RESOURCES and Items Mentioned in this Episode!  

A resource packed 2-part episode discusses virtual education, Twitter, economic stimulus, news items, short takes, On The Road, and teaching practice debates and insights! Great discussion from Mark and Kathy about Strategies for Stretching Stimulus Money for schools and teachers! Focus on virtual education using a variety of tools, strategies and opportunities. Resources include a detailed comparison of free and paid resources for webinars, free conference calls and virtual tools. Make us the center of YOUR Ed Tech Universe: www.teacherspodcast.org.

A new generation of EdTech professional development.

Contact us at teacherspodcast@gmail.com or comment at the website/blog.

Telephone message line: 201-693-4935.

The Teachers’ Podcast: More Ed Tech You Can Always Use Today and Tomorrow.

Produced and copyrighted by Transformation Education LLC, Gura and King, 2007-2009.

Short Takes

Stimulus Money May Fund Summer School, Teacher Pay

• Discussion by Mark and Kathy about the great potential to use this money to “keep on giving/teaching” faculty years ahead!
• Education Secretary Arne Duncan has some suggestions for how schools can spend their windfall from the economic stimulus law, including summer school and extra pay for teachers to coach struggling colleagues. The nation’s schools will get an unprecedented amount of money — about $100 billion, double the amount of education spending under President George W. Bush — over the two-year life of the new stimulus law. The Obama administration has said generally how it wants the money spent, and it has warned states not to use the money to plug budget holes, despite loopholes created by Congress that would allow that to happen… Read more…
• Strategies for Stretching stimulus money

Virtual School PD and Schools

• Learning without limits
  • How the rise of online instruction is changing the nature of schooling
  • Read more at By Christine Van Dusen at e-SchoolNews.com
• Connectivity resource: Closing the Bandwidth Gap: HashCache
  • Closing the divide: Students surf the Web at Ghana’s Kokrobitey Institute, a conference center with an Internet connection only about four times as fast as dial-up. The link is enhanced by Princeton’s low-cost, low-power HashCache technology, which stores frequently accessed Web content.… Read more at Technology Review
    

RESOURCES  

• Twitter.com
  • Twitterverse…
  • Tweets, twitter.. Twittermania?
  • Follow us on Twitter to get instant updates on ed tech resources and issues

• Twitter Educational Article
  • Some Wisconsin communications professors are asking students to “live Twitter” to help them better process materials presented in guest lectures. The tool teaches them to gather information, multitask and write succinctly, said Gee Ekechai, an associate professor at Marquette University. Read more at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (4/26)

• TOP TEN FORCES= Ten Technologies Which Will Change the World
  • Distance Learning focus: Read the article @ Converge Magazine

• Virtual schooling articles
  • Arizona, Florida parents rally to support virtual schools– 
    • Parents of Arizona and Florida children who attend virtual schools or take some online classes called on legislators in those states to cancel planned funding cuts to online education. Florida virtual schools face a 15% state funding cut and Arizona schools face 6% to 8% cuts, which parents and educators say could limit course offerings and enrollment. 
    • Read more at  The Arizona Republic (Phoenix) (4/22) , First Coast News-WTLV-TV/WJXX-TV (Jacksonville, Fla.) (4/22)
  • Officials: Online summer school will save money for Indiana district
    • Summer school will go online this year
    • Some 1,700 students in an Indiana district will make up credits through online, rather than in-person, classes, a move that district leaders say will save $300,000. The district is taking other steps, such as a pay freeze and layoffs, in an effort to save $2.9 million.
    • The Indianapolis Star (4/21)

NEWS FLASH I

Learning without limits
How the rise of online instruction is changing the nature of schooling
By Christine Van Dusen

Primary Topic Channel: Virtual schooling / Distance Learning

Teachers Podcast will be available in Schooltube.com soon.

Some short videos introducing our series and the podcasting book check it out about 4/28/09!

Watch for further details in a few days!

WEBINAR RESOURCES

• Full comparison and details in Part 2
• Check out our discussion of this one in Episode 37 to prepare!
• Dimdim..com - FREE web conference service enables you to host own synchronous learning space!
  • Presentation, whiteboard, desktop and web sharing space
  • Webcam hookup, phone connection for audio or via computer
  • FREE recording included!

• • You can contact Mark and Kathy by
  • leaving a comment here on the blog/site
  • emailing us at teacherspodcast@gmail.com
  • posting to the discussion in the Teacher’s Podcast Group in facebook
  • phoning us at (201) 693-4935

  (C) Transformation Education LLC, King & Gura, 2009