ArtsCow.com is doing a sale right now on their custom Dog Tags. Using their designer, you can upload your own images and have them printed out on a dog tag. Normally, they cost 8.99, but through August 16th, they have a sale going on. If you use the coupon code 199DOGTAG, you can get a two sided dog tag with free shipping for $1.99. I don’t ordinarily post deals like this, but I think this could be a lot of fun for educators and it’s a pretty darn reasonable price.

So what can you do with a $1.99 dog tag?

• Create one for each of your students that has your School, Class Name, School contact info, and then their name and/or photo on the back. Be great for field trips, and early learners can use it to help learn how to spell/write their name.
• Random student grouping. Mix and match pictures and colors on each side, so you can use them for random grouping. For example, if you want to be able to do groups of 3, 4, 5, or 6 at different parts of the day, put 5 different animals on 3 different color backgrounds on one side, and then put 6 different shapes on 4 different colors on the other side. Then you can give each child a tag when they walk in, and call out groups as you need it. “All squares, come to the writing table.” “Yellow tags, go to music, green tags, stay with me.” You get the idea.
• Extension activities/centers. When students finish their assignment, they can pick an extension activity out of the bucket. Only put in as many tags in there as you can have at that activity or center. They were it as they play, and then put it back and pick a new one when they’re done.
• Job chart. List their jobs on the tags, and they can wear the tag to remind them what their job is until they do it. Then they just hang it up.
• Create permanent versions of Kevin Honeycutt’s Web2.0 keychain. A website on one side, a tip and a mentor’s email on the other.
• Bathroom passes, hall passes, Star of the day necklace, create yourself a cool keychain, etc. Hey, for 1.99, why not?
• Rewards for other teachers at your school. Create your own, Technology Teacher of the Month award! Give your colleagues a pat on the back for doing innovative things with technology in their classrooms. For $24 you could create one for every month this year.
• If you’re a geocacher, this would make a fantastic travel bug!

That’s about it off the top of my head. So let me toss the ball to you. What might you create custom dog tags for?

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Anybody shocked? In a report from Common Sense Media, 35% of students admitted to cheating via cell phone, and over half the students surveyed admitted to using the internet to cheat in some way. There are plenty of people who would say that this is a fantastic reason to ban cell phones in schools. I only hope that those same people ban the internet too.

Seriously though, I’m not sure anybody is all that surprised. And before any suggests we start banning technology because it can be used to cheat, I suggest they do a few Google searches. Cheating has evolved into quite the art form. Taking away their phones won’t stop anyone, any more than taking away the graphic calculators would. If someone wants to cheat, they will.

A few other key findings from the study:

* 41% of teens say that storing notes on a cell phone to access during a test is a serious cheating offense, while 23% don’t think it’s cheating at all.
* 45% of teens say that texting friends about answers during tests is a serious cheating offense, while 20% say it’s not cheating at all.
* 76% of parents say that cell phone cheating happens at their teens’ schools, but only 3% believe their own teen has ever used a cell phone to cheat.
* Nearly two-thirds of students with cell phones use them during school, regardless of school policies against it.
* Teens with cell phones send 440 text messages a week and 110 a week while in the classroom.

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Ben Grey wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been sitting on, knowing that I needed to respond, but loath to start because I knew what it would require to do it justice. He asks people to respond to a very simple question: “Why Technology?”

Often, nobody is given the opportunity to defend the cutting of budgets or programs. But what if they were? What if you were? If tomorrow you had to stand in front of your Board of Education and respond to the question, “why should we continue to use and pursue technology in our district,” what would you say?

My initial smartass answer is, “why not?” But obviously that doesn’t do it justice. So I sat down and thought about it. And then I came back to it. Again and again I mulled it over and couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I know how important it is, but I was having trouble pinning down exactly why I felt as strongly as I do.

It all gelled together when I saw what I thought was an unrelated video. Someone on Twitter linked to the Larry Lessig Ted Talks video as an example of how to use 200 slides in a 20 minute presentation in a GOOD way. However, when I only got about four minutes in before I had to stop watching.

At the 2:54 mark, he begins to tell a story about property laws. Trespassing laws used to extend property borders straight up, all the way to the sky. When airplanes began flying overhead, the question was raised before the Supreme Court, whether planes flying over property were trespassing. It seems some farmers were worried about the planes distressing their chickens. So the Supreme Court studied the law, discussed the issue, and as you might imagine they ruled that the farmers were wrong, and that “the doctrine protecting land all the way to the sky has no place in the modern world.” Just think about how complicated it would be if those LA to DC flights had to zig zag around different properties. And then came the phrase that made me hit the stop button. “Common sense revolts at the idea.”

And there you go. Failing to teach our students technology? “Common sense revolts at the idea.” That sums it all up for me. It’s an integral part of our world at this point. It’s not a matter of preparing them for life, it’s a matter of setting them up to be successful. It’s a matter of giving them every advantage. It’s a matter of teaching them ethics, citizenship and… well… common sense. And to be honest, it’s a question that we shouldn’t even be asking anymore.

At some point, we accepted that every student needs to know how to read and write in order to be successful. Well, technology falls under the same category. The problem is, people assume that just because a student is classified as Digital Native, people think the student knows everything they need to be successful. That simply isn’t the case. Is uploading video to YouTube a skill? Something that can be done ‘well’ or ‘poorly’. Take a look at this video and compare that with all the videos on YouTube of kids smoking Salvia and you tell me whether there’s a difference, or a teachable moment waiting to happen.

So why technology?

Because every career in the world is being impacted by it.

Because every student has an equal opportunity to ruin their chances of being successful through it.

Because it’s the right thing to do.

It’s just common sense.

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Illinois Computing Educators 2009 has come and gone! I’m too tired to write a coherant wrap up post right now, but I will say this: There was a closeness, family type of feeling there this year beyond what I’ve seen in years past. Not that it hasn’t always been a tight knit group, and a wonderful conference to attend, but this year it seemed to be a little more so than in years past.

I can only attribute it to 3 things. 1) The addition of the PLN Plaza. An open lounge type area for people to network/hangout/plurk in. Scott Meech did a fantastic job putting it together and keeping it active. 2) The bar area being smoke free. In previous years, only the smokers would hang out there, and everyone else would do their best to hold their breath and race past it. This year, it was a place for anyone and everyone to congregate. And congregate they did. 3) The attendance of Kevin Honeycutt. Not to take anything away from anybody else who was a speaker or traveled many many miles to come, but I must say hanging out with Kevin was like a breath of fresh air. Truly a kind and genuine human being and it was a pleasure to watch him ‘in action’.

So, with that, I’ll just share two highlights. So long as we’re on the subject of good feelings, Thursday night Kevin broke out his guitar and we were treated to a fantastic jam session. Here’s just a little taste of it.

The second is my ‘geekbumps’ highlight of the conference floor. The latest and greatest from SMART. Their response to the Microsoft Surface. But this thing is produced for the consumer market and ready for sale. I played around with it for about 10 minutes and was way impressed. It ain’t cheap, but it truly is a magnificent piece of technology. The vendor showing it was Bradfield’s, so if you’re interested in it feel free to drop them a line.

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I always look forward to December 5th for two reasons. It happens to be my birthday, but more importantly, it’s also the Day of the Ninja! It’s the day when everybody, everywhere gets to… well… act like a ninja I guess! I’ve always been a big fan of ninjas. I watched a ton of ninja movies, including the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja, and have read quite a few books featuring ninjas.

I began to wonder, what sits at the corner of EdTech Boulevard and Ninja Street? And with that, let’s take a look at some of the best Ninja resources for educators!

If we’re talking about Ninja education, I think we need to start with the Dean. Dean Dad is the Dean of a community college and came up with a list of what the Pre-Ninja program would look like at his school. He also expanded that to what the pre-reqs were, graduation requirements and that’s just the beginning. A fine place to start for any budding Technology Ninja.

Image via WikipediaSpeaking of Technology Ninjas, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to the original Technology Ninja, Tom Woodward. You may know him form his layman’s blog, Bionic Teaching, which just happens to be nominated at the EduBlog Awards. But once he dons his handy Ninja mask, he becomes the Technology Ninjawho is there to silently assassinate your technology problems! Unfortunately he hasn’t posted for quite a while there, but there’s still quite a lot to learn from.

I say that he’s the original, because he seems to have been supplanted by the EdTech Ninja. Who IS the EdTech Ninja? Nobody knows! Could it be Tom under a new guise? Or perhaps he’s a colleague of yours! He could be anybody because Ninjas are so stealthy and sneaky. What I do know is that there’s an incredible amount of information there for any educator, but especially those looking for Smartboard tips and tricks.

Finally, I wanted to share a video that I found. Student Ninjas at Metz Middle School won an honorable mention at the Shortie awards for this video. In it, “Ninjas must use their knowledge of inequalities to know what to do when hit by a negative!” Enjoy!

Hope your Day of the Ninja is full of sneaky fun!

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