President's Report	by James McConville
Edubuntu: At last, Linux for human teachers and students	by Alan Zisman
Careers in ICT	by Glen Holmes
BCTLA	by Heather Daly
Blind Chickens See Again	by Chris Rozitis
Microsoft Sharepoint Works!	by Rubi Corsi
Beyond Words: The Craftmanship of Digital Products	by Bernajean Porter
Finding what you want when you want it: Using Google	by Dave McCristall
Thank you Shelley Wilcox for CUEBC Contributions	by CUE Executive
Fall Conference 2006: Teaching to the Multiple Literacies	by CUE Executive
Call for Presenters	by CUE Executive
Call for Sponsors	by CUE Executive
Get Published: become a CUE newsletter contributor	by CUE Executive
Renewing your CUEBC membership	by James McConville

President’s Report

James McConville, jmcconville@sd43.bc.ca

Welcome to all our new members that became part of the Computer Using Educators of BC at the recent ‘Catalyst’ Conference in Whistler.  This conference was the first of its kind to involve three Provincial Specialist Organizations (PSA’s).  The core conference team was obviously from the Science PSA.  The other two PSA’s were the Provincial Intermediate Teachers' Association (PITA) and, of course, CUEBC.  I would like to thank Kevin Amboe for his continued work with the Catalyst conference and ensuring the event was a success.  Every part of the conference was, for me, a phenomenal experience.  From the keynote, Dr. Joe, talking about the importance of good science education, to all the sessions put on by educators willing to share their successes and tips with other teachers.
On another note, you are undoubtedly aware that the government has unveiled a new bill related to education, called Bill 33.  One of the least discussed parts is an area that is relevant to many of our members that teach in a Distributed Learning (DL) environment.  What is interesting is that there are significant new rules for how DL programs are funded.  The biggest funding change occurs for students in grades 10-12.  What happens now is that students can be enrolled in more than one school and/or district concurrently.  Take this example, a student is taking 6 courses at Terry Fox Secondary, they also take two courses in one of the 31 DL programs in the province.  Here is how the ministry will fund that student.  Terry Fox will get funded 1.0 FTE, or about $5800, in addition, the DL program will get 2 courses at 1/8th funding (0.125).  Therefore the total funding for that student is 1.25!  While this seems like a great opportunity for schools my question is whether this model will be sustained beyond 2007.  All students and educators deserve the sustainability because we all know that it is our relationships with students that ultimately make a difference.  Another concern I have for our colleagues from the Electronic Distributed Learning (EDL) PSA is there are no class size limits for Distributed Learning programs.  While this is no change from before, it still means there will be some programs that try to place an inordinate number of students under the care of one teacher. 
I also wanted to make sure that everyone knows about the components to the ‘BC Virtual School’ as it was announced in February.  At this point there will be three components to the Virtual School.  The first is a course entry page for all DL programs in the province.  This is designed to be a place where students can search for, and eventually, enroll in any online course in the province.  An initial, but very incomplete version can be viewed at: http://www.mybcschool.gov.bc.ca.  The second component of the virtual school is course development.  The Ministry wants to do two things, aggregate the courses that are currently in use across the province and play an active role in the development of new courses.  The third component is a tutoring service.  As you might have heard, during the last provincial exam period, there was free online tutoring for Math 12 Principles.  The goal is to expand this to other courses and other curricular areas.
Finally, I want to update all our members on our fall conference ‘Teaching to the Multiple Literacies’.  This year will be a very exciting event with lots of concurrent events and sessions.  True to our new mantra of working with other educational partners we have forged an alliance with ERAC (http://www.bcerac.ca/) to bring you a Software Fair.  ERAC and CUEBC have invited all the major software and hardware vendors in BC to demonstrate their educational products and provide sessions on practical ways that our members can make the best use of these products.  This software fair is just one part of a full-featured conference with sessions that are targeted to ALL classroom teachers.  With the increase in the number of computers in our schools, it does not matter if you teach socials, English, science, math or any of the other literacies, you are likely a computer using educator.  Make sure you mark October 19 and 20th on your calendar.  I’ll see you all in Port Coquitlam at Riverside Secondary.