WGBH and Teachers Domain are excited to announce “Youth Voices” — an open call for ideas from 13-18 year olds to produce video segments on climate change.

“Youth Voices” will kick off in January, with a series of three informative webinars for student filmmakers.

Want to learn more? Go to the WGBH Lab for details.

The annual Edublog Awards nominations are now open. Choose your favorite educational blogs for best new blog, best use of video or social networking and other categories by submitting your nomination on the Edublog site.

Past winners include:

Woodchurch Science:
Resource lists and recommendations related to science content

SMART Board Lessons Podcast:
Tips and ideas of integrating the use of SMART Boards

The Fischbowl:
High school teachers examining 21st century skills. See the post voted “most influential” for 2007: “Is it okay to be technologically illiterate?”

Don’t forget these other blogs from NSDL Expert Voices and other NSDL favorites:

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears

Exemplary Resources for Middle School Math and Science

Sciencegeekgirl

Weblogg-ed

Will Richardson, author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms and his popular blog recently presented at the National Middle School Association conference in Denver. The session was packed with information and thought-provoking ideas, some of which I have captured here:

Our ability to form groups through the use of 2.0 tools signals great change for our society. We are experiencing “tectonic change akin to the invention of the printing press” in the way we are able to share information and mobilize groups in unprecedented ways. Read Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody. Shirky examines our ability to form groups of interest and purpose quickly and with greater agility.

Examples of how this change has affected different sectors of society:

Obama’s election campaign: Use of social networks, over 8,000 affinity groups within the Obama campaign. A 21st century model of campaigning.

Fundraising: A senator candidate had the idea of posting a request for $8.19 from people wanting to contribute to his campaign to raise $25,000 and ended up raising $90,000, with many people contributing increments of $8.19 in a matter of days.

Media: Christian Science Monitor has announced it will stop its printed version of publication. Articles in general are now blog posts that people comment and discuss.

Business models: New models are needed as well as new ways of conducting business. “Businesses are not about products. Businesses are about conversations about products” e.g: customer reviews of products on Amazon.

Transparency: IBM has open blogs and wikis

“The more they publish, the more they can mine that intelligence—sharing out their information to become smarter.” Wikinomics: The more you give, the more you get.

Education needs to change as well. Are we preparing our students not only for today, but for their future? “Kids are changing without us.” Barriers to technologies that kids use in their lives outside of school are not finding their way into the classroom for effective use and for the purposes of teaching them how to use them safely.

What are our students’ “digital footprint”? Is their classroom limited to the physical location of their school or does it reach beyond through the use of 2.0 technologies in order to open their own personal classroom to include people across the world?

View of Richardson’s “classroom”: People from around the world that follow and contribute to his blog, URL are represented by dots on a Google map. This is his classroom and his digital footprint.

Students need to find their own teachers and teachers need to facilitate that process and help them identify those teachers that come from a global community. We need to teach students how to validate and edit content. Content is constantly changing, so teaching kids how to be good editors and find the most current information is important. We need to incorporate mobile technology as a part of our curriculum. This should not be taught as a unit on information literacy, but integrated in how we teach—“This is how we do business.”

Examples of use in the classroom:

A blog from students in Manitoba, Canada discussing and sharing information from a village in Africa that is greatly affected by HIV.

A multimedia magazine, a newer approach using interactive media: FLYP media

Richardson’s students learning Scratch, a code language by a teacher identified through Richardson’s blog from Scotland who happens to be twelve years old. We should not let the walls of the classroom restrict our ability to find teachers for our students.

Secret Life of Bees: Richardson had his students write comments and questions on their blog related to this book that the author responded to, giving them first-hand interaction with the author.

Concluding remarks: Yeah, buts….

Richardson acknowledges that there are barriers of time, technology, school politics and more that keep teachers from using these types of tools of communication in the classroom. He challenges teachers to try these tools for their own personal use as a way of introducing themselves to what is possible as a starting point. “How will we add dots to our own [digital footprint] map?”

An image from “Candles at Halloween–Periodic Table of Videos.”

Have you ever wondered what was happening in the burning flame of a candle? The University of Nottingham invites viewers to find out in a seasonal video that details the chemistry of candles here–just in time for Halloween!

The University of Nottingham hosts a series of 118 videos that correspond to Periodic Table elements on You Tube and on their web site (if You Tube is blocked) that have been watched 2.9 million times. This particularly charming and informative example, starring Martyn Poliakoff, a research professor at the University of Nottingham and a pioneer in the field of green chemistry, is about Halloween candles. You may subscribe to the Periodic Video RSS through You Tube.

No Child Left Inside…

We are in the midst of Earth Science Week 2008 (October 12-18)! Take the opportunity before the week is over (as well as beyond it) to access the valuable materials for teachers and students at the American Geological Institute’s (AGI) Earth Science Week site. With the theme of “No Child Left Inside,” activities and resources for teachers and students, include:

* Earth Science Week Newsletter

* Geoscience Careers Webquest

* Best in AGI Earth science education products and services

* Contests

* Events near you

* 2008-09 Activity Calendar

Also, each day of the week, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientists address five big Earth science questions via 2-minute videos on these topics:

* Introduction and How is the global Earth system changing? 10/13/08

* What are the primary forces of the Earth system? 10/14/08

* How does the Earth system respond to natural and human-induced changes? 10/15/08

* What are the consequences of change in the Earth system for human civilization? 10/16/08

* How will the Earth system change in the future? 10/17/08

The Great World Wide Star Count

October 20 - November 3, 2008

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/starcount

This Windows to the Universe program is an international citizen-science event that encourages everyone, astronomers and non-astronomers alike, to measure their local light pollution and report their observations online. The Great World Wide Star Count, part of the Dark Skies Awareness cornerstone project for the upcoming International Year of Astronomy, is designed to raise awareness about light pollution as well as encourage learning in astronomy.

No prior experience is necessary–all information needed to participate is on the Star Count Web site, along with a downloadable activity guide available in eight languages. All observations will be available online via Google Earth and as downloadable datasets.In 2007, people from 64 countries contributed more than 6,600 observations to the inaugural Star Count. Spread the word for this year’s count!

The 2008 Speak Up Survey run by Project Tomorrow is now open through December 19th. This is a national survey of teachers, students, parents and school leaders related to technology in the schools. School districts can participate for free and in the process receive their local data provided by Project Tomorrow.

Some of the questions addressed in this year’s survey: How are students, teachers and administrators using technology in schools? What are the characteristics of the 21st century classroom? What are the emerging technology trends to watch? How do we improve student achievement in science? How do we foster media and information literacy skills?

Information and registration are available on the Project Tomorrow website.

In response to a need for professional development in science for afterschool educators, the Exploratorium, the premier science center located in San Francisco, organized a series of teacher training workshops and online resources for the afterschool community. Even before they started their first workshop, Sherry Hsi, Director of Online Learning at the Exploratorium, and her team did extensive research by surveying the needs of afterschool educators and conducting site visits to afterschool care providers.

Listening to and responding to needs expressed by educators in California in partnership with the California School-Age Consortium (CALSAC), the Exploratorium created a series of activities and videos that any educator can access online. These activities, using low cost materials suited for the afterschool environment, downloadable activity outlines, and online demonstration videos, provide a fun and interactive way for afterschool programs to infuse more science education in their activities and curricula.

NSDL Sites to See: Be sure to check out the The Exploratorium Digital Library and the Exploratorium’s Learning Resource Collection

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is a free, online magazine dedicated to integrating science and literacy! With the polar regions as a context, each issue of the magazine contains professional development articles, lesson plans, downloadable assessment probes and nonfiction stories for students, stories of polar researchers, and much more.

The magazine is aimed at K-5 educators, though middle and high school teachers will also find topics and resources of interest. Each issue is based on a theme or concept commonly taught (or introduced) in the elementary grades. The September 2008 issue, Rocks and Minerals, discusses the types of rocks found in Antarctica and provides resources for teaching about geology. October’s issue, Energy and  the Polar Environment, explores the concepts of solar radiation, albedo, and natural resources as they pertain to the elementary grades. Find these issues and more at http://beyondpenguins.nsdl.org/!

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears project staff also conduct online seminars and learning activities. Monthly chats at Tapped In explore the latest magazine issue. The next Tapped In event on Thursday, October 9 at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, will discuss the concepts of solar radiation, albedo, and  natural resources and explore resources found in the October issue of the magazine.

In addition, Beyond Penguins staff will host two upcoming NSTA/NSDL web seminars on Wednesday, October 29 and Thursday, Nov 13. In these seminars, Carol Landis and Jessica Fries-Gaither will share content knowledge and strategies appropriate for elementary teachers.

On October 29, learn about the types of ice in the polar regions and how to integrate physical science concepts with literacy strategies. On November 13, learn about solar energy and discover resources to use in your classroom. Register for these free web seminars at the NSTA Learning Center.

In the past year, a greater interest in online learning has brought forth a flurry of discussion on what schools should offer their students and teachers in terms of training and course development suited for an online medium. The 2007 Speak Up Survey conducted by Project Tomorrow polled students, teachers, parents, and school leaders across the country, asking questions about technology in schools that included a focus on online learning. Not surprisingly, high school students take online classes for the purposes of acquiring college credit, electing classes not offered at their schools, and taking courses at their own pace. In the survey, the main reason middle school and upper elementary students took an online course to get extra help in their studies. Mathematics topped the list of subjects middle and upper elementary students reported in seeking out supplemental coursework online. (NSDL Site to See: For some great math manipulatives, try the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. The site is easy to navigate through and has materials for all grade levels, as well as versions in Spanish.)

26% of the teachers surveyed preferred online training as their most preferred method of professional development, a dramatic increase from the previous year, as teachers become more acquainted with online learning. To learn more about how your school can participate in the annual Speak Up survey, receiving national and local data reports, go to Project Tomorrow. The 2008 survey will be released mid-October. (NSDL Site to See: To participate in 90-minute, free online professional development, register for one of the NSDL Web Seminars in partnership with the National Science Teachers’ Association, NSTA).

Other exemplary online professional development programs for course credit: NSTA Online Short Courses—the next one starting Tuesday, September 30th on energy. This is a 5-week course. Another excellent teacher professional development offering is WGBH Teachers’ Domain: courses on multimedia resources for the classroom. Using the materials found within Teachers’ Domain, teachers take an in-depth view of materials from PBS programs such as NOVA, ZOOM, and Frontline around specific topics to develop curricular units and activities around them.