We have a great PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) at Willowdale! During Staff Appreciation Week, we were royally treated with food, duty coverage, and items of fun surrounding the theme of Super Heroes. PTO meetings are held the last Tuesday of every month and minutes are now being posted on our website. Please check out February's meeting minutes on the PTO page from drop down menu. I HIGHLY encourage you to become involved. We are currently taking nominations for officers and committee chairs for next year. Come and be a part of a great organization!

Greetings to you! If you haven't had a chance to check out Radio Willow Web on our website at www.mpsomaha.org/willow, take a look! Apple has just posted an article on their website about Podcasting in Education and Willowdale is one of three sites featured! The website is located at www.apple.com/education/solutions/podcasting/.

Podcasting is a wonderful tool for education. It is like an old-time radio show, but what I Iike about ours are the marvelous links that can be viewed while listening to students. We currently have 13 podcasts, the latest being about our great city of Omaha, Nebraska. The podcasts are "for kids, by kids," but I find as an adult learner that I have learned a lot!! The ranges of topics include different grade levels presenting all curricular subjects, as well as book recommendations and pillars of character from our Character Counts program.

The jazzy music clips and jokes add special interest to the listener! Both the listener and the students involved in writing and broadcasting benefit from this wonderful learning experience! Check out Radio Willow Web, and I think you’ll see why Apple chose it as a featured site!

One of the joys being at Willowdale is hearing from people all over the country, and even the world, about the wonderful technology happening here at our school! Here are some recent examples:

I picked up the phone one morning, and a 2nd grade teacher from Washington, D.C., introduced herself saying that she was originally from Omaha. She was going to share a podcast from our website to her class that day to show what students are doing in Omaha, Nebraska!

A 4th grade teacher from Texas wrote to Ms. French, our 4th grade teacher, about the excellent writing in their student-written blogs called The French Gazette. This really supported our curriculum when the teacher said they have such VOICE in their writing—something Ms. French has been teaching! What a validation for students to know they are writing for a national audience!

Mr. Vincent, our Technology Specialist, received the following email from "an admiring elementary school teacher in Japan!"

I just wanted to let you know how impressed I am with what your school and students are doing with the technology that's out there! I started by listening to your Podcasts and went over to your webpage. Amazing, amazing, quality stuff! Good job you guys--teachers and kids!

Can you imagine a Friday afternoon of the week before school starts, when teachers are stressed and swamped, and they ALL show up for a voluntary meeting?! That is what happened this year when teachers had a chance to learn about blogging. What is a blog, you say? It is short for "weblog," which is a diary of sorts--collected thoughts or a summary of events.

Teachers in grades one through five blog at Willowdale. It is not required, but teachers have found it to be a most amazing source of communication--both for parents and students. They are written by either teachers or students. From posted spelling words, to classroom events, to sharing valuable curriculum assistance and reminders about field trips--each is unique and truly a wealth of information for our community! We receive many emails and phone calls from family members of our students far away that have said they really feel connected to their favorite grandchild with school activities through our blogs and website.

So . . . . . . check them out on our website by using the pull-down menu of Blogs. I thought it was high time for the principal to start blogging, too!