Podcast #41 – Free Kindle!, (please Jack and/or Jeff!), Free iTunes (U), and Free Second Life!

News & Events

1.  Start planning for October’s Month of the Young Adolescent!
2.  Ohio Middle School Association’s Annual Conference, February 19-20, 2009 in Sandusky, OH. 
3.  Institute for Middle Level Leadership.  July 20-23
4.  Best Practices for Student Success.  July 28 & August 6 
5.  NMSA Annual Conference, October 30 – November 1 (Video sample
6.  Summer Teacher-to-Teacher professional development program registration is open. (free)
7.  Canadian National Middle Years Conference, November 5, 6, & 7 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
8.  Rick Stiggins has a new Balanced Assessment Manifesto posted at NMSA‘s website.
9.  NMSA is looking for a new journal editor.  Applications due August 1, 2008. 
10.  Michigan Association of Middle School Educators Elections are posted:
PRESIDENT-ELECT:    Alice Seppanen
TREASURER:    Charlene Pike
Suzanne Lappin, Member-At-Large
Nic Cooper, Region 2
David Feldman, Region 4
Mary Ann Schmedlen, Region 8
Sherry Lambertson, Region 11
David Baldus, Region 12
Joe Somerville, Region 13
11.  Looking for news from Ontario Middle Level Educators Association.  If you have any, drop us a line. 
12.  Wisconsin Association of Middle Level Educators annual conference is coming up October 9-10, 2008. 
13.  The New England League of Middle Schools has a whole bevy of professional development planned for the 2008-2009 school year and you can access it here
14.  ADVISORY IDEAS NEEDED:  NELMS is putting together an Advisory Resource page with lessons for you to use.  They are asking for submissions here by January 1, 2009.  If your entry is used, you will be entered in a raffle for a 3 day NELMS conference ticket. 
15.  Second Life Education Community Conference (SLEDcc) Announcement:  (From the webpage…) “The Second Life Education Community Conference 2008 will take place in conjunction with the Official Second Life Community Convention 2008 in Tampa, Florida (US) and in the virtual world of Second Life on September 5 – 7th, 2008. All members of the Second Life educational community and anyone with an interest in the use of virtual worlds technology in education is invited to attend! Please note: Registration fees cover both the SLEDcc and SLCC events! Conference registration and fees only apply to those going to SLEDcc/SLCC in Tampa, in-world only participants do not need to register or pay any fees.”  Here’s your chance to attend a free conference during the first week of school.  The conference schedule can be found here

If your state or regional middle level association is organizing an event, please let us know at middleschooleducators@gmail.com

Shout outs:
1.  Jeff Bezos, we’d love to put a free Kindle through its paces at NMSA ’08 … 
2.  Ron in New Jersey, thanks for the email.
3.  The lake trout at 140 feet down who saw my lure at 100 feet down and took it last week, you were delicious … 
4.  Our international friends – even the Spammers!

Copyright Fight looms over College Textbooks
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=54684;_hbguid=1a943a6a-3bb8-4f98-9bd7-ab945e14b76c
The high cost of college textbooks has spawned a new battleground in the fight to keep students from downloading copyright-protected materials over the internet: textbook file sharing.

Court upholds Teacher firing for looking at porn
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=54693;_hbguid=80f259df-0ff1-423f-8e9c-c0b047174269


Visually very polished. Most of the subject area categories have between 1-10 episodes. Many of the episodes are around 1 minute in length. There are some gems. (A video on Formative Assessment includes