In case you have not heard, there are recent federal guidelines which seem to indicate that all schools (including private and parochial institutions) should be retaining copies of electronic communications of their employees. See this spotlight article from eSchoolNews for more details.

If you get the chance, be sure to check out Dennis Grice's Tech4Teachers blog. Dennis is an educational technology specialist out in CA.

My family and I returned from our three week adventure to the East Coast this past weekend. What a wonderful trip! We enjoyed the hospitality of family and friends, while enjoying the many sites our country has to offer.

We have a lot of stories about Mary Magdalene. A couple of them are even true! Read more about this saint and her day.

I'll be taking a break from regular blogging for the next couple of weeks, adding items only as necessary. You will still see some posts, but probably only one or two a week instead of four or five posts. Time to regroup and recharge. Keep the comments to previous posts coming. I make it a priority to respond to those as we learn and grow together.

Today could be your lucky day. It could also be your wedding day! Read on...

Here is an update to a recent classic video about the world of today and the implications for our education of students. There is also an online wiki dedicated to helping all of us better understand the meaning of this video, so you might want to check that out as well.

Have you ever thought about creating your own blog? Perhaps you never considered it, thinking that you don't have anything important to say or offer others. Maybe it just seems like blogging would end up being another item on an already overburdened to-do list. Despite these reservations, I like to encourage others to take up blogging, particularly Lutheran educators. There are many fascinating blogs that relate to technology and education, but there are very few that relate technology and education to MINISTRY and the work of our Lord.

More Microsoft security updates should be arriving early next week. Keep an eye open for these and make sure your computers are set to accept them automatically.

This year I'll be teaching a journalism elective for Middle School students for the first time. It seems like this is a natural extension of my other work as computer teacher since it connects with so many technology tools, such as desktop publishing, digital picture taking, etc.. I'm hoping to make this an excellent experience for my students.

Do you feel a sense of urgency or are you a procrastinator?

Rob at Technology in the Lutheran Classroom supports the idea that we need to engage so many other teachers in Lutheran schools in conversations about effective utilization of technology tools for education and ministry. To that end, Rob introduced me to Ning, an online social networking tool. More specifically, Rob took the step of creating the Technology in Lutheran Schools network on Ning for the purpose of facilitating such conversations. All readers of LutheranTech are welcome to join this network.

Here is a links list of recently discovered resources:

I mentioned in a previous post that I would share resources I found from the various presenters at NECC. One PDF document that I found particularly interesting was a list of Google Earth links, tips, and tricks for educators which are available on the Internet. I've included a number of these sites on my del.icio.us links, so you might want to check those out. Thanks to Joan Kane and to so many other educators whom I have never met for being so willing to share what they have found and learned with others. I hope that through this blog I am doing the same for other readers.