The Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) is sponsoring a contest for teachers who effectively use Verizon Thinkfinity resources in their classrooms.

Win a TCEA 2011 convention registration and a netbook with your lesson plan and video. The deadline is Feb. 1, 2010. More details will follow at our website.

Nominations for all of Texas Computer Education Association's (TCEA) Educator Awards will open Nov. 2, 2009. Nominate an educator who’s making a difference with technology from your campus/district. Undergraduate and graduate scholarships, as well as professional educator grants, are also available.

For more information, visit the TCEA website at http://www.tcea.org/EducatorAwards/.

We would like to invite you to participate in a distance learning presentation(s) sponsored by the Instructional Technology Department. In a distance learning session, students interact with a speaker or presenter in real time. Through the use of a TV monitor and a camera, students are able to go to places they’ve never visited such as a museum for example.

Distance Learning in McAllen ISD is available at five different campuses:

1. McAllen High School
2. Memorial High School
3. Travis Middle School
4. Rowe High School
5. Castaneda Elementary

Teachers may visit our website to look for a topic of interest. Several sources dealing with programs that offer distance learning services can be found in our site. Once a teacher decides on a topic of choice, they contact their Technology Specialist to proceed to the next step. Our department covers the costs for the presenter and transportation. Visit our site and book a distance learning for your students. Generally, we require a 3 week notice in advance for distance learning requests. Contact your Technology Specialist for further information.

• Tools for Educators

FREE worksheets, worksheet creators, printables wizard and on-line teaching materials makers with images.

• Best of History Web Sites

Best of History Web Sites is an award-winning portal that contains annotated links to over 1000 history web sites as well as links to hundreds of quality K-12 history lesson plans, history teacher guides, history activities, history games, history quizzes, and more.

• DailyLit

Read books by email (or RSS).

• Speakaboos

Speakaboos brings classic children's entertainment into a digital world. Beloved characters and treasured stories are given new life through amazing celebrity performances, beautiful illustrations, and original music.

• Livemocha

Livemocha is the world's largest language learning community with over 2 million members! Designed for all language goals and skill levels, Livemocha offers free and plus learning options that actually work – and make learning languages social and fun!

• HowStuffWorks

HowStuffWorks is the award-winning source of credible, unbiased, and easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works.

• Classics For Kids

Classics for Kids® helps students learn about classical music and have fun too!

• Forecast Earth

News, science and debate advancing sustainable life on a changing planet.

• Instructables

Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others. The seeds of Instructables germinated at the MIT Media Lab as the future founders of Squid Labs built places to share their projects and help others.

• Stormpulse

Tracking and mapping of severe weather and hurricanes.

• The College Board

The College Board is a not-for-profit membership association whose mission is to connect students to college success and opportunity. Among its best-known programs are the SAT®, the PSAT/NMSQT®, and the Advanced Placement Program® (AP®). The College Board is committed to the principles of excellence and equity, and that commitment is embodied in all of its programs, services, activities, and concerns.

• Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic medical information and tools for healthy living.

• ScienceDaily

ScienceDaily is one of the Internet’s most popular science news web sites.

• Charlie Rose

Acclaimed interviewer and broadcast journalist Charlie Rose engages America's best thinkers, writers, politicians, athletes, entertainers, business leaders, scientists and other newsmakers in one-on-one interviews and roundtable discussions.

Elementary Technology Teacher of the Year

Nidia Alvarado has been teaching for 2 years as a Kindergarten Bilingual Teacher at Wilson Elementary School and is the Campus Technology Committee Chairperson. Mrs. Alvarado believes technical know-how is beneficial in both visual learning and logical learning styles and considers technology a powerful classroom tool. Her goal is to use technology to bring information to life for her students and to help them discover how to make it work for them in a positive way.

Secondary Technology Teacher of the Year

John Larson has been teaching for 22 years. Mr. Larson is currently a Technology Applications Teacher at Fossum Middle School, the Campus Technology Committee Chairperson, and the Campus Technology Facilitator. He has participated in over 100 technology professional development sessions. Mr. Larson believes students expect to use technology for learning and thus encourages teachers to use the technology in the classroom. His technology motto is “if you got it use it, if you don’t have it, find it or ask for it”.

In this edition, we focus our spotlight on Victor Rodriquez, an English Language Arts teacher at Lamar Academy.

Victor was born and raised in McAllen, Texas and graduated from St. Edward’s University with a Bachelor’s in English Education. He returned to the Valley and began teaching at Options in Education High School, now known as Lamar Academy. “I have just begun my twelfth year at Lamar Academy and have been involved in my campus by taking on a variety of responsibilities.”

“I recently earned a Master’s degree in Information Technology, because I believe that technology is here to stay. To succeed in today’s world, one must evolve with the advancement and enhancement that technology brings.”

Click here for the complete article.

Trying to keep track of all the new Web 2.0 tools available can be a daunting task. Fortunately, there is always someone willing to compile a manageable list for the rest of us to look through. Here is a list of 100 essential Web 2.0 Tools for teachers and students. These tools were not originally meant for use in the classroom, but they can be extremely effective learning tools for today’s technology geared students and their venturesome teachers.

For more information, click here.

What is Teach@15?

The Teach@15 Award program helps schools serving any grades 7-12 meet their technology needs. Teens (age 13-18) who are registered members on at15.com ("Members") can nominate their schools (depending on eligibility) to win a Teach@15 Award. Starting September 3, 2009, teen members can vote for a nomination once per day. Every 15 days, Best Buy will award 3 schools with Best Buy Gift Cards based on member votes. The school with the most votes will win $1,500, second most votes wins $1,000 and third most votes wins $500.

For more information, click here.

Administrators, Teachers, and Staff,

Welcome back to school. We have been working diligently with our new webhosting and student email provider, SharpSchool, to implement their comprehensive solution. McAllen ISD campus websites have a new format and are active. The Instructional Technology department has trained over 100 staff members to assist in maintaining the 35 campus websites.

The Information Systems department is in the process of configuring and implementing the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) system, or data sharing system, so that teacher, student, and parent accounts and online classrooms can be created. Teachers, to prepare for the setup of your online classroom, please begin to gather your electronic resources (syllabus, classroom rules, vocabulary words, worksheets, online resource URL’s, etc.). You will be notified as soon as accounts have been created and online classrooms are ready for use.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to work with SharpSchool to provide the complete solution.

Thank You,
Carmen G. Garcia, Director Instructional Technology