Greetings from Bill and I hope that you have a happy and restful holiday season. In 2009 I made many new friends and established great connections with colleagues all around the country and the world. The 2009 conferences at Clemson University and Greenville were both successful and I appreciate the chance to share digital literacy strategies with teachers from all over South Carolina. The opportunity to work in both the Oconee and Beaufort County School Districts has helped me continue to grow my professional practice and I am thankful for all the friends that I’ve made in that work. I am grateful to district superintendents, Dr. Mike Lucas and Dr. Valerie Truesdale, for their support of my work. The collaborative work with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs and her Curriculum Designers team has been inspiring and she motivates all of us to be leaders in education. We are living in the greatest time of change ever experienced in education and I will continue to work every day to see that our students will benefit from the positive changes occurring all around us.
The year Two-Thousand-Ten is only a few days away and I look forward to the New Year. Dr. Jacob’s Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World will be released in January and I am proud to be a contributing author (Make sure you read Chapter 12 when you get the book). You will be receiving updates about the activities and conferences built around the release of the book. We are excited that Curriculum 21 will be the first ASCD member book of 2010. Look for more news coming about our expanding opportunities to work with ESOL teachers and administrators all round the southeast. I am planning more digital literacy conferences and look forward to continued collaborations with individual school districts all around the country.
As always, I will leave you with a learning tool that can help you engage your students. Do you like the holiday photo I made for you in this post? That was made with one of my favorite Web 2.0 tools, Picnik. I have shared it everywhere I go this past year and I hope that you will have fun editing your holiday pictures. Take care, and enjoy your family time; I look forward to working and learning with you in 2010.
