methods used to secure your LiveBinders files. Here are the enhancement details:

• Search for education resources by grade level or topic. To do this access the “Featured LiveBinders” tab and look under “LiveBinders Categories”. Then select “More Education”

• Manage your uploaded files. Click on the “My Binders” tab then select “Uploaded Files.” After making that selection users will select the specific files to remove if no longer in use.

• View the “Credits” of sites added to the LiveBinder. This option is located just below the title on the left hand side and to the right of the binder date.

Finally, I would like to applaud Tina and Barbara for their efforts in developing LiveBinders. Their efforts have been recognized by the AASL. They have received the AASL 2010 “Best Website for Teaching and Learning”.

We have two new features to tell you about that were are result of requests from our fellow binder organizers:

* New Colors – You can now change the colors of your LiveBinders.

In the edit menu, under properties, there is a pull-down menu to select the color:

* Add a Comment in “LiveBinder It” – You can now include a comment with a page that you are adding to a binder using “LiveBinder It”.

Add comment to imported website.

Here is where the comment will be inserted in your binder:

Illustrating where your added comment to website via LiveBinder It bookmark tool.

Also, we want to thank everyone who participated in our Earth Day – Go Paperless podcast. Here is the binder with the podcast and other great resources for going paperless in the classroom:

Paperless Earthday 2010

And we especially want to thank our users who provided us with feedback about features and about bugs that need to be fixed. We’ll be here working hard over these next few months, so feel free to continue to let us know if you have any questions or comments.

We hope you enjoy your summer!

I encourage everyone to provide your feedback to Barbara Tallent and Tina Schneider. Both ladies are excellent at responding and addressing any/all questions provided. Reach them via @LiveBinders on Twitter or send e-mail to feedback at livebinders dot com.

Today, MAY 12, advocates from across the country are tweeting for education technology funding. Funding for classroom technology is in jeopardy, but together we can make our tweets heard and urge Congress to fund the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program at $500 million for FY 2011. President Obama provided no funding for the program in his budget, but Congress does not have to agree with this recommendation.

Tweet these sample messages throughout the day, or create your own. Encourage your neighbors and colleagues to join the twitterfest, and if you have a blog, spread the word that way.
Here are some sample tweets, mostly under 100 characters so there’s room to retweet and personalize a bit. Or, make up your own!

* @TomHarkin #EETT Support innovation in learning & teaching. Fund #edtech at $500m
* @DavidObey #EETT Support innovation in learning & teaching. Fund #edtech at $500m
* @ThadCochran #EETT Support innovation in learning & teaching. Fund #edtech at $500m
* @RepToddTiahrt #EETT Support innovation in learning & teaching. Fund #edtech at $500m
* Our schools need 21st century education, #EETT. Fund #edtech at $500 m
* No funding for #edtech? No prep for 21st century. Fund #EETT at $500m
* I support #edtech. I vote. Fund #EETT at $500m in 2011
* As a principal/teacher/parent I know our kids need #edtech skills. Fund #EETT at $500m

Thank you for joining the effort! Together, we can make our voices heard!

http://www.edtechactionnetwork.org/

SimpleK12 EdTech Blog Exchange

In looking through my Tweets one day I read that SimpleK12 was looking to sponsor an “EdTech” blog swap for any educator willing to participate. I thought it would be great to possibly learn about other educators. As it turned out I was partnered with a fantastic and very inspiring educator from Alabama- Mrs. Bianca Gaither. This lady makes me wish my children would be fortunate enough to learn from her! In sharing possible blog ideas, I asked if she would be willing to write a post with her students participating. Lets just say they did not let her down when it came to participating and sharing their thoughts. So, to avoid any further delay here is Mrs. Gaither and her students’ blog post.

Wow! That is about all I can say right now. On Wednesday afternoon I wrote the following prompt on the board for my students and had them to write:

What do you think about using technology in school? Is it important? Why? Does it help you learn better? How?

It was very interesting to read as the students began pouring up to me, handing me their papers. The first thing I noticed was that almost all of them said something about looking on the Internet to ‘research’ or find answers. I guess I should have expected this, since our school is very limited in the area of technology resources, and when they do get to use the computers it is usually for just that (research). One student wrote that technology was very important because it helped people score ARMT & SAT (our state standardized tests) faster. It made me quiver, because this answer only justified the fact that we are way to focused on testing and are slowly being pushed away from just having students LEARN!!!

I came across one that said specifically, “I’d love to check email! I mean – duh isn’t it obvious that we need to have that?” First I burst into laughter, then I decided to ask the rest of the class how they felt about that statement. The class began to roar with excitement and then something great began to unfold.

The students began to tell me different ways that email would be useful. They talked about how great it would be great to communicate with the outside world right from our classroom. They said that since we were studying animals we could go on some of the larger zoo websites (or even our own) and find email addresses for the animal experts and send them questions before we started the unit.

As they were all thinking of the many places that they could email to ask questions, (yes, they began going through the different units they learned in fourth grade…I for one was excited that they remembered!), I could hear a faint voice in the back sighing and saying, “Woooww, what if we all had our own laptop computer right on our desk.” I brought her statement to the classes attention and they definitely got excited then. I asked what they would do with these, and the first response was being able to learn to type so they could get written work done faster and NEVER have to write again. One of my students that always has difficulty with spelling was mumbling and smiling to himself about the help of the red squiggly lines in Microsoft Word and how he could do so much better on writing without the threat of his spelling errors in the way. He said he was thinking of all the papers that he wouldn’t have to see spelling errors corrected on anymore. The students also stated that they would be able to play games that follow our curriculum and things like multiplication facts and other math skills would be more fun to learn. They also said more about being able to get up to date information on what we were learning. They were very adamant about the fact that our textbooks were really old and there were new things (i.e. Pluto no longer being a planet) that they could be learning out there. One of my kids said, “Mrs. Gaither, things are changing all the time and we kinda need to know this stuff!” You know, she was exactly right about it. Many of them said that they liked the idea of not having to share the lab, because when they really get into completing their projects they have to save and get off because another class is coming in. I couldn’t do anything but shake my head in agreement with them, because it is true.

The next topic of discussion was Facebook/Twitter, and immediately I could feel myself twitching as I envisioned some of my fourth grade students’ FB pages that I have run across (scary!)! I asked them how they could possibly work that in to education. They finally came up with making a kid version of Facebook where students can find other classes, pop up chat, and exchange info on their wall. One students thought it would be good to call it a whiteboard instead of a wall. They thought it would be able to connect with other classes around the world and learn about their culture. They also said that they could use it to have study sessions with your class or someone that is studying it somewhere else. They said that this way they could come back to their classroom and share their new learning. I could really see the bells turning in their heads and mine as I began thinking about how I could set this up and make some money from it!

The conversations continued to move on and the final question was asked:

Do we need it and why? Many of the kids talked about the time it would save them. They also mentioned that we could save lots of paper.Some even brought up the fact that they use it at home so it would be just as easy to use it at school. They really were all about the fact that the information would be current and easy to access, and they felt it would help them out a lot with things like spelling and answering questions that the teacher can’t. The most common answer was that it was ‘just cool’. I could accept that, because even as an adult when I think something is ‘cool’ I WANT to learn more and do more with it.

We are in school with 1,000 students that have to share a lab with a technology teacher that meets with one class from each grade level everyday. Technology is important, but it only works when you have access to it. Many of the projects that we do could take a few weeks, but are dispersed sparingly because we usually have to take much longer. This conversation opened my eyes to see through the eyes of my kids. We have so many things out there such as Facebook, Myspace, educational games, online tutors, etc. yet we don’t have it accessible in our schools. If the students are getting onto these things at home and using them and we say that we are creating real world, life long experiences for our students, why don’t our classrooms represent this? The children have the hunger for technology, but don’t always have the resources. Why are we paying so much for text books when we have access to so many resources that are much more valuable to our students. It was very disheartening to hear that our state won’t allow us to buy technology resources with textbook money. We’ve got to get away from seeing technology as a ‘toy’, and realize that this could be another manipulative, another resource, another student edition, but it would be one that is constantly current and more meaningful than turn to chapter 9, page 111… When are we going to make our classrooms TRUE real-life, meaningful experiences? In the real world technology is everywhere, so why not in our classrooms too?

-BSG