T4 Teachers:

I hope your summer has gone well. I have tried to leave you alone as much as possible, so that you may recharge and return for the new school year refreshed and ready to innovate!

You may pick up your laptops at the IT Department at the Central Office, starting at noon on Thursday, July 23. Please pick them up before the end of the business day on Friday so that you can acquaint yourselves with them before the start of the T4 Technology Coach training.

Trainings will take place July 27-31, for a total of 20 hours. Each day will have two fifteen minute breaks and one hour-long lunch break. Training will NOT take place on July 30.

Before the July 27-31 training, please complete the following tasks:
- Create accounts
- Read articles
- View videos
- Join T4 Ning groups

1. Teachers should create accounts in the following websites and send their usernames to Noah Tonk (noaht@susd12.org) and Emily Mann (emily.mann@pimaregionalsupport.org). If it would help you to make a list of passwords for the accounts, please do so.

Diigo
http://www.diigo.com

Gmail & Google Docs
http://www.gmail.com

Twitter
http://www.twitter.com

OpenID
http://openid.net/get/

VoiceThread
http://voicethread.com/#home

Skype
http://www.skype.com

PBWorks
http://pbworks.com/academic.wiki

Wikispaces
http://www.wikispaces.com/

2. Please read the following articles:

Collaborate or Die: The Future of Education
http://www.universitybusiness.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1168

The Future of Education: Is it Web 2.0 or Not?
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/özge-karaoğlu/future-education-it-web-20-or-not

Disrupting Class: Student-Centric Education is the Future
http://www.edutopia.org/student-centric-education-technology#

3. Please view the following videos:

A Brave New World Wide Web
http://t4teachers.ning.com/video/a-brave-new-world-wide-web

A Vision of K-12 Students Today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8

4. Finally, on this Ning, please be sure that you have joined the T4 Coaches group and the school-level group appropriate to your teaching position.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. You may reach me easily via email, or by calling me using the Google Voice widget on this page or the phone number you can find in my emails. Thank you for doing everything that you do. I look forward to working closely with you this year as you explore new ways to encourage your students to learn using active participation and collaboration. See you next week!

A Brief History of Technology in Education

A Brief History of Technology in Education from AdamBellow on Vimeo.