Integration Help

I received thefollowing email today (edited very slightly and name withheld). I will answer the best I can, but I sure don’t have all the answers. Anyone willing to share their ideas here?

“I am a fifth grade teacher who really wants to integrate technology but is having a difficult time of it. There are a lack of resources, administrative support, and my own lack of knowledge. That being said, I feel knowledgeable about technology, just not how to effectively integrate it into lessons. I was wondering if you would be willing to give me some pointers on how to add it to lessons. I am specifically interested in furthering my use of blogs, wikis, and podcasts.”
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Google?s open source contest for pre-university students

Got this in my email inbox from someone at Google, sounds like good open source stuff!

Announcement:
November 28, 2007

Google announces first open source contest for pre-university students

Who doesn’t love a contest? We certainly do. Google believes strongly in
students having opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math,
and today at the Open Source Developers’ Conference in Brisbane, Australia
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The Authentic Enterprise

Just read an article on The Authentic Enterprise (.pdf). Ignoring for a moment that the term "authentic" is no longer very authentic and is therefore largely meaningless, the report presents an interesting perspective on how participatory web tools have shifted the role of corporate communications. The ability for a PR department to craft, control, and segment messages is now minimal due to web. While it's not a revolutionary statement, the report makes the admission of the current state of information flow: "We are not in control". Like any individual in need of help/therapy, accurately appraising one's predicament is important to healing :). I wonder how many educational institutions have a similar understanding - i.e. that we no longer control information creation, flow, dissemination, validation, etc.

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Remembering The First Atomic Explosion

On July 16, 1945sixty years agothe first atomic bomb ever detonated was exploded in the New Mexico desert. This article describes the event. I was less than a hundred miles away and I remember the day. I was eight-years-old. My family was staying at my grandparents’ home in the Rio Grande valley north of El Paso and the other side of a razorback mountain range from the blast. They say there was a light in the sky, but I don’t remember that. What I do remember is what my brother Bill, eighteen months older than I, told me. He said, “We must have split the atom.” I did not know what that meant, but from the way he said it I knew it must have been important.
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