This was posted on the National Blog…but was asked to pass along on state blog:
Walk to support our Armed Forces and their families
On Sept. 11, please join the DEN team and the Military Channel as we partner with America Supports You,
a Department of Defense program recognizing citizens’ support for our
military and communicating that support to members of our Armed Forces
and their families. America Supports You connects citizens and
corporations who are looking for ways to support the military with
homefront organizations that are devoted to helping the troops and
their families. The Military Channel is working with our partners to
spread the word about these significant events.
In 2005, Pentagon employees wishing to create an event that would
commemorate the attack on the Pentagon and honor the lives lost on
September 11, 2001, created what has become a new national tradition,
the America Supports You FREEDOM WALK . On September 11, 2005, over
15,000 people walked from the Pentagon to the National Mall to pay
tribute to those who died; to renew their commitment to freedom and the
values of our country and to honor our veterans, past and present. The
response from people across the country who learned of that first walk
was overwhelming. In 2006, the fifth anniversary of the tragic events
of September 11, 2001, volunteers and America Supports You homefront
groups organized FREEDOM WALKS in every state in the Union, including
more than 130 cities.
FREEDOM WALKS come in many different shapes and sizes. The San
Diego, CA walk had an “open course”. People chose a time to walk from
9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. that worked best with their schedules. In St.
Louis, MO all walkers wore yellow t-shirts and formed a “human yellow
ribbon” on the Anheuser-Busch Center field. The present Governor and
the former Governor of Oklahoma co-chaired the FREEDOM WALK in Oklahoma
City attended by over 5,000 people. In Sebring, OH, 9-year-old Colton
Lockner organized a FREEDOM WALK for the town’s nearly 3,000 residents
with the support of his Mayor and sponsorship for t-shirts from his
local Pizza Pan. The College Gate Elementary School in Anchorage, AL
walked around their school five times and concluded the event by
writing essays on what freedom meant to each of them.
This new national tradition continues to grow. We encourage each
city to plan a walk that best fits and exemplifies their community.
Walks can be held early in the morning, during the lunch hour or after
work. They can be held on September 11, or around the date, depending
on local traffic patterns. However they are organized, the America
Supports You FREEDOM WALKS are a wonderful opportunity for cities, work
places, schools, or groups of citizens to gather together and remember
this significant day and those protecting our freedom. FREEDOM WALKS
are also an excellent tool to use as a history lesson for students.
T.
Needless to say, these last few weeks I’ve been, well, hectic-crazy! For the ones that are in my twitterfeed (tom_turner) or I skype/IM with on a regular basis (tom.turner19 for skype, mithrass19 on yahoo; feel free to add me and message me anytime) you know what I’m talking about. Over the next few weeks, it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up as the list just continues to pile up. One of the things that continues to grow and grow is my RSS aggregator. I think I’m up to about 500 articles that I need to get read. I get it down to about 350 and BOOM! It goes back up.
I was able to get through TechCrunch today and saw this article from the 27th of August. Andrew introduced to his readers FotoFlexer - another online photo editing site. As you know, and would agree, we teachers are all about FREE stuff. BigHugeLabs.com is one of my new favorite places to go to create stuff, because of it’s functionality with Flickr. I can see myself really liking FotoFlexer as well, as it integrates with Picasa, Flickr and Facebook (ok Yahoo and MySpace as well, but I don’t use those!)
I’ve only perfunctorily used the site so far, I will delve deeper once I get home. I will state the obvious to you Mac users that are out there. I KNOW that you can do this with the iPhoto suite. That was the first thing that I said when I looked at the original images on the TechCrunch website. Someone in the comments even posted to the same effect. Thing is, if your school or district is not 100% on board on the Mac OS platform, why not have any and all tools at your disposal?
Tom.
Can’t hardly believe it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve posted anything. Bleh…I’ll just blame that on getting back to school and being in Hilton Head Island for my final vacational blowout before back to school time.
Many of us are heading back to school here in Florida this upcoming week. If you are an 11 month employee like myself, well, I’ve technically been back now for 2 full weeks. We won’t
count the 10 extra days I worked over the summer as vacation. Before we all head back to the classrooms and hallways of our campuses, I wanted to share this one thing with you all. I created this using FlickrToys and my Flickr account. The image was taken on our first morning of the DNI Institute aboard the Carnival FunShip Sensation. Remember, our jobs are to Illuminate, to be the beacon of light, of the endless possibilities available to all of our students. Sorry for getting all deep on everyone there. I just think with all the hoopla and stress leading up to the first day of school, sometimes that fact is forgotten by everyone.
Now onto some more serious and pressing issues. One thing that I’ve done since coming back from the DNI Academic Excursion Institute has been to play around in Second Life some. I’ve not really traveled around all that much, I’ve just enjoyed the conversations with alot of people at the DEN house, as well as the Blogger’s Cafe. I’m not going to mention going to the Tombstone re-creation and the chaps incident. It’s just too darned scary!
One thing I’m very sure you’ve heard about is the DEN SL gala event. It’s being held August 15th at the DEN House (coordinates: 69,94,22). If you haven’t given SL a try yet, or just starting, load it up and join some great conversations that can be had. If you are looking for a way to connect with your fellow DEN members, here’s a great way. Feel free to add me as a friend (Mithras Barbosa). I by no means am very able within SL as of yet, but great folks on the SL Council can definitely help you out!
Hope to see you all there…
Tom.
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