I write and implement a lot of grants. Grant funding is the lifeblood of ed tech these days, and with the stimulus round of EETT coming out, grants are much on many of our minds.

Grants aren’t all good, though. One of my own disappointments with many grants is the lack of sustainability. (This is really a concern with education as a whole, not just grant-funded projects.) Too many times, the program fizzles out toward the end of the grant, and the instructional benefits are completely gone by the next year.

Sometimes, though, programs are sustained beyond the grant and continue to benefit teachers and students alike.

So, what is the difference? Here are some readily identifiable characteristics that I’ve observed. As you read through these, think about projects you’ve done in the past and ones you’re contemplating for the future. What can you do to help drive your grant projects toward sustainability and success?

A grant that is not sustainable
(likely to fail)

• The program is planned by tech staff, not curriculum leaders and teachers.
• Instructional goals are not driving the project.
  (This focus is on tech skills and gadgets, rather than how to read, write, do math, etc.)
• Technology equipment is the focus.
  (Discussions begin with “We have 250 [tech gadget of your choice].” PD is focused on how to use [tech gadget of your choice], rather than how to improve reading, writing, math skills, etc.)
• There is little or no leadership buy-in.
  (The principal is not visible at project activities and may not even know about the program.)

A grant that is readily sustainable
(likely to succeed)

• The program is driven by academic goals that are already in place and that reflect goals teachers are already trying to meet.
• There is more discussion of learning goals in language arts, math, science, social studies, etc. than of technology.
  (This is easier if the focus of the program is on specific curriculum areas and grade levels and if PD addressed this. If you are addressing multiple areas, PD should be divided up accordingly.)
• There is strong leadership support.
  (District curriculum and instruction staff and principals know about and visibly support the program.)
• PD is ongoing and in the classroom.
  (In-classroom mentoring is much more effective than whole group traditional workshops.)
• There are mechanisms to develop internal support structures that can continue to provide support after the grant funding ends.
  (These can include encouraging interested teachers to become mentors or starting a program to have students act as tech support aids.)

Podstock Southwest is being held on Aug. 6-7 in El Paso, Texas.

I’m presenting sessions on open content resources, Web 2.0 and mini-laptops, and Web 2.0 applications for personal and school use. If you’re attending, stop by and say hi.

And if you can’t make it, here’s a wiki with all the session materials.

The advent of Web 2.0 applications, open resources, inexpensive hardware, and differentiation of instruction through remixing of content is really improving the learning experience in many classrooms.

However, overly aggressive blocking and filtering policies is a real obstacle to new models of engaged learning. This is an excellent article by an articulate student about how these policies can be detrimental to learning.

At NECC this year, I saw many attendees carrying new mini-laptops (also called netbooks) and talked to many planning large school purchases. A lot of people asked me which model is the best, and I referred folks to our comparison chart. If you have your own opinion about which model is best for schools, post your comments and experience.

While each has its pros and cons in terms of features, another consideration is which vendors know how to work with schools and will be around for the long haul. I like Dell in this regard. Not only do they work well with schools, but their new mini-laptop is ruggedized for kids and there is a cart available.

Another vendor that is doing well in the U.S. market is Acer. In fact, the New York Times ran an article this Sunday that says that Acer is poised to pass Dell and become the #2 seller of personal computers this year. That kind of market might makes for not only good prices, but longevity, always an important consideration in the mobile technology arena. Acer makes several mini-laptops that are good choices for schools to consider.

The new Flip Ultra camera (120 min. version), as well as the HD models, use an MP4 format. This doesn’t import directly into WIndows Movie Maker like the AVIs do, but the conversion process to WMV files is very easy using the built in Flip software.

To do this, you’ll first need to install the FlipShare software, which you can do directly from the camera. Then:

• Plug in your camera and run FlipShare.
• Select the videos you want to convert.
• Click Online under Share at the bottom of the screen.
• Select Other Web sites. Click Next.
• Click the radio button next to Other. Click Next.
• Click Go and wait until you get a message that the conversion is done. (There’s a status box in the lower left corner. Depending on the number of length of clips you’re converting, it can take a while.)
• The converted clips will be put in a folder on your desktop.

Other notes of interest….

- This process reduces the resolution of HD movies. Depending on your application, this may or may not be important.

- Make sure you do this BEFORE you take movies off your camera. Also, don’t rename the movies on your camera, or FlipShare won’t recognize them. (You can rename them after you do the conversion.)

- For Mac users, the MP4 files will import directly into iMovie.

I am really excited about two hands-on sessions I’m facilitating at NECC in DC this year. They both concern open educational resources (OER), which are free and open digital content resources for educators. I think that OERs can be a critical piece is differentiating instruction.

In these sessions, we’ll be exploring open licensed photos, clip art and music; looking at open wiki-based textbooks; using an an open licensed kids dictionary; and creating and improving other OERs. Here are the times:

Open-Licensed Content: The Missing Piece
[Formal Session: Open Source Lab]
Monday, 6/29/2009, 8:30am–9:30am WWCC 152 B

Open Educational Resources: Share, Remix, Learn
[Formal Session: BYOL]
Tuesday, 6/30/2009, 12:30pm–1:30pm WWCC 151 B

I’ll also be in the 21st Century Media Center Playground on Mon. from 12-2 showing mobile technology tools that can be used to differentiate instruction and in the Open Source Playground (Mon. from 2-4 and Tues. from 2-4) showing open content and talking about how you can use this free resource in your school.

Hope to see you in DC!

There is a flood of stimulus money coming into education this summer, including a substantial amount for ed tech. This is one-time funding that is to be spent quickly, but in a way that yields significant, long-term gains.

I can think of no better way to use such funding than to develop high-quality, open-licensed curriculum resources that would be available for free use worldwide. Teachers and students in one-to-one laptop programs across the country could benefit from this content.

A more detailed concept paper of this idea is available here.

If you are with a school district that would be interested in a collaboration on such a project, please contact me at karen at k12opened dot com.

Dell has finally come out with its much-awaited new mini-laptop (netbook) for education. The Latitude 2100 has a 10″ screen includes many of the features of other mini-laptops, as well as some unique features for education, most notably a ruggedized case. The starting price is $369.

There is also an optional touchscreen that could add some real benefits for education. (This seems to add only $30 to the price. Amazing!) Other add-ons include additional memory, hard drives (up to 250 GB)  a longer-life battery (recommended), an extended warranty, and even Vista. (This is the first netbook I’ve seen that could run Vista.)

Stay tuned for more reviews as these roll out.

I don’t know why I didn’t do this a long time ago, but I have just created annotated tag sets for two of my workshops (I guess I get the “bookmarking” part of social bookmarking, but sometimes forget about the “social” part.):

Web 2.0 — All You Can Eat Buffet
Using Open educational resources – Share, Remix, Learn

I already do wikis for all my workshop, and tag sets are another logical step of going to all-electronic workshop materials. Both of these tools are also a nice way to continue to deliver new info long after the workshops are over and to share with a wider audience.

What a great idea! DeAnza College DeAnza College has a community service learning project that involves developing open educational resources. They suggest several projects that students can contribute to.

What a phenomenal way to teach about open education, while also contributing something to the world at large.

This would be a great idea for service learning for K-12 students. Have them write or edit a Wikipedia article; write a definition or two for the open dictionary; or open license some of their own photos, clipart, or video and upload to a site like Flickr, WP Clip Art, TeacherTube, or NextVista.