How do you incorporate the technology standards in your district.  http://www.techplan.org/literacy.html This link has a checklist that would be very helpful to make sure you covered all of the required areas, however, it is a lot. 

 One idea I have is to use any of the standards that use the verb ‘discuss’ or ‘identify’ as writing prompts either in the classroom or on our classroom website.  Hopefully, this will start discussions and deeper thinking about the topic.

How else can all these standards be incorporated into the curriculum?

WOW! I love the idea of using the Internet to teach without wasting classrom time searching (or surfing).  Check out the WebQuest that I created at http://zunal.com/webquest.php?user=33412. On my quest to create I came across a plethora of great WebQuests.  Have others used these in the classrooms?  What were your experiences?  How did you manage the classroom environment and maintain a timeline? 

 I’m starting to get excited for September!

Research shows that Students that write for an audience that interests them are far more interested in writing. In several studies students had significant improvements in their state writing scores when they had online pen pals. They found the students were motivated to write to a peer somewhere else in the world (Warlick 2005).

Has anyone used an online pen pal web site?  I have signed up for www.ePals.com and would like to implement this activity in my classroom next year.  Are there any tips to making the project successful?  Anyone use a different site that they like?