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

April is National Poetry Month... How about a poetry podcast?

April is National Poetry Month. We've just updated one of our Technology Integration Projects which uses Garage Band '09, and it does a nice job of bringing poetry to any classroom:

Take poetry to a new level! Users will use an audio application to produce a podcast of themselves narrating a piece of poetry. They will create a music track to accompany their poem, and also add images they have found to illustrate their poem. They may elect to use an image capture utility on their computer to create their images. Finally, they will export their podcast for an MP3 player.

View the project here

New Content Alert: Higher Ed Projects and Workshops with Google Docs and more

We've released a batch of new Technology Integration Projects and Workshops with our colleges of education customers in mind. They're also useful to K12 educators looking for more advanced content.

Technology Integration Projects
Collaborating to Build a Slideshow Presentation – Google Docs

Creating a Photo Book – Photoshop Elements 8 (PC)

Video Creation – Photoshop Elements 8 & Premiere Elements 8 (PC)

Creating a Resumé – Word 2007 (PC)

Building a Bibliography – Word 2007 (PC)

Workshops
Creating an Effective Presentation using PowerPoint

PC Maintenance & Security

Digital Workshop from PBS - 21st Century Schools: Learning in the Digital Age

This project by PBS and the MacArthur and Park Foundations aligns well with recent posts on digital learning. It starts this evening.

More and more educators are tapping into the power of digital media and technology for teaching and learning. The variety of information resources available online is simply staggering. Explore how teachers and students are using the power of social media to promote students' active engagement, critical thinking and literacy skills.

• New Forms of Learning. It doesn't need to happen in school. Because it's visual, interactive and social, learning can happen anywhere with digital media as people collaborate and share about a wide range of topics and issues that matter to them.
• Technology and School Improvement. Technology may transform schools by promoting student engagement and creativity. But critics fear that too much focus on technology takes attention away from what's really needed to improve schools: capable, well-trained teachers; student-centered learning methods; and smaller class sizes.
• Hope, Hype and Reality. Are today's learners really different from previous generations? Compelling images of students using digital technology are impressive, but the research evidence on the impact of technology on learning is more mixed. And it's sometimes hard to separate the scholarship from the marketing hype, given the deep investment of technology companies in promoting the idea of technology's transformative potential.

Get the entire project
Watch the full show 
Visit the digital_nation - life on the virtual frontier homepage

Cyberbullying: Lowering thresholds of tolerance

After a decade or more online, many of us have become jaded or indifferent to the hostility people sometimes show toward each other in the relative anonymity of the web. If we stray outside social internet communities that are rooted in our physical ones, we find people we're likely to never meet, and they often don't show us the same respect or decency that they would face-to-face. Eventually we may reach a plateau of tolerance that's much higher than it should be, especially when children  are involved.

Schools around the world are struggling to keep up with social challenges in fully digitized youth. They're chasing the kids who are sprinting ahead into the cyber-abyss, sometimes encountering situations they're not prepared to handle. Sometimes they're actually the cause of shame and depression, or worse, in other kids.

New Project Alert: Web Resources Workshop - Search, Evaluate & Use

This project is part of our 21st Century Skills package. Watch the first video

The tutorials in this workshop series will guide the user through four important questions that teachers and students will face when using Web-based resources for classroom projects:

• How do I search the Web effectively?
• How do I evaluate Web sites for authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage?
• What do I need to know about plagiarism & copyright?
• How do I properly cite sources?

A complete “Works Cited” listing of all resources used in the tutorials can be found in the downloadable resource packet that accompanies this workshop series.

Watch the first video

21st Century Skills: What Do They Look Like?

  

Thursday, October 8 | 10 am PST / 1 pm EST
Wondering exactly what 21st Century Skills are all about? Trying to determine what steps to take to begin bringing 21st Century Skills into classroom projects? Join this presentation and discussion around 21st Century Skills concepts, examples, and real world advice on how to bring them into the classroom.

Click here to register for this FREE event

Brad Flickinger, Education Futurist and Educator -- Although being born and raised in Canada, Brad is proud of what he calls his "Perfect American Accent." After high school Brad studied journalism at the University of Western Australia, returned home to Canada, married his high school sweetheart and started his own weekly newspaper.

At the age of 24 he won the Young Entrepreneur of Canada for the work he had done in getting newspapers into the digital age. A few years later he moved his young family to a beach town in Costa Rica for a few years to work as a schoolteacher at a private elementary school before returning to the United States. By this time, the Internet was booming and Brad spent the next few years managing a technology and design company near Seattle before returning to teaching for the past seven years.

Recently Brad has combined his passions for teaching and technology by working a consultant and speaker on new and emerging educational technologies.

New 21CS Project Alert: Myth & Lore We Share

We're happy to announce our newest 21st Century Skills Project, "Myth & Lore We Share". A 21st Century Skills Project includes:

• Step-by-step tutorials that walk you through the project
• Project Activity Guide - includes how the project infuses 21st Century Skills into the classroom, students assessment rubrics and discussion questions
• Copy of the finished example project
• All the resources needed to recreate the example project
• A Professional Development Workbook – including clear steps on how to adapt the project, a self-assessment rubric, reflection worksheets, and more!

Learn more about 21st century skills concepts here.

This project examines common themes and archetypes found in folklore and myth, as one way to illustrate cross-cultural similarities and promote global awareness. The example project demonstrates how students might conduct a research project that explores common themes found in folk stories or mythologies that originate in different parts of the world and at different points in history.

The tutorials provide instruction for using a word processing program to record and organize information that is gathered, including how to properly cite sources using the MLA Citation Style. The final project report will be prepared in a presentation program for sharing with the class or others outside the classroom.

Discussion questions, assessment rubrics, and information about adapting and extending the example project are included in the resource materials available for download with this project.

http://www.atomiclearning.com/21st_mythlore_mac

New Product Alert: 21st Century Skills - Comic Science

This project provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of a scientific concept in a creative way, through the application of multimedia tools. The example project illustrates how students might use a comic book format to communicate the steps involved in applying the scientific method toward problem resolution. The tutorials demonstrate the process of creating comic panels that incorporate text and graphics, for the purpose of conveying information that students gathered when researching a topic.

In addition to teaching the technology skills, the tutorials discuss other 21st century skills and concepts, such as research methods, critical thinking, and problem solving. Discussion questions, assessment rubrics, and information about adapting and extending the example project are included in the resource materials available for download with this project.

http://www.atomiclearning.com/21st_comicscience_pc