A Great Resource for Parents

Common Sense Media is a national organization led by concerned parents and individuals with experience in child advocacy, public policy, education, media and entertainment. Media is fun and kids love it. We also know that kids now spend so much time absorbing its messages and images that it has become "the other parent" in their lives. This organization started because families needed trustworthy information to help manage their kids' media lives.

Visit www.commonsensemedia.org today!

Spring 2009 Faculty Inventory

Please take a few minutes to fill out our Spring Inventory.

The inventory allows us to get an accurate accounting of what has been issued, what has been damaged/lost or grown legs, what is no longer in service and what is needed for the coming school year.

Games: Not Just For KIDS, anymore!

NYU's Game Center is hosting it's First Lecture Series - Open to the Public!

The NYU Game Center, an independent multi-school center at New York University for the research, design, and development of digital games, established in fall 2008, has announced its first series of guest lecturers. The lecturers represent scholars, creators, and thinkers in the field of games. The talks will take the format of a discussion and audiences are encouraged to join the conversation.

The lectures are as follows:

• Thursday, April 2, 6 - 8 pm Jonathan Blow, creator of the creatively ambitious, highly acclaimed game Braid.
• Thursday, April 16, 6 - 8 pm Warren Spector, influential game designer who is presently working with Disney Interactive.
• Thursday, April 23, 6 - 8 pm Marc “Mahk” LeBlanc, creator of the MDA framework, a powerful conceptual approach to game design.
• Thursday, April 30, 6:30 - 8 pm Eric Zimmerman & Katie Salen, co-authors of the groundbreaking book on game design, Rules of Play.
• Friday, May 8, 6 - 8 pm Clint Hocking, pioneering game designer whose work explores new directions for blending narrative and gameplay.

The series will be held at the Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway, Room 006, lower level. Refreshments will be served. The talks are free and open to the public; advance reservation is required. Please RSVP: gamecenter@nyu.edu

EdTechTeacher

Visit this website for ideas, tutorial and a waelth of resources about meaningful technology integration.

This site also has a list of tutorials that you may helpful such as 'iGoogle & Building a Personal Learning Network' and 'Google Tools for Teachers.'

EdTechTeacher

Horizon Project

Are you interested in the power of the network and/or group collaboration online? Would you like to create an online learning opportunity that involves collaboration with students from all over the world?

Take a look a the website for the Horizon Project:

horizonproject2008 » home

Flat Classroom Project

Are you looking for an idea for meaningful technology integration for next year? Why not consider a project that connects your classroom with students in another country?

Take a look at this website for the Flat Classroom project for inspiration-


flatclassroomproject » home

Several BFS Teachers will be Presenting Best Tech Practices at Packer!

NYSAIS Education and Information Technology (NEIT) presents Teaching with Technology: Best Practices from Classroom Teachers. This day-long conference will let you attend teacher-led sessions that show you how to use technology in your classroom. There will be groups organized around a variety of subject matter, by grade levels, and by teacher comfort with technology (from beginner to advanced).

The conference is designed to let teachers who use technology well share it with the greater teaching community. There will also be designated time for teachers to meet with others in similar positions from different schools to exchange information on how they're utilizing technology.

Date: Friday - May 01, 2009

Time: 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM

Location: Packer Collegiate Institute

Click here for more information:
New York State Association of Independent Schools: Conferences and Workshops

Fwd: [Forum] Summercore 2009 (2 sessions July 2009) ** our 25th anniversary year

Summercore- Summer Professionl Development in Technology

This year we are offering one week of Summercore in the NYC area at Horace
Mann School July 13-17 and one week at Shorecrest Preparatory School in
St. Petersburg FL July 27-31. Summercore is a unique computer training
workshop for K-12 teachers of all ages and all stages: from novices to
administrators to skilled users to computer coordinators. As Steve Taffee,
Director of Technology writes "arguably the best faculty inservice program
we've had at Castilleja since I joined in 2002."

-- Summercore 2.009 meets Web 2.0. Do you want your faculty excited about
blogs, wikis, Google docs and RSS? How about creating links in Delicious?
Or working on digital storytelling with bubbleshare, flickr, and jumpcut?
Or using Voicethread for a classroom project? What about creating a
journey in Google Earth or acquiring strategies for incorporating YouTube
into the curriculum?

-- Summercore 2.009 will include all these Web 2.0 skills, plus strategies
for using the Smartboard and the notebook software, laptops in the
classroom, and searching for the best web sites available. The key theme
for Summercore 2.009 is how to create a Classroom 2.0. Our focus will be
on revolutionizing the dynamics of the use of technology. There is nothing
more exciting than integrating the world of Web 2.0 into every grade level.

-- Summercore 2.009 is a unique 5 day marathon journey through hardware,
software and humanware. It is different from virtually any other computer
workshop you have ever attended. The only way to get a sense of this is to
read quotes from those who have come or even better talk directly to any
of the over 2600 Independent School teachers and administrators who have
attended Summercore since we began in 1985, exactly 25 years ago.

Please tell your faculty--all grade levels and all skill levels--about
Summercore 2009. All details are posted on our http://www.summercore.com
Web site. Thanks in advance for sharing this e-mail with your faculty and
administrators.

Steve Bergen (sbergen@cstorefront.org)
co-Director of The Original Teaching Company

Fwd: Special Report: How do you teach your kids to be safe online?

Sage Advice: The Wisdom of Crowds For an upcoming Edutopia special report on the Digital Generation, we seek parents' responses to this bonus online-only Sage Advice question: "How do you teach your kids to be safe online?" (Please specify your children's ages.) Send your 25- to 100-word response to digitalgeneration@edutopia.org. (The deadline is April 20. Please include your name, title, affiliation, and location. Responses may be edited for length and clarity.) See some of the many replies to previous topics at edutopia.org/sageadvice. We look forward to hearing from you Forward this email to a friend The George Lucas Educational Foundation, established in 1991 by filmmaker George Lucas, is a nonprofit operating foundation located in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing Edutopia magazine, Edutopia.org, and Edutopia video, the Foundation publishes a free e-newsletter, Edutopia News.