Middle School Matters

Free Kindle!, (please Jack and/or Jeff!), Free iTunes (U), and Free Second Life!

News & Events

1. Start planning for October's Month of the Young Adolescent!

2. Ohio Middle School Association's Annual Conference, February 19-20, 2009 in Sandusky, OH.

3. Institute for Middle Level Leadership. July 20-23

4. Best Practices for Student Success. July 28 & August 6

5. NMSA Annual Conference, October 30 - November 1 (Video sample)

6. Summer Teacher-to-Teacher professional development program registration is open. (free)

7. Canadian National Middle Years Conference, November 5, 6, & 7 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

8. Rick Stiggins has a new Balanced Assessment Manifesto posted at NMSA's website.

9. NMSA is looking for a new journal editor. Applications due August 1, 2008.

10. Michigan Association of Middle School Educators Elections are posted:

PRESIDENT-ELECT: Alice Seppanen

TREASURER: Charlene Pike

Suzanne Lappin, Member-At-Large

Nic Cooper, Region 2

David Feldman, Region 4

Mary Ann Schmedlen, Region 8

Sherry Lambertson, Region 11

David Baldus, Region 12

Joe Somerville, Region 13

11. Looking for news from Ontario Middle Level Educators Association. If you have any, drop us a line.

12. Wisconsin Association of Middle Level Educators annual conference is coming up October 9-10, 2008.

13. The New England League of Middle Schools has a whole bevy of professional development planned for the 2008-2009 school year and you can access it here.

14. ADVISORY IDEAS NEEDED: NELMS is putting together an Advisory Resource page with lessons for you to use. They are asking for submissions here by January 1, 2009. If your entry is used, you will be entered in a raffle for a 3 day NELMS conference ticket.

15. Second Life Education Community Conference (SLEDcc) Announcement: (From the webpage...) "The Second Life Education Community Conference 2008 will take place in conjunction with the Official Second Life Community Convention 2008 in Tampa, Florida (US) and in the virtual world of Second Life on September 5 - 7th, 2008. All members of the Second Life educational community and anyone with an interest in the use of virtual worlds technology in education is invited to attend! Please note: Registration fees cover both the SLEDcc and SLCC events! Conference registration and fees only apply to those going to SLEDcc/SLCC in Tampa, in-world only participants do not need to register or pay any fees." Here's your chance to attend a free conference during the first week of school. The conference schedule can be found here.

Shout outs:

1. Jeff Bezos, we'd love to put a free Kindle through its paces at NMSA '08 ...

2. Ron in New Jersey, thanks for the email.

3. The lake trout at 140 feet down who saw my lure at 100 feet down and took it last week, you were delicious ...

4. Our international friends - even the Spammers!

Copyright Fight looms over College Textbooks

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=54684;_hbguid=1a943a6a-3bb8-4f98-9bd7-ab945e14b76c

The high cost of college textbooks has spawned a new battleground in the fight to keep students from downloading copyright-protected materials over the internet: textbook file sharing.

Court upholds Teacher firing for looking at porn

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=54693;_hbguid=80f259df-0ff1-423f-8e9c-c0b047174269

iTunesU (K-12)

News and information about Middle School.

Podcast #38 The Mail Bag Grab Bag: Eclectic discussions this week on Middle Level Education!

News & Events

1. Start planning for October's Month of the Young Adolescent!

2. Innovative Practices Across the Curriculum, June 24 in Minnesota.

3. Institute for Middle Level Leadership. July 13-16 & 20-23

4. Best Practices for Student Success. July 28 & August 6

5. NMSA Annual Conference, October 30 - November 1

6. Summer Teacher-to-Teacher professional development program registration is open. (free)

7. Michigan Joint Education Conference, June 25 in Holt, MI. Integrated Education Conference.

Reader/Listener Mailbag:

Topics include news (YouTube, Plagarism, and Google Cell phone OS), events and Web 2.0. Specifically, we talk about social bookmarking and using video in the classroom.

News and Information

NMSA Annual Conference, October 30 - November 1, 2008

Housing and Transportation updated on website. Make housing arrangements via their website for discounts on hotel rooms.

1. Students want more use of gaming technology in their learning. 64% of students report that they are gamers and consider that a must have in their schools. Only 15% of teachers see that as a means of effective teaching. Source: eSchool News.

2. DimensionM: Learn Algebra through a Second Life style interface and solve problems in the game that teach algebraic concepts.

3. Recommended game resources:

* Create a graphic novel from a traditional novel using Comic Life or spice up your notes with creative visuals using the Comic Life software to mix up your notes and presentations.

* Restaurant Empire: Create a restaurant, choose your recipes, hire your chefs and manage your empire in either a free limited version or a full pay version. More simulation games from this group here. (NMSA)

* Oil Tycoon: start with a small plot of land, some cash and build your empire to rule the world!

* Civilization: Take on the attributes of a past civilization and guide it through time. The always entertaining version of "what if" in History. Barzun, Graff, and Breisach (Historiographers and researchers) might take issue with it to a degree, but it gives the student a way to investigate what happened vs. what might have happened if they knew then what you know now. All that without worrying about messing up the space/timeline thingy and figuring out a Heisenberg Principle Compensator device . . .

* Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom: Online simulation of China's Middle Kingdom.

* Health Care simulators.

Online Insight: Challenges beat Cheerleading

Simply providing online discussion forums is not enough to keep students engaged in virtual courses, according to educators who are well-versed in online instruction: For real learning to occur in an online setting, virtual-school educators must establish clear rubrics and enforce rules for participation.

Check out the article for more information.

Wikis

Learn about Wikis and discover ways they're being used. (Wiki-Waki-Woo!)

Wikis have great potential as an educational tool for both teachers and students because they encourage collaborative learning and resource sharing. Among the things they can be used for are:

- Collaborative writing

- Brainstorming

- Creation and organization of content and study guides

- Lesson summaries

- Group notetaking

- Dissemination of classroom information

- Literature circles

- Collaborative textbooks

- Resource collections

- Vocabulary study

Comparing Hemispheres - project between schools in NY and Australia

Westwood Schools Wiki - online space for Camilla, GA students

Welker's Wikinomics - AP Economics class at Shanghai American School

Hanalee Book Wiki - 5th graders study of the novel, Turn Homeward, Hannalee

Arbor Heights Elementary School Wiki - wiki as a school web site

Flat Planet Wikispace - students in Canada and UK examine environmental issues

Photosharing with Flickr Workshop - wiki to provide resources for workshop

wikiHow - collaborative project to build world's largest how-to manual

Create a wiki at WikiSpaces.

Good spot to find more information about a variety of technologies. Common Craft.

Blogging

2. Learn about blogs and create your own - you will use your blog throughout this project.

3. Explore how educators are using blogs to support teaching and learning.

RSS

4. Learn about RSS and create your own Bloglines account.

5. Subscribe to blogs in order to keep up with new posts.

Photos and Images

6. Learn about online photo sharing and explore Flickr.

7. Share photos of your own on Flickr.

8. Have some Flickr fun with mash-ups.

9. Use an online image generator to create classroom resources.

Comic Life- A great little program that does a lot with pictures, graphics and words.