Educational Technology Weblog

Recently,  Dr. Diane Ravitch the author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (New York Times review here) sat down with Alan Gerstel from The Education Network in Palm Beach County to discuss her book, her views on educational reform, and how best to prepare schools to meet the challenges of the future. As a former policymaker and member of the administrations for both the  Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton, Dr. Ravitch has particularly interesting views on school reform, testing, and the impact reform efforts have had on teachers.

Below is the full interview which may also be seen on the local broadcast of The Education Network carried in Palm Beach County on Comcast channel 97.

Thanks to 20-year-old college student Chris Sardinas, West Palm Beach is one of the five finalists (along with cities in Peru, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom) for Google’s Model Your Town competition. Voting is now open and runs through May 1st, 2010 and of course we want to support our hometown, right?

You can see more about the competition in this blog posting at the Palm Beach Post site or use the link above to see all the competitors.

This is remarkable work and no matter how the competition turns out Chris is to be congratulated on his outstanding work, modeling well-known landmarks such as the Phillip’s Point building, Trump Towers, Good Samaritan hospital, and the historic Palm Beach County courthouse. Chris even stepped across Lake Worth to model The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach.

You can download the Google Earth file yourself at this link (KML format) and have a more detailed look, or view a video demonstration below.

Get your votes in today for your hometown and for the phenomenal work that Chris has done!

Thanks to WPTV Channel 5 here in West Palm Beach for covering the Palm Beach Technology Conference! Hey, our fearless leader even gets into the act with a short on-camera appearance.

We’ve had a lot of ongoing conversations about the Palm Beach Technology Conference held this past Friday and it’s great that so much of that is happening via Twitter. In the widget below you’ll see results of a search done for our “official” hashtag from the Tech Conference: #pbtechconf. You can keep the conversation going by using that tag when you post and your posting will be added here. Fun!

We have a few teachers covering our district blogging platform as we ramp up the scale of our service. It’s pretty exciting and our annual Technology Conference is a great place to get some new teachers started.

Of course, being a public school district we have plenty of rules and policies that have to be followed as well as solid practical advice from the time we’ve spent watching students and teachers interact with blogs.

If you’d like to see how we handle some of the common issues that come up with blogging and glean some ideas from our policies feel free to download our Acceptable Use for Classroom Blogs here.

It’s just a few days now until the 2010 version of our annual Technology Conference. It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come in the 12 years that our team has been putting on the conference!

This year we’re featuring our first completely interactive conference with an on-line component featuring social networking tools that make it easy for you to plan and participate in new and exciting ways.

To help you navigate the interactive portion of the conference Brian Dawson from Emerald Cove Middle School has put together a series of videos that you can view below to help you make the most of the online component of the conference. Take a few minutes to check these out then head over to the 2010 Palm Beach Technology Conference and get interactive!

How to Connect to TrainU at the Technology Conference 2010

How To Navigate the TrainU Mobile Site

How to TrainU on the Conference Wall

TrainU Technology Conference 2010 – Edit Your Profile

What are people ordering for their Lunch at this year’s Technology Conference? Follow their selections and see how Google Spreadsheets can import data in the interactive charts below:

If you haven’t completed the survey yourself it’s not to late! Visit this quick and easy form to make your selection.

As the new year begins we are very happy to announce that netTrekker is offering FREE Training Webinars!

We would recommend one or more of these 30 minute sessions to any SDPBC educator interested in learning more about the latest features available in netTrekker

Visit the netTrekker support page for details and a full schedule for January and February

We should all be PROUD!!!

The School District of Palm Beach County has been recognized by netTrekker for our commitment to keeping our students safe online and providing educationally sound Internet resources for our students and teachers.  Each year netTrekker recognizes the top 100 Districts based on the usage of their educational search tool, and this year WE RANKED # 7  OVERALL!!

To see where we ranked compared to some of the other districts in Florida and the nation click on the award.

As a reminder,

netTrekker is available to all students, teachers, and family members of the School District of Palm Beach County, and is available via a link on the Learning Tools website.  This is a direct link from school, and inquire at your school to learn more about access from home!

To learn more about netTrekker… check out the netTrekker Support Page, and KEEP SAFELY SEARCHING!!!

On Tuesday, Septemnber 8th, President Obama spoke directly to students across the country on the importance of taking responsibility for their education, challenging them to set goals and do everything they can to succeed.

The While House makes this video available directly at their website, but in order to conserve network resources a copy has been placed on the School District of Palm Beach County’s internal video server. You can view the entire video below.

In addition to the video of the President’s speech additional resources are available from the White House for inclusion in classroom lesson plans.