Corkboard.me

Corkboard.me is a great website for collaboration, classroom posts, meetings, book discussion and more.  We have been using corkboard at our school to collect information before meetings to help generate discussions.  It is a simple concept!  You go to corkboard.me, you board link is created automatically, and you add sticky notes.  Once you add a note, they can be seem from anyone who has your link.  You can simply email the link to all the users you need to to give access.  You can use the site for free, or you can pay a small monthly cost to customize your corkboards.  The Pro features allow you to password protect your board, customize the web address, and control who can delete posts.

Today @CorkBoardMe announced that their site works native on the iPad.  I checked it out, and it works very well!  You can access any corkboard from Safari directly!  You can check out the information from the Corkboard.Me Blog.

Corkboard.me is a great resource to help make a powerful "21st Century" change in your school or professional culture!

Who Do I Follow?

I love Twitter!  It is a great way to quickly find resources, share knowledge, and learn from great educators and people from around the world!  I have been working for the past year or so to build a strong PLN (Personal Learning Network).  My network is geared towards education and technology, and I have learned so much!  I would love to share something about so many of the folks I am following, but to keep this a little shorter, I have decided to list a few folks below that I have recently retweeted.

@AngelaMaiers - Angela is an inspiring person to learn from!

@tdeflitch - I have the pleasure of working with Teresa.  She has a great passion for education!  Check out her blog!

@web20classroom - Steve pushes endless knowledge to a huge network. He is a great resource!

@coolcatteacher - I have read Vicki's Cool Cat Teacher blog for many years!  She is a great resource!

@russeltarr - Great history teacher!  I have connected with him in many twitter chats as well!

@rmbyrne - Richard's Free Tech for Teacher's blog should be a must read for all educators!

I have found that building a strong PLN takes time, but it is well worth the work.  If you are struggling with this process, start with some of the individuals I have listed.  They have a strong list of followers that will help you start to see the power of twitter!  Twitter is all about sharing, so do not be shy!  Talk to people, share your knowledge, and you will find your network will continue to grow.  Please feel free to follow me as well @dpiemme.  I look forward to sharing with you!

Computer Science Student Network

The Computer Science Student Network is a new site just launched in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC).  The site has been created to show students of any age they can create, build, problem solve, and work with technology and robotics in many different ways.  Students can explore with science, technology, engineering and math concepts (STEM) in real or virtual ways!  Students can learn about game design, programing in Robot C, and manipulating robots in the new virtual robotic world software.  The Computer Science Student Network is showing students that working with these STEM concepts does not have to start when they are older.  It can truly start now!

iTunes A to Z

If you have an Apple device (iPod, iPhone, iPad), you have probably connected with iTunes at some point to sync of transfer music to your device.  That may be all you have done on iTunes, but there are a lot of features that makes Apple's digital music software very powerful!

iTunes A to Z is a great resource to learn about many of the powerful features of iTunes.  As you look through the features of iTunes from music sharing, radio stations, podcasts, movies rental, and genius selections, you will find that iTunes can be your hub for all of your digital library.  iTunes is also available on both a PC and Mac computer, and it free to download here! 

OpenDNS

I had a wonderful conversation with some of my middle school parents this morning.  The conversation was geared around technology use and our students.  We discussed many issues from the the use of personal technology in school, appropriate access to social media, and our push as a school to use cloud based applications.  The conversation was very dynamic and important.  Communication education about the use of technology in schools is so valuable. 

One question led to a discussion about how to monitor and block specific sites at home.  There are many desktop software products such as NetNanny that are very powerful.  This is software that would need to be installed on specific computers (or now devices) to monitor content.  Now that most households have a network of technology, it is sometimes better to monitor content from the network level.  This used to require expensive software of hardware, but there is a great service called OpenDNS that is free and easy to setup.

OpenDNS is a web based tool that allows you to use special defined DNS servers to monitor content on your network.  You simply change your DNS servers on your WiFi and wired router to the servers addresses OpenDNS provides and your network will essentially flow through the Open DNS database.  You can still manage how secure you would like the content to be, and you can also block specific sites that may not be blocked.  The beauty of OpenDNS is you can monitor all of this via a simple web browser, and it is very easy to setup via instructions on the website.  If you are looking for a low cost (Free) monitoring tool, take a look at OpenDNS.

Thank you once again to my parents that hosted and attended the discussion this morning!

Sold on 3D Movies?

I took my two munchkins to see our first 3D movie this afternoon.  We saw Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which was re-released in 3D this past weekend.  This was not only their first 3D movie, it was mine as well.  I was not quite sold on the hype or excitement of watching in 3D.  I am excited to say, that today's showing totally sold me on 3D movies...at least animated movies.  I have always been a big fan of Disney movies, and one of my favorite parts of movies since the original release of Beauty and the Beast and movies after such as Aladdin and The Lion King was the amazing detail of the animation.  The detail of every background image made you truly feel like you were part of the world.  Now add 3D to that!  WOW!  The characters jumped off the screen, and the scenery was amazing.  It truly was like seeing the movie for the first time again.  I found myself saying wow many times during the show.  My kids also found it fun, and they also have seen the movie many times before.  It was fun to watch them try to reach out and grab something that they thought was in front of them.  In addition to the movie we watched, there were several previews for upcoming 3D movies including the re-release of Star Wars, The Phantom Menace in February and the new Disney summer movie "Brave".  I think you can count me in for another 3D showing very soon!  I would love to hear some thoughts and feelings you have towards the 3D phenomenon! 

I Have a Dream!

Here is a video of Martin Luther King Jr. famous "I Have a Dream" speech.  This is so powerful.  I can listen to this over and over!  Enjoy!