft MClub on top, Plurk on bottom).

A little overly inspired, wouldn’t you agree? Of course, we understand others will always be motivated to emulate and take bits and pieces of visual and functional elements from widely successful services and carve out localized versions. Plurk was already Taiwan’s biggest microblogging service, 10x bigger than Twitter in that market alone, and emerging as Asia’s answer to Twitter in many of the biggest countries in East Asian, so naturally Microsoft probably saw some potential in piggybacking off the success of our unique service and launching something similar in a related market like China. Ultimately if something works, others will copy it and try to adapt it to another market, be it another vertical or another locale. It’s the nature of the web. And for the most part, we don’t get bothered by clones. Of course, there will always be exceptional circumstances where we feel wholly wronged, both legally and more important, morally, and this one just happens to be one of those rare cases. That it is Microsoft doing the copying in broad daylight makes it even more incredulous.

Let me explain. If this was just a case of visual inspiration gone too far, we could probably have lived with it. We would have taken the time to reach out to Microsoft, get colour on the matter and try to amicably resolve it. That’s not the case here. This is something far more sinister. On closer inspection, we found that MUCH of the codebase and data structures that Microsoft’s MClub uses are identical snapshots of our code. Microsoft has taken Plurk’s custom developed libraries, css files and client code and just ported them directly over to their service without any attempt to even mask this! Here are just 3 small examples of literally hundreds we have found. Any developer will be able to see that this is basically copied and stolen code.

Some users in the blogosphere even speculated that Microsoft Mclub/Juku was some sort of official partnership we’d struck with Microsoft to clear a re-entry into China after our earlier censorship in the region behind the Great Firewall of China, prior to which we were the #1 microblogging service in the country. Let’s clear the air around this. While many reputable internet companies have forged solid partnerships with Plurk, valuing our innovation and market leadership in Asia, Microsoft was absolutely not one of them. We were never contacted by any party at M$ to collaborate on such a venture nor did we give any prior written or verbal permission to anyone on their side to take our code, take our CSS, and copy the essence and ethos of our service.

We’re still in shock asking why Microsoft would even stoop to this level of wilfully plagiarising a young and innovative upstart’s work rather than reach out to us or innovate on their own terms. Of course, it just hits that much closer to home when all your years of hard work and effort to create something unique are stolen so brazenly. All the more ironic considering Microsoft has often been leading the charge on fighting for stronger IP laws and combating software piracy in China.

So what next? We’re not entirely sure but we are exploring our options. We have been seeking advice from respected colleagues, responding to press inquiries and gathering facts on the timeline of events and parties involved here to understand why and how this took place.

To our millions of loyal users: We also need your sincere help. We need your loud and emphatic voices. We need you to help us get out this important story to anyone and everyone you know who can raise awareness on what has taken place. Please translate this story into your respective languages, share it with local media, bloggers and friends, and help us fight the good fight for your beloved Plurk.

Press contact: Dave Thompson (dave@plurk.com), Plurk Asia Pacific Press Contact, +64 9 889 0610

We educators are always on the look out for something new and cool that can enhance our way to collaborate with others.  Well, thanks to Jennifer Pugsley and Charlie Mahoney of Turning Point Learning Center in Emporia, Kansas I learned about Tokbox.  Tokbox is a free, web based video collaboration tool.  Yes, free!  Another excellent point that will keep the IT Department from getting too upset is the fact that there is nothing to download and install.  (The only concern the IT Department may have is the bandwidth used to stream your video conversation.)

So, I set out taking on the challenge placed in front of me to learn about this new tool.  I asked if anyone on my main social networking site, Plurk, would join in the evaluation process of tokbox.   I was joined by Eddie A. (JettaGLI), and two close friends from my former school district.  During the original evaluation we discovered that folks can join a conference by just using audio to collaborate with the others using video.  Eddie was successful in sharing photos from his Flickr account as well as showing a presentation from SlideShare.   I found that a YouTube video could be played within the conference window for all participants to view and control.  The interesting point about this feature is how the feed comes via tokbox.  Thus, the participants behind the firewall could see the video.  Another very nice application included with tokbox is Etherpad.  You can have a private or public Etherpad used within your conference.  Each person participating in collaborating via the Etherpad are identified by the color associated to their typing.  A great feature provided by Etherpad is the ability to upload or download in a variety of documents to go along with the “save version” option to revert to a previous saved copy if needed.  One of the lesser features that we felt was a really nice turned out to be the links for each video, Etherpad, presentation that can be re-visited by just clicking on them as you browse back over the main options.  As we continued to chat and play with the features the school day ended with us hoping to reconnect.

Later that evening Eddie and I hosted another session in hopes of truly testing the limit of 20 participants that tokbox says can participate in a conference.  Unfortunately, we were only able to get 6 people at one time to take the challenge.  In testing tokbox that evening we had participants on PC and Macs collaborating and sharing resources without any issues.  One of our participants, Dyane Smokorowski (aka Mrs.Smoke) even used CamTwist to share her Mac Book Pro desktop so we could see her demonstrate “How To” processes.  Unfortunately, it did not come through as clearly as one would hope.   Another thing we discovered dealt with bandwidth.  We had one participant connecting to the Internet via his Alltel connection.  Needless to say, he had troubles communicating with us due to delays while the rest of us were streaming smoothly.

Tokbox provides a wealth of other  creative options for it’s users.  One of the commonly used features is the ability to record and e-mail video messages to friends.  These video e-mails can be for some simple message or for special moments including holidays via the templates hosted by tokbox.  Tokbox also provides users the ability to embed it’s conference feature within a blog, wiki, or website.    In addition, the opportunity to embed tokbox is now officially part of Ning networks.  I have even went to the point of adding it to my Ning site that is used for promoting future teachers to districts looking to hire young educators.   Click on this thumbnail picture to see an example of tokbox’s Ning feature.

Finally, I hope you consider watching the following overview video I created to show the features and functionality of tokbox.  The video is 11 minutes in length.

Free online screen recorder

All in all, I have been impressed with the features of tokbox and the potential ability to have several people involved in a single video conference.  Maybe the challenge of hosting 20 people simultaneously can be answered after everyone reads this post and lets me know that they want to join the party.  After all, I plan using this site on October 5, 2009 with my pre-service students so we can bring in educators across the globe to discuss how social networking and media can strengthen us professionally.

It was a quiet evening when the winds of change arrived with the approaching storm.  As we all know too well, storms can provided desperately needed moisture and enjoyable temperatures.  Well in our case, the winds lowered the temperatures outside to a much more bearable degree.  It was this setting that inspired and aided in getting my mind wrapped around this blog entry.    This post focuses on the winds of change or renaissance (rebirth) of an education  framework I strongly believe in – Levels of Teaching Innovation (LoTi).

Education has experienced a variety of trends in pedagogy ranging from a one room school house to multiple classroom structures to the virtual schools of today.  These changes are driven by the need to further develop one’s own skills to think, research, solve problems, and collaborate with others.  These same changes have been viewed in the revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy.  Thus, LoTi too has adjusted to meet the “Winds of Change” in education.  Dr. Chris Moersch developed an educational framework in 1994 known as Levels fo Technology Implementation.  This framework was designed to assist educators in enhancing classroom instruction while integrating technology.  Levels ranged from classrooms having no or little technology for student use to levels where teachers begin to permit students to take ownership in their own curriculum with the teacher taking on the role of facilitator.  Then 2007 arrived.  The International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) established newly refreshed National Education Standards for Students (NETS-S) along with standards for teachers (NETS-T) and administrators (NETS-A) over the next two years.  These new NETS ignited the spark to turn up the “HEAT” in LoTi.  Dr. Chris Moersch and his staff met the challenge by revamping the LoTi framework.  Changes included updates to the online survey, classroom observations, and the emphasis of “HEAT” as the core to their name being re-defined as Levels of Teaching Innovation.  ”HEAT” stands for higher order thinking, engaged learning, authentic learning, and technology use.  The key to successfully measuring the “HEAT” in classroom is to cut out technology then evaluate the “HEA…”  To learn more about the further development of HEAT and explaination about the re-defined name please watch the following video provided by Miguel Guhlin via Edublogs.tv

As mentioned earlier, in emphasizing classroom instruction through the integration of “HEAT”, LoTi revised their “DETAILS” educator assessment survey from focusing just on current instruction practices (CIP), Personal Computer Use (PCU) and LoTi.

The areas of focus (CIP, PCU, LoTi)along with a bar graph respresenting the DETAILS for the 21st Century of this educator ranging from Low Priority to High Priority as viewed in this screen shot has been changed to truly reflect the new enhancements of the revised LoTi framework.

In this screen image you will notice the new enhancements to LoTi’s Digital Age survey, of which, LoTi has mapped the survey questions to the NETS-T Standards.  You will notice that both “DETAILS” and “Digital Age” surveys display professional developments needs.  The visual difference comes in what is identified on this survey results page below the five bar graphs.  Yep, you read it correctly.  LoTi, Partnership for 21st Century Learning, Marzano’s Instructional practices, Daggett’s Rigor and Relevance, as well as Webb’s Depth of Knowledge all have been included to determine where you are on those scales in educational methodology.  For those of you not familiar with or want a refresher on the educational methodologies integrated into LoTi’s Digital Age survey, I have listed links for you to visit:

• Partnership for 21st Century Learning
• Marzano’s Instructional Practices
• Daggett’s Rigor and Relevance (Miguel Guhlin explains how LoTi maps to Daggett’s material)
• Webb’s Depth of Knowledge

I hope that this post has enlightened your understanding to the “Winds of  Change” that LoTi has went through to further develop “Teaching Innovations” that assists in turning up the “HEAT” in schools.  As Dr. Moersch always says “May the LoTi be with you!”

Podcast as defined on “Podhead” – PODCAST: The word podcast was originally constructed by the words “iPod” and “boradcast”. Later, the expression POD was redefined to mean “Personal On Demand”, so that podcasting came to mean “Personal On Demand CASTING” or “Personal transmitions available for download”. So, a podcast is a series of related shows available on the internet, that can be played back on an MP3 player. Besides a number of episodes a podcast consists of an RSS feed, that describes the podcasts and its individual episodes.

The embedded video is my recorded Podstock 2009 presentation with Brian Richter of USD #376 in Sterling, Kansas. Brian addresses his use of podcasting as a replacement for written reports and student collaboration/sharing of projects via Moodle.

Sterling Online Learning Community

Podcasting Tools:

Blue Snowball

iPod Touch and Thumbtack mic I would suggest either audiomemos or iTalk (free applications).

SanDisk Sansa m250 2GB MP3 player

Skype and Supertintin or Pretty May Recorder

Apple’s Garageband on a Mac Book or Mac Book Pro.

Audacity cross platform sound recorder

Audioboo

Vocaroo Audio recording using a flash application that is web based. Very basic ability to record audio and then have option to embed or e-mail.

GeograffittiRecord a audio via your cell phone and have it geographical map your location of broadcast.

Free cell phone podcasting with drop.io

Podstock Roaving Reporter Assignment:
Voicemail
646-402-5683 x 51065

Podstock Podcast Project questions:

1. What are some of your favorite podcasting websites?

2. Where can I listen to podcasts other teachers have done so I can get ideas?

3. Do you prefer virtual or FTF conferences? Why?

4. What will be the first idea, site, or tool that you will share with your colleagues when you return to school/office?

5. When 2 web 2.0 tools can serve the same purpose, how do you choose which one to use?

6. How does student podcasting compare to “real world” podcasting?

7. What is your strategy for managing information and minimizing info overload?

8. What books would you suggest to others to further their understanding of education or technology?

9. What strategies do you use when selecting sessions at a conference?

10. What are your favorite topics to turn into a podcast?

Tony Vincent’s Podcasting Booklet Podcasting_Booklet.pdf

Podcasting Rubric TnC Podcast Rubric.pdf

Pre-service student PSA podcasts These are pre-service podcasts created based on public service announcements based on educational issues.

Interviews with students about technology and their projects.Mantz’s Mission podcasts

Podcasting and Education – January 2008 article from Campus Technology magazine

The Following items are cell phone podcasts created by participants of the Podstock 2009 presentation. Please keep in mind that these audio clips are embeded (new feature) without any editing. The reason for not editing is to show you the quality of the audio straight from drop.io

Over the last month I have been very fortunate to be asked to guest blog with a variety of other passionate educators.  Tim Holt and I exchanged blog posts about “What Inspires Me” as well as “Those Who Inspire”.  In doing so, I found it very motivating and enjoyable.  Therefore, I asked on Plurk if anyone would be interested in guest blogging too.  Well, I am honored once again to have a fantastic person and even more successful educator than myself be  a guest blogger.  This guest blogger is Lisa Parisi.  I was honored to meet Lisa Parisi and Christine Southard in San Antonio, Texas at the 2008 NECC.  It was Ginger Lewman from Turning Point Learning Center that introduced us.  I would also like to mention that Lisa cohosts a very successful Internet talkshow that EdTechTalk airs on Sunday Mornings.  Please take some time and participate in her online show! Now here is Lisa Parisi……..

This blog has been written by Lisa Parisi.

I have high hopes for education in general and public education in particular. I truly believe that education is the answer to all our world problems. But I am feeling tired and defeated at this time. I seem, each year, to come to a moment where it seems as if we haven’t made much progress. And now is the time. So here I am, the year winding down, and I look back on where we were in September and where we are now. And I find we are still having the same conversations. And I am tired of the platitudes.

“We must make sure our students are prepared for this unknown future they will face.”

“We must allow them to use technology in all its forms to break down walls, open doors, expand their horizons.”

“We must show students how to think and innovate and create.”

And we all mean what we say and truly believe it. And, yet, we never talk about how to do it. Individuals are successful and, thankfully, I get to connect with many of them online. But as a whole, what have we done to meet these goals?

A week ago I had a unique situation to deal with. I have 24 students in my class. 4 of them were pulled out for the morning for an enrichment program and 7 of them were working with the physical education teacher, helping the children with austism. They had learned about autism through Temple Grandin at the Celebration for Teaching and Learning and were anxious to put their learning to use. That left me with 12 children.

Since I couldn’t begin anything new, I told the students to finish up their projects. I sat looking around the room and saw some students recording audio for their favorite teacher photostories. So throughout the morning you could hear students calling out, “Recording. Silence, please.” Three children went out of the room to record a podcast about how our classroom runs. When they came back in, they said to me, “We made a lot of mistakes. You will need to do lots of editing.” I responded, “No, you are going to edit.” So they sat down with audacity and edited the podcast, adding music at the front and back. I had two students who had recorded a science presentation and were sitting at the computer editing the movie. I had two students at the scanner, scanning pictures to import into a wiki. A few more were working on podcast scripts.

And as I looked around, I realized that the classroom seemed chaotic. But it was a controlled chaos. The children were learning, engaged and excited. I happened to have a sub in the room at the time, since my co-teacher, Christine Southard, was out. I am sure the sub thought this was the most unruly bunch of students she had ever encountered, because they were talking over each other and to each other and across the room to me. They were making decisions about who I should see first for assistance. They were running the classroom. So the sub probably did not appreciate the class. But I did. I was proud of them and excited by the learning and collaboration going on in the room.

This is also the time of year that we are assessing students in reading, writing, and math. Christine and I do this periodically throughout the year to be sure our students are keeping up. And what we are finding now is the learning has far surpassed our expectations. Reading levels are soaring, writing skills are being mastered, math concepts are understood and applied. And all of this with this very “unruly, chaotic class”.

So what does this mean for us all? I wonder, over and over again, why this classroom is not the norm. Why are teachers not able to let go and see what the children can do, when given the reigns? Why aren’t administrators encouraging this type of behavior? Why are we still working on a one lesson per class format? Let’s allow students to demonstrate their learning in different ways. What are we waiting for? Enough with the platitudes. Let’s stop taking baby steps. It is time for huge leaps. I’m ready. Are you?

Images:

Baby steps‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29868516@N00/3283470811

‘Team work means….‘
www.flickr.com/photos/81576641@N00/257649874

‘Chaos‘
www.flickr.com/photos/7762644@N04/2391631937

Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has been influencing children and education for years. Now PBS has taken an even deeper step into education. I encourage you to explore PBS for Educators. Some of the features provided on the website ranges from Professional Development that includes their PBS Teachers Live (free Media and Tech webinars) to Standards based curriculum resources to Family Resources. Family Resources is composed of PBS for Kids, PBS Parents, and PBS Kids Play.

The designers of the PBS for Teachers website have also featured educational resources including Nova, Masterpiece classics, PBS for Kids, and Graphic Organizers. An additional enhancement offered is the ability to customize based on your resources and grade level.

Finally, I would like to pass on to all educators is this feature provided by PBS. Educators can find great resources and lesson ideas from the educational packs posted here on PBS. Here is the definition of an education pack as defined on the PBS website:

An Activity Pack is a set of educational resources focused on a theme and packaged in a widget-format that you can embed in your own class or social media web page. Each pack includes links to PBS web sites and a set of activities by grade level.

Themes that compile the educational packs include:

• The Arts
• Health and Fitness
• Reading and Language Arts
• Science and Technology
• Social Studies

Here is an example of the PBS educational Pack widget that one can embed into a website, blog, or class wiki. This widget features the theme for March “Women’s Rights: Then and Now”.

In closing, I challenge all educators to take time and review the benefits and offerings provided by PBS. Best wishes hunting for your gold nugget!

Inspiration as defined by Merriam-webster.com says it is “the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions: act of influencing or suggesting opinions.” It was after reading this definition of Inspiration I was able to get my mind wrapped around what I wanted to write in this blog entry. I am writing this post to accomplish two goals: 1) be a guest blogger in collaboration with Tim Holt of El Paso, Texas. 2) Express the inspiration and respect I developed for a middle school student in Connecticut.

What inspires me personally?

My family is the biggest influence and inspiring portion of my life. See, both of my parents were educators for a time. They always focused on what was best for the students and not what was best for them. My sister is the head of the education department at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs. She loves working with students and educators making them aware of all living animals, reptiles, and insects on Earth. She too wants to provide students every possible benefit of learning in a student-centered environment. I see this same attribute in how my wife approaches her daily task of working with a wide range of students in her high school special education classroom. Some students are high-level functioning students while others are either mentally or physically disabled. But that does not change her approach to finding ways to let each and every student become productive citizens. The other two inspirational parts of my life are my children. My four-year-old son is always asking questions. Then again, what young child does not want to learn about his surroundings? The thing that amazes me about him is his ability to remember the smallest trivial piece of information along with the passion his possess in wanting to attend pre-school. If he misses school, his world has been rocked. Then there is my nine year old. One of her biggest characteristics is her passion to help others. She is always looking out for the other person. If there is a way she could help a friend or classmate out, she will get involved. Honestly, she is my “Extreme Home Makeover” watcher. We watch the show together and there are not very many episodes she does not make a comment about wondering how to make a difference locally or globally.

Who else inspires?

Students inspire me. Thus, they are the focal point of my “Mantz’s Mission” podcasts and several blog posts. I feel that the key to improving education and the success of technology implementation rests in student engagement. I also see students and educators inspiring one another. For example, three educators that indirectly inspire me in how they inspire students are Kymberli Mulford, Ginger Lewman, and Paul Bogush. Kymberli has students assist her during professional development sessions with other educators. After all, what is more powerful than being an educator and learning from our students and understanding what inspires them to learn? She also said that several teachers observed the passion of the students and felt that they could integrate a variety of tools into their own classrooms. Next educator is Ginger Lewman. I strongly believe that this lady has as much energy, if not more, than Tim Holt and Kevin Honeycutt. Ginger is the Director of face-to-face learning at the Turning Point Learning Center in Emporia, Kansas. Ginger, along with a great cast of fellow educators, has developed a curriculum using project based learning activities to inspire their students to search out the answer and collaborate on developing possible resolutions to global issues. Through one of her projects, I learned of Paul Bogush in Connecticut. Paul and Ginger teamed up for a collaborative project that placed students in the role of debaters. The students had to research issues being addressed in the presidential campaigns. Upon completion of their research, each student team debated the other students using uStream channels embed into a wiki site. I observed this debate remotely and was just amazed by the ability of the students to communicate their points. Wow, what a powerful use of technology transparently to get across to their students the importance of understanding the issues and being able to communicate.

It is this transparent use of technology and openness to let students explore that inspires Paul’s students. I was honored to view and later interview one of Paul’s middle school students “Meg” about her digital story project. Paul had challenged the students to create a digital story about an African American that influenced others. Rosa Parks was Meg’s selection. To make a long story short, she continued to inspire me with her passion to learn and willingness to stand up (in this case “sit down”) for the rights of others. We continued to talk about how she was inspired by the lesser-known people that have influenced American history. Here is the digital story created by this young inspiring lady from Connecticut. Thanks again Meg for being such an inspiration!

Who are some of the lesser-known women that have inspired?

In recognition of March being Women History month, I have compiled a small list of inspiring, influential women from America’s past. Those ladies include Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, Mary Elizabeth Bowser, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rosa Parks, Carrie Chapman Catt, Susan Brownell Anthony, Amelia Earhart, and Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, USNR just for beginners.

In another challenge that meets present day inspirational women came from Heather Braum. The challenge was Ada Lovelace Day. Here are the ladies of technology that I feel deserve to be acknowledged and recognized for the time they take to inspire educators and students today with the integration of technology. Tammy Worcester, Dyane Smokorowski (Smoke), Becky Herl, Rita Betts, Laurie Korte, Sheryl McCoy, Teryl McGee, and Carol Skyring. To learn of additional ladies that influence technology please check out the list of my friends on Plurk.

Future inspiring and influential women that come to mind is Paul Bogush’s student and my nine-year-old daughter. Who are your up and coming inspirational ladies?

Finally, I hope you take a moment and step back to reflect upon those that influence and inspire you on a daily basis. Please keep in mind that educators can be viewed as role models to our students. It is this honor that educators should cherish as we look to inspire students today and tomorrow.