Introducing a new assistive tech blog: IntegrATe, by Gayl Bowser

Gayl Bowser, former coordinator of the Oregon Project of Assistive Technology and co-author of Education Tech Points, is widely known in education circles for her insightful writing and unstoppable enthusiasm. Please join us in welcoming her to the world of blogging!

Just like a garden needs different care from a gardener depending on the time of the year, students and educators need different supports for assistive technology use as they move through the school year.  With each new school season comes change—changes in our students, changes in what they are learning, and changes in our own AT services .  Just as we cannot simply plant a seed and expect to immediately see a plant, we cannot give a student assistive technology and expect to see immediate success. 

Visit IntegrATe

Webinar Alert: Effective Strategies for Creating an Assistive Tech Professional Development Plan

Atomic Learning invites you to join us as we welcome Gayl Bowser for a FREE webinar on creating an Assistive Technology Professional Development plan. Gayl will discuss flexible and practical professional development assessment and planning strategies that include a variety of training approaches including the use of online tutorials.

Thursday, June 10, 2010 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CDT 

Register here

Higher Education Customers - How Do You Use Atomic Learning?

Greetings once again from the higher education team here at Atomic Learning! We have been putting our heads together to try to bring you the latest and greatest ideas on how you can use Atomic Learning on your campus.

1. As a help desk extension - is your help desk only open limited hours? Is your help desk staff sometimes overloaded, especially when upgrading applications like Microsoft Office? With a site license you can direct your users to Atomic Learning for tutorials on how to perform specific functions when your help desk is not available, or during busy times of the year!

2. Faculty Training - some faculty and staff members in your organization are great at keeping up on technology and integrating it into the classroom. Others are overwhelmed while budget cuts keep them running from class to class. Atomic Learning a great tool to keep your faculty updated on technology they use everyday - whether it's a tutorial on how to add a course link in your LMS, or how to schedule an appointment on their Outlook calendars!

We're growing! 2 more new positions open

Please consider applying for the following positions. Send applications to hr@atomiclearning.com.

Higher Education Sales Executive
Reports to:    Director of Domestic Sales
Department: Sales
Location:  Remote Home Office

Job Summary:
The Higher Ed Sales Executive is responsible for the mid to large account sales and sales related activity for the Domestic Sales Team. This position requires knowledge of solution-based selling, higher education organizations and a strong understanding of the education sales cycle.  This person will need to assist in the development of account strategies which include account profiles, demand/lead generation and detailed action plans. This person must work in coordination with the Director of Sales to maximize sales revenues and customer satisfaction/retention.

Financial Literacy and Professional Development

A recent column by Michelle Singletary, a personal finance columnist at the Washington Post, caught my eye. "We are Flunking Personal Finance" looks at a recent study by the University of Wisconsin at Madison entitled Teachers' Background & Capacity to Teach Personal Finance. The study indicates that less than 20% of K12 teachers feel they were “very competent” in the six areas of financial literacy focused on in the study. Those areas included:

• Income and careers
• Planning and money management
• Credit and debt
• Financial responsibility and decision making
• Saving and investing Risk management and insurance

From the column:

This study reinforces the need to incorporate personal money management topics into educational opportunities for teachers, whether in undergraduate or graduate curricula for students studying to become teachers, or as postgraduate or in-service courses or workshops," says Ted Beck, president and chief executive of NEFE. "We have an opportunity to dramatically affect the quality of K-12 financial education by providing teachers with the subject matter expertise they need throughout their careers."

Increasingly, states are pushing economic education. The number of states that require students to take a personal finance course, or instruction as part of an economics class, increased to 13 in 2009 from seven in 2007, according to the Council for Economic Education. Although states are setting up financial education guidelines, an overwhelming majority of teachers who participated in the NEFE survey said they didn't feel qualified to offer instruction at the level of the standard set by their states, the researchers said.

Recent economic events have made it clear that financial literacy is vital to both the global economy and as a factor for personal success. How can these important life-lessons be incorporated into the classroom without professional development for the teachers who are expected to help the students?

Open Position Alert: Front-End Web Developer and Implementation Specialist

Please consider applying for the following position. Send applications to hr@atomiclearning.com.

Reports to:  Technical Project Manager   
Department: IT and Data Security
Location:  In-Office; 10am-7pm M-F; Hours may vary to accommodate roll outs.

Job Summary:
The Front-end Web Developer and Implementation Specialist will work cross-functionally with other departments in developing improved functionality on our websites through scripting techniques and promoting new and/or changed code to our production web servers. This person will collaborate with teammates to come up with new ideas and solutions for our websites as well as execute and implement site maintenance work. The position will also be responsible for rolling development code to our production web and database servers with accuracy for our web developers.

Join the Campaign! Tweet and Blog for Ed Tech May 12

Funding for Classroom Technology is in jeopardy!  Join ISTE members and education technology advocates from across the country for a day of blogging and tweeting in support of 21^st century learning.

President Obama’s budget provides no funding for education technology.  The Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program, which was funded at $100 million in 2010, is rolled into a the new program “Effective Teaching and Learning for a Complete Education.”
Without funds specifically set aside to pay for education technology the administration’s messaging about the importance of technology for classroom teaching and learning rings hollow. If education technology is so important, why has the proposed 2011 budget eliminated funding for the only dedicated ed tech funding program?

Although the President has recommended to eliminate funding for EETT, Congress does not have to agree with this recommendation.  ISTE is urging congress to fund education technology at at $500 million for next year. To get this issue on congress’ agenda we need to tell  policymakers that we are not going to take the loss of EETT quietly.

On Wednesday, May 12 we are going to flood the Web with messages in support of funding for education technology. We’ll provide some Twitter messages to get you started, but we’re asking for a major effort from all the ed tech bloggers, tweeters, Facebookers and Ning-regulars out there to write in support of dedicated federal funding for education technology.

Keep watching ISTE Connects for information on how you can help secure $500 million for ed tech in 2011. Together we can make our voices heard!

http://www.isteconnects.org/2010/05/06/join-the-campaign-tweet-and-blog-for-ed-tech-may-12/

"I Remember", by Intel

Most of those things don't seem very long ago, do they? Are you keeping up?

New Content Alert: Safari 4, Word 2010, iPhoto '09, PixWriter 3, Read:OutLoud 6, more

New and expanded tutorial series
Safari 4
As stated by Apple®: "It’s a browser. It’s a platform. It’s an open invitation to innovate. Safari® continuously redefines the browser, providing the most enjoyable way to experience the Internet."

View 2 free tutorials

Word 2010
Microsoft® Word 2010 offers the best of all worlds: enhanced features to create professional-quality documents, easier ways to work together with people and almost-anywhere access to your files. Use this introductory level tutorial series to watch, listen, and learn the basics of how to create high-quality documents that you can be proud of.

View 2 free tutorials

Atomic Learning and Don Johnston: Assistive Tech Online Training Collection

You already have some great assistive technology tools. Many of them have had a huge impact on your students. 
But, are your teachers making the most of them?

Don Johnston teamed up with Atomic Learning to solve this problem. We came up with an exclusive bundle of online trainings—some of which you won’t find anywhere else. Subscribers will get unlimited whole-district access to thousands of online tutorials for all of your top assistive technology software and devices.

Find out more