Information overload has the potential to overwhelm good citizens all over the world, and I am not immune!  With a busy life that begins with five children and all their great adventures, I am often not reading all my RSS feeds, not checking Twitter, nor updating Facebook.  However, I do utilize these tools and many others to organize information that I find useful, and I know that I will eventually get to the pieces of info that are meaningful to me.

I can’t keep up with it all and that is okay.  There are no laws that require us to keep up to date on every piece of information rolling around on the web, and there are laws that warn us not to neglect our children.  Remember that the next time a little one is trying to pull you away from a digital device screen.

By the way, happy anniversary to my dear wife Dianna.  19 years and still going strong!!! 

We spent part of Saturday at the Nebraskaland Days Parade.  The following is footage utilizing the new Kodak camera that we are trying out.  The NPHS band is the featured entry in the video!

A few odds and ends keep showing up on my blog as I share examples of how to blog in various professional development workshops that I am facilitating this June.  We are podcasting, blogging, doing digital storytelling, video conferencing, trying out online tools, and experimenting with several tech gadgets including the Wii.  We have also been involved in Quest Atlantis professional development too.  It has been quite rewarding so far, and I myself have learned so much.  Our training resources can be found at one of my wikis:  HIT – Hokanson’s Instructional Technology Wiki. Enjoy!

I just saw this on yahoo.com – that is awesome!!!

This works quite well!!!

Hello!!!

How is the commenting going?

Hey, does this work?

This is a post to welcome some new bloggers to the blogosphere!  It is an interesting world and fun too!  Students can definitely benefit from teachers that blog, and a classroom blog extends your classroom and shares what is happening with the rest of the world.

A blog is simply a type of website that is easy to put together and maintain (See the video clip below!).  Here is hoping that you enjoy blogging!

I love the Common Craft site and the informative, easy to understand videos that explain everything from Twitter to saving money.  My favorite is from a couple of years ago during the Halloween season:

What a whirlwind school year!  It is hard to believe that it is over.  My posts to this blog (lack of posts!!!) are a barometer of how busy I was especially over the last few months.  I am preparing for summer professional development workshops, and I wanted to share my resources (A work in progess over the next few days; so, please check back as I add information).  If you have anything to add it would be appreciated (Please add your suggestions to the comments, thanks)!

Summer 2009 Workshop Resources (My PBWorks Wiki)

It has been a few busy days since attending the NETA Conference in Omaha, and I just had an opportunity to look over my notes and add various links I wanted to share.  The conference was very rewarding once again, and despite the sketchy internet connection, I was able to gain a wealth of information.

If you are interested in viewing the resources that my team and I gathered go to the following PBworks page (So long PBwiki in name, and hello to the new name!); plus, we will be adding more notes over the coming days so check back:  http://hokanson.pbworks.com/NETA-Conference-2009

Another exciting NETA Conference is underway, and I am looking forward to my second trip to this event.  When I announced I would be moving to Nebraska two years ago, David Warlick mentioned this great conference!  It is an excellent place to network, pick up new skills and information, and it is an event I would recommend to anyone in the region.  I plan to share what I learn over the next two days so stay tuned!

The following links provide information and resources concerning my NETA Conference presentation:  Student Centered Technology Planning…

NETA Presentation (PowerPoint 2007)

NETA Presentation and Notes (.pdf document)

NPPSD Technology Framework Site (http://tinyurl.com/c3blnj)

NPPSD Building Level Technology Plan Template (MS Word 2007 document format)

NPPSD Building Level Technology Plan Template (MS Word 97-2003 document format)

NPPSD Building Level Technology Plan Template (.pdf document)

NPPSD District Site (http://www.nppsd.org)

Neil Hokanson Blog (http://www.neilhokanson.com)

Amazing!!!

I had viewed this before and was reminded of it in a recent presentation I attended. Food for thought. Enjoy!

Interesting article at PCMAG.com:  ”One Cell Phone Per Child.”

The author’s conclusion states:

“If I sound optimistic, it’s because I am. If anything can derail this movement, it’s that almost all of these efforts have been driven by businesses that are pushing mobile adoption because it’s profitable to do so. So far, letting business take the lead has been pretty effective, but there are a lot of projects that require government coordination. I just hope that governments and NGOs aren’t so infatuated with the OLPC that they overlook the millions of portable computers that are already in people’s hands.”

The following are two interesting articles from Science Daily:

Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills

Social Skills, Extracurricular Activities In High School Pay Off Later In Life

As educators we already know this, but it is always good to have research to help back it up!

Check out this wonderful reading site for young children: Roy the Zebra.

Information from the site:

“The site is home to a package of interactive games, stories and resources that have been developed to help emerging readers learn to read. The site can be used at school or at home. It’s one of the most comprehensive interactive literacy resources on the net that is freely accessible… no area of the site is password protected.

RTZ also aims to make life easier for educators who teach reading skills. We hope you enjoy the site’s simplicity, fun characters and logical structure. You’ll never be more than 3 clicks (…if that!) away from what you need.

Recently over 360 educators assessed the effectiveness of the resources on www.roythezebra.com – 100% of the respondents agreed that RTZ had helped their pupils become better readers, 100% agreed that the site made reading fun and 100% said that they would use RTZ in the future.”

This looks like a useful list that I will check out over the coming days:  101 Undiscovered Freebies: The List.  Please share your thoughts on any of these resources.

Appears to be a nice size of free storage space:

“25 GB of free storage on Windows Live

With SkyDrive, it’s easy to store and share your files and photos with almost anyone.

Education Week article:  Reading, Math Software Found to Have Little Effect on Scores

Word 2007 Add-in: Microsoft Math

The Microsoft Math Add-in for Microsoft Office Word 2007 makes it easy to create graphs, perform calculations, and solve for variables with equations created in Word.

The Microsoft Math Add-in adds computational and graphing capabilities to the Equation Tools Ribbon of Word 2007.

With the Microsoft Math Add-in for Word 2007, you can:

• Plot a function, equation, or inequality in 2-D or 3-D
• Solve an equation or inequality
• Calculate a numerical result
• Simplify an algebraic expression

Now that we are two years in on the KnowledgeWorks Foundation and Institute for the Future 2006-2016 Map of Future Forces Affecting Education where are we now?

In February I had the opportunity (I took the opportunity and it is there for the taking!) to complete the Quest Atlantis professional development.  The following video produced by Suffern Middle School students utilizes several clips from QA, Second Life, etc. to drive home a very important point!  Enjoy and do!