Check out this link, which contains digital recreations of ancient Rome as still images and video clips. Great for teaching world history! Includes links to other related websites.

Rob at Technology in the Lutheran Classroom has been posting regularly from NECC in Atlanta. Be sure to check out his notes from various presentations. I'll be anxious to catch up with him and learn what he has learned.

Take a look at this article which shows that nearly one-third of all teens have been bullied online.

I've seen statistics such as this before and I have begun collecting all sorts of resources connected with cyberbullying prevention, as well as encouraging God-pleasing online conduct. It is a reminder that at some point I need to make it more of a priority to pull all these together into a cohesive presentation. So if there is someone out there who would like me to come to their school and speak and present on this topic, perhaps that is the push I need to get moving -- the knowledge that other people are counting on me for such ideas and materials.

What do you do to address cyberbullying in your classroom and school? Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas as a comment.

Have you ever been shushed? Did it make you angry or feel embarassed? Read about a divinse shushing.

Do you know what tools your students (and perhaps some colleagues) are using? If not, check out this Web 2.0 Visual Glossary.

For those of you who are subscribed to the Lutheran School Portal (and I'm hoping that is all of you at this point!), there is a new feature that has been instituted over the past couple of days. Now available is live help and guidance, accessed by clicking on the icon at the top right part of the screen. If someone is online at the help desk, that will be indicated by the icon. If not, the icon will ask you to leave a message. I encourage each of you to try the live help feature when you see it activated.

Yes....this is another post about Wikipedia. The reason for this is that it seems to me that Wikipedia is more than simply a collaborative encyclopedia. We think of an encyclopedia as a selection of articles on scholarly topics, but Wikipedia has proven to be much more. Let me explain.

Rob at Technology in the Lutheran Classroom posed a question concerning my recent post about preparing kids for THEIR future. Rob asked, "How much should Elementary/Middle Schools prepare for future occupations of students?  I mean really, students HAVE to go to high school, so why should we in Lutheran schools be concerned about Enterprise 2.0?"

Here is my response:

How healthy are you? How do you stay or get healthy? It's all about choices, so put down that donut and let's talk about how you are doing.

One of the great questions concerning emerging technologies is whether privacy will survive in this modern era? What scares many people is when a company, such as Google, has control over seach and Internet usage data. It seems to me that we should be teaching our students and children not to expect privacy -- to act online as if any words, clicks, or actions may be easily traced back to them. In other words, each of us should model our Christian faith in all our actions on the Internet.

You have probably heard the quote about how we should be preparing kids for their future and not our past. Nothing illustrates that better than the following video. What a great explanation of the reality for many people in the world of work today. Are we preparing our students to be productive Christians and citizens in this environment?

A couple weeks back I posted on conversations, the main idea being that in order for teachers in Lutheran schools to better utilize technology tools to the glory of God for our students and ministry, we ALL need to be involved in conversations with each other to help make sense of the world in which we live and how to best serve our students. I need to learn from others. We all need to learn from each other, for that is why we have been called to be a body of educators for our Lord. I have my own idea about how to use technology in the classroom, but I need to learn from all of you as well.

Yesterday I found two new (at least new to me!) online simulations relating to the study of U.S. government. One is the Redistricting Game, which introduces junior and senior high students to the politics surrounding Congressional redistricting, which is mandated every ten years by our Constitution. Another is Fantasy Congress, which is similar to a fantasy sports league, expept that success is based upon the real life perfomance of actual senators and representatives.

I started compiling a list of such simulations to share with others. If you have an online simulation that you have successfully used with your students, let me know by sharing an with me or by leaving a comment to this post.

Summer is the time of year when I have a bit more time to explore new links and sources for education. If you are interested in the latest sites I've found, click here and bookmark this site. You can even add this page as an RSS feed, using an aggregator such as Google Reader.

It's the season of Vacation Bible School. Does it take you down memory lane?

Check out the link in the sidebar entitled GLS Information & Comments. This blog, created by Jim Scriven, a Lutheran school principal, is an excellent example of how a blog may be used by school leadership to enhance communication between a school and school families.

About a week and a half ago, I included a link about a new product called Microsoft Surface to a links list. This product has generated a lot of publicity in both the realms of the technology industry and eduation. What is fascinating about this product is not its current incarnation, but rather what it demonstrates might be possible in the future.

Watch for these Microsoft security updates, coming soon to a computer near you (unless you are a Mac person!)

When a person is grieving, "don't cry" is probably the worst thing you can say. But, maybe it isn't?

How often to you say "thanks" or "thank you" each day? Do you mean it?