Well it was definitely a gray one here on the coast, but hopefully that didn't slow down your summer! My family got to visit Sequoia National Park, Upstate New York, and spend a lot of time at the beach, even without a lot of sun. How about you? What did you do?

Escondido Union School District video on Apple.com. Very cool!

Thank you to the Ramirez family for the awesome cardboard iPhone case! I'm not sure how it will work in wet weather, but hey, the sun is shining and I love the lo-fi eco style!

Students got to see the world's largest airship to the west over the Torrey Pines golf tournament today. Pretty cool. I didn't realize there was one this big anymore!

Fourth grade classes last week were looking at Haiti in Google Earth to see where the country was located and what it looked like, courtesy of Panoramio. Students observed that large buildings were very close together, and that in many areas, it looked

like entire blocks were very small dwellings covered with tarps. None of the satellite images of the devastation from the earthquake had been loaded yet. Today, one week later, a different group of fourth grade students went to observe Haiti again. This time, however, the

images of damage were quite clear. The rubble of the city spreads across streets and parks, dust clouds or smoke obscure the images and tent cities are clearly visible.

It was a sombering lesson today, compared to last week, but made even more real when comparing the Panoramio pictures of what Port-Au-Prince used to look like to the satellite images of what has happened since the catastrophe of two weeks ago.

Wow! Now that I am in the computer lab, I miss getting to go on field trips, but yesterday I had the opportunity to visit Escondido Union School District with some Del Mar technology teachers. We went to see some classrooms where students each use an iPod Touch as part of their school day. It was awesome! As part of the iRead program, teachers are trained in best practices of using both iPods and the iPod Touch in a classroom setting. Of course, for the students, this is nothing new and the students from Mrs. Cowles class, Mrs. Peterson's class, Mr. Lake's class and a few others, too, really wowed us with their use of technology. From blogging in the classroom to creative writing to weather research (and oh boy, was there weather yesterday!) they utilize every aspect of the Touch in their own education. Thank you students and teachers for the great tour! And standby for next week's Apple announcement about the NEW product that might bridge the gap between the Touch and the laptop!

I opened my Google homepage today and saw the Google logo surrounded by apples. Hmmmm, Johnny Appleseed's birthday? Something do with my favorite computer? Nope, it is Isaac Newton's birthday! He is the one, legend holds, who figured out that things fall down, like apples, because of gravity. I have a love/hate relationship with gravity, but it is no fault of Mr. Newton. Happy Birthday, Sir Isaac Newton!

I read Wesley Fryer's Post this morning on using the Google Chrome OS on netbooks. What a streamlined way to compute and prolong the life of our netbooks! I'm going to try to embed this YouTube clip and see if it works.

A big wow for my field trip yesterday. Some of us DMUSD tech folks spent an inspiring day with Apple yesterday. Specifically, learning about integrating this new podcast server into the curriculum as well as using the iPod touch in education. Put them together, you've got a very inviting, powerful and fun tool that let's students and teachers collaborate on learning. Look for great things to come from all this! Already planning on using this when we get back from break with my third grader's study of Kumeyaay.

Oh boy. Another thing to master and teach. Advantage over iWeb is this is web based. No need to be tied to one computer. Interface very Mac-y. What is this music button?