While looking around, I found...

The internet is such a vast place.  I blocked out some time to just sit and search.  Google topics.  Look in familiar places.  Search for new ideas.  Here's some stuff I found while looking around.  All of it connects to using technology in the classroom in some capacity.

1.  Steve Fulton's blog "Teaching with Technology in the Middle."  I'm now following him on Google Reader (which I love).  It's awesome to get updates regularly, especially since I rarely return to blogs independently.  This way Reader reminds me that there's great stuff out there.  Fulton has some cool ideas about incorporating technology into the writing process.

http://stevefulton.blogspot.com/2011/02/writing-research-in-record-time.html

2.  Promethean Planet's pre-made Flipcharts.  I searched for resources about the Holocaust, and specifically Night.  By using the filters (Night, Holocaust, 6-8, English, and Social Studies), I located a ton of resources.  Some of them were terrific introductory pieces (it's too late for me to use these this year) and some were great quizzes to use with clickers (which I can't use quite yet).  I like that I can download them and tweak them for my class.  I'm not starting from scratch.

3.  The survey NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) conducted about technology's influence on writing:

NCTE conducted a survey about 21st century writing and what teachers, parents, and students see changing/remaining the same in writing processes.  They call these changes writing "between the lines." I like this phrase. I often think of "reading between the lines" when I talk about making inferences. Writing between the lines, to me, is all the extra "stuff" that can now go into writing.  The resources available that you don't see on a written page.  The work that goes into a piece that can't be seen in the final product.  The revisions that take place "between the lines" that are no longer visible (i.e. comments, interactive revision, etc.).  It's a new way of framing writing.

Here is an excerpt from NCTE's survey--
"For the most part, teachers in this poll did not see student technology access as a major barrier to learning. Eightythree percent said that their students had Internet access at home, and 86 percent said that most of their students have daily access to an Internet connection at school that can be used for literacy learning purposes. . . Still, 84 percent of NCTE poll respondents agreed that while their students had excellent command of technology for entertainment purposes, they need to know more about the use of technology for the purposes of creating and understanding texts."

69% of parents agree that technology assists their children and helps them to become better writers because both writing and revising are easier.  59% of students agreed.

I think it's interesting that this survey points out the technological strengths of students in the realm of entertainment, yet their continued need to find ways to turn these skills into valuable ways of contributing to English class.

http://www.ncte.org/topics/betweenlines