rice

RICE Newsletter

If you haven't read the RICE newsletter be sure to go to  click here to read it. Summer 2009 news

February Meeting at Glenview

Pat Versluis, Glenview Math Teacher, shared his PowerPoint Presentation on the 3 year E2T2 grant with funds in annual cycles that Glenview Middle School received in 2006.  Equipment they received with this grant included: SMARTboards, Projectors, Scanners, Printers, Document Cameras, Clickers, Wireless Slates, Webcams, HDV camcorders, Digital Cameras.  Staff Development included: Intel Training, Interactive Whiteboard Training, Digital camera and video trainign, PBS Teacherline courses, and Technology Conferences as well as lesson study.  With this grant they are required to provide evaluative data to ISTE.  For more information visit their website at www.emsd37.org

Next RICE meeting will be held at the ROE in Moline on April 1, 2009 from 4:00 -5:30 PM.  Illinois Members will share resources from the ICE Conference.  Election of officers will also take place at this meeting.

Conference Week

Stop by the ICE Booth in the Exhibition Hall between 10:00 and 11:00 on Thursday morning.  Nancy Licko, RICE President, will be manning the Booth for an ICE Meet and Greet time.  Nancy will be discussing how she is using the Moodle course management system in her high school classroom. 

If you miss Nancy at this time she will also be at the Poster Session #3 from 2:45 - 4:15 PM in the Marsalis Ballroom between the Tower area bar and the Atrium pool.  Come watch the presentations and say "Hi!" 

Happy New Year

Welcome back!  Here's hoping that everyone had a great holiday season and has made it back safely to their classrooms, refreshed, and ready to go! 

Just a few reminders of upcoming events, etc. for February:

• RICE meeting changed to February 4, 2009 at Glenview Middle School, please let Nancy know you are coming
• ICE Conference, if you haven't registered yet, you can still go to http://www.iceberg.org/form.php?fid=efc8ad5aeeb37b5ebf1d5a0113044296 and register, hurry, classes are filling up fast
• We are still looking for newsletter articles for the Spring newsletter, if you have something please submit it to Nancy or Julie by January 23, 2009

Happy Holidays

Just a quick note to wish everybody a safe and Happy Holiday season.  We will be meeting at Glenview Middle School, East Moline at 4:30 PM on February 4, 2009 instead of the 5th.  Please make a note of this date change.  Pat Versluis will present on the Technology Grant that Glenview received. 

Online registration Open for ICE Conference

ICE has just announced the online registration opening for the ICE Conference 2009.  Go to http://www.iceberg.org/form.php?fid=efc8ad5aeeb37b5ebf1d5a0113044296 to go directly to the form. The booklet will be coming soon as well, here is the link to the PDF version of the pre-conference booklet http://www.iceberg.org/site/files/ice_2009.pdf

Newsletter Articles

Hope everyone is having a great year.  Don't forget about the upcoming Winter issue of the Newsletters.  If you have an article or information that you would like to share with the RICE members, please send it to Nancy or Julie before the 22nd of October.  You can email it or send an attachment to an email nlicko@gmail.com or juliecox@riroe.k12.il.us   The next RICE meeting is Nov 5, Nancy and Rick are going to demonstrate Web 2.0.  If you have already used Web 2.0 please take a few minutes and send us an article on how you used it in your classroom. 

Did you miss the meeting?

Thursday night was a fun night.  We started the meeting with a business meeting, and then KC Tonn from ECS Communication in Bettendorf, IA, shared some information packets with us.  ECS Communications will lease technology equipment such as projectors, screens, and much more.  They also service and sell equipment as well.  Always nice to know there is someone local when your equipment goes on the fritz in the middle of that presentation. 

Dixie then joined us and we had a fun night sharing new information on how to use Adobe Photoshop CS.  Everyone seemed to have a good time, and we had two new people join us. 

If you missed the night but wanted to learn about Photoshop let me know and we can share the PDF copy of Dixie's handout with you.  You can then download the Free trial version of Adobe Photoshop CS and try it out at your leisure. 

We ended the night with pizza and door prizes, and Dixie hung around to answer questions.   

Don't forget to join us Thursday night!

Don't forget to join us Thursday night, at RIROE.  We will have a short business meeting from 4:30 - 5:00 and then Dixie will take us through information on Photoshop CS from 5-6 PM.  Hang around after that for conversation, questions, and door prizes!!!

Greetings from Nancy Licko, RICE President

Welcome Back!  I know some of you are just getting started back to school, while others have been in class since August 1.  This year for RICE begins with our meeting on Thursday, September 4 (more information listed in a previous blog), I hope you are looking forward to the meeting as much as I am.  RICE meetings are a sharing of education ideas and resources by teachers, staff support, technology directors, and just about any staff member in your school,  focused on students and learning. This opportunity to gather together to focus on modifying and hopefully improving is one of main reasons I got involved with RICE.  The topics that are covered often include computer or technology, but the focus is always on students and learning.  The members are what make RICE strong and vibrant.  You are the source of our best ideas and, many times, the answers to questions for other members.  For your participation I am truly grateful. The people I have met through RICE continue to uplift and energize me. 

This year RICE can provide our members with a new membership benefit.  RICE is a chapter of Illinois Computing Educators (ICE).  ICE has created a Blogging Website using TypePad software.  Each chapter has its own blog site for members to access, but you may also view other chapter sites.  The address for the RICE blog site is http://ice.typepad.com/rice/ .  Please take time to visit the site and choose to link to it with your email address.  Many of our members live too far out to be able to attend all our meetings.  This will enable us to keep everyone updated with the latest information. 

Julie Cox has graciously volunteered to be the RICE blogger and will be posting information on a regular basis.  This is intended to be an active exchange of ideas, questions, comments, and whatever else our members need.   So please take a few minutes to take a look and register your email address.

I am extending an open invitation to all parties interested to come to any of our meetings.  The RICE Web page and Blog site both contain information about our meetings.  Please share the meeting information with your fellow staff and educators.  We offer pizza at each of our meetings, so please do email me to make sure we can have enough.  And if you have any special requests, please let us know.  I would love to see you on September 4 at the RIROE (Moline ROE).