Like every professional instructional support staff member, I have earned my certificate of completion for the SAISD Cybersafety web-based training course. The course is offered through the District’s learning management system, ePath, that enables participants to start, pause, and complete the WBT course online from a computer with Internet access (e.g. home, work, library). The online course takes about 20 minutes to complete.

This course is the first of several that are being shared that can be delivered online via the Web. Others include FERPA (live in ePath) and Securing Confidential Data (in production).

A copy of the weekly memo sent to campus principals is shared below:

As a result of a federal mandate, school districts have to certify their staff and students have had learned about CyberSafety and Digital Citizenship. Part of the San Antonio ISD District Technology Plan calls for technology-based professional learning opportunities for administrators, teachers, librarians, and professional instructional support staff at campus and district levels. One of these professional learning opportunities–mandated by the federal government in its requirements for public school districts to receive eRate funding–is to learn more about CyberSafety and Digital Citizenship.

Both cybersafety and digital citizenship are important performance indicators in the state mandated technology applications TEKS (TA:TEKS), No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Education Technology Standards for Students, Teachers, and Administrators. To meet the eRate requirements necessary, the Office of Instructional Technology & Learning Services (ITLS) has launched a CyberSafety web site that incorporates rich lessons, video tutorials for both teachers and students.

The mission of the CyberSafety initiative in SAISD is to promote cyber-awareness and education for all San Antonio ISD students. To achieve that goal this school year, as mandated by eRate funding requirements, the following schedule has been put in place:

Please review expectations expectations for dates (table removed from this blog entry).

WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE?
Please discuss this information and the options available with your campus and/or district professional staff under your supervision. At the campus level, this includes any and/or all of the following staff: Principal, Assistant Principals, Vice Principals, Campus Instructional Coordinators, Classroom Teachers (including Physical Education, Special Education), Counselors, Teacher-Librarians/Media Specialists.

At the District level, this includes Curriculum & Instruction Senior Coordinators and their teacher specialist teams, as well as Instructional Technology & Learning Services (ITLS) professional staff.

IS THE EPATH CYBERSAFETY COURSE NOW AVAILABLE?
Yes, the ePath CyberSafety Course is now available and can be completed at any time, from home and/or work. For campus-based staff, here are some suggestions to smooth completion of the 20-minute online course; you are urged to put the following suggestions into practice:

• Avoid waiting until the deadline to have staff complete the ePath CyberSafety Course with included assessment. As principal, you are able to review your campus staff’s professional learning transcript in ePath. A video reminder on how to do that will be available online at the CyberSafety Web Site.
  
• The administration window for the needs assessment is November 2, 2009 through March 5th, 2010. The needs assessment is available online via ePath.
• Administer the assessment during Faculty Meeting time. It is a 20 minute assessment that should be completed by each professional instructional staff member individually.
• Since this needs assessment only takes 20 minutes to complete, and requires a computer per teacher, consider using computer stations in your computer lab(s) and library. The needs assessment can also be taken from any computer—on or off campus—with high-speed Internet access.
• Encourage those uncomfortable with using technology to pair up with staff who are more comfortable. While each will take the assessment individually, they can also lend a helping hand.
• If a teacher fails to successfully complete the assessment, they may retake the course.
  
• It is important to note that this needs assessment may not be used for PDAS appraisal purposes.
• Rely on campus technology representatives to facilitate all professional instructional staff to take the online assessment.

Should you have any questions, please contact Miguel Guhlin in the Office of Instructional Technology Services at 527-1400.

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free video player & video platform - interactive video, online video solution: video player, video editor - kaltura
wordpress video - wordpress plugin for integrated video on video blogs, and video tools  

Friday, September 25th marks the beginning of the Be Cyber Safe! website which will be used among teachers throughout  San Antonio ISD to promote appropriate online behavior and cyber safety. The curriculum was created with written consent from CyberSmart!, who is recognized as using standards-based lessons aligned with national and state technology and information literacy standards. Through the use of  the CyberSmart! curriculum we will prepare students to safely use the Internet for communication, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving.

The Be Cyber Safe! website has both a vision and a mission statement which includes educating all San Antonio ISD students on the importance of being responsible digital citizens. The site includes: curriculum links, expectations, standards, parent tips, online safety tips as well as other teacher resources.

Teachers who have already used lessons from the site considered the lessons, “easy to use without or with the Internet” – Ms. Angel Clark, first grade teacher. While teachers felt at ease with the organization and flow of the site, students loved the lessons they were being taught stating, “We have to be safe and it taught us how.”  We are looking forward to the district-wide use of the Be Cyber Safe! website.

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This is a friendly reminder that the first CTR Meeting of the 2009-2010 school year is taking place on Friday, 09/25/2009!

Check out the Fall, 2009 Workshops! You can see them here:

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How Local Sites Can Participate in the National Day on Writing

Date: July 9, 2009

Summary: As part of the celebration of the National Day on Writing, local writing project sites can create their own galleries featuring the writing of teachers, students, and community members, to be included as part of the National Gallery of Writing.

Local writing project sites can now celebrate the National Day on Writing by offering the work of teachers, students, and community members in their own gallery of writing.

These local galleries will be part of the National Gallery of Writing , a digital archive of compositions available through a free, searchable website. The Gallery will be “unveiled” to the public on the National Day on Writing, October, 20, 2009.

Start a Local Gallery

Any site can start a local gallery . The only requirement is that a local site choose a curator, who submits a request to join on the group’s behalf and agrees to review all work before it is submitted to be published.

The National Writing Project will host a gallery with selections drawn from this year’s E-Anthology. According to curator Shirley Brown, “We’re delighted to have the chance to let many readers see some of the wonderful pieces that summer fellows were able to create during NWP summer institutes.”

Some writing project teachers are already planning National Day on Writing activities.

Participants in the National Gallery of Writing can submit any form of writing to their local gallery—professional writing, fiction, poetry, movies, photos, and also multimedia pieces. Writing submitted now can be reviewed and published as early as mid-August. The National Gallery of Writing will remain open until June 2010.

NWP is pleased to be a partner in the National Gallery of Writing, which was created by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) as one way to celebrate the National Day on Writing. The day provides an occasion to celebrate the foundational place of writing in Americans’ personal, professional, and civic lives, and to point to the importance of writing instruction and practice at every grade level, for every student and in every subject area from preschool through university.

Organizers hope that in an age when technologies are expanding the possibilities of composing in multiple media and allowing writers to reach wider audiences than ever before, more Americans will be encouraged to write and enjoy and learn from the writing of others.

Writing Projects Plan Activities

Some writing project teachers are already planning National Day on Writing activities and thinking up ways to encourage participation in this fast-growing event. For instance, the Eastern Michigan Writing Project details how it hopes to get “EMWPers” involved .

The Lowcountry Writing Project in South Carolina has come up with steps to get schools active in the National Day on Writing around a “Celebrate Charleston through Writing” theme. They are even considering how potential writing assignments for the National Day on Writing will comply with state standards.

In addition, NCTE offers a number of suggestions for celebrating the National Day on Writing. Among them are:

• Host a Family Writing Night
• Showcase students work using poster sessions, computer lab presentations, etc.
• Hold a Back-to-School Writing Celebration Night
• Invite well-known local/regional writers to share their writing processes and samples of their work at school or local group events.

Word of this national event is quickly spreading, even to the halls of Congress. On June 9, 2009, a resolution in support of the National Day on Writing was submitted in the House of Representatives, and was later referred to the Committee on Education and Labor.

Download the National Day on Writing flier and share it with your colleagues, students, community members, and friends. For more information, visit the official National Day on Writing page .

Please let NWP know when your site has started writing by emailing your local gallery’s URL to nwp@nwp.org.

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San Antonio ISD has teamed up with Dell to provide you with special discounts and offers not available to the general public.

View the printable version of this flyer.

Deals on a New Dell Home PC:

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Image: Keith Krueger (CEO, COSN) and Miguel Guhlin

Below you can find links to my slideshow and the audio of my presentation at the Texas Chief Technology Officers’ (CTO) Clinic held in Austin, Tx on June 22-23, 2009. I had a lot of fun delivering this presentation, but spent a lot of agonizing picking out which slides to cut from my 40 + slideshow. Some folks wrote to say, “Your presentation was inspiring!” and I heard similar remarks from others after the session.

To be honest, I was thrilled to present next to Keith Krueger from the Consortium for School Networking (COSN). I had no idea he’d been the founder of COSN and had been with the organization for 18 years or so. Wow! That’s a story in itself worth sharing!

There are now ample examples of the points I made in my presentation, but I’ve realized that simply because something is obvious doesn’t mean it’s going to be accomplished or implemented. “This is obvious…why aren’t we doing it?” argument seldom works in entrenched cultures like K-12 education.

From Facebook and other Social networking applications to wikis, blogs and digital media, students in the U.S. are fully engaged in the use of participatory Web 2.0 tools outside of the classroom. Though school leaders believe that Web 2.0 collaborative applications expand the resources available for classroom learning; they are often constrained by policy considerations. How can schools better align the reality of technology-rich world in which students live outside of school with the learning experiences they have in the classroom each day?

Keith starts out sharing the results of the CoSN and partners’ Leadership and Web 2.0 study (view results here), and then I follow up with my presentation, including audience participation. Note that I tried to capture participant notes online at the wiki page.

Listen to Keith Krueger and Miguel Guhlin on Web 2.0 and Policy Leadership
The file is about 40 megs in size and hosted by the Internet Archive.

Relevant Links

1. Copies of Presentations available online
2. Whack-a-Mole Champion (via YouTube)
3. Examples of How Tech Is Used In Spite Of Command and Control
   • Immigration Protests, Los Angeles Times
   • School Principal Walks Out
   • Clay Shirky Video on How Twitter Can Make History
   • Well-Connected Parents Take on School Boards, The Washington Post
4. Twitpic
5. Reaching for the Heart – 5 Tips for School District Communications
6. List of Texas School Districts Using Twitter (Thanks to Richie Escovedo, Next Communications Blog)
7. The King and His Hawk Story
8. “Web 2.0 is an attitude, not a technology.” (Ian Davis)
9. UnMask the Digital Truth (Source: Wes Fryer )
10. Learning Ecology
11. Draft – Acceptable Use Policy
12. Free Seminar – **Social Media: Trends and Implications for Learning** – George Siemens and Dave Cormier
13. A List of Walled Garden Applications
14. Moodle Central – Repository of Moodle related resources
15. WordPress Multi-User
    • Setting Up Multi-User WordPress Tutorial with printable PDF (Source: DivaLatte)
    • Places To Get Support for WordPress MultiUser (WPMU)
      • Sue Waters’ WPMU Support
      • Ron and Andrea
      • WordPress MU Dev Premium

• Wikis in Schools
  • Free Wikispaces Sites for Teachers
  • Private Label Wikispaces for your Organization ,
  • Deerfield Public Schools,
  • WestWood Schools Wiki(Vicki Davis)

Audience Participation

• Alamo Heights ISD – Use 5th grader stealing another student’s password to the Moodle as a teachable moment.
• Magnolia ISD – Curriculum uses chat during workshops and teachers discovered solutions to problems, detours to obstacles.
• Spring ISD – Communications and Technology are together. . .need to have our own channel and communications.
• Leander ISD – One of the things I’ve found out…undertook a process starting in January (glad to share the documents) of investigating and building an RFP process, looking for a comprehensive Web 2.0 solution that includes teacher web sites, student portfolios, homework assignments, comments/posting…I realized that everybody plays a little differently…lot of power in combining tools (wikis, blogs) and you get the flow of information up and down and how it flows to parents. Moodle/Sakai don’t know how to handle a parent natively. Put an RFP, had demos from 6 vendors, including open source integrations to commercial solutions. There was little delta in the price…don’t limit yourself to open source.
• Key is to narrow the focus…we had a reorganization…it’s key to get area superintendents to use these tools, use online meetings/tools and this expectation to use tools is conveyed to principals on down.
• Spring ISD – Using tools with principals….
• Donna ISD – Held our first tech conference…did this with university of Texas at Brownsville. We included a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools, bringing in stakeholders…have a good core group…lot done on wikis. After 4 days, we’re all wiki’d out. We did FLIP videos, Jing…wow, I can afford this was a comment teachers made often. Downside – do a big staff development for teachers in the Fall. People in leadership roles…that question the value of what we’re trying to do.
• A science teacher at an intermediate campus sets office hours (online?) so they can share TAKS prep.
• Dr. Sheryl Abshire’s district: Students are skyping in England, doing online stuff…

One thing that is your biggest problem in getting collaborative tools in your District:

• Administration – I’m getting ready to rewrite your AUP policies…I was bombarded by all the bad things students are doing. How do you get the leadership engaged?
• Brought in representatives from UTB to share (1/2 day) with principals, core directors and relayed the long range technology plan for Texas. It is important that NCLB…more out front.
• Keith: Superintendents don’t want to look stupid but they really don’t know what they are. Superintendents have to take ownership…until you get that, you’re not going to see wide-scale adoption.
• Why can’t we take the parent notification system…and do a student notification system? Take the same concept and use the tools that they’re used to.
• Leander ISD: Providing a context and examples…one of our past failures is just showing them the tool and there’s no connection…doesn’t make a difference. We brought in examples (Denton ISD – wiki going with class in Germany)…something that connects (China…PreK students).
• Keith: One of the big mistakes that we found is that if you have the best buy discussion about the tool, then…what is the education problem that you’re trying to solve? If you want to do engaging learning environments, what’s more engaging than Web 2.0 tools? Create a compelling learning environment. Over the last 17 years, the problem is that the “boss doesn’t get it.” We’re not putting it into the context…educational problems, not technology problems.
• Magnolia ISD : Leapfrog school administrations…go to the communications companies.
• Keith: The factors that mattered (significant statistically): 1) Vision and Leadership – could articulate what they were trying to accomplish and buy-in from the superintendent/school board; 2) Community Support – are you going before your chamber of commerce, PTA, not just you as the tech director but having kids presenting…the big secret weapon that you have is if you can engage the business community and parents. These groups have no idea what their students are encountering. Go before Kiwanis and talk about what you want…we have one device for every 5 kids, slow connections that precludes video, get business community members that make the school board presentations.
• Keith: Shift in participatory learning at school…we need to talk about, culturally…shift in the way we do learning and the power of participation (Participatory Learning at School isn’t that exciting a title).

Disclaimer: In this presentation, while I reference my school district work directly, I do want to be clear that my beliefs/assertions are MINE alone, and do not necessarily represent the District’s…it would be better to say that my statements are informed by my experiences in schools, conversations with many technology directors, and the few thousand tweets I get per day and blogs I read. However, it would be remiss of me to not thank my school district for their support, and in particular, my supervisor, Patricia Holub, who appears below in this photo with Keith:
Thanks also to Harold Rowe (Cypress-Fairbanks ISD), Dr. Alice Owen-Farsaii (Irving ISD) for thinking enough of what I had to say to invite me to speak on the same stage with Keith Krueger!

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Facilitating technology use that extends learning, communication and collaboration beyond the classroom/office walls, the SAISD Office of Instructional Technology Services’ team welcomes you! Be sure to read below about all the technology-enhanced learning going on for educators and students in SAISD!

SUBSCRIBE
Take advantage of new technologies and make the Web come to you! Watch this short video tutorial to learn how. Use an RSS aggregator like GoogleReader or Bloglines.com to have content sent to you:

Click here to Subscribe in a reader

Looking for something on our “old site?” You can visit it online here.

Miguel Guhlin
Director, Instructional Technology Services
San Antonio ISD
Burnet Learning Center
406 Barrera Street
San Antonio, Texas 78210

Email: mguhlin@saisd.net
210-527-1400
210-228-3097 (fax)

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Please note that the following is an edited podcast of a presentation done by Anita Givens, Associate Commissioner for the Texas Education Agency. The podcast comes from Around the Corner, a non-profit, education-focused publication.

Image Source: http://www.texastrainingonline.org/Images/CMS/image/newAnita.jpg
Note: This photo was NOT taken at the TxCTO09 event.

On June 23, 2009, Anita Givens addressed a room full of Texas Chief Technology Officers (CTO), providing what I believe was the first update to Texans from the Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) perspective on new changes.

In this update, she addresses some important questions that have been asked among district technology leaders, including:

• The future of virtual schooling
• The State Technology Allotment’s funding source
• New textbooks, including open source process developed ones
• School District Grading Policy (no more 50% if you didn’t earn it, kids!)
• Computer Lending Project
• Electronic Course Pilot

There are various other critical topics addressed, some of which I tried to capture in my notes and was unsuccessful…Anita spoke quickly and often switched slides in her presentation without inflection (which meant, I didn’t catch the change from her voice). Fortunately, the audio recorder was on!

Compare Anita’s update to this one provided by Ron Whitlock.

Listen to Anita Givens’ Texas Legislative Update (31 megs). This audio file is hosted at the Internet Archive.

Relevant Links
Miguel’s Notes on Anita’s presentation

Summer09 Hide

“You can now do so much via the Web these days–for free,” I shared with a friend. “I’m continually amazed at the services that are available online for free.” With so many different free services online, we have to consider how we intend to use these services. Often, when we do not ask the right questions, we fail to fully understand how these technologies can transform how we work and live.

This article addresses the following questions:

1. How can you print to Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) or convert existing documents to PDF?
2. How can I store my bookmarks online with others?

#1: How can you print to Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) or convert existing documents to PDF?
Let’s take a moment and imagine what life would be like without PDF files, that standard document format that is viewable across all operating system platforms (e.g. Windows, Macintosh, Linux). The standard document format makes it easy to exchange documents that keep the original formatting they were created with–including graphics, layout and fonts. You can print to PDF from any program on your computer (e.g. MS Publisher, MS Excel, Kid Pix, etc.) and, instead of seeing the file come out on your printer, it appears as a file on your computer. That text and images in that file can be copied and pasted to other documents by the recipient, or they can be locked with a password (although you can bypass the security of PDF files with the right software). Without PDF files, everyone would have to have the exact same computer system, including fonts and software. This would present problems, obviously.

However, printing to PDF–you never save a file to PDF file format–requires a special printer driver. Individuals were limited to a proprietary solution by Adobe, the company that originally came up with Acrobat PDF files. While Adobe has lowered the cost of the tools used to create PDF files, this can still be an expensive purchase when you may not need all the features of the proprietary program.

Be aware that the proprietary software (works only on Mac and Windows platforms) also allows you to edit text in PDF files, merge multiple PDF files together, as well as a host of other features. Most people, though, only want to put their original documents in a format they can easily share with others. Since they have access to the original document, they have little need to take advantage of the features offered by the more expensive Adobe Acrobat product. So, what are the free alternatives to the $100-$160 (depending on whether you buy the standard or professional version) Adobe Acrobat software?

You have several alternatives, and they generally provide the basic functionality needed to create PDF files. These are divided into two categories–PDF Printer Drivers and Web-based Conversion Programs. PDF Printer Drivers allow you to print from any application (e.g. MS Publisher) to Portable Document Format (PDF), while Web-based Conversion Programs will take most files you have created and convert them after creation to PDF. It is up to you to determine which is most convenient.

PDF Printer Drivers

1. CutePDF - http://www.cutepdf.com
   It is free for personal and non-commercial use. A shareware version exists for $49.92
2. MyMorph - http://docmorph.nlm.nih.gov/docmorph/default.htm
   A Windows only program, it enables you to convert hundreds of files for conversion to PDF. It requires Internet access since it works with the Web-based Conversion Program, DocMorph (shared below). MyMorph is a Windows-based software program that significantly increases the functionality of the DocMorph Web site by enabling users to select hundreds of files at one time for PDF file conversion. MyMorph uploads files via the Internet to DocMorph, waits for results, and downloads the newly created PDF files to hard disk.
3. PrimoPDF – http://www.primopdf.com/
   In addition to printing from any program to PDF, it also allows you to print PDFs with 40-/128-bit encryption. You can also set it to include a password to open, password to change, disable printing, disable text/graphics copying, disable commenting, disable text editing, disable page addition. Finally, it allows for adding document information, such as title, keywords, subject, and author, to the PDF files. PDF Creator - http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm
   A standard PDF Printer Driver for Windows, it allows you to print from any application to a PDF file.
4. OpenOffice 2.0 – http://www.openoffice.org
   Not strictly a PDF Printer Driver, OpenOffice allows you to open any MS Office document and then export the file to PDF. This limits the file formats you can work with to those that can be opened by OpenOffice. Be aware that OpenOffice 2.0 (available for free on all software platforms) can open over 100 different formats, including MS Office, multiple graphic formats, and more.

Web-based Conversion Programs

1. DocMorph – http://docmorph.nlm.nih.gov/docmorph/docmorph.htm
   Allows you to convert from fifty different file formats, including PDFs, to five different outputs. Those output formats include Portable Document Format (PDF), Multi-page Tagged Image File Format (TIFF), Single-page TIFF, Text, and Synthesized speech.
2. Online PDF Converter – http://convert.neevia.com
   While this online PDF converter has a 1 megabyte limit per file–which may limit you if you have a document that has lots of images–you can convert from a wide variety of formats (easily over 50) to PDF. Two nice features is that it allows you to add a watermark image of any text you enter on multiple pages. It also enables you to encrypt your PDF document. While I recommend using your own encryption tools (read previous issue of Download a la Mode regarding Data Encryption for more information), this can add a simple protection to your document.
3. PDF Online – http://pdfonline.com
   Converts various formats (MS Office, html, common graphic formats) to PDF. Note that you can buy additional PDF Printer Drivers at prices ranging from approximately $10 to $40. However, you should consider the tools in the previous section–PDF Printer Drivers–before investing.

If you’re wondering which to go with, consider what your needs are. If you are using MS Publisher, as well as other software (not including MS Office), and you need to print to PDF, then definitely consider using PrimoPDF or PDF Creator. If your needs are much simpler–for example, you want to convert Powerpoint and MS Word documents to PDF–then install a copy of Open Office 2.x on your computer or take advantage of DocMorph for single conversions to PDF, or MyMorph if converting multiple documents. Again, your best best is to use Open Office when dealing with MS Office documents. This is especially true for Windows and Linux users. Macintosh users, of course, can choose print then click on the PDF button to save the file as a PDF.

#2: How can I store my bookmarks online with others?

Social bookmarking is defined in Wikipedia’s online encyclopedia in the following way as an activity that is…

These free, web-based tools go much farther than traditional web-based bookmarking tools. Those tools are considered first generation tools that are focused on individual use. Unlike those tools, social bookmarking falls into the concept of the Read/Write Web. The Read/Write Web is focused on collaboration and interacting with others online. Like blogs, wikis and other tools, these are about sharing our information online. Often, these social bookmarking lists end up redistributed via blogs as Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. RSS, if you are not familiar with it, is a way of sharing frequently updated information in list format that includes date, time, title and content in easily readable format. Most blogs and content management systems take advantage of RSS to distribute their content to a wide audience. Social bookmarking tools also take advantage of RSS for the same reason.

For example, if you use any of the following free services, others can subscribe to your bookmark list and see what you find worthy of bookmarking. Three of my favorite social bookmarking tools include the following:

• Del.icio.us (access the free tutorial for educators online) – http://del.icio.us
• BlinkList - http://blinklist.com
• Simpy - http://simpy.com (highly recommended)

The services they offer are essentially the same, however, each has its own pecularities and eccentricities. You will have to experiment and find the one that best fits your style. Del.icio.us is the most popular and widely-used of social bookmarking tools, and others are springing up. Del.icio.us was also just purchased by Yahoo!, so changes are expected.