Education Technology that is changing Alaska

2010-02-28T12:00:00.001-09:00

Douweosinga blog has this great tool that allows you embed how many states you have visited or how many countries world wide you have visited as well. I can see using this as geography project or as a math project where you use the numbers from all the students in a statistical analysis.

visited 19 states (38%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

The Downside to iPhones

2010-01-14T09:53:00.000-09:00

How many people that have iPhones think about what would happen if they lose or have their phone stolen? Do they have safegaurds in place to protect against the data that is stored on their phone? I think this is one of the most overlooked aspects of smart phones is that we do not take precautions against in favor of quick and easy access. If you are keeping personal information stored on your iphone, like being signed into web applications for easy posting, what could a person do if they had access to your iphone? Is your work email set up on your iPhone without a password to access it? Do you have apps installed that would help track your lost or stolen iPhone? Most people I have a feeling would say no and have never thought about this ever happening, but the bigger question should be not if but when it will happen to you or someone you know. Below are some links to some articles that everyone that has an iPhone should read in case you are unfortunate enough to lose or have your iPhone stolen espeically if you use it to access senstive information.

Here are some article to read incase it does not turn up - I would call the phone company as soon as possible. How well they work, I do not know but know but if you have lost your iPhone or want to take precautions, this could help.

lost-iphone-lessons-learned

how-to-recover-from-a-lost-or-stolen-iphone

what_do_if_you_lost_your_iphone

lost-your-iphone-fear-not-video

what-happens-when-your-iphone-gets-stolen

6-ways-to-find-track-lost-stolen-iphone-free

six-things-i-learned-from-losing-my-iphone-3g

http://db.tidbits.com/article/10359

Why is technology important in schools?

2010-01-05T09:02:00.000-09:00

Those that are in the field of education and more specificly educational technology were we work with teachers on integrating technology know that sometimes it is hard to quantify to a teacher about the usefulness of how technology can improve and enhance your classroom experience for thier students and themselves. I have a co-worker who stated that basically "we need to enlighten teachers that technology should be the new way to do things instead of just one more thing". If technology is just "neat" or is "one more thing" then what added value does this bring to the classroom for a teacher who is already short on time? This is where having a wide array of choices but knowing exactly what might enhance a classroom is essential. I will be doing a day long session on 20 sites that teachers should know and a large portion of that is developing a PLN (Personal Learning Network). I could ramble on but one of the better post I have read on the value of a PLN can be found here in an article called "The Value of Educational Technology" written by Dave Andrade.

2009-12-17T15:26:00.000-09:00

Teaching A People's History is a wonderful site that a History or English teacher could use to enhance their lesson plans on a given topic. Teaching A People's History has detailed lesson plans in PDF format for a wide range of topics and time periods that will push students of all abilities to critically analyze a given topic deeper and in meaningful ways that are not always apparent. One unit I looked at was on the Potato Famine that decimated Ireland. After presenting the facts and extended reading, it asked students to start to think about what were some of the problems that led to such a preventable disaster. At the end of the unit it laid blame not just on the English landlords but the farmers as well as the church. If you would like to learn more about the Howard Zinn Project of Teaching A People's History, please read the Frequently Asked Questions.

Skype An Author

2009-12-07T22:59:00.004-09:00

Skype an author is a terrific site for classroom teachers, mainly at the elementary and middle school level, where teachers and students can do a video-conference interview session with the author. The first 15 to 20 minutes are usually free as it is a meet and greet session with the author, but longer sessions can be arranaged for a fee, usually for an hour interview is around $100 to 300 dollars and some are willing to work with Title One schools for a discount. They have a list of authors that you can search and see what they are willing to do. This may well be worth the price for a classroom teacher to bring an author alive to their students that without Skype or other technology could not be done 5 years ago.

If you have never used Skype it is a wonderful technology that allows people to communicate using voice, chat, or webcams (video-conference). Other technology can also do similar things, but Skype seems to be the most popular.

Wavy Graffiti

2009-12-04T10:49:00.004-09:00

Graffiti Generator is a neat little online app that anyone can make their own graffiti. You have 7 different fonts to work with on making your logos. There is no embed ability that I discovered so you will have to take a screen shot and upload your photos to your website and embed them that way. Who has not wanted to be their own artist with such neat flair. Below is a sample of what I may use to spice up the banner across the top of my blog.

The Choices Program

2009-12-03T12:11:00.004-09:00

The Choices Program was shown to me by a social studies teacher I work with here in Fairbanks and found it to be a very useful website for teachers teaching current events. They have detailed lesson plans that include extended reading, video segment links, and additional websites for even more resources. They add about one new topic a month and have topics that focus on US and World Events. They also have other lesson plans that you can pay for if you want the complete lesson plan for a given topic, but they do give you a wealth of information without purchasing anything.

Wordle - I have a dream

2009-12-02T15:26:00.005-09:00

Wordle has gotten a lot of press over the past year, but like any new tech tool it takes the brain a few laps around the pool to figure out how to use the tool. So after playing with and reading how other teachers have been using this interesting tool in their instruction, I thought wouldn't it be great to see how some watershed moments of history look like in Wordle. So I choose to use the speech, "I Have A Dream" by Dr. King as my example. This and many more speeches are all can be found at a website called American Rhetoric It would be interesting to have kids think about what key words they found important and then compare it to what Wordle generated. If there are differences then discuss what they are and place in context some of the words that really pop out in the Wordle.

I picked up one trick that I found very useful, was to use ~ to combine words. If you notice the phrase "I Have a Dream" is together so to use this trick you would need to turn it into "I~Have~a~Dream" anywhere in the text that you choose to use. It does take a little more time, but for phrases that should be together it makes for a more powerful Wordle.

Tabbloid

2009-11-25T13:46:00.002-09:00

Tabbloid is a neat tool for creating a pdf of your rss feeds. So if you have a some great math rss feeds but have teachers that are not inclined to to subscribe to rss feeds this would be a great way to introduce them to a wealth of information without having to set up an rss reader. The layout looks great and will arrive to in your inbox on your email. You do not need an account so even your students could set up their own tabbloid from rss feeds for current events, topics they are interested in, and much much more. Give it a try and see if you like it.

National Novel Writing Month

2009-11-21T16:08:00.004-09:00

Even though the month of November is almost over, this site has a great challenge that could be used at any time for an English teacher. There are two sites, but they both have the same goal in mind, write the majority of a novel (50,000 words) in one month.
The first is the National Novel Writing Month also known as "NaNoWriMo".They provide you inspiration with help hints, forums to ask questions, and a Young Writers Program as well.
The Young Writers Program has a similar site as well but with it geared towards teenagers instead. They have games and suggestions on how to get rid of writers block.
This would be ambitious for any teacher to have their students write this much, but they could easily adapt this exercise across a semester or year.

2009-11-04T20:59:00.003-09:00

I found three tools for use in the classroom from the NY Times "The Learning Network" today. "The Learning Network" is a blog by the NY times that reports on educational issues and provides some useful resources and tools.

The first is called News Quiz where they ask 5 questions about today's headlines. The NY Times include a link to the headlines of the day with the story's that the questions are based on. This is a Monday through Friday post that started on October 15, 2009. This would be a great warm up exercise for a social studies teacher or a reading teacher.

The second one is called "Fill-In" which is similar to a Mad Lib style exercise that is based on an article. It has been happening since October 23, 2009 but they had such an overwhelming positive response to it that they decided to make it a weekly event. They tie their "Fill-In" to a real news story and you can either have the students fill it in with their own words or you can give them a scrabmled list of words that were removed for the fill in the blank part of the story. The NY Times also gives you a link to the original story as well.

Finally, the NY Times provides a "Word of the Day" complete with pronucation and definitions. This is weekday post and they use words that most teenagers should learn. When you go to read more about the word they explain how often it has been used in NY Times articles and then try to use the word in context as well. They also have a link to a tool call the visual thesaurus as well.

Technology In The Classroom

2009-11-02T08:32:00.005-09:00

Over the past 10 years technology, has a played an ever increasing role in how we teach and how students learn. Frontline, a PBS show takes an in-depth look at how technology is being used from use of cell phones, Internet censorship issues, what roles do paper books have, what are some of the drawbacks of the use of technology (the myth of multitasking), and many more topics. The web site is broken down into 4 large topics that are called concentration, games that teach, literacy, schools. I would spend some time exploring each category and watching the videos that seem interesting to you. It is a very up to date series of videos that takes a well balanced view towards the pros and cons of technology in schools and learning.

These videos could lead to some great discussions and writing prompts in an English classroom or tech integration class as these are the questions that we as educators are constantly dealing with.

Other Resources
USA Today: Future of Library - An article about the use of kindles in a library setting.
IS 339 - A public middle school in New York that was transformed using Google Apps.

uMapper - More than Just Maps

2009-10-21T13:34:00.004-08:00

After reading one of my favorite blogs Free Technology for Teachers and his post about uMapper. I started to realize that the geodart game could be used for more than just maps. You can upload any image that you want to and create ballons on your image and create a random study aid for your students or have your students create them for themselves or classmates. So I decided to do one for the first 20 elements for the periodic table and included pictures on two of them. You can do either text or pictures but not both. With text you can add hyperlinks to other web pages as well. Have fun creating games to use for your students to study for your next skills assessment.

Image Stamper - Stay Copyright Left

2009-10-15T09:33:00.003-08:00

Image Stamper is a sweet tool for those that use flickr for images for presentations as it allows you quickly keep all the important information you need about a particular photo. What is the license of the photo, who the author is, when did you first use it in case the license changes, and you can tag your photo with important key words for searching your database of stamped photos for later.
For me this tool instantly became a favorite of mine as it allows me to quickly save pictures to database that is searchable and not saving each photo as it own bookmark. I put a lot of presentations together and this will save me a ton of time when it comes to finding, storing, saving all the important information that I need from the image.

ABPI - Resources for Schools

2009-10-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

ABPI - Resources for Schools: "ABPI Resources for Schools website provides curriculum related resources for use by teachers and their pupils. The resources have been developed by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and many link topics studied in school to their application in industry and in research."

Sometimes it feels like the UK is far ahead of us when it comes to an online resources for students, parents and teachers to use to help learn material. Here is a wonderful website that has interactive animations on a variety of science and health topics.

Teachers there are a lot of links to explore as well that can be found under the title useful links to even more science based websites.

Teaching to the Test

2009-10-12T14:52:00.002-08:00

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Jimmy Margulies - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

I am really glad that we as district have not reached this point yet. School should be more than what you know at a snapshot in time. Test should just be a gauge of what you know and don't know yet and should enlighten the teacher, student, and parent what the student still needs to work on before the end of the year. This is where tests that are objective based instead of chapter based would help everyone learn how to become "learners" and not "cramers" when it comes to the skills that are necessary so that no student is "Left Behind". Parents may think that schools are just teaching to the test, but that is where we as teachers need to find ways to showcase what we are doing in schools is more than just wrote memorization. I will be working with teachers on displaying examples of students work online so that anyone can see how creative students are today.

BioVisions

2009-10-12T12:30:00.001-08:00

BioVisions

I learned about this site by watching a video on Ted TV by David Bolinsky on animating a cell for Harvard's BioVisions website. The website BioVisions was highlighted by ABC news and is available for viewing at their website which you can click on above. It last eight minutes and brings a dull lifeless picture of the cell to life and will allow your students a better understanding of how a cell really works. By clicking on the name "David Bolinsky" it will take you TED's website where you can see viewers comments, see a transcript of the speech, and learn more about David as well. BioVisions also has some other resources as well for aspects besides just biology. I have not tried out any of the other resources as of yet.

FREE PowerPoint Twitter Tools

2009-10-09T10:21:00.000-08:00

FREE PowerPoint Twitter Tools | SAP Web 2.0:

"There are currently three tools:
* PowerPoint Twitter ticker bar
* PowerPoint Twitter feedback slide
* PowerPoint Twitter voting"

This has some unique potential to make your PowerPoint presentations unique as you can embed live twitter feeds, have twitter feedback on one slide or even do a twitter poll. The best part of this is that it is currently free. The worst part of this is that is currently blocked most districts firewall due to social networking issues.

More Google Products

2009-09-23T14:26:00.000-08:00

More Google Products

Tips for creating documentaries

2009-09-23T14:16:00.001-08:00

A list of resources and tips when shooting video for a documentary.

in reference to:

"This wiki is created to provide you with useful tips and resources to guide you through the production of documenting your school. If you have any questions or concerns, please refer to the discussion tab at the top of this page and leave us a comment. We'll be happy to get back to you as soon as we can."
- ALASmedia - ACOT 2 Documenting Wiki (view on Google Sidewiki)

World War 1 Resource

2009-09-23T09:43:00.001-08:00

This site has some wonderful resources on the First World War. Photos, Poetry, Podcast, and much much more. Most, if not all of the material here are free to use since they should be in the public domain.

in reference to:

"The First World War Poetry Digital Archive is an online repository of over 7000 items of text, images, audio, and video for teaching, learning, and research.

The heart of the archive consists of collections of highly valued primary material from major poets of the period, including Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, and Edward Thomas. This is supplemented by a comprehensive range of multimedia artefacts from the Imperial War Museum, a separate archive of over 6,500 items contributed by the general public, and a set of specially developed educational resources.

Freely available to the public as well as the educational community, the First World War Poetry Digital Archive is a significant resource for studying the First World War and the literature it inspired."
- Welcome | First World War Poetry Digital Archive (view on Google Sidewiki)

Creating an E-Portfolios

2009-09-23T09:24:00.001-08:00

In this day and age, students should have an online presence when they leave high school. However, most students online presence basically consist of social media sites such as Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, etc. But what if students actually created an online portfolio that trumpeted what they have created and accomplished during their high school and college days. This is a great starting point on how to create an E-Portfolio for students using Google tools.

in reference to: Official Google Docs Blog: Electronic Portfolios with Google Apps (view on Google Sidewiki)

Maps, Maps and More Maps

2009-04-15T15:17:00.005-08:00

Ever stumble upon a great site and go wow, where was this a week ago? Well I think I found in this site on maps. It has old maps, new maps, online maps and interactive maps from the housing crisis to a long long time ago. The University of Texas Libraries have created a vast database of maps that are either public domain or have been given permission to use for educational purposes.

An Exmaple of these wonderful maps:

"The Public Schools Historical Atlas" by Charles Colbeck. Longmans, Green; New York; London; Bombay. 1905

Next 5000 days of the Internet

2009-03-31T10:27:00.003-08:00

I love finding the video gems that Ted Talks has online. This one is about the future of the internet and how it will affect our daily lives. I would recommend this to anyone to watch and have their minds think about where we have come in the first 5000 days of the internet and where we might go in the second 5000 days.

Wanna be an Air Traffic Controler?

2009-03-20T08:09:00.003-08:00

When I was down at ASTE at the end of February, I attended a session hosted by the FAA on "First to the Future." It was mainly about a website called Smart Skies which leads to Line Up With Math where a teacher can have students practice being an air traffic controler while practicing math skills. They have worksheets, teacher guides, and an online simulator that is web based to put in to practice middle school math skills using the equaiton d=rt. It was a lot of fun trying to get the planes to land at their final destination without being to close to each other. There are also a couple of videos in Section A that are interesting to watch as well.

The Smart Skies also can take you to Fly By Math which is where you should start with your students as it goes over the basics of what you need to learn in able to be successful when doing the problems in Line Up With math.

Overall I would give this site a 5 out of 5 Stars for the amount of resources, overall appearence and usefulness of the website. This one is worth trying in your math classroom.

Family Tree Project

2009-01-16T11:18:00.005-09:00

Ever wanted your students to do a family tree project? Ever wanted to do one yourself? Only know a little bit of your family tree but your family history buff knows it all? Well this web site lets your start your family tree and you can invite everyone in your family to help as well. It is easy to set up, easy to use, and you do not have to know it all. That is what your relatives are for! You can add pictures, important dates and lots more. Give it a whirl and enjoy.

http://www.geni.com/

Free Logo anyone??

2009-01-08T11:01:00.002-09:00

This cool logo was created at www.logomaker.com as an experiment for Media Literacy class as they will have an assignment to create a logo for their own wiki page. It was simple to do and they had a vast assortment of icons to work from. They are free to use on web sites free of charge but they do embed a link on the icon to one of their websites so in a way you become free advertisment for them.

Welcome Back

2008-09-08T13:49:00.002-08:00

Welcome back to another great school year for the 2008 - 2009 school year. I will be off to a slow start this year with technology integration this year as our district will be finishing off the district wide laptop rollout to all teachers so I will be busy with that till the middle of October so by then, teachers should be ready to start having students work on projects for 2nd quarter and spring semester. I hope to build upon the successful projects of the past and get even more teachers energized about doing tech projects as well.

Veterns Documentary Project

2008-05-07T16:06:00.003-08:00

I have recently been working with several teachers at my home school on documentary projects from past wars and how their lives have changed. We have yet to see any of the finished projects but so far the students have really stepped up to the plate when working on these assignments. They video taped their interviews, some did audio recordings, some digitized photos and then combined all of these sources along with their thesis statements of how the person they interviewed story's work in to the bigger picture of the war that they were involved in. The students spent many hours after school putting all of the pieces together to potential create some wonderful documentaries to share with their classmates and with the person they interviewed as well. To learn more about how to create digital stories please visit:

http://ittwiki.northstar.k12.ak.us/5._Classes/Digital_Storytelling_Workshop

I will post more on my observations and potential interviews with the teachers I was working with this past spring.

Skype in the Classroom

2008-04-08T12:49:00.001-08:00

Well after taking a short break from blogging due to many unforeseen events, I am back with some fresh concepts that are being accomplished in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. Today, I was working with a Language Arts teacher with her class that just got done interviewing the director of movie that will be released soon that is based on a movie “Johnny got his Gun”. After a few technical difficulties, luckily on their end, they finally started the interview process with Rowan Joseph. There was a lot of energy in the room full of 24 students anxious and unsure of what to expect from this process, as most of them were unfamiliar with the process of how Skype works. So to start off, Mrs. Dimmick and myself ran a test in the classroom and some wonderful feedback on the sound as we were sitting two close together. I do enjoy a nice reverb between two computers as it so pleasant on the ears. But once it started, without the video, the students started to perform wonderfully. They were respectful, focused and asked really poignant questions. They probed the director on why they choose to make a movie about this book, what it was like to work with actor, and so on. The students were very engaged in this process, as they had to write down what they thought about Rowan’s answers. With something new, especially for students it takes a while for them to get comfortable, but after about 5 questions some students even started to ask follow up answers. It would be interesting to see what the students thought process was like about their what they were thinking about the this activity before, during and after it was all over. One of the questions was asked about why they choose to use just one actor, Rowan made note of that this a new version of a previous version. Most of today’s students have seen clips of that movie in the music video “One” by Metallica. One of the constant questions revolved on the geopolitical reality of the current events in the Middle East. Rowan put forth a well thought out answer about his views of the war and how it has changed over time. Rowan did read the book in high school and he had a hard time reading the novel as it hit him in the gut and made it hard read. He appreciated the “Hope” of the character later in life on second reading but while in high school was overwhelmed with the physical loss of the his body parts.

ASTE Day 1 ... Afternoon

2008-02-29T08:30:00.002-09:00

Well after a box lunch and visit with the rest of ITT’s, I headed off to a Conference entitled “Technology to Enhance Your Curriculum”. After hearing about what the presenters do for the Anchorage School District, I realized they were our counterparts and would talk with them afterwards to look into some sharing of resources and collaborating with them as best we could. I was looking over their list of topics and quickly realized that due to the similarity of jobs I knew about most of the resources they were going to be going over, so I was going to be listening from a different angle during this session. Some of the key thoughts from their talk that struck me were the following:

“Technology is not something on TOP of what you are doing, but it should be something that will ENHANCE your lesson.” (Shelley Szipszky)

As an Instructional Technology Teacher, you should go in lead several lessons while giving the staff member you are working with the chance to observe how the students are interacting with the lesson. Just let the teacher know that you would like them to look past behavior and more towards their engagement in the lesson.

Then they pointed out that they did not harp on music and headphones if the students were using them as long as they were used in an appropriate manner. They noted that it would help many students focus on their work and that they would teach proper use of when to listen to music.

Then they featured a really cool movie using ISTOPMOTION, which is a program that takes still photos that will create a stop motion animation. This is actually a program that I have and I will look forward to trying it out this summer

Next up was a movie using a technique called shadow-puppet storytelling. They also mentioned that there were hundreds of iMovie 06 HD plug – in's that you could download and install. So when I get some time I will go looking for some to see what is out there.

The coolest resource that they did cover was called “Google Lit Trips”, located at www.googlelittrips.org. This site works with KMZ files in Google Earth where they will take a book, create a pathway in Google Earth and then add text and pictures to recap the book as you move from one place to the next. I downloaded the classic book of “Grapes of Wrath” and the KML file started in Oklahoma and traveled west to California. The prospect of how this could enhance an English class was a giant “Aha” moment for me. I cannot wait to share this site with my English teachers.

Finally, their shared an Instructional Technology Teachers worst nightmare that is when your best laid plans go horrible wrong. They showed off this really cool site for K – 6, called www.kerpoof.com where you can create a story or movie with provided characters. Ross had mentioned that he showed it to a teacher and the teacher was using for a couple of days and then the teacher came in the next day only to become frustrated towards technology. The emotion arose from the fact that their school district decided to block the web site. I know that feeling oh to well and know numerous teachers that have felt that same frustration.

Well now that Day 1 is done and after waking up at 4am today, dinner sounds nice and then early to bed as I am bushed. Check back soon for ASTE day 2 installments.

ASTE Day 1...retroactive post

2008-02-26T19:53:00.006-09:00

Well if the IRS can impose retroactive taxes, I guess I can write a retroactive post to my new blog. After an intense four days of a fantastic conference on the Integration of Technology into Education. Well my first three hour session from 9am to 12pm I tentatively went to a session on Blogging to see what it was really about. I had heard about blogging for a while, even had signed up for an account on Blogger.com and EduBlog.com, tried creating a blog on both sites, but after both attempts of trying them came away going what was the big deal. I have read a few blogs, seen one or two that might have been worthwhile even subscribing to as an RSS feed but was not seeing why blogs were so popular. But after seeing that blogs have grown and mature over the years to something elegant and graphically appealing to the eye, the ability to easily add pictures, video, and is editable html wise as well as being able to embed widgets, yet even a technophob could create one in under 5 minutes now mean that Blogging truly is ready for "Prime Time". I sat in a session today where two teachers from the BSSD school district basically runs their entire web site using either a Blog or a Wiki as their frame work for their web site.

Here is their home page which is a wiki:

http://wiki.bssd.org/index.php/Main_Page

Here is their home page which is a Blog:

http://www.bssd.org/

Now why are they using both forms as two different home pages, well they are both easy to crate new content in but have different feels and different uses. Most of the teachers are running a blog as their own teacher page. Students are creating content and posting it online and they are seeing exponential growth year over year as the students are creating more content faster and at a high quality of work, usually better than what they would have turned in by hand.

So this is the true birthplace of why I started to blog. Seeing the source of the power that is the driving force behind an entire district of students and teachers thousands of miles away from the nearest mall, they are CREATORS, PUBLISHERS, ARTISTS and most important of all LEARNERS. Students are no longer using their school hallways as their audience, but now they have the entire planet as their audience. That is the true power of the Internet.

So the old saying "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" needs to be changed, or wikified to "The Internet and Technology is changing the world forever."

How Blogging Can Improve Writting Skills

2008-02-26T07:46:00.003-09:00

So how can Blogging improve your students writing skills? Glad you asked. As I was writing my first post online last night and wanting to sound intelligent, I realized that I needed a spell checker, which usually I just use the Firefox, but I just could not figure out how to spell lethargic but just could not figure it out. But then I decided to open up the computer dictionary and typed in the word lazy and then clicked on the thesaurus and quickly found the spelling. Then I noticed that I was using the same adjective a couple of times, so I once again I was using the thesaurus. It was incredible, powerful "Aha" Moment.

More from ASTE to come

ASTE Day 1 thoughts 3 days later...

2008-02-25T23:24:00.000-09:00

Well if you don't start a Blog at a Tech conference, when will you start a Blog? So here I am making a return to ASTE 2008 almost 9 years after my first time and am I GLAD to be back. The energy and overall lust for knowledge is incredible as there is so much enthusiasm for how technology can turn students into life long learners. Over and Over we keep hearing how this project or that project turns the most lethargic students into industrious students with talents that teachers were surprised to see in their students. The vibe is incredible, the information is hitting us fast and furious, and I am trying my best not to drown as I am swimming in a large ocean of content of skills, projects and wisdom from around the "Greatest" state in USA. It will take me all week to play catch up on Blogging on what I am learning, thinking, and planning on sharing with teachers back in Fairbanks in the coming months.

Check back tomorrow for more post...