Congratulations to Atomic Learning customer, Dr. Kevin M. Anderson, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning at Oak Park Elementary School District 97 in Illinois for being named one of Tech & Learning magazine’s three top educators in its 23rd annual Leader of the Year program last week. Anderson was selected from over 60 entries and each of the winners exemplifies extraordinary education technology leadership, often working within budgetary restrictions and limited resources.

"The three winners of the 2010 Leader of the Year contest represent the best of our readers," says Kevin Hogan, Editorial Director for NewBay Media's Tech & Learning Group. "Each exhibits forward thinking, innovative strategies, and innate ability to persuade and inspire others."

The other two winners include a seventh-grade social studies teacher from New York, and an executive director of technology from Minnesota.

The Department of Education recently announced this year's list of Blue Ribbon Schools. As partners in education, we want to congratulate you for your dedication to student achievement.

The Blue Ribbon Schools Program honors public and private elementary, middle, and high schools that are either high performing or have improved student achievement to high levels, especially among disadvantaged students. The program is part of a larger Department of Education effort to identify and disseminate knowledge about best school leadership and teaching practices. Each year since 1982, the U.S. Department of Education has sought out schools where students attain and maintain high academic goals, including those that beat the odds.

In case you needed an excuse to love the iPad, Brad Flickinger has prepared this presentation which outlines 8 reasons iPads are great for education. After you've watched the video, check out our tutorial series here.

Speak Up, a national online research project facilitated by Project Tomorrow®, gives individuals the opportunity to share their viewpoints about key educational issues. Each year, findings are summarized and shared with national and state policy makers. Participating schools and districts can access their data online, free-of-charge.

The purpose of the project is to:

• Collect and report the unfiltered feedback from students, parents and teachers on key educational issues.
• Use the data to stimulate local conversations. 
• Raise national awareness about the importance of including the viewpoints of students, parents, and teachers in the education dialogue.

Register to voice your opinion today! The surveys will be open until December 17, 2010.

Please visit the Speak Up website to learn more about participating in Speak Up. This website includes How-to Guides, lesson plans, promotion materials and more.

Is it about the technology?  Watch this recent TED talk and share your opinion.

Earlier this week, the instructional technology department at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) facilitated a technology seminar for the teachers in the district.  This seminar was funded through the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) grant, and was intended to help teachers understand how they can improve student achievement through the use of technology in their schools.

Attendance was excellent.  I spoke with one teacher who responded to the initial invite within a day of receiving it, and she was told the seminar was already full.  They later expanded the seminar and in the end had somewhere between 200 and 300 teachers attend.

The seminar was two full days of training on technologies such as podcasting, Google Earth, Photo Story, Movie Maker, Smart Boards, Promethean Boards, Moodle, Wikis, and more.  Each day was broken into 5, 50-minute sessions, allowing the teachers to attend 10 different sessions.

As I write this I am in seat 54D on the flight home. We are about to cross the International Date Line and get our lost day back;* we have traveled about 2600 miles since take-off and only have 5700 miles (about 9 hours) remaining. :-)

It's easy to complain that we have to be on a plane for 14 hours, in somewhat cramped conditions, (The person in 53D is reclined, so the monitor on my laptop is only about 70% open and to type I have to press my elbows against my seat back so my fingers don't overshoot the keys), with food that we may not make at home. There are some inconveniences, to be sure. There are only a dozen bathrooms on board for about 500 passengers, there are only 2 meal choices, and though I asked for Pepsi with a lemon they only had Coke and a lime.

It's easy to say “... if only...”, but let's break that down a bit:

Hello from Sydney! We spent today as tourists, (so far we have only been “travelers”), riding a bus to Featherdale Wildlife Park and The Blue Mountains. Featherdale started as a koala refuge and now is home to probably 50 different Australian critters—fins, feathers, flippers and fur all included. It was a delight to kneel next to (and pet!) a “free range” kangaroo relaxing in the sun and have a photo shoot with a snacking koala, (or his buddy in a eucalyptus-induced stupor!) Those non-bears are so adorable, and just watching a kangaroo move is a good lesson in physics. We loved the little penguins, and I think the wombat is probably the cutest thing on 4 legs.

What was most fascinating, however, was the behavior of some of the other guests at the park. We were “nudged” out of line by impatient adults and then waited through juvenile antics and various exhibits. Worse, though, were the folks who showed no respect for the animals. An eating wombat was pestered incessantly, first by folks putting their flash camera within inches of its face and then leaning over the rail of the enclosure trying to pet it. Later, a group of people took turns dancing with a kangaroo who was obviously not interested. As the roo got more and more agitated they tried harder and harder to be successful and get their photo, paying no regard to the animal and concerned only with satisfying our wants and needs.

When I was a kid growing up in the midwest, I was sure the people in Australia had a constant head rush, what with all that blood flowing to their brains from being upside down all the time
 
As I grew up, I still didn't understand how neither of us were upside down but blindly accepted my teacher's explanation and focused my down under attention on kangaroos, koalas (not koala bears), and around that time, Crocodile Dundee. Australia had always been a romantic, faraway, and exotic place, (a visit to which has been on my bucket list for years), but, I'm embarrassed to say, somewhat removed from my global understanding and perspective. Until now.