Well, turning that calendar over to August yesterday certainly started to get the juices flowing about Back to School. All the Back to School commercials during the Olympic 2012 coverage hasn't helped much, either, has it?

I know that getting my school year started with a good dose of Professional Development usually helped to get me in the mood, so I thought I'd help out a bit with that.

I'm running a 'What's New in Notebook 11' webinar on Friday, August 24 at 11.00 AM PST/2.00 PM EST

I'll be going through some of the new features of Notebook 11 in some detail, including my ABSOLUTE favourite feature, the Activity Builder.

To register click on the GoToWebinar link here - 

I look forward to exploring Notebook 11 'virtually' with you!

Sasha 

Wow - the end of another week! Today marks not only the start of the weekend, but also the start of the 2012 Olympic Summer Games.  I must admit, I'm a bit of a sports junkie and the Olympics is like my crack.  I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I'll probably spend more hours watching TV in the next 17 days than the rest of the entire year combined.

There is one tiny wrench in this lofty goal of mine, and that is the fact that we currently do not have TV in our new place in Toronto.  Nosiree -- getting a basic package hooked up soon, but have lasted nearly a month with online streaming (admittedly pretty easy to do, considering the fact that the only shows on in the summer are junky reality series...which I also love).

While our American counterparts get quite the myriad of options for bucking mainstream cable companies and watching shows online, us poor Canadians are presented with very limited options.  Coronation Street on Netflix, anyone??

Luckily, I've stumbled upon a great website that I think is perfect for this week's Fresh Look Fridays.  Because, c'mon, teachers don't need to be spending their whole summers prepping for the upcoming Fall semester, do they?

Free Internet TV Canada is a great site that lets you know exactly where to [legally] watch all of your favourite tv shows online.  Search by name, see options for rentals and purchases on iTunes, or find out the where each network streams the program.  A good general rule of thumb is that the shows often air online 1 day after TV land views them, and are usually accessible for 2 - 4 weeks after the original air date.

So if you can handle staying away from Twitter for 12 hours, lest you find you who was the latest Big Brother houseguest evicted, this site's for you!

As a special tribute to the London Olympics, I've included the direct link to the Olympics streaming page.  Click away to the live streaming page to watch alongside the rest of the world, or find links for archived broadcasts.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go get comfy for my marathon...first up - the Opening Ceremonies!

Go, Canada, go!

Vanessa

I'll admit it.  I'm kind of an Apple supporter in nearly every aspect of my life -- I own a Macbook Pro, I've considered numerous friends and family to give up their Windows PCs and come on over to the Mac platform, and of course we have iPhones and Apple TV in our household.  Apple should really be setting me a cut of their cheque every week for being so gosh darn loyal.

I will also admit that from time to time I get caught up in my love affair with Apple, and neglect to touch on how the rest of the world lives in my blog posts.  So today, this Fresh Look Fridays post is dedicated to those teachers living in a Windows world.

Windows 8 is just around the corner, and if you're in one of those annoyingly progressive school divisions whom love to jump on the latest software the day it's released, odds are, you're going to be working with Windows 8 sometime next school year.  Might as well get a bit of a heads up on what to expect!

And so I give you my Fresh Look Fridays site for today: Windows 8 Preview.

I highly recommend checking this out if there's the slightest chance you, or your employer, are considering a switch to Windows 8 in the next 12 months. (The official release date sounds like it's going to be mid-October for Canada, so you do have a few months to wrap your head around the changes). 

I will admit, if you watch the video, it does look pretty slick (and strangely reminiscient of some Apple stuff, no? lol).  At any rate, looks like big changes are coming down the pipe, so you might as well embrace it.  

Take a look through the rest of the site to find out some more in-depth descriptions of the features, learn about how to install after the release date and follow the Windows 8 blog to keep up-to-date on all the tweaks and shifts happening leading up to the final release date.  If you're a super duper tech geek keener enthusiast, you can even jump on the update bandwagon early, and download a Windows 8 Preview version, or even take a crack at a preview version of Internet Explorer 10.  

Interestingly enough, once it IS released, you won't be finding this version of Windows on store shelves.  No more novel-sized boxes enclosing useless CDs for this software company.  Read more about the unboxing here.

Don't think that that little tidbit is that big of a deal?  Your online counterparts would disagree - "Windows 8 Gets Unboxed" was trending on Twitter in Canada for most of the evening of July 13th.  Obviously, many twits found this to be a big deal.  Of course, "Today is National French Fry Day" was trending at the same time, so you decide how important said trend was, lol.

Have a great weekend!

Vanessa

It's summer, so I feel that it's time to change up the traditional Fresh Look Fridays blog post, and put a new twist on it for the next 8 weeks.  Instead of focusing on cool interactive websites for your students, I thought I'd introduce you to websites appropriate for the adults in the classroom.

This week's theme? SMART Board maintenance.  We have them, we use them, the kids use them, and they need to be taken care of.

First up, a quick little video by the good folks at SMART to give you some basic tips on maintaining your SMART Board:

Not into watching a video today? Check out this link on EHow to read 4 quick and easy steps to cleaning your SMART Board (including how to get rid of permanent marker if one was used on the surface).  Please note, I do not advocate using dry erase markers on a regular basis on your board, as I find that they cause lots of residue that can be annoying and difficult to clean.  Stick with the virtual "markers" whenever possible!

Oh yeah - many of you have probably been wondering where I've disappeared to? I realize I haven't been posting as regularly for the past 4 weeks, but I've been SUPER busy.  Combine a teething baby with a move across the country and you've got 34 hours of work to do each day in a 24 hour time period!  But not to worry, things have settled down and we're enjoying our new sights:

Back to the regular blogging grindstone!

Vanessa

This past week I was fortunate to visit beautiful San Diego, California for the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Conference.

WOW did it ever feel great to be surrounded by tens of thousands of people just as passionate about Education Technology as I am! 

The President of ISTE, Holly Jobe commented on the opening day (and I'm paraphrasing) that often we can feel like a lone voice in our schools, districts & work environments - but we can all come together at ISTE. She was absolutely right. 

At times it was a bit overwhelming - the sheer volume and number of sessions, workshops, exhibitors, and learning to be had. And really, where else would you see thousands of people lining up on a Sunday night for a keynote address? Technology teachers show up, people. Don't believe me - check this out - 

The overarching theme was 'Expanding Horizons' - which I could definitely say came through in many of the big picture events, like keynotes. In general, there was a bit of preaching to the choir to move away from standardized tests, standardized curriculum, teaching the individual child and a need to have governments re-think their priorities when designing and funding for schools. Yea! We want all of these things...now it's the 'how'.

There was so much to see and do - but I thought I would share a few of my highlights.

Keynote Panel - Sir Ken Robinson and Marc Prensky

http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/ 

http://www.marcprensky.com/

Seeing Marc Prensky was a Ed Tech Nerd dream come true of mine - he is so forward thinking when it comes to how to educate this generation of students. He coined the phrase 'Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives' but is not resting on that concept, and has written a new book - "From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom" and another is coming in August - "Brain Gain" again, focusing on Digital Wisdom. These are books that I look forward to devouring.  Sir Ken (as everyone was calling him) re-vamped his book "Out of Our Minds" recently (his retelling of how & why was hysterical) and was all about finding creativity. The Keynote Panel itself wasn't the most successful format, in my opinion, and it also featured Mayim Bialik (from the Big Bang Theory & Blossom & is a neuroscientist) and offered some good insights about how the right teacher can help any child learn, especially Science & Technology. The other speaker from Qualcomm didn't offer much to the panel - listening to Marc and Sir Ken drove home the idea of finding your passion & how it can truly change your learning experience.

Keynote Address - Dr. Yong Zhao

http://zhaolearning.com/

OK, Dr. Zhao was new to me, but I thank goodness he's come into my world!! I have never laughed so hard at someone who was making absolute and complete sense!! The entire room was roaring with laughter as Dr. Zhao described how messed up traditional testing is & how it can be misleading. And generally, teaching to a traditional test can kill creativity and confidence in children. His new book is called "World Class Learners - Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students" and again, drove home the idea of teaching the child, embracing his/her talents & helping them to find their passion. I can't do justice to him talking about how China has no 'Baby Steve Job's' left because they were teaching to the test & killed their creativity!

Kathy Schrock - Literacy for the Digital Age

http://kathyschrock.net/

I've followed Kathy's work since I became an Ed Tech Nerd & have always thought she'd be excited & enthusiastic & talk fast (like me) and boy was I right! She went through 13 different Literacies for the Digital Age based on Churchill's research & provided websites, iPad apps etc...to help support students and teachers as they learn & work through these different digital literacies. Her vast knowledge was evident and I'm sure that every single person walked out of that room with an enlightened sense of varying tools for Digital Literacy. I can't do the whole thing justice, so here is her support page for the presentation:

http://www.schrockguide.net/literacy-in-the-digital-age.html

Exposition

I had a blast visiting all of the various exhibitors, etc...(strangely absent was Apple, when every other classroom technology company was present).

Google had a great set up and was providing a lot of sessions for use of Google in the classroom, Google Apps for Education etc...

I loved seeing SMART's booth - super slick set up & they also ran sessions throughout the conference, mostly taught by SMART Exemplary Educators (SEEs) and there was lots about collaboration & great integration of SMART products.

I especially enjoyed seeing SMART's new Interactive Panel for Education. It feels SO SMOOTH and intuitive...I want one in every classroom and in my house!! I also got a chance to play with the Notebook App, which will live up to expectations, based on what I had a change to play with!

SMART Interactive Flat Panel          

SMART Notebook App                     

Overall, it was a wonderful experience and I hope that I will be able to attend the conference in 2013 in San Antonio - http://isteconference.org/2013/

If I were to make one wish for the future, it would be that the 'International' part of ISTE would be a bit more prominent in sessions, as there was a lot of focus on American Education Initiatives. Fair enough, as the majority of attendees were American, but good teaching and learning with technology is an international goal - so I hope it is featured a bit more moving forward.

Happy Summer, all you hard working teachers - you deserve it!!

Sasha 

I did get outside occasionally....