LIVE from the Creek

Denver, CO in images

2010-07-11T16:04:00.001-04:00

For those of you that have asked what we saw and did in Denver, we were able to take an afternoon for a Rocky Mountain tour and to see some sights in the city of Denver. If you would like to see yourself, check out this slideshow for images of the conference, city and mountains. Enjoy!

What's an EdCamp or an Unconference?

2010-07-09T23:46:00.000-04:00

One of the most powerful things about attending a conference like ISTE 2010, is the conversations you have between the sessions and the people you meet. That's why I'm so intrigued by the idea of an edcamp or unconference. This voicethread explains the concept well:

And Lisa Thumann not only explains it here, she is helping plan one coming up soon.

I have never attended an unconference, but have learned much online from others attending or sharing at them. I have been intrigued by the idea of how they get started and wonder why I have never seen one with the topic of ed tech where I live or anywhere down south!

So, in the avenue of being "the change you want to see" I'm thinking of planning one. Anyone with me? Would you be willing to lead discussions and come learn? What do you think?

Model Classroom: Focus on Quality Before Multimedia Projects Begin

2010-07-06T20:44:00.000-04:00

Rushton Hurley and Jim Sill shared their strategies for doing multimedia projects with students. When assigning the topic for the project, they choose "framing" questions for the project. These are what questions you want them to ask themselves while working. They let the students watch videos filmed by others to see what they may have noticed as a strength or weakness in filming. Here is a great resource for them to use with many videos to see: Lightbulbs collection. The students were then able to generate lists with the teacher regarding "strengths" and "weaknesses" they noted in the films they watched, such as: distracting background, low sound, boring questions were asked, humor made it more interesting, etc. Based on these lists they could then generate the checklist of preparation steps they needed for their project. As teachers, they certainly could have just done a mini lesson on good filmmaking and "dos" and "don'ts" but because the students discovered these things on their own they understood them better. An example of one of Jim's student projects was when they had to learn about sonnets. The students were not really excited about this. But Jim assigned them sonnets in small groups and after studying (see detailed description of project here). He allowed them to represent the sonnet in a short video with audio voice over. They could represent the words figuratively as they interpreted it. This is an example of the results:

Would you rather your students show comprehension this way? Or by answering questions on a written test? I think the proof is in the product! Give multimedia a try!

Podcasting, Mobile Media and Mobile Learning

2010-07-02T01:59:00.000-04:00

Mobile Media is a fluid environment through which information is conveyed and learning is accomplished. Mobile Media can include many devices such as cellphones, e-readers, laptops, netbooks and ipods. Most students have one of these devices, if not more than one.

How do we learn today? Here is a good example of how many of us learn:

If we're asking students questions that they can answer by searching Google, are we asking the right questions?

What is a podcast? It is mostly an audio blog and can also handle video and pdf files. Podcast ready media is a file that can be made into a podcast but an RSS is a podcast you can subscribe to.
The first thing you need is a host/server, then you publish your RSS feed, then the subscriber listens to it from the server.

Here are some excellent podcasts to follow:

Always On - Katie Morrow and Michelle Bourgeouis
Professional Practice of 1-to-1 schools
http://web.mexom/alwayson

Tech Chick Tips - Anna Adam and Helen Mowers
Professional Practice

When working with ipods create playlists according to theme, interest, current events, location, subject areas, create smart playlists by using student names to organize student work. When using apps, organize by pages and folders.

ItunesU has tons of free content provided by Universities as well as K-12 organizations.

WGBH
Edutopia
Lawrence Hall of Science
Many states have started putting their students content online.
teachers.tv professional development resource
State of Maine

Here are some resources to find out more about podcasting or using ipods in the classroom:
Appolicious is a social network for apps for iphone and other smart phones
IEAR.org is a network for apps
iPads for Education
podcastingforbeginners.wikispaces.com

Empathy: The 21st Century Skill

2010-07-01T21:38:00.000-04:00

Educator Alan November has been asking the question, "What skill do our students need to succeed in the global workplace?" From CEOs to Anthropologists, surprisingly the answer is the same. Empathy. Americans in general aren't so good at it. Being empathetic is a sign of emotional intelligence which leads to understanding, motivation and managing one's own emotions and having an appreciation for the emotions of others. Our schools need to develop a sense of urgency in teaching our American students how to be empathetic. They must be able to hold two different points of view at one time. They must be able to communicate with and be accepting of others around the globe. As educators we can help students practice empathy when we help them develop a network of people that they can tap into as a resource once they graduate and enter the "real world".

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Taking Good Digital Pictures and Editing Them Effectively

2010-06-30T14:26:00.000-04:00

Leslie Fisher's #1 tip for digital photography: Read the manual!

Top issues we run into
* Not close enough: Fill the frame with the subject. Take a photo, get closer, take another, get close, repeat. Look around the edges of your photo before you click.

* Macro mode: Allows you to get close to your image (1-3 feet). Best to use a tripod to keep camera steady. Or prop your camera on something steady.

* Not in focus: When you look at the screen it appears to be in focus but it's not. Your camera has a maginifying glass you can click to make sure it's in focus. Look for your focus point and make sure it's on the subject. Press the shutter button halfway down to set the focus.

* Camera shake: Usually it's lighting. If it's too low the camera needs espose te picture longer to take the image. Your shaking hands get in the way of the camera and it makes the image look very blurry What can you do? Put your camera on a tripod or other stable object and set a timer. Have you seen the night mode camera setting before? Night mode will tell the camera the lighting is low. It will make the photo darker, but not blurry. That is better.

* Boring photos: Tell the story better. Wander around the scene for a different angle/view.

* Boring Composition: The Law of Thirds. A nifty little technique to make sure your basic images are frames in a pleasing manner. When looking through your viewfinder, Imagine 3 vertical and horizontal lines intersecting. Position your subject in one of those intersections. This will establish a good flow for the picture.
Look for "lines" in your photo that will help draw attention to the subject. Have fun with open spaces. Maybe place the subject only in the corner of the picture to show an amazing view. Shoot high/shoot low, move your body. Don't shoot posed shots, make them laugh, make them jump.

* Missing the Action shot: What kind of SD memory card do you have? Some of the cards are really slow and can affect the speed with which you capture the shot. Lexar Professional card or Sandisk extreme 3 or 4 are great cards to have. You can also put the camera in sports mode, running man icon on camera. This will take the photo as fast as possible. The drawback is the faster the shot, the less light brought into the camera. Be prepared for underexposed images (you can fix those in Photoshop)

* Ignoring the background: Make sure you're aware of what's in the background. It can ruin what's in the foreground.

* Too Much Flash: When the flash fires we have no sense of the environment around you. Try to work the scene, get a tripod, night mode. Use your flash during the day, because the sun will cause you to have shadows on the subject's face.

* Why Not Vertical?: Don't forget to turn the camera vertically to capture the scene better.

* Digital Zoom: Just say no! Instead of zooming digitally, set your camera to the largest image size possible. You should always have to set to the largest size posssible.

* More DPI, Better Quality?: Yes and no, If you were a billboard printer, then I would worry more about the high level DPI picture. Most of today's inkjets and laser jets do not have a high DPI picture to give you a great print. Most pros recommend printing your images at 160 dpi The less dots per inch the larger your picture can be printed! You need to know what the image is being taken at, look in your settings.

* Settings in the Camera: Allows you to set the picture in portrait mode so you can focus on the subject and put a soft focus in the background.

* Editing Photos in Photoshop (or whatever editing software you have): NEVER edit the original, save a copy and edit that. Color correction: white balance. You can change it in your camera settings or the color editing area of your software.

Innovative Leadership in a Participartory Web 2.0 World

2010-06-30T11:58:00.000-04:00

Cheryl Lemke from The Metiri Group makes a great case for the way a school leader must embrace the warp speed changes occurring in the world's our students live in. School is no longer the only place for learning. In fact only about 18.5% of learning occurs in a formal environment for K-12 students. The Internet provides a 24/7 resource and even though school is no longer front and center in a student's learning we do need to embrace our place and tap into our student's interests. The following are 7 ways a the school's leader must adapt to lead the changes required to meet the needs of our ever changing learners.

1) Own the Innovation - Lead the change you want to see in the classrooms, don't delegate it for someone else to implement
2) Drive Change Through Creativity and Knowledge - Be creative, informed, tolerant, critical, questioning and experiment with technology
3) Shift From Rules to Shared Principles - Actively facilitate the development and adoption of the guiding principles instead of constructing rules for implementation of initiatives
4) Establish a Professional Learning System - Provide a menu of differentiated PD options for teachers including mentoring, coaching, face to face, virtual, collaborative and just in time (Research shows that 49 hours of PD a year can increase student scores by 21 percentiles)
5) Shape Culture - Create an environment of openness, collegiality, honesty and adapt the focus on standards guided by principles (Look for the positive deviance in your staff and reward it)
6) Ensure Digital Access and Infrastructure - Make sure your teachers have the appropriate hardware and access to the tools they will need to implement technology initiatives
7) Accountability - Hold yourself and your teachers accountable for implementing strategies and for gaining the student results desired.

The biggest advice given was to use good judgement when it comes to next steps, providing opportunities and access for teachers and devote the time to your own learning as you take your school into the next era of learning for students. Embrace the change without fear!

Yolink and Sweet Search ... a safer, smarter way to search the web

2010-06-29T10:25:00.001-04:00

For the last several days, I have heard a lot of buzz about Yolink. Today I finally got someone to show me what exactly Yolink does, so let me now share that with you! Yolink is an application that you can download on your computer for free. It allows you to scan webpages that you are searching for specific information, using key words, without going to the pages. It organizes the information for you where you then have a choice to import it to google docs, create an instant bibliographic reference or share through email.

It is really best explained through demonstration. Check out this quick screencast:
How to use Yolink

As well as partnering with Google Docs, Evernote and many other useful applications, yolink has partnered with Sweet Search for safe student searching. Many times, Google searches yield unintended results that students can innocently run across. Sweet Search is a safe search engine for students to use when researching at home or at school. It works with yolink just as well.

With Yolink, you can teach your students to search smarter and help them develop their critical thinking skills. Check out their classroom resources on their link page.

Developing, Designing and Delivering: The Case for Powerful and Productive Presentations

2010-06-29T01:05:00.000-04:00

Ken Shelton and Robert Craven made the case today for why we must change the way we present if we really want our audience to be engaged and understand the message we are trying to convey. Very simply, the most effective way to communicate is VISUALLY! The brain can process visual images at the speed of a jet plane, text at the speed of a prop plane and sound at the speed of someone walking. When choosing photos for a presentation there are several important things to remember. Pictures in color are most easily interpreted by the eye and should be high quality. Images should be chosen to carefully relate to the topic and can be used to evoke emotional responses.

Leonardo da Vinci said "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." The same is absolutely true for the PowerPoints or Keynotes we design to share with others. There is actually research that confirms that it is more difficult for someone to comprehend information while reading a slide filled with text as the presenter reads the information outloud. Slides should not be filled with overwhelming graphics or multiple lines of text but rather with meaningful, purposeful images to develop a central message around and limited to no text. Video and audio can also be used if they provide a thought provoking purpose.

Finding just the right images takes time and it is highly encouraged that you spend some time building your own library of photos. It is also suggested that you encourage your students to take photos for a classroom library for their use in creating powerful presentations. If you need more digital cameras for the classroom you can ask parents to donate old ones after Christmas each year since many get new ones. Free use photos can also be found on websites like Stock.Xchng, openphoto, flickr, morgueFile, Wikimedia Commons, PD Photo, or PUBLIC-DOMAIN-PHOTOS.

As you approach your next PowerPoint or Keynote remember there really are no rules, spend the majority of your time finding the right images that you can talk from and put yourself in the place of the audience - if you're engaged then they will be too!

Changing the Climate: How Teaching Social Networks Might Save the World

2010-06-28T13:15:00.001-04:00

Social connectedness through twitter and facebook is changing the landscape of how we get information about political and environmental news and happenings. There is debate about whether we should be using these tools as well as wikipedia in schools. Will would argue that we should. Because we have the ability to connect around our passions it can make what is going on in the classroom seem irrelevant to students. We need to solve this problem.

Will showed the Clustermap for his blog and said this is what he wants for his children, global interactions. Not necessarily the quantity, but the quality of the interactions. We have to show kids somewhere in our curriculum the power of global interactions. MacArthur report shows how students are using these social network tools. The vast majority uses these tools to stay in touch socially. A smaller number use these tools to connect with others who share their interests. Some of these people they connect with are adults and we have been afraid of that as educators. We need to get over that. We need to do this safely with them, because there is so much they can learn from it. Are we modeling this skill for our students/ children?

One of our goals in life should be to build something bigger than ourselves. Do we teach kids that? We need to begin to figure it out. Social tools can support this in so many ways. It's not that you have to use social tools, it's that you CAN and it's a quick way to get something started and have momentum. Here's how a high school teacher leveraged the tool of YouTube to share his thoughts about global disaster.

This video went viral and there has been so much conversation around his topic, he is now writing a book. All from leveraging social networking tools.

How are we preparing kids, at our schools, to be problem solvers for the world? You have to let them solve problems in the classroom and be comfortable with inquiry. Too much at school is about "the same thing on the same day in the same way."

We can't just cross our fingers and hope students will use social tools in a safe, productive way. They have to be taught. Showing them examples of this that other students have done, is a good start: 25 days to make a difference, working together to make a difference, Ryan's Well. Teaching kids to use social networking skills is not a "unit" or a part of the curriculum, it should be a part of all we do.

The National Council of Teachers of English say that these are the ways to be literate in the 21st century. Are you literate? Are the students you are sending out in the world literate? Let this be your call to action!

Watch Will's session here on ISTE vision.

ISTE/TIE Leadership Bootcamp

2010-06-28T01:00:00.000-04:00

When we found out we would be able to attend ISTE this year, we were intrigued by the opportunity to attend Leadership Bootcamp. We went into the camp hoping to meet fellow attendees that would be like-minded with similar goals as well as learning from amazing leaders in education.

The day was strategically planned with session strands for teaching and learning, IT professionals and administrators. Susan attended the administrator sessions and I went back and forth between the teaching and IT sessions.

Lucy Gray talked about the importance of PLNs. If you're still unsure what a Personal Learning Network (PLN) is, listen to Will Richardson explain here:

Lucy's review of PLNs validated my own opinions on the subject. She emphasized the importance of being professionally generous with others. She encouraged teachers to step forward and lead where they can and not wait to be "annointed" to lead.

Mark Benno talked about Communication and Collaboration with ITs. Mark kept returning to the idea of relationships. Effective communication and collaboration in almost all areas can be attributed to the relationships built between the people involved. Mark highly recommended the book: Relational Intelligence for those that want to learn more about this. He reminded us that you can do amazing things with incredible tools, but if people aren't using the tools and learning from you it doesn't matter.

Doug Johnson was another great break out speaker. I had never heard him speak before and I have been such a fan of his quick wit and thoughts on his blog for quite a while. He kept us laughing and nodding as he compared the goals of teachers/librarians and IT personnel.

Howard Ditler and Elizabeth Hubbell presented data they have collected through McRel's research through classroom walkthrough observations. Using an ipod touch to collect data on affective domain, bloom's taxonomy levels observed and technology tools and strategies in practice they did power walkthroughs thoughout schools providing powerful feedback that initiates change in schools.

The most inspiring part of the day for me, was the lunch keynote from Chris Lehmann. Chris is the principal of the Science Leadership Academy, in Philadelphia, PA. Chris spoke about the Schools we need. And he is so right. And I cannot even begin to do justice to what he said. Because he touched my heart with his words, his passion and his ideas. His recent TED talk is not the same thing, but he touches on many of the same topics so I would ask you to take the time to watch Chris...and be inspired.

Lessons From Leadership Bootcamp

2010-06-28T00:12:00.000-04:00

Creating and Maximizing Learning Networks – Scott Elias
Social Networks are everywhere and about people, not the technology we use. When they are used to further our learning they move beyond just a social network and into a Community of Practice. In a Community of Practice the participants are interested in a topic and sharing knowledge through a variety of methods. This type of Social Learning allows for relevant connection and collaboration. “Educational Twitterships” provide this type of community, one example being #edchat that occurs each Tuesday on Twitter. You gain social capital by giving back in the exchange of information, with leads to an expanded network or community.

Communication and Collaboration Tools – Scott McLeod
When addressing online safety the most important question to ask: Is the tool the problem or is it the supervision? When students are educated about how to appropriately interact on the internet the opportunities for them are limitless. Districts must begin to trust teachers to make appropriate choices with the web in their classrooms. The “prohibition approach” to dealing with the internet does nothing to show teachers trust or educate students. Most will behave appropriately and those that don’t should be dealt with as opposed to participating in “format bigotry” and blocking You Tube, blogs, Wikipedia, etc…

Communication and Collaboration Pieces – Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
For educational leaders to leverage the connections available today we must begin to “unlearn” what we believe about our classrooms. Learning doesn’t just occur at school anymore, it occurs anywhere and anytime. Teaching is no longer private but a public, collaborative event. Learning isn’t passive but is participatory and often done as a community. Communities are groups of people joined by a common need or belief. Networks occur when these connected people publish and share ideas around their commonality. The PLCs that result are the way of the future for personal and professional development.

Denver, CO - ISTE, Here We Come!

2010-06-26T00:06:00.000-04:00

We arrived in the Mile High City tonight excited and ready to attend ISTE 10 and our first Leadership Bootcamp! What a surprise to find Florida weather like ours that turns into jacket weather as the sun goes down. Who knew? We hope you'll follow us and learn along to with us too.

Opening Keynote - America's Choice National Conference

2010-02-04T23:29:00.001-05:00

As usual, AC's President and CEO Judy Codding, kicked off the conference by addressing attendees and introducing our guest speaker. I never tire of hearing her speak as she reminds us all of the philosophical principles on which the the America' Choice School Design reform efforts were built. ALL children deserve a world class education that guarantees them opportunities to continue into post secondary education ready for success. Their future depends on our answer to the moral calling demanding that the hard work it takes to ensure students meet success is done. She also shared results of a 13 year independent study of three school reform initiatives conducted by CPRE that showed AC students outperforming students in all other schools studied. I'm not surprised - the design implemented with fidelity changes lives. I've seen it firsthand.

Our guest speaker for the afternoon, Vicki Phillips is the Director of Education College Ready in the United States Program for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation shared the foundation's vision that all lives have equal value and that having a healthy and productive life shouldn't be a privilege. She described a two year study that is beginning in which thousands of classrooms will be studied in an effort to determine what the best qualities of teaching are in effecting success for students. She stressed the need for common world class standards, next generation assessments, course and teacher tool redesign, and innovative models of professional development. Intensive partnerships in education need to work to recruit, develop, assign, retain and compensate teachers and design career paths for them that point towards performance. There is a, "gap currently between where high school ends and dreams begin" that must be addressed by "powering up" our schools so that students are prepared to meet the demands of the ever changing global workplace and leave our high schools college ready, because, "everyone has a right to their dream".

Chets Creek Elementary Virtual School Tour

2010-02-04T21:46:00.000-05:00

Today I got to present a "Virtual" Tour of Chets Creek to a fabulous group of educators attending the pre-conference sessions of the America's Choice National Conference. I always love talking about the great things teacher and student are doing and thi group was especially engaging and interested. My focus for this tour was to show how we are using technology to promote professional collaboration and development, communicate with stakeholders and engage students in 21st century learning. Here is the presentation including all the links to launch you out into the great work that can be found on the web.

AC Virtual Tour 10

View more presentations from dreamleader.

Going Back to Cali...

2010-01-29T14:28:00.004-05:00

Next week I will travel to Los Angeles, California for the America's Choice National Conference. Since our involvement, 11 years ago in this school reform the conference has proved to be a vital link to keep our momentum going in the foundational ideals of the design. It is a way for us to share our stellar work and to learn of the latest strategies and products available for our professional growth. I have been asked to present a "Virtual Tour" of our school and have chosen to do so by showcasing the incredible ways we are collaborating professionally and engaging all stakeholders using technology. As always you can keep up with what I'm learning since I'll be blogging the conference live and posting here on Live From the Creek.

Here Comes Learning!

2009-07-05T01:03:00.003-04:00

Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach co-founded Powerful Learning Practice and they have made it their business to help educators transform their practice. They started out their session by showing this video clip:

What do you think this kid is trying to do?
Why did he use this platform to do it?

The discussion that Will and Sheryl held in this session was so meaty and powerful that I had trouble figuring out how to bring it to you in a blog post...and I almost didn't. Fortunately, I was able to find the majority of it archived here on Istevision. Please take the time to watch this and soak up their knowledge. It can really change the way you look at learning.

Are you connecting? What can we do to help you? Let's make it happen!

Personal Learning Networks in Second Life

2009-07-04T23:50:00.004-04:00

Discovery Education teacher leaders in Second Life came to share with us about how to build your Personal Learning Network in Second Life.

If you've never heard of Second Life, it's described on their site as "a free online virtual world imagined and created by its Residents. From the moment you enter Second Life, you'll discover a fast-growing digital world filled with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity."
So basically, most anything you can do in real life you can do in Second Life!

Educators everywhere are discovering that they are able to get just in time professional development by virtual participation in Second Life. The first step is creating an avatar and learning how to navigate your way around the virtual world. A great suggestion we were given was to find a friend that can help you. If you don't know anyone in Second Life now, simply friend one of these educators and explain you are new to Second Life. Their Second Life names are:

Beth Kohnke
Lor Fredriksson
Unklar Klaar
Vita Demina

Second Life allows you the ability to build your PLN by joining groups where opportunities are available. If you follow the Discovery Educator Blog and Wiki you will be able to see when activities are available.

Caledon Oxbridge University is a teacher friendly space. They have free dormitory space for teachers as well as a classroom available for teacher use. You just need to contact them to reserve it. They also have activities to help newbies enter into the world of Second Life.

Limitless learning is available to you. Jump in and get started!

New Technology Tricks for Old Dogs: Use What You Know

2009-07-04T21:40:00.000-04:00

At Kathleen Risolvo's K-5 School in Chicago, IL they began integrating technology by planning some group activities in classrooms with a variety of technologies and found innovative ways to introduce these technologies to teachers in training.

One innovative training technique they used was a speedgeeking event - Kind of like speed dating where each station had a quick review of a technology tool or application that the attendees had to visit and then move on. I personally loved this idea and could imagine the possibilities for developing an event like that. Maybe a Google form at the end where everyone "scores" each new tool. Just thinking...

When planning technology based centers in the classroom Kathleen said that what makes them work is a specific task for each center. This would, of course, be after they had been introduced to the technology. It works to have them review a skill or research a topic. Here are some examples:
Interactive Whiteboard Center - Students must be comfortable navigating the board, make the activity self-checking and have expectations for individual student contributions.

iPod Center - Have them get videos online to watch and do an activity. One idea is to have them watch a screencast of how to do something on the computer and then do it.

Digital Camera - Used in movie mode, reader's response video or photo, interviews, all should be written out first

Teacher Guided Creation Station - This is your opportunity to work with a small group, should be higher level thinking using what the students know to create something, may need more than one rotation. Ideas include: powerpoints, newsletters, creating podcasts, movie making, tagging content and much more...

They had each student bring their own earbuds and carry them with them to each class.
Pedagogical and curriculum knowledge used to be all a good teacher needed to know, now technological knowledge is a must. The bottom line includes finding ways for teachers and students to get their hands on technology and use them to increase learning.

Teacher, Teach, Thyself: Make Your Own PD Plan

2009-07-01T15:00:00.001-04:00

A panel of educators shared their experiences and the tools they use to direct their professional development.

How would you define PLN?
A PLN is a Personal or Professional Learning Network. One of the most common tools, currently, that has been a platform for building a PLN is Twitter. When you log into Twitter it says, "What are you doing? Educators general answer for, "What are you doing?" is learning. They are using it to share ideas, stay connected, and give and get instant feedback, in 140 characters or less.

What Tools Do You Use to Connect to Your PLN?
In this age of social networking, there are a plethora of tools used to stay connected. Twitter and Plurk are some of the most popular tools. Others include Classroom 2.0 ning, Skype, BrainPop site, Discovery Educator Network, and Edtechtalk.com/live. Facebook is also hugely popular and though some individuals stay connected to their PLN using fb, most use it on a personal rather than a professional level.

What are some of the networks in which you are a member and are active?
Panelist list:

Apple Distinguish Educator
Discovery Educator Network
National Council Teachers of Science
SmartBoard Educator Resource
Twitter

In a few words what has your network done for you?
Panelist and Participants Answers:

We are on there for our own profession learning which increases the learning for our students.

You can utilize your network for you and for your curriculum.

Let's me know who I need to go to get my questions answered.

Allows me to build relationships with peers globally and has expanded my horizons.

What is the one piece of advice you would give somebody just starting to build their network?

Most advice given was done so in reference to the tool Twitter:

Go in slowly and don't overwhelm yourself.

Start small and expand over time.

Please put a profile up there.

Give it time.

Too many people apologize about being lurkers. It's ok to lurk. Learn from others.

You have to put yourself out there.

It's ok to miss stuff.

Set up groups.

What myths, misinformation, and rumors can you dispel about using the tools you connect to your PLN with?

Myth: It is full of people posting useless information.

A PLN is about building relationships, giving and receiving information to increase the learning of all students. You get to know your PLN personally because you know them professionally. They are not just nameless people you are talking to, instead, they are learners, like you, who are well known and reputable in their field.

Literacy Isn't Enough: 21st Century Fluency For the Digital Age

2009-07-01T00:11:00.010-04:00

Teachers should ask, "Why are students here?" "How is the world changing?" "How can we help prepare our students for successful futures?" The world has changed and will continue to change at an exponential rate. It won't stop changing, so we need to reassess what we need to do in education to make sure that our students have the necessary skills. Traditionally literacy is no longer enough. We must move beyond and equip students with 21st century skills.

There are 5 Skills:

1. Obsolete Skills: May have been relevant at one time, but are no longer relevant.

2. Traditional Skills: Once very important, but not quite as important now. They aren’t essential, but they do still have some value. For example, handwriting.

3. Traditional Literacy Skills: Reading, writing, numeracy, face to face skills. Fundamental skills needed to transport skills from one generation to the next. They are essential and meed to continue to be taught.

4. Traditional Skills with Increased Emphasis: Problem solving, graphic design. They are not new, but there is an increase in the emphasis due to digital media.

5. New Skills: Unique to the Digital Age. Social networking, on-line skills.

Students need to build a set of skills to move forward. Students can’t be just good consumers as they may have been in the past, rather they must also be good producers of content. Called prosumers these students need to simultaneously be consumers and producers. "What world are we preparing our students for?" "Their future or our past?" If kids leave the school without 21st century skills, they won’t be ready for our global marketplace.

Students must have the traditional literacy skills, while at the same time developing fluencys, or unconscious skills--sort of like riding a bike. There are three fluencys; Technology, Media, and Information.

1. Technological fluency: Students must have the transparent use of digital tools which focus on the head ware not the hardware.

2. Media fluency: Students must be able to look critically at media sources (blogs, wikis, tv shows) and how the information is influencing their opinions. Students must be able to use the most appropriate media to get their message across. Digital natives look like they have media skills but they have huge gaps in knowledge. We need to have students producing products, at all grade levels, all students.

3. Information Fluency : Students need the ability to unconsciously and intuitively get the essential message. They must be able to ask good questions, get answers and acquire the information. Digital resources are the raw materials, rather than the traditional paper based materials. Students must be able to analyze and synthesize. They need to be able to ask, acquire, analyze, apply (within the context of real life), and assess (on the product and the process. This is a cyclical.

What is our job?
We must progressively withdraw from our student lives teaching them to be independent self-directed learners. To often we teach them to rely on us for information fostering the dependency. Our role needs to be facilitator of learning, because information and data is growing exponentially. Teachers can't be experts in all areas, so we need to teach students to be thinkers and researchers and problem solvers. The digital natives of today are completely different and not the students we were trained to teach. If we want success, we must give them assignments that require thought.

Where do we go from here?
Visit this site http://www.committedsardine.com/ or
Email leecrockett@mac.com and in the subject line say, "I need to be committed."

The iPod Touch/iPhone Application Support Group

2009-06-30T23:49:00.001-04:00

Leslie Fisher is a gadget head. She loves to learn and share tips and tricks about her gadgets. These are her favorites about her iPhone and iPod touch.

Battery savers:
If you are not doing major web surfing turn 3G off
Other things is turn off bluetooth, wi-fi, location services, dim the screen, turn the phone off for a while.

Battery extenders:
Kensington products for battery extension, Solio- uses solar power to charge your phone (great in emergencies), Mophie juice pack
Cool Cases:
Slider by InCase, Showcase by Contour, Speck Quickdraw

Cool Easter Eggs:
#1 Take a screen shot of your iphone screen by holding down the power button and home button and wait for a flash. It's now in your camera roll.
#2 Click the home button and it will take you to the first page of your applications.
#3 If you are on the web and you are typing in a website on your iphone/ipod touch you can hold down the .com button and it will give you other suffix choices.

iPhone 3.0 Software - Great sites!
How to use the top 40 iPhone 3.0 features
100+iPhone 3.0 Hidden Features

Some of the coolest 3.0 features?
cut, copy and paste
MMS messaging
Turn by Turn navigations
landscape almost everything!

Keeping up with new applications
Appshopper.com
It will update many times a day and review all the new applications. It will also allow you to only see itouch or iphone applications instead of both. You can put it in your Google Reader.

Teacher Productivity Applications:
SaiSuke: Built in calendar stinks! SaiSuke offers a plug into Google Calendar and displays your calendar (color coding and all) just like it would look like on Google. You could also sync with iCal and Google together. $9.99

Note Pad: By Polar Bear No Marker felt. Allows you to group notes into categories.

Evernote: Basically an extension of the online version.It allows creation of new notes as well as access and editing of any note. Can use the iphone camera and upload directly to Evernote to run, can tag notes as favorites which will save them to your iWhatever and allow access when you are not even on a network. Free!

Twitterfon: Twitter for your iphone. There are many twitter apps out there, but this one is Leslie's favorite. Will display direct messages and direct replies in different colors. One of the few twitter apps with search and trend functions. Can use built in camera to snap GPS tagged photos.

Remember the Milk: The iphone version of the popular Remember The Milk web based To-Do application.

Duck You Undo: How many times have you typed in a word only to have the spell check change it when you did not want it to? Duck You Undo will keep track of all of the spelling changes and queue them at the bottom of the screen to review.

Loopt: Uses GPS location services so it will show exactly where you are. It is supported by Facebook also. Only people you allow to can see where you are. Friends can request an update to show up on their SMS page. It can also notify you when someone is in a specific range. Hooks into Yelp as well. WEb version offers widgets to add to your blogs. Free!

Around Me: Uses GPS location services to find things around you such as banks, hotels, coffee shops, restaurants, etc. Free!

i-Finder: i-Finder uses GPS or towers to find your location. Will then provide GPS information as well as altitude. You can then store your location or even cooler, email your location to yourself or your friends. She used this when I got lost in a mall. Honest! .99

Soon....Tom, Tom Navigation! It will have turn by turn navigation. Can download a variety of voices including , New York cabbies, John Cleese, Homer Simpson. Should be released later this summer. Guesstimates at $50.

What's your favorite iPhone application?

Winning Strategies to Conquer Information Overload

2009-06-30T23:45:00.000-04:00

Are you a connected teacher who needs strategies to assist you in conquering information overload? In this session, Kathy Schrock shared tools that will help you organize information and make it readily available saving you valuable time and energy.

Email: How do you manage it?
Set up email filters.

You can forward and file emails that are not necessary for you to receive all the time. How?
1. Monitor your email for two weeks to see what type of email you are receiving.
2. Create applicable folders or labels.
3. Look for the filter instructions.
4. Create your filters or rules so mail is forwarded and filed
5. Monitor the folders for two weeks
6. Re-evaluate to change if needed

Use IMAP.

IMAP is an Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP is useful if you check email on more than one computer or from more than one email account. It centralizes and synchronizes email.

Conquer Information by having hardware help you.
Stay connected with the Netbook:
Netbooks are cost effective and smallish. For recommendations on specific machines see slide 11 on the presentation. http://kathyschrock.net/score/score.pdf

Stay connected with a SmartPhone.

Not sold on the idea yet? Watch this convincing short video.
If you don't have the need for all the bells and whistles and are only worried about email, try staying connected with the Peek.

Stay connected with a Chumby.

A little device that sits on your counter, attaches to a wireless network, and gives updates. A subscription is not needed.

Stay connected with an Amazon Kindle.
Read books without going to the book store. You can easily search, pay, and download to keep up to date. This text based browser on the kindle will go to all the mobile sites. Read blogs and wikis, and go to social networks. There is now an app for the iPhone/iTouch to be a Kindle.

Lowtech Tip: Get information captured without a SmartBoard.

Take photos!

There are hundreds of online tools to help you organize and receive information.
Online Faxing: Faxage.
This on-line fax allows for multiple users and cover pages, faxes are all stored on-line, and you can be notified by email with the PDF attachment. The one downside is that you have to scan an item if it is not already electronic.

The single biggest thing to keep you from overload...
RSS, Feeds, and Newsreaders
Aggregate your web content so you have one source for receiving updates. Two popular readers include Google Reader and Bloglines.

Get an iGoogle page.

iGoogle is your personalized page where you can add news, photos or stuff from across the web on your personalized page. This tool makes it easier and more efficient to check all your favorites.

Sign up for Google Alerts.
Would you like to know if someone writes a blog post using your name or writes something about an event at your school? This cool tool gives you the opportunity to receive an email to alert you. You can also insert a gadget into your iGoogle page.

Applications to help you harness information.
Be involved in Social Networks.
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Nings, all these social networks lay the foundation for building relationships with others and for your own professional learning. If you aren't taking part, you are missing out on an essential PLN.

Microblog with Twitter.

Kinda like IM but not, it is web-based and gives you the opportunity to follow others and for others to follow you. Type your message in 140 characters or less, and see where the learning takes you.

Use on-line social bookmarking
This is an on-line account shared to any computer so you can easily access information you have tagged from the web. The social part of comes when you follow what others are adding.

Use Google Documents, Google Spreadsheets, Google Calendars

Collaborate efficiently with colleagues using these on-line sources that provide for multiple users to update and build products together.

Work in the Cloud: Glide OS 3.0
Works within the browser, cross-platform and 10 GB of online storage, 20+ tolls included, can install a syncing client, glide mobile for use on over 75 devices, and it transcodes the files. http://www.glidedigital.com/

Measure the quality of the information you are receiving
Make a list of the sources you read regularly, figure the percentage of the last 10 posts you found useful, consider the length of the posts you read and the rate at which the person posts, and eliminate the bottom 50%. Deciding what to keep and what to delete will help you manage the data clutter that may be collecting in your electronic closet. Ask yourself, "If I save this, will it mean anything in a year?" If not consider purging it.

If you embrace these helpful strategies it will help you organize information and diminish the chances of overload.

Tweet Up @NECC 2009

2009-06-30T16:19:00.004-04:00

When I asked Suzanne (aka @shalls on twitter) if she wanted to attend a Tweet Up one night during NECC she said, "A what?" This year, ISTE (the organization that hosts NECC), had the forethought to plan a meet up for all of the folks that communicate on twitter. When you're at the conference sometimes it's hard to approach people and say, "Hey! I think I follow you on twitter!" So it was really nice to walk around with the purpose of connecting face to face with the members of our Personal Learning Network. If you haven't given twitter a try, you don't know what you're missing. It's the best PD you'll ever receive. Here are a few photos of the meet up!

The 10 Best Free Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

2009-06-30T15:00:00.001-04:00

Steve Dembo of Discovery Educator Network shares the 10 best free Web 2.0 sites to transform learning-both your students' and your own.

Before sharing the tools he suggested that there are three broad rules for considering a tool a Web 2.0 tool. They are entirely web based, interactive, and they play well with others. This is his short list...

Bloglines: This aggregater allows you to grab information and bring it to one central location. The advantage is that you don't have to continue checking an array of sites to see if there are updates, rather this one stop shop shares the updates for quick and easy access to new information. The social part of this site (plays well with others) allows you to see who else is a follower of the blog.

Delicious: A social bookmarking site which allows you to store, share, and discover bookmarked sites. Forget the days of adding your sites to your favorites. The social part of this site, allows you to search within the delicious site and view the sites that others have bookmarked. It gives you the history on who bookmarked it, too. Tags allow you to tag the site for categorization. There is an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed which allows you to subscribe. If you find someone on delicious who is really organized, teaches a similar subject area, or has an area of similar interest to you, you could subscribe to their delicious tag, benefiting from their work. Also, you can bundle tags to make it easier for kids to search more easily if you use it in the classroom for students' research projects.

Shar eTabs: Allows you to add a list of links to a window (central location). You can click, tabify them, see the preview, and the site creates tabs so you can click through them easily. You no longer have to type the whole url in the address bar. (Read more at this blog for classroom application.)

drop.io Upload files (images, PowerPoints, word docs etc...) The beauty is that you can phone it in, fax it, email it, text it, upload it, and share it. The site also allows you to do a full podcast for free, as well as provides a conference bridge. There are many different views in the settings, and drop.io provides you a chat box if you have friends on the site. You can use it to post assignments to your students and they can chat with you about the assignment. You can podcast through this site via a phone, and like the others on this list, it too, is totally free.

JayCu t provides you with a full videobrowzer editor. Upload media, drag and drop into the video tab, and you can cut/edit. You can add images and JayCut has all your transitions, overlaps, effects, and titles. Audio is simple with a drag and drop. How do you get it out of JayCut? Download it or simply copy the embed code. Another bonus is unlimited capacity.

Edmodo, a private communication system built for teachers and students to share notes, links, and files.

Would you like to be able to easily poll your students, but don't want to spend money on a Classroom Response System? Try having students use their phone to text you their response. Poll Everywhere allows for 30 votes per poll for free. Set up many polls, download it as a PowerPoint, and as the results come in the slideshow will update. You can then copy, cut, and paste the results into anything. If you do want to do it in mass, they do have school versions for purchase. If every student doesn't have a cell phone, they can share their response via the computer. Just make sure that students have text coverage to make it a practical application in your classroom.

xtra normal: Text-to-speed moviemaking. Students can write a script and create a movie set. They can change the scene, the background, and the language. They can add animation. The only drawback is that when they finish the video must render. It gives you an embed code or can be published to youtube.

Livestream Allows a live free broadcast.

Prezi, a presentation tool that is much more intuitive than PowerPoint. No borders and slides. Simply add your links and talking points to this non-linear presentation and easily navigate to access information. To check out Steve's presentation from this session visit http://prezi.com/117545/.

VideoPodcast Your Way To Measurable Results

2009-06-29T23:45:00.000-04:00

Would your teachers benefit from more class time? Is mastery really possible? Can differentiation effectively occur in today’s classroom? Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams say, “Absolutely!” As high school chemistry teachers, they recognized that students were ineffective note-takers and often struggled to complete homework independently. When the students got stuck at night, they would call a friend, give up, or cheat to make their way through an assignment. This led to gaps in student understanding which interfered with later learning.

Check out this video on what they did to combat this challenge.

This dynamic duo decided to begin vodcasting some of their lectures that were part of their regular class time to make them accessible to students at night and for review. After the first year, they reflected on the project and asked, “What does a kid really need from their teacher?” They decided that most kids needed interaction with the teacher when they are trying to process and understand the information, during homework time and not for the content of lectures. They needed to be able to ask questions and have them answered on the spot.

Upon reflection, they decided in Year 2 to pre-vodcast every lesson, and make the lecture part of their instruction the homework. Students needed to watch the vodcast and come to class prepared to apply their learning. Just imagine how much class time the teacher got back to actually dialogue with students about their learning, help them conduct their labs, and give them feedback on their assignments and assessments. Class time had value. The teacher was now meeting with every kid every day. One student asked, “Why are you making us do all the work?”

Not surprisingly, by the end of Year 2, Bergmann and Sams had extra time on their hands, because students were moving more rapidly through the content and mastering it. Happily, the two teachers knew that they could now cover more content and in greater depth. Additionally, they had collected assessment data to prove this project was creating student learning gains. Pre-vodcast students with lower math scores performed as well as non-vodcast students with higher math scores from previous years. They also polled students and parents and discovered that the feedback was good, and there were not as many Ds and Fs in AP Chemistry. Kids showed up to class to work and learn.

In Year 3, Bergmann and Sams took it to a whole new level-Mastery Learning. Students began self-paced learning- (sort of). The teachers set up benchmarks during the year, but basically students worked through the Units of Study at their own readiness pace. When they got to the end of a unit, they took an assessment, if they scored 75% or better, they moved on to the next unit, if not, they had to go back and redo the unit. Students progressed as they mastered the content. (Now that's a novel idea!)

The benefits were apparent. Students became independent learners. They took responsibility for their learning, because they were no longer being handed the material. Students were active and engaged, so fewer gaps in understanding occurred. And, when a student was in Unit 6, the teacher knew that they had mastered the content in Units 1-6. In addition, teachers gave immediate and useful feedback holding students accountable for their learning and being able to articulate their thinking. No longer would kids simply be handed a graded assignment or test. Now, with this learning cycle, there is no place to hide. Every worksheet, assignment, and assessment was graded on the spot and oral feedback given by the teacher. I'm sure you can see the instructional implications of this type of on the fly, all the time, every single child differentiation.

Are you wondering about their vision for the future? They would like to see system wide implementation of mastery learning; they would like to add honors level learning; they would like an on-line community of likeminded people to collaborate to build a video library of vodcasts. I'm certainly intrigued! If you want to know more, think about attending their three day workshop to make it happen in your classroom. You can contact them through http://learningformastery.com/.

Teaching the Nintendo Generation: Innovation Creates a Collaborative Classroom

2009-06-29T23:29:00.003-04:00

Camilla Gagliolo has a passion for her job. She tries to engage her students and make them excited about coming to school. One way she does this is by using Nintendo DS in her classroom! Here is what she shared with us about using this fun tool with her kids.

Students today have access to many mobile devices that could be used in the classroom. They prefer learning online and want to learn with devices they have and use everyday. Obviously, they prefer to learn with games.

Here are the top four things that elementary students use and do:
#1 Online and computer gaming
#2 Downloading music
#3 Communication by email, instant messaging and texting
#4 Maintain a personal website.

Why did Camilla choose to use Nintendo DS with her students? Check out this video made at the Robin Hood Primary School in Birmingham.

Nintendos are a great tool to use in the classroom because many children have them, they are relatively inexpensive, students know how to use them, there are many available software applications, it includes a built-in networking application called Pictochat, the learning is entertaining and games encourage learning.

Some immediate benefits to using DS were: limited or no training needed for teacher or students, networked classroom instantly, learning is transparent, allows for differentiation, teachers can tutor one on one without other students knowing, low cost and multiplayer downloads.

Here were some of the ways she used the DS in her classroom: student response system, math questions, skill practice, morning warm up, discussion questions during read aloud, finding evidence in the text they were reading, paperless classroom, station work, tutoring one on one, shared learning/instant networking, grammar practice and review.

Doesn't this sound like a classroom you'd like to visit or attend? What a neat idea!

Gadgets for Everyone!

2009-06-29T22:20:00.000-04:00

Does anyone else love gadgets? Most teachers do! Leslie Fisher loves to share them!

Tripit.com Can be used anytime you make a reservation you send your itineraries to their email address at plans@tripit.com from your email and it will create your itenerary. So all those hotel confirmation emails and airline confirmation emails are put together. Share calendar formats with others. Use your phone to check itinerary while on the road. That way you're not pulling out a folder of travel information.

Yelp.com can be used by typing in your address and yelp can search for food closest to you. You can search specific foods. It is community driven so you can read reviews. Perfect for traveling or just looking for something new to eat around town!

Twitter.com Created by the guys that created Blogger. It is microblogging. If you just want to let someone know that there is a new iphone application you won't write a whole blog post about it, but you would twitter about it and everyone that follows you would then see that. You can have conversations with the people you follow also. It is limited to 140 characters for each "microblog" or entry.

Jott.com You join jott and it gives you a 1-800 to call and give yourself a reminder about something like picking up the laundry or remembering a birthday.
Remember the Milk is a similar application that is all about the lists you keep, so if you jott you can ask it to go to your Remember the Milk application. Nominal fee for jotting.

Evernote will grab anything: web pages, pictures, notes by using a web cam, phone camera or Evernote iphone application. It will sync these images or web pages today and organize them for you to find later.

Ustream.tv Allows you to set up a free account and post videos live as they happen. Perfect for recording presentations at conferences, classes for a student that is home sick and archiving lessons.

Mozy.com Are you backing up your computer regularly? Are you prepared to lose what is stored there? Online backup for Mac and PC $5.00 a month unlimited space. (2g free!) Install software, select files to be backed up and it's done! You can depend on it. Don't take chances, be proactive!

Orbicule Undercover If your Mac is stolen it will secretly transmit information once that computer accesses the internet again. The webcam will turn on and record the thief secretly. You can also install this on your iphone. It will send out a signal where your phone is and it will look like a game to the crook! Well worth the $ to you!

Smugmug.com You can get a professional level account as an educator. You are able to upload photos here for sharing. Consider possibly starting an account for all class photos where your parents can always have access to pictures they might want for themselves.

Sling Media External box that hooks up to your home theatre no matter how big or small and then uses a Internet connection to broadcast the signal to your CPU, Phone etc. You can watch your shows via wifi on your iphone or itouch. You can also attach a videocamera to the sling media and you are able to log in and view a live stream.

Leslie had even more things to share than these, but I couldn't keep up. I hope to catch up with her in another session tomorrow. Do you have any cool gadgets or apps you love?

The Missing Link...Preparing Teachers to Integrate SmartPhones Effectively

2009-06-29T21:28:00.005-04:00

Wake Forest University presenters shared their pilot program of using SmartPhones with pre-service teachers within their classrooms. They explored whether the hardware and software tools were appropriate for formative assessment data collection and whether the teacher candidates recognized the value of the tools. Teachers used the handheld portable SmartPhones to capture video footage, take photographs, email parents, and record formative assessment information.

Until recently, I haven’t given much thought to the use of SmartPhones in the elementary classroom, however sitting in this session got me wondering about the possibilities. At CCE, I think we use our own cameras and flip videos for many of the functions they mentioned, but one avenue we haven't ventured down is the recording of formative assessment data electronically, on the spot in real time, archiving it for reflection. So, I immediately thought, how could we start using this to assist teachers without adding more to their plate, and to fill a void that we may have?

Here's what I'm thinking--I don't know many teachers who feel good about keeping anecdotal notes when they meet with their kids in either small groups or individually. It seems that each year they try something new because they just don't feel that they've gotten it right or keep up with it like they should. They want to do it, but fall short of their own expectations. So, I'm wondering if a teacher created a spreadsheet beamed it to their SmartPhone and then used the handheld device to record their anecdotal notes while the conferring was happening if they might find it easier to keep up with. The benefit would be that it synchronizes to the computer automatically so the teacher could access the information at anytime and anywhere, it makes recording neater and more manageable to retrieve, and it gives the teacher the opportunity to sort and report information if it is kept in an EXCEL spreadsheet. The pre-service teachers from Wake Forest shared some of their work in this arena with spreadsheets and I think it is definitely a possibility. Of course if we want to make it a logical goal, we'll have to call on Melanie. Are there any takers?

Get a Life! Second Life!

2009-06-29T14:47:00.011-04:00

Started in 2003, Second Life is a 3-D virtual world run by Linden Labs and has 14.7 million residents (avatars) from around the globe. It is a multi-user virtual environment where basic accounts are free, however if you chose to buy items, money does become involved. You can actually create, buy, sell, and travel. SL has an economy with Linden dollars ($1 = 300 L$). In fact, the virtual world supports millions of U.S. dollars.

In 2007, users spent over 220 million hours in SL, and by the end of 2011, it is predicted that over 80% of internet users will have a virtual world avatar. Users must be over 18 and SL runs on U.S. west coast time.

When you register for SL, you create an avatar and chose a name. As you move around in this 3-D virtual world, people know you by your avatar. You can walk, fly, or teleport to get from one place to another and you are able to search for locations to visit.

The presenters, Joan Greene and Don Marchant, don’t support the use of Second Life with students (It really is an adult world.), but they do think there are many possibilities for professional development. You can work in virtual classrooms and other amazing learning spaces, and take part in simulations and role plays building environments collaboratively. You can visit the Alamo, attend University classes, and do science heart simulations, to name just a few.

Linden Labs supports a program focusing on the use of Second Life for educational, academic and serious applications. In fact, there are about 400 Universities holding sessions in SL. The University of Alabama is on SL and plans, this fall, to offer the first class for college credit in SL--a trend that is spreading like wildfire.

I must admit that before this session, I thought a few of my colleagues had fallen off their rockers when I saw and heard about their avatars. I mean, why in the world would they want to spend time in a virtual world when their real world offers so much. But, as I sit here watching the presenter’s avatar move from one learning experience to the next in SL, I have to acknowledge that the learning possibilities seem endless. In truth, I’m now thinking that if I don’t get involved in this virtual world, I will be turning a blind eye to a remarkable learning tool.

Podcasting and Podcatching for the Absolute Beginner

2009-06-29T11:30:00.000-04:00

Are you a complete novice at podcasting and podcatching like I am? Then this session was for you!

What is podcasting? It is a series of syndicated media delivered over the Internet. There are several episodes put together that people can subscribe to. Podcasting came about around 2004, we wanted our media at a time that was convenient for us not just the time it was on. Podcasting is unique because it is subscribable. It comes to you! The RSS feed is what makes it happen.

How are podcasts related to blogs? There are many blogs that support podcasting: Blogger, Class Blogmeister, Edublogs, WordPress. Show notes support podcasts by providing links that were discussed during the show.

Podcatchers are what support the podcasts. The most popular one is iTunes. iTunes U is a great supplemental curriculum piece where you an find things such as:
In the Power Search on iTunes you can put the names of several search terms to find what you need.

Podcasting can be used in our own learning and professional development, but it is a powerful student tool. 20% of the time should be production, 80% of the time should be learning. Uses in student learning: virtual field trips, career talks, study guides, vocabulary word of the day, spelling words, roundtable discussion in class, sports commentary, student almanacs, sound seeing tours and book talks.

Podcasting truly supports higher level thinking. Collaboration and creation empowers them to share their voice with the world and get real world feedback. Great podcasts don't live at the bottom level of Bloom's Taxonomy. It is also a great way to assess student work for understanding of content.

Examples of what kid podcast consumers are listening to: Smithsonian Kids, National Geographic Kids, Dragonfly TV, Webkinz Webcast, Super Why! Lucy Grey shared these podcasts that her kids listen to with a Belkin Multi-headphone splitter. Five headphones can listen to a podcast at the same time. Imagine the educational implications?

Libsyn, Bluehost, Dreamhost, your school server, iweb, GoDaddy, Podbean or Podpress are all great services to host your podcasts.

I know that podcasting is one of those things that I have barely dabbled in and would like to learn more about. The Apple Distinguished Educators that ran this session have developed a great wiki to go to for all of their resources. I can't wait to dive in!
http://podcastingforbeginners.wikispaces.com/

Say Cheese!

2009-06-28T22:30:00.006-04:00

Who in the world let Melanie Holtsman buy a brand new Nikon D60 before leaving for NECC 09? If you're like me, when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a photo, you crook your head, give a little groan, and think...Is that really me? Do I really have that big of a gut?

From the moment we've landed, Melanie has done a spectacular job capturing our visit. Oh, she's caught me registering, sprawled out on the floor creating a plan for sessions, and mouth wide open screaming at her. I'm really thinking about sleeping with one eye open tonight, because I'm sure it wouldn't be beyond her to take a photograph of me drooling in my sleep and post it for the world to see.

I'm wondering, when will the camera turn on her? And, does she really understand the intensity of a payback?

NECC 2009

2009-06-28T04:39:00.004-04:00

It's 4:45 in the morning. There is not much that could get us up this early in the morning, but Suzanne Shall and I are excitedly waiting to board our flight to Washington, D.C. to attend NECC 2009.

The National Education Computing Conference is the premiere technology conference. Last year we were fortunate enough to attend, and it changed the practice of our school completely. I wouldn't have my current position as Instructional Technology Coach at our school, if we hadn't attended this conference last year and seen the possibilities. So...our expectations are high for this year's conference. What will we learn? Well, stay tuned here each day next week because the blog posts will be plentiful. We want to share all we learn with you and hear from you...can't wait to get started!

Talking about Books Using Book Clubs to Foster Adolescent Literacy and a Love of Reading in Class, Outside of Class, and for Life

2009-05-10T20:03:00.013-04:00

Presenters: Deborah Appleman, Carleton College dapplema@carleton.edu
Carol Jago, www.caroljago.com, jago@gseis.ucla.edu

Deborah Appleman is professor of educational studies and director of the Summer Writing Program at Carleton College. She also serves as the Associate Director of the American studies department. Professor Appleman is on sabbatical for the 2008-2009 academic year. She is teaching college-level language and literature courses at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater for inmates who are interested in pursing post-secondary education. (Inmates can earn an associate's degree while incarcerated.)

Carol Jago is a teacher with 32 years of experience at Santa Monica High School in California. The author of nine books on education, she continues to share her experiences as a writer and as a speaker at conferences and seminars across the country.

The speakers were so qualified to deliver this presentation as you can tell from some of their published works above. They inspired all of us to start a club before school, after school and even on weekends. The conversations they shared of the students were so empowering. Below is their suggestions of kick starting a book club. Check it out!!

Opening and Closing Questions
Getting Started: Some Suggestions for Opening Book Club Conversations
"Book Club is not my classroom. Book Club is not my classroom. Book Club is not my classroom." I love discussions with students about books and ideas where ever they happen, but I have to remember that the Book Club is designed to be a different experience than students have in class.

Here are some questions to get you started. Many of them are like the questions we ask in our classrooms. Maybe the difference is that since we have only a half hour or so, we really need to stay on the sidelines. One or two of these and kids will take off on their own. (In some cases I've tied the question to one of the books we've read.)

Questions about characters:
How does Susie (or_______) surprise you? Lovely Bones
What seems to be _______'s most important characteristic?
Does this character seem familiar? How is he or she like or unlike you? Getting In
What does it mean to be a winner? --in this book? To you? It’s Not About the Bike, In These Girls Hope
is a Muscle
What would it be like to have to fight so hard to learn? What was it like for these boys? Balzac and the
Little Chinese Seamstress
How (or why) has the author used a figure from popular culture to explore philosophy? Is he effective?
Simpsons, Tao of Pooh
Who do you like best (or least) in this book?
Who is the most important participator in the story?
What does _______ (main character or someone else) believe?
Questions about conflict:
What is the most important problem in the book?
Why is the story resolved in this way?
Would you have done what the character did? Did you like (approve of, disapprove of) the decision of
_______.
Other:
What does _______ have to say in this book (a character or the author)? What do you think about that
statement?
What are the "rules" of this world? Would you like to live there?
What idea or character do you think the other is most interested in? Who or what were you most interested in?
Was the book interesting (entertaining, important)? Why or why not?
What made the book worth reading? Worth discussing?
What did you find important in the text? (Or surprising? Or reassuring? Or troubling?)
How did you feel about a character, the end, a decision the character made.
What does mean to you. (Heaven if you read Lovely Bones, for example. Or getting into college if you read I Getting In. Or winning if your read Lance Armstrong or In These Girls Hope is a Muscle.)
Possibilities for students to bring to book club
Bring one important question that has to do with a character (or the problem, or the end of the work) to
talk about.
Bring a line or passage you really want to talk about to Book Club.
Transcript Excerpts

Deborah Appleman, Carleton College
Deep Talk- Discussing the Tao of Pooh
In book clubs, students seem willing to offer their perspective on themselves, on high school, and on life in general in ways
that feel more authentic and more substantive than what sometimes happens in class talk. Consider, for example, the following excerpt from a discussion of The Tao of Pooh:

Student 1: Well, I really enjoyed, like on page 112 of the same chapter that talks about how “enjoyment of the process is the secret that erases the myths of the Great Reward and Saving Time.” It just like shows, like, every year we go through Christmas and you just anticipate the gifts, but then once it’s over you’re just back where you started.
But that anticipation is the part that is the most fun. So it’s kind of not necessarily the reward, but the time before it.
I like that idea.
Like everyone just goes through high school and tries to get good grades, so that they can get into a good college.
But high school is four years of your life that you could be enjoying. Obviously, that doesn’t stop you from enjoying necessarily, but if you focused more on enjoying the process of your life… That doesn’t mean don’t work, but it just means, like, enjoy where you are right now. I think, you know, that people would be a lot happier.
Student 3: I thought Katie brought up an interesting point about how he shows contrast between Pooh and the Chinese proverbs. On page 68 and 69 when he’s talking about the Wu Wei, he says, “Literally, Wu Wei means without doing, causing, or making,” and then he kind of talks about that. Then, right at the bottom, he says, “Let’s take an example from the writing of Chuang-Tse,” and then right after that on the next page he goes, “Now look at the most effortless bear we’ve ever seen” and then he goes through examples of Pooh. I think it’s cool how he can, like, show the contrast and show the parallels between those two. I think it’s interesting.
Student 4: Well, what you where saying about high school, I though that was one of the most interesting things too.
And my favorite passage was, “ ‘It is today, sweet Piglet, my favorite day’ says Pooh” and that everyday could be his favorite day. And he just enjoys it. That would be incredible to embrace, and that’s what I like best about the book.
Flying On Their Own: An excerpt from the The Kite Runner conversation
What follows now is an extended exchange between two students. This exchange is particularly noteworthy for those skeptics who might be tempted to conclude that book club discourse merely changes the setting for participants who always dominate, in almost monologic turns. As Marshall (1991) points out, most classroom talk is comprised of student-teacher turns. Here
there is a sustained exchange with no mediating adult.
Student 1: I mean, didn’t he try to put him in the orphanage after he saved his life? It’s just ridiculous how much he
owed this boy and he still did that.
Student 2: But wasn’t the whole point of putting him into the orphanage that he could help him to escape?
Student 1: Yeah, but I mean, come on, you can’t have children and your wife really wants a kid an you find a blood
relative, this little boy, who is sweet and you owe him a ton, I mean…
Student 2: He was trying to get him out, though.
Student 1: No, that’s good, but after his friend like came to Pakistan…
Student 2: But how’s he supposed to know before that he was a relative…
Student 1: No, but once he knew, he’s like, ooh, I just made the decision…
Student 2: But how would you react to that?
Student 1: I know it’s scary, but…
Student 2: It’s one of those situations that its hard to know. It’s hard to judge his moral decisions in that extreme circumstance that none of us has ever had to experience.
The conversation then resumes with other participants.
Student 6: Personally, I think Amir was kind of afraid to take Hassan’s son into his home because that would be a constant reminder of everything, all the things that happened in his childhood. And how much Hassan suffered for him, because he looked exactly like Hassan. I mean, don’t you think it would be kind of hard to go back and accept
this child who would be a constant reminder every day that you let Hassan get raped. I think that would be really hard. I think he had the chance to redeem himself, but it was just really hard.
Student 7: Do you guys think it made it more believable that he first didn’t think he should take him back, or do you think it would have been more believable if he had instantly though this is my future son.
Student 4: Well, it kind of goes along with how he isn’t really an adult yet. Well, he is an adult, he does go to Pakistan and decides to go into Afghanistan, but still he’s not, like, all the way there yet. I think he doesn’t want to be reminded of what he did and doesn’t want to take him home now, but once his journey is over, ideally, he should take Hassan back. And he should have to look at him and deal with what he did, and he just kind of owes him.
Student 2: I agree, like, I don’t want to sound too harsh, ’cause I did like the book. I think you are right. I think he was afraid of that reminder, but that is kind of weak. He saw what the orphanages were like, but if he couldn’t look beyond himself in that extreme of a circumstance, then that’s not that good of him. But, that said, I don’t think the author was trying to make him an awful person. It think a lot of it was to keep things going.
Student 6: And also, he’s only human too. It’s so much easier for someone on the outside, and most of us will never
be in that situation, hopefully. I think that just helped his character development, because at first you hate him because you know that he should take this boy back with him. And he doesn’t. But I think it is important to remember that Amir is only human, and that’s just something to keep in mind.
Student 8: I think Amir is portrayed pretty realistically in his selfishness and his fear of the unknown. Amir is really grappling with his past and his life.
Student 1: I think this book gets a lot of its effectiveness because Amir can’t really be blamed for all his shortcomings. He’s living an easy life, even though he’s growing up in Afghanistan. For us that’s, like, rough. But
he’s got this nice house, he’s an only child, his father takes him on trips, he gets to escape to the U.S. even though
that was kind of hard. I mean, you know, basically, even though he’s had life probably a lot more rough than we’ve had, it’s easier to understand him because, I mean, personally, I’ve had everything in life handed to me, like, on a
silver platter. Like, I have everything. And I think Amir kind of has that same kind of thing going for him and that kind of is what makes him who he is. If we think about it, we can see a lot of ourselves in him.
I think maybe that is why I have so much scorn for him, because I see exactly what I hate, not hate, but what I don’t like in myself, and what people maybe see in the mirror, and it just makes you think because there’s always something worse, there’s always somebody worse off. I think, reading the book we all kind of thought, just go into Afghanistan, even if you die it’s worth it. But, like everybody says, if you are faced with that decision, what are you going to do?
Teacher: But what do you do with the circumstances that you’ve heard? That’s what you’re talking about. Like, not to your credit or your fault that you are here and he is there? What do you think the book suggests about that?
Student 1: I don’t think Amir shows what we should do, rather more what we should try to avoid. Not that he screwed up entirely. But, um, I think Amir did do some good things. I’m gonna follow my dream and be a writer. He didn’t let his father make him do something he didn’t want to do. And he did take advantage of his opportunities as far as, like, education goes. But I think he lost sight of a lot of things, and I think that is what happens to everybody.
Student 7: Amir was really just able to accept things without standing up for others. And you need to balance those two. You need to be able to stand up for yourself, but Amir was really stunted ’cause he wasn’t able to stand up for others. So I think you need, like, both, in order to be the ideal person.
Student 5: But I think the book is saying there is no such thing as the ideal person. Because, the Hassan boy listens to everyone and obeys everyone, but he can’t stand up for himself. And Amir can’t stand up for others. And at the end he realizes that Baba made mistakes too. So he talked all about this human nature stuff, everyone makes mistakes, so that is really an inherent theme in this book.
Student 6: I think this book isn’t about courage but is about regular people who have human flaws, and they all make mistakes and I think this book is about how they try to deal with these mistakes.
Student 1: Then, what’s it really telling us to do? You know, Amir is really just trying to forget about it and leave, but it keeps coming back to bite him. So how do I compensate for all the chances and luck that I’ve been given? Like, what am I supposed to do?
Student 6: You have to just do to the best of your human nature. You can’t always do what the ideal person reading the book of your life would do. But, like, you just have to try, ’cause once you do something it’s done, you can’t go back and change that.
Student 1: Still, at the time you could change it. That’s what kind of irks me. I’ve always thought you can have your past and you can make mistakes but you have to get over them. So in that respect, I’m Amir, you know I was just trying to like, okay I screwed up, I was 12, trying to get over that, but in that respect, I am stuck.
Student 8: I think what you were saying about what do I do to compensate for all the things I have in my life… I am now just thinking about when you make a mistake, no matter how much good you do afterward, it doesn’t necessarily make the mistake you made any easier to deal with or more justified.

Not Your Everyday Book of the Month: Taking Reader's Beyond the Binding

2009-05-10T14:12:00.002-04:00

Last year KK Cherney and I were contacted by children's book author Pamela Duncan Edwards and illustrator Henry Cole about presenting our school's book the month work with them at IRA. Our presentation focused on how a piece of children's literature can be paired with an adult professional text to deliver strategies to a faculty or classroom of students. We also illustrated how combining the forces of a school team with the works of an author and illustrator can impact engagement for both teachers and students.

Not Your Everyday Book Of The Month

View more presentations from dreamleader.

Our Symposium was held on Thursday afternoon and while the crowd was small I can absolutely say it was a pleasure to work with KK, Pam and Henry. Thanks to Melanie Holtsman we were able to unvail our Chets Creek Book of the Month Wiki and showcase Pam and Henry's latest book The Old House. We even got a sneak peak at their newest, soon to be published, collaboration - stay tuned for some "perfectly piggy" fun!

The Newest from the New Standards Project

2009-05-10T13:44:00.007-04:00

One of the real highlights from the trip for me was getting to hear the latest research behind the new publications from the New Standards movement. Their newest findings about how students in the later elementary years acquire the all important skills they need for comprehension and written expression have been published in the work Reading and Writing With Understanding: Comprehension in the Fourth and Fifth Grades, by America's Choice's Sally Hampton and University of Pittsburgh's Dr. Lauren Resnick. (This team also revised the Reading and Writing Grade by Grade book that has served as our standards bible for the last ten years.) This newest work develops the new Science of Reading which involves determining how students think as they are learning and provides ideas for use in the classroom, examples of student performance and detailed commentaries. Harvard's Graduate Scool of Education's Dr. Catherine Snow also shared the latest research that went into a revision of the Speaking and Listening for Preschoool through Third Grade standards. Practice of oral language skills and the need for meaningful accountable talk was reiterated as a way of building a student's experiences that will carry over to their reading and writing experiences. In my opinion these are must have professional reads in continuing to develop teacher insight and meaningful literacy experiences for students.

Interactive Read Aloud: Developing thoughtful readers, thinkers, speakers and writiers

2009-05-10T13:27:00.002-04:00

Marica Uretsky and Martha Heller-Winokur presented work on how important talk around read alouds is to strengthening comprehension from their book Fourth Grade Writers: Units of Study to Help Students Internalize and Apply Strategies. They maintain that teaching children to think through text by providing structured opportunities in the classroom is essential in teaching reading. Teachers must pick the right text, teach students how to converse and allow for the exploration , debate and sharing of all ideas. Good topics for interactive read aloud include those that teach lessons on life, behavior, history or humanity. Interactive Read Alouds take planning and careful questioning on the teacher's part and a classroom that has the ground rules established for students to participate in meaningful accountable talk.

Could this be a dream?

2009-05-09T15:32:00.016-04:00

Books, Books everywhere!

Another one of the benefits of attending any convention is having the opportunity of visiting the exhibit hall. Not just an ordinary exhibit hall selling their wares but one that is almost too much for a "book junkie" like me.

The International Reading Association exhibit hall is a little bit different. For example, can you imagine walking down an aisle of the hall and bumping into an author like Bruce Lansky or Pamela Duncan Edwards? It happens here, that's for sure. It is delightful to flitter from booth to booth and see the latest, greatest in literature. The icing on the cake is to happen upon an author/ illustrator signing.

As a elementary school media specialist, one would think they had died and gone to "literature" heaven. Are you book lovers salivating yet?

My mission on this particular day was directed by thoughts of my "math coaches and math teams" back home. I had decided before I left for Minn. MN. that I would have math books on my radar and I would not dissappoint them this school year. So I leave with you a sneak peak of a few titles in my bag.

Featured Authors: Betsy Franco and Debra Fraiser

2009-05-09T11:14:00.016-04:00

Refresh your math, science and creative writing ideas with tips from author Betsy Franco (her biography).

I loved how Betsy introduced herself and her family. Her family are all featured artists and very much involved with her works. For example in her first young adult novel, METAMORPHOSIS, from Candlewick Press in October 2009, her sculptor son Tom is the illustrator, and her actor sons, James and Dave, read the audio version!

She was animated and excited about her works for children. Her mission today was to share her books as a support tool for the subjects of math and science. Once she modeled the creation of her books she shared the works of children by displaying what the children created using her style with other topics of math, poetry, and science. I found this great interview posted by Paticia Newman and I think you will understand this author/illustrator a little bit better after reading it.

Interview with Betsy Franco

Betsy's Website

Debra Fraiser presented Books in the Classroom-What Happens After Reading?

She shared how schools across the United States of America have extended her books with individual projects or full school events.

Her site is rich with resources and ALA awarded this website a place on their GREAT SITES FOR KIDS list!

The Miss Alaineus Vocabulary Parades were outstanding and get this she is offering to all of us to enter her contest. If we do and create our own Miss Alaineus Vocabulary Parade, she will come down and give us a free author visit. You know I am all over this challenge. Check out her site and see just how amazing the other schools performed.

Debra's Amazing Site

2010 = 10th Anniversary of Miss Alaineus, A Vocabulary Disaster!
Celebrate with your students in two ways:
Bring Debra Frasier to your classroom through the ongoing video shorts series: Small Answers to Big Questions about Picture Books
Enter the Vocabulary Parade Contest!

Grand Prize: A FREE Debra Frasier Author Visit!

Lots of other prizes, too!

Official rules posted Sept 1, 2009. Categories will include Most Original Use of a Word, Funniest, Ten Best, and the Grand Prize: ten excellent costumes, participation numbers, and teacher & principal costumes from a single school.
Plan to enter? September 1 - 30 all interested schools can download the 30 page Vocabulary Parade Planning Kit for free! See you here on Sept 1, 2009.
I enjoyed her so much and here is a special message from Debra.

Storytellers-Developing and Using Tandem Stories and Reader's Theatre

2009-05-06T14:59:00.011-04:00

Presented by:

Betty Roe, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN

Michael Roe, Mikro Enterprises, Crossville, TN

This session demonstrated tandem stories and discussed the differences in required preparation between telling tandem stories and telling individual stories. They described the language instructional benefits of using tandem stories and explained how they turned literature selections into tandem stories.

I wanted to understand the tandem storyteller so I attended to find out more. I attempted to look up the word tandem, one of Wikipedia's definitions stated this: "Tandem" can be used more vaguely to refer to any group of persons or objects working together, not necessarily in line.[2] "In tandem", for example, in politics and business to describe joint plans and ventures. A tandem may also refer to Tandem language learning, a language learning method in which two partners of different mother tongues each help the other learn the foreign language.

Mike and Betty opened with this particular style of storytelling and explained how this strategy helps with language skills.

The story they shared was the "Magic Pot". Together, side by side they began. They opened speaking in unison, then they separately spoke a line or two, then they return back to a unison speaking part. It looks easy, but as a storyteller I can tell you it is truly difficult.

Timing, timing, timing.

Props aren't used. Michael and Betty changed the story to better fit their style and to make it better as a tandem story. I learned real quick it is better to have short sentences.

Tips on Telling a Tandem Story

Tell, don't recite word-for-word

Except for unison parts

Listen for cues from your partner

Practice to get your timing and cues right

Internalize the story, so a dropped line won't cause a problem.

Narrator: Face audience- allows eye-contact

What are the benefits of tandem telling?

Language Skills Development

Reading or listening to stories

Analyzing-vocabulary, sequence, cause and effect, characterization, action, story structure

Writing to combine versions or divide into parts

Repeated reading to learn stories

Speaking Skills

volume

pitch

enunciation

pronunciation

pacing register

vocabulary

Listening Skills

Audience- vocabulary and story structure

Participants- cues for speaking

Reader's Theatre

Interpretive oral reading experience

dramatic

script is right in front of you

no sets, costumes or props needed

Benefits of Reader's Theatre

many of the same benefits as tandem telling
reading fluency
reading vocabulary

reading comprehension

can be numerous readers

Benefits especially important for ELLs and struggling and reluctant readers

expands vocabulary

involves them in collaboration with peers

boosts self esteem

improves attitude

Materials for Reader's Theatre

play scripts
poems

stories with dialogue

selections from content area texts

nonfiction trade books

materials with few scenes and characters

Student Preparation

teacher modeling

discussion

development of assessment rubric or questions

Script Preparation

narrator and characters
large print

highlighting for emphasis

purposeful focus on story elements

Sources: free scripts and stories

http://www.aaronshep.com/

www.aaronshep.com/rt/index.html

Cast Parts

consider reading levels

allow group decisions in some cases

consider rotating parts for repeated performances

have teacher as narrator in lower level classes

Rehearsal Time

move from group to group

give suggestions

ask pertinent questions

offer encouragement

students sit or stand before the performance

Let's experiment with this new type of storytelling and use it to encourage the student that dreads the writing assignment. Can't wait to get back and try it at Chets!

Betty D. Roe broe@tntech.edu

Michael H. Roe mikeroe.xvl@gmail.com

The "Art of Conversation" Using the Arts to Promote Authentic Response to Literature in Struggling Readers

2009-05-06T11:26:00.019-04:00

Presented by:
Neva V. Cramer, Ph.D.
Schreiner University
nvcramer@schreiner.com

Angelle Stringer, Ph.D.
Louisiana Resource Center for Educators
angelles@lrce.org

Wow…that is all I can say is “wow”.

Angelle identified herself as a 13 year old trapped in an adult body. Her passion is working with struggling students. Her mission is to reach the students that fall behind, you know the ones, the reluctant ones, the ones who are trying not to be the “dumb” ones so they become the “bad” ones. These two women started off with a bang and never let up for 2 hrs. and 45 min. They empowered each one of us with strategies enabling our students to connect with themselves, each other and the outside world.

Sidenote: The whole time that Neva spoke, I thought to myself, “I know this person”. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. She has a star-like quality and I later found out that she has appeared and starred in movies. No wonder she wants to use the arts.

After experiencing the hands-on workshop they prepared for all attendees, I was convinced the arts can motivate reluctant readers and you don’t have to be the art teacher to achieve the goal of promoting the love of literature.

Objective: Making the reluctant readers' thinking visible.

The encouragement of capturing the inner conversation of the artist's creation really makes one think about restructuring the way we each present literature.
Think of the composer…it is in his/her head first…we have to help the reluctant students to transfer it to others using paper, conversation or through illustration.

One of our activities involved one of my favorite books: "Tuesday" by David Weisner
She showed this wordless book through the tool of a laptop using the software of power point where she had previously scanned the pictures. She then asked us to use the tool of the story pyramid and to break into small groups to fill in the blanks.

Story Pyramid
1. Main Character-
2. Describe Character-
3. Setting-
4. Problem-
5. 1st event-
6. 2nd event
7. Solution/Resolution
Each group had conversation about the book. This is an amazing example of "pictures telling a story". There is no right or wrong answer, soooooooo, try it in your own classroom and watch your reluctant readers soar.
They referenced Project Zero project at Harvard as just one example to support their work.
Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels. Take a look at the site it will provide some clarity about this initiative.

Some of the books they shared in this total interactive workshop were:

The Outsiders

Just Like Josh Gibson

Grandfather's Journey

They also shared music and proved using all of us as the guinea pigs the results of leaving reluctant readers wanting to know more. They shared Don McLean's "Vincent" making all of us want to research about the life of Vincent Van Gogh.

I can't wait to share all of the handouts and ideas they shared. Where's my scanner?

It’s time to put the arts back into the literature!

International Reading Association - Minneapolis, MN

2009-05-05T19:30:00.010-04:00

54th Annual Convention North Central: Minneapolis, Minnesota
May 3 - 7, 2009, Minneapolis Convention Center

Finally here!
With great expectations I bounced out of bed to attend my first IRA Convention. It has been on my list of things to do for quite some time and I am finally here. I feel like I have stepped into the shoes of Mary Tyler Moore happy, excited, spinning around throwing up my hat in celebration, in fact we passed Mary's statue on the corner in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota as we were driving to our hotel.

IRA's 54th Annual Convention North Central opened Monday with the Opening General Session, featuring keynote speaker Khaled Hosseini, bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. I had read both books and couldn’t wait to listen to someone who had pulled on my heart and took my breath in the first chapter. Khaled shared with all of us his journey and how he always knew he was hard wired to be an author.

As a boy he dreamed of being Clint Eastwood, however his life’s path took him in a different way. His father was a diplomat and his mother was a vice principal of a girl’s school. They left their comfortable life behind. They were forced by war to come to this country. Hosseini shared his personal thoughts about what went wrong in Afghanistan and the huge challenges the country is facing. He talked about visiting Afghanistan and getting involved with UNHCR and his development of his own foundation, Hosseini Foundation. His last quote summed everything up as a keynote speaker. He said,” teachers can help the young break the shackles of apathy. It begins in the homes and in the schools.” Not only his books moved me, but his speaking stirred me to care about the lives of others.

Minnesota Here We Come!

2009-05-04T16:06:00.000-04:00

Earlier this school year, my Media Specialist and I were contacted by children's book author Pamela Duncan Edwards and illustrator Henry Cole about presenting a session with them at the International Reading Association Conference this year. They have visited Chets Creek a couple of times and love the Book of the Month work that we do as much as we love them! Our proposal was accepted and we will be presenting a symposium this Thursday afternoon at the 2009 IRA Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As always, we will be blogging the conference "live" on the Live From The Creek blog and can't wait to bring back all the incredible things we learn about Reading while attending the conference. Be sure to check in on our adventures as we head to the mid west!

Creating a Brain-Friendly Math Classroom

2009-04-24T23:43:00.003-04:00

Creating a Brain-Friendly Math Classroom
Presenters: Sally Kingsley and Connie Conroy, Howard County

This session went into the latest research and information from the book How the Brain Learns Math by David Sousa. (Because of copyright laws, only highlights of the session will be posted.)

The short term memory is divided into two sections, the immediate memory (about 30 seconds) and the working memory (which also has time limits). When things are put in your working memory, they are ready to be transferred to your long-term memory. Research shows that they are best transferred by rehearsal, a "less is more" approach, and through shorter periods. More information about this can be found in Sousa’s book.

Also in Sousa’s book, you will find great information on the stages of brain development, number knowledge at different age ranges, and the best times to learn math content. This book sounded like a great resource to have. I plan on ordering it when I get back home.

Has anyone read this text?

NCTM: Think! Communicate! Justify!

2009-04-24T15:43:00.013-04:00

Think! Communicate! Justify!
Presenter: Mickey Jo Sobierajski, Fulton County Schools

This session focused on ideas and activities to empower primary students to become confident problem solvers, good questioners, and critical thinkers.

Ms. Sobierajski opened her session with the following clip:

One of the most important things we need to do is to teach our children how to think. For example, in the clip, the operator did not just answer the little girl’s question, but asked her how much she thought it was. He was attempting to get her to think about it.

The session gave several different calculator game examples for primary students to build critical thinking skills. The games begin easy and build on each other. There is a strategy to each game and each strategy is a little different. In each game, students work in pairs to get the final sum on their calculators. A final sum is given to students as well as a set of rules for each game. Students must take turns until one student reaches the final sum and wins the game.
1. Target Number: 7. Students must start with a 0. They can take turns adding only a 1 or a 2 to reach the target number. (Sample strategy: You would want to get a four so that the next time it is your turn, you can win the game by adding a 1 or a 2.)
2. Target Number 10. Students must start with a 0. They take turns adding 1, 2, or 3 to the number to reach the target number.
3. Target Number: 21. Students must start with a 0. They take turns adding 1, 2, 3, or 4 to the number to reach the target number.
4. This is the hardest because it has special conditions and students will have to really think about each number before entering it. Target Number: 25. Students must start with 0. They take turns adding 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 to the number only if that number or the sum of its digits is not on the screen. (For example, I put in 5. My partner may not add 5 because it is on the screen, so instead she adds 4. I add 3. Now we are on 12. My partner may not add a 1 or 2 because they are on the screen. She may also not add a 3 because the sum of the digits are 3. My partner may only add a 4 or a 5.

To become good problem solvers, students need time to struggle with the problem for teachers to see what they are thinking. Here is a sample problem:

Lauren has 84 identical cubes, each with 2 cm edges. She glues them together to form a rectangular prism. The perimeter of the base is 28 cm. Find the height of the rectangular prism in cm.
What do you know by reading the problem? What do you have to find out? To understand the math, you need to be able to talk the math.
A good problem for students to solve involves interrelated concepts and is at a high level.

Question: When there are 52 green doors, how many blocks will I need all together? Allow students the use of manipulatives to model problems like this if they would like to use them. (Some students will create a number string to solve instead.) If you give students manipulatives, give K students too many and give 2nd grade students not enough to allow them to think critically about it.

Make sure not to use key words when working with a story problem. In all does not always mean to add. If you teach students to look for key words, you are teaching them not to be critical thinkers, but rather to read only the parts of the problem that you need, then solve.
For example: Brian rode 12 rides at the carnival. In all, he spent $9 for rides and $3.50 on snacks. How much did each ride cost? What is this problem really asking us?

Beware of the vocabulary you use. Are you using vocabulary that may cause a misconception? Do you tell students “I’ll be there in a second” and take longer than a second? This does not help them develop an accurate understanding of one second.

Word Walls can also be used to promote critical thinking in the math classroom. For example, use circles to help sort rules.
Which word does not belong and why? (There could be more than one answer.)
Choose a number that has something in common with the empty circle. (Allow students to figure out what the numbers have in common.)

Another way to promote critical thinking is to give students a scenario and a solution and have them determine the question to be asked.

For example: There are 2 fish tanks in my room. One has 8 guppies and 11 goldfish. The other has 24 fish with an equal number of guppies and goldfish. What question could I ask that would give me a solution of 43? Of 12? Of 23?

Engaging Students in Significant Math

2009-04-23T23:32:00.007-04:00

Presented by Henry Kepner, President of NCTM

In his presentation, Mr. Kepner gave an update of the Council’s promotion of mathematics teaching through its focus on curriculum, the dissemination of teachers’ and researchers’ reflective professional experiences, professional development, and the creation of community and policy support for change. He reinforced the overall theme of this year’s conference: “Equity: All Means All”. In addition to sharing how NCTM is working to promote equity for all students, he was also careful to include not only minority and impoverished students, but also gifted learners. One compelling statistic that he shared, in which I was unaware of, is that 20% of students who “drop out” of school have been labeled as gifted at some point in their schooling. “All Means All” certainly reflects both ends of the learning spectrum as this point proves.

Mr. Kepner emphasized that the NCTM Curriculum Principles guide teachers in the important mathematical ideas that NCTM recommends be taught at the varying grade levels. In addition, the focal points also guide teachers on when closure of big ideas are expected for particular ideas and concepts. What a vital resource in guiding our educational systems throughout the country. These principles also emphasize the need for simultaneous preparation for algebra, and the development of conceptual understanding, fluency, and problem solving skills.

Mr. Kepner announced an upcoming resource (book series) known as Essential Understandings, currently being developed by NCTM, which will serve as helpful professional development tools for teachers. This should be a fantastic resource.

In addition, NCTM Topic Books, which will be available Fall 2009, will provide details and examples to support teachers in how to teach the NCTM Focal Points.

Another valuable resource for educators that Mr. Kepner shared during his presentation is a link called “Briefs and Clips” which can be accessed at the NCTM website: www.nctm.org. This link provides educators with quick access to useful and practical research. One topic example is “Effective Homework Assignments”. There are also many other topics for educators to explore and this resource will continue to grow and develop over time.

NCTM:Children’s Difficulty with Elapsed Time and Giving Change

2009-04-23T22:55:00.008-04:00

Reasoning at Two Hierarchical Levels Simultaneously:

Children’s Difficulty with Elapsed Time and Giving Change
Presenter: Constance Kamii from University of Alabama

I decided to go to this session because the title caught my eye. Two of the things that I find some of my students struggle with a lot are elapsed time and giving change, so I headed to this session to learn a few strategies to help me teach these concepts.

Elapsed Time
The presentation opened with Ms. Kamii, a very entertaining presenter, explaining the difference in operational time versus intuitive time. (Most of her data came from a study done by Piaget.) She shared a scenario of a four year old student who was asked several questions about time.

Question: Are you older than your sister?
Answer: Yes because I am taller than her.
Question: Is your grandma older than your mom?
Answer: I don’t think so.
Question: When you are 10, will you be older or your sister?
Answer: I don’t know.

This four year old has a concept of intuitive time. Intuitive is based only on the observable things. She can see that she is taller than her sister, so she must be older than her. She is not able to know if she will still be older than her sister when she is 10 because she cannot see who is taller then. These things are all things that she has deduced as logical based on what she knows. She will eventually move into operational time which is based on temporal reasoning. This is a much higher level of thinking.

Piaget states that there are three types of knowledge:
1. Physical knowledge: objects in the external world (That is a cube. It is red.)
2. Logico-Mathematical Knowledge: Consists of mental relationships with the ultimate source being in your head not knowable with your eyes. Time is not something that is observable, but a series of mental relationships. This is why it requires an operational time in order to understand.

3. Social-Conventional knowledge: knowledge of things like the English language, that Christmas occurs each year on December 25, knowing when it is appropriate to say “please” and “thank you.”

Ms. Kamii stated that there is no way to really show elapsed time to children because it is something that they have to see mentally. A majority of students do not recognize operational time developmentally until third grade.

As teachers work through problems with elapsed time, they should allow students to create and build upon their own understanding in order to build their operational knowledge. Textbooks teach students “standard” ways of determining elapsed time such as counting the hours first, then the minutes, creating a sort of algorithm and subtracting, or counting only the minutes. These strategies do not allow students to construct their own understanding of elapsed time naturally, thus creating misconceptions as they go.

Students should learn elapsed time in a natural progression. How would most of your students solve this problem? Work it in as part of your Calendar Math in the morning and see what the most common answer is.

“I started reading at 8:15 and finished at 9:10. How long did I read for?”
Many second graders in Ms. Kamii’s study said 9 hours – 8 hours is one hour and 15 minutes + 10 minutes is 25 minutes, so the answer is 1 hour and 25 minutes. They do not think logically about the time and realize that their answer cannot possibly be correct because from 8:15 to 9:10 is less than one hour. They are reasoning sequentially.

One way students begin to construct knowledge is to think about the problems in ways that make sense to them. Take this problem for example: I arrived at a birthday party at 6:40. I left the party at 9:15. How long did I stay at the party? One way of making sense of the problem is to think about the 6:40 in terms of how long it will be until we reach the next hour, 7:00. See the thought representation below. Hours are represented across the top, minutes along the bottom.

To help students with elapsed time, we should:
1. Allow students to create their own understanding of elapsed time and ways to model it.
2. Give students meaningful opportunities to work with elapsed time in class. Children are not taught to think about time throughout the school day in a context that is beneficial to them creating their own understanding of it. As teachers, we tend to say “It’s time for lunch, get your things ready” or “at 9:15, you need to be ready to do Calendar Math.” Instead, we should say to our students “How much time do we have until lunch? Are we able to complete a 1 hour and 15 minute math workshop before lunch or would it be best to do a 45 minute science lesson right now?”

Making Change
The second part of the session opened with a quick video clip of a second grader playing store with her teacher. The teacher had a box of candies for 2 cents and a box of lollipops for 3 cents. The student had one dime and one penny in her money box. The teacher began with simple problems. She bought one candy for 2 cents and gave the little girl 2 pennies. The little was satisfied with it and waited for the next problem.
The teacher bought a lollipop for three cents, but gave the little girl four pennies. The little girl gave the teacher back one penny.
The teacher bought 2 lollipops and gave the little girl a dime. The little girl gave the teacher back the entire dime saying that it only cost 6 cents. When asked how much a dime was worth, the little girl said “ten cents.” She knew the value of the dime, but even with prompting from the teacher could not figure out how to use the pennies she had collected from previous transactions in her money box to make change for the dime.
To correctly solve this problem, it requires her to think about several things simultaneously: a dime is worth ten cents, subtracting 10 cents – 6 cents to make change for a dime, and giving the correct change back to her teacher.

Another similar situation, counting change by groups of tens and ones, also causes students to think about more than one concept simultaneously. Students may count this as:

As teachers, we know to transfer the counting from groups of tens to ones when we count it. We are able to think of both concepts simultaneously as we are solving the problem.

How can we correct this in our students? By using the same concepts as working on elapsed time.
1. Allow students to create their own understanding
2. Use meaningful examples.

NCTM: Divide and Conquer: Making Sense of Long Division

2009-04-23T20:55:00.026-04:00

Presentation by Dr. Juli Dixon,

University of Central Florida

Well, this session was just what I needed. For two years, I have had discussion after discussion with fellow mentors and colleagues on how to conceptually teach the long division algorithm and, today, I got the answers that we have been looking for! I will offer an overview of what I learned here, but I really can not wait to get back to school to engage in some collegial conversation over what I learned today with fellow math geeks Rick, Suzanne, Tom, Patti, Sherrie, Tammi, Bridget, Heather, Katie, and Bobbi! It’s sure to be a lively conversation. Are you ready for some enlightenment? Well, here it is!

I learned why it has been so difficult for us to try to bridge our students’ understanding from the partial quotients method (or Russian Peasant as we like to call it J), to the procedural method of long division and now it all makes perfect sense.

After reviewing the differences between measurement and sharing/partitive types of division problems, Dr. Dixon taught us that we need to represent long division with a SHARING (not MEASUREMENT) approach. (This means that there is not a natural or easy transition from Russian Peasant Division to Long Division.) Instead, the use of base ten blocks (hundreds, tens, ones) and/or quick draws of base ten blocks, along with “sharing language”, needs to be reinforced.

SHARING/PARTITIVE APPROACH:

As an example, for the problem 536 divided by 4, you would need 5 hundreds flats, 3 tens rods, and 6 cubes. Starting with hundreds, you would equally share “1” hundred flat among four piles (notice the recording method in the example shown below). The one “left over” would then be decomposed into ten tens rods to make 13. Sharing the 13 tens rods equally in the 4 groups would put 3 in each group with one left over, which would again be decomposed (exchanged) into 10 cubes for a total of 16. The 16 cubes shared equally into the four piles would place 4 in each pile with none left over.

The end result would show 4 EQUAL PILES OF 134.

134

4 ) 536

-4 (hundreds)

13 (tens)

-12 (tens)

16 (ones)

-16 (ones)

Once students make sense of this, the efficiency of the long division

algorithm can be introduced.

MEASUREMENT/PARTIAL QUOTIENTS APPROACH

Dr. Dixon also shared a new division model with us that I have not used before which connects to Partial Quotients Division. This involves the decomposition of the dividend (ex. 8,652 = 8,000 + 600 + 50 +2) and left-to-right division (starting with the largest place value first). See the example below:

1,000 200 30 6

7 ) 8,000 1,600 250 42

-7,000 -1,400 -210 -42

1,000 200 40 0

Dr. Dixon also reinforced several ideas that we certainly understand at Chets in our own mathematical communities:

1) 1) “Does McDonalds Sell Cheese Burgers?” is A PROBLEM! (Divide, Multiply…) Where's the math in that?

2) 2) Students need a context when working with division so they can model and connect with it.

3) 3) Use language that supports the meaning of division.

4) 4) Students need to see many division strategies, which happen with the Measurement/Partial Quotients/Russian Peasant Method (not with the Sharing/Partitioning or Long Division Methods) so they can see the efficiency in various approaches.

5) 5) Students need lots of experience with both measurement and sharing division types. They need to understand BOTH!

6) 6)Procedurally based algorithms don’t make sense of the math- they make the math quick.

7) 7) Florida’s New Generation Sunshine State Standards have 5^th grade as teaching long division. It’s not a bad thing if we don’t “teach it badly.

Now, that was time well spent! Thank you, Dr. Dixon, for all of this enlightenment! This is exactly what we have been searching for! J

NCTM: Importance of Words: Powerful Strategies for Building Math Vocabulary

2009-04-23T20:21:00.009-04:00

Importance of Words: Powerful Strategies for Building Math Vocabulary
Presenters: Brenda Spencer and Andrea Guillaume of California State University

This session began with a sample problem “A stop sign has 8 sides of equal length. Ryan knows that the length of each side is 10 inches. What is the perimeter of the sign?” We were given about 10 seconds to solve this problem.
Why could we solve it so quickly?
Because we have background knowledge of the different cultural (example stop sign) and mathematical vocabulary (example equal length, perimeter) used, allowing us to focus our attention and energy on finding the perimeter, rather than determining what the vocabulary is.

Why should we bother with vocabulary development?
-Math has a high concept and linguistic load.
-Math vocabulary presents special problems. First, most vocabulary is caught, not taught. We “catch” the vocabulary in our everyday life, we do not usually explicitly learn the vocabulary. Second, math vocabulary appears in outside context infrequently, so students bring less background knowledge with them to the classroom. Finally, math vocabulary represents abstract concepts.
-Students need support. Early exposure to math words and home experiences vary from student to student. Students need to learn the math vocabulary in order to catch up.

The research-based framework used to support this session came from Spencer & Guillaume’s book 35 Vocabulary Strategies for Content Area Vocabulary. According to the research, there are four stages of vocabulary development and practice.
1. Prepare: get kids interested in words we want them to learn, pre-assess and self-assess, connect to prior knowledge, learn concepts first, set goals, increase motivation to learn.
2. Build: use strategies rich in context, multiple exposures, depth of word meaning, connecting words to concepts. Use a variety of meaning-based strategies (see below). Make sure to still have students check the actual definitions. (this does need to still be part of the process, however only a small part.)
3. Apply: language rich, use words in new context, engage in writing and speaking opportunities with the new words.
4. Independent Word Learning: Students need to master strategies to learn new vocabulary.

Ideas for preparing vocabulary include:
1. Using vocabulary cards (small cards with a different vocabulary word on each such as equation, odd, even, sum, difference, quadrilateral, etc.) Have students sort the cards into two stacks: familiar and unfamiliar or much background knowledge and little background knowledge, etc. This is valuable because it becomes a quick pre-assessment of student knowledge before you check for true understanding of the words.
2. Vocabulary knowledge rating is another way to prepare as pre-assess student knowledge. For this activity, students should think of the vocabulary words as being on a continuum. How much knowledge do you have of the word? No clue, I know a little, I’ve got it down. A great product to use with this strategy is the Computer Response System pads. (We use them daily in my classroom in both math and reading. Stop by my room for a demo. I think KK has a set available for check out.)

Ideas for building vocabulary include:
1. Focus on multiple meaning words. (odd, even, product, formula) and discuss the different meanings of each. For example, most students will think of formula as something to feed a baby rather than a math word if not already exposed to it.
2. Focus on words with teachable word parts. For example, in the words quadrilateral and quadrant, teach that quad means four. Also, look at cognates. In French, four is quatre and in Spanish, quarto.
3. Use word histories to help build meaning. Teach students were the word came from and teach them how to look up the etymology of the word.
4. Use content links. Have a different word preprinted on pieces of paper. Have several students go to the front of the room holding their cards. Students seated try to find ways to link the vocabulary words together to a partner. They have to justify their reasons because words have the possibility of being linked to more than just one word. (see word chains below) For example, quadrilateral-polygon.
5. Use word chains to stretch student thinking. This strategy is similar to content link, however students are linking a chain of words, not just pairing them together. For example, the words decomposing-strategy-equation-equal-balance.

Ideas for applying word knowledge:
1. Use word posters to demonstrate knowledge. Have students create word posters with pictures, etymologies, synonyms, etc. Use a flip video to record and share the student’s work. (Check with Melanie to check out a Flip if you do not have one of your own!)
2. Allow students to make books. Have students many any number of book types (petal books, ABC books, strategy books) and publish them on the web using the Web 2.0 tools we have been learning about through our book study.
3. Play a math version of Apples to Apples. Before play, make two sets of cards. Set A with terms like mud, plastic, Dr. Seuss, taco, etc. Set B with the math vocabulary you have been using. Students should play in small groups. The object of the game is to gain the most number of points during the entire game. One player is the judge. All of the other players draw 3 cards from set A and keep them a secret. The judge puts one vocabulary card face up and the rest of the players put down the card they think matches the vocabulary word the best. The card that is chosen by the judge as the closest math gets the point. For example, the vocabulary word is fraction. One student might say taco because a taco shell is usually broken into pieces or fractions of the whole. Another student might say ocean because there are different layers in the ocean. The judge would then decide who wins that round.

NCTM 2009

2009-04-21T18:21:00.003-04:00

Blogging coming to you live from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference in Washington, DC. (Wednesday though Saturday) We can't wait to share what we learn!
Angela & Melissa

YouTube Becoming YouCan: Building School and District Culture through Multi-Media

2009-03-31T17:00:00.000-04:00

Nathan Grey, Principal, and Jon Myers, Director of Curriculum and Professional Development, presented a very entertaining and motivating session on how they had used remakes of popular YouTube videos and commercials to engage, entertain and inform their teachers and students. This dynamic duo from Noble Public Schools, Oklahoma greats short videos to welcome teachers and students back to school, encourage them in learning opportunities and even go over the basic rituals and routines of the school and district. At Hubbard Elementary, Principal Nathan Grey, even broadcasts the daily news show live on the internet so that parents can be involved. Subscribe to their channel on YouTube and start figuring out how you can use multi-media to engage your audience. Check out this incredibly creative video they used to start the year last August:

PLC Really Means Powerful Lasting Change

2009-03-31T08:18:00.001-04:00

My presentation focused on how Chets Creek Elementary has built and sustained a REAL Professional learning Community over the past ten years by moving from the “power of one” to the “synergy of many”. I discussed goal setting and ways to develop a culture that supports multi-leveled learning. I explored the roles and responsibilities of administrators, coaches and teachers in determining needs and next steps for schoolwide improvement. Ideas for data analysis, creating action plans, instructional training and support, monitoring implementation and providing prescriptive coaching and learning were shared. Participants learned how effective professional learning communities can lead to outstanding results for students.

PLC Really Means Powerful Lasting Change

View more presentations from dreamleader.

FISH! For Schools - Welcome Back to the Reason You Became an Educator

2009-03-30T23:00:00.000-04:00

Jay Larson, a salesman for ChartHouse Learning, the marketing company for the FISH! phenomenon reminded a standing room only audience about how the FISH! "practices" can inspire students and rejuvenite teachers. The practices that build the type of school culture that can mirror the success of the fishmongers at Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, Washington are:

Be There - be present in the moment of anyone you come in contact with, pay attention and participate with them!

Play - have fun, create joy, and laugh!

Make Their Day - do the unexpected in an effort to provide someone else with happiness - it is not about you - its about them!

Choose Your Attitude - you control your approach to the day, pick kindness, try respect because the outcome almost always reflects your attitude in the first place!

This was a highy interactive and fun session that exemplified these principles - they actually travel all over teaching big companies and schools about the importance and success the FISH! practices can bring to any organization. The presenter even threw fish out to the audience - I was a lucky recipient for describing what Choose Your Attitude can do for you!

On a personal note: If you haven't read this book or embraced these practices in your life it's time. And if you've read the book but haven't been putting these into practice daily take time to revisit! My faculty will be participating in our annual "fish fry" next week to remind us about the need to include these practices into our daily work with each other and students.

Shaping the Future of Professional Development

2009-03-30T19:42:00.001-04:00

Joseph Semadeni, Dr. Mark Taylor and Dr. Kelly Tolman from the Lincoln County School District #2 in Afton, WY presented a unique program they developed to engage teachers in professional development called FUSION. The three main components of the program allowed for additional time for completion of study, a motivation system that included a multi tiered menu of alternatives and pay, and most critically teacher leadership to run the program.

Time - A highly qualified substitute was hired to man classes so that teachers involved in study could make peer observations of master teachers.

Motivational System - Teachers were given choice about the professional development they would participate in based on interest or need. The menu of alternatives included several activities under topic columns including strategies, management, technology, assessment, approaches, programs and content. Based on their level of complexity the amount of pay a teacher could gain increases once the teacher has completed a mastery process.

Teacher Leadership - A teacher who has fulltime teaching responsibility is given a stipend to manage the program. They retain the position for 2-3 years and schedule the peer observations, facilitate study groups and keep track of the fundung used.

One of the unique things about this particular presentation is that they had a "plant" in the audience masquerading as a "tired, grouchy" teacher who interjected repeatedly throughout the presentation with questions and comments. By the end even "she" was sold on FUSION as a way to encourage teachers to engage in professional learning! :)

Opening Keynote: Implications of Globalization for Education

2009-03-29T22:00:00.001-04:00

Dr. Yong Zhao, Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University, delivered the opening keynote for the AdvancEd Conference. He began his talk by asking the question: What knowledge is of the most worth? The answer to this question is not so easy and evolves as the world around us changes. The main driver of these changes is what else - Technology! Technology redefines the talents we and our students need to possess. It divides people into those who can and those who can't and for the survival of education our curriculum must change in response to its constant evolution. The last major change to the American curriculum was the Industrial Revolution when what we taught shifted from a largely language based system (think Latin, Greek etc) to include Science and Math. For the last 150 years schools have served their local community's interests but as the world experiences "death to distance" schools must begin to address the demands of the global community. Check out some very interesting maps that demonstate the ways globalization have effected wealth, population and the global supply chain at http://www.worldmapper.org/.

He also shared some of the hope that can be found in globalization. Just as Ebay turns one mans trash to another's treasure so does the need for local type talents in foreign lands. For example knowing how to speak English in China is highly valued. To survive in the world these days you need a whole different set of qualities - like those described in Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind. The ability to go global creates all kinds of opportunity - it is up to us to help our students see the possibilities. The future will not be about mass production anymore - it is about finding your individual niche. To do that students must be taught global and digital competencies and learning must be personalized.

Chicago: Here I Come!

2009-03-27T19:57:00.000-04:00

Duval County Public Schools recently underwent the district accreditation process by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Counsel on Accreditation and School Improvment (SACS CASI). It was an excellent process for reflection of our successes and in planning the next steps to prepare students for the global workplace. During the visit I was invited by the committee chair, Dr. Nikki Armato, to present the incredible work we do at Chets Creek of creating and sustaining professional learning communties for all stakeholders at their 2009 AdvancEd Annual Conference. The conference is being held in Chicago and I really look forward to hearing from other educators about the extraordinary things being done to create environments of change and improvement for students. I will be blogging the conference on Live From the Creek. Be sure to check in on my adventures (I think they are calling for snow one day) and to find out about the new strategies shared that will "Shape the Future of Learning".

Risk...Care...Dream...Expect...
Cross posted from dreamleader.blogspot.com

Photos from the Fun

2009-01-29T07:04:00.003-05:00

On LIVE from the Creek, it's about the learning and the fun! Here's a few shots from our trip down in Orlando, FL for FETC.

The Learning Commons - Reinventing School Libraries and Computer Labs

2009-01-26T15:00:00.000-05:00

Professor David V. Loertscher from San Jose State University presented this session on how our school libraries need to be transformered to meet the ever growing and changing needs of 21st century learners. It certainly requires 180 degree thinking from how libraries have been run for many, many years. He compared the need for such a change in thinking to how Google has differientiated itself from Microsoft is revolutionizing the model by which tech product is developed.

The Microsoft Model is "if WE build it they will come". The Google Model is "if THEY build it, THEY will actually use it".

Why change the traditional model?

1 - Students are GOING to Google around us anyway - why not use it to our advantage.
2 - Students are networking socially - why not use it to our advantage.

3 - School Libraries are the largest rooms in the building and are usually connected to the internet - whay not use it to our advantage.

Step 1

Virtual Transformation - Instead of the Library's page on the website being one way information only turn it into a giant conversation where students and teachers can collaborate and share ideas. All teachers should have blogs and students are taught to organize and master their own information by having their own iGoogle pages with RSS feeds to their teachers' blogs and websites.

Step 2

Physical Transformation - Divide the space into an open commons that can be rearranged as needed to accomodate varying group needs. This area should be run by para professionals, have its own calendar and house a demonstration center. The other major part of the library should be an experimental learning center that becomes the hub of all school improvment initiatives. All professional development, action research, and idea experimentation happens here. This area also has its own calendar and is manned by the librarian (or cybrarian) and technology coach - who spend their time co-teaching flexibily scheduled classes.

In the library of the 21st century their are no rules regarding checking out books - what a student feels like they need, and can carry, a student gets. Filters for information should be applied to the individual's needs and not the group, with students' needs being placed first - from there you work backwards into how the organization will handle the change - 180 degrees!

Google's Docs, Earth and Sketch Up: Cool Tools and Possible Projects

2009-01-26T09:05:00.002-05:00

This session was presented by Rushton Hurley, HS teacher, trainer, and nonprofit guy who teaches Japanese and is determined to try and save the world from ignorance. You can see the slides from his presentation by visiting here. His non-profit website hosts reviewed videos of lessons and projects and can be accessed by visiting here. You can visit here to sign up to recieve free classroom resources via email.

Mr. Hurley ran throught the following free Web 2.0 tools that could be used to engage 21st century learners.

1) Why Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations and Forms? It's free, on a server somewhere that can be accessed from anywhere on any computer connected to the internet. It 's collaborative nature in general makes it the perfect vehicle for group and team work on documents, projects, and presentations. You can also invite others to just view the work. Forms are a great way to get back data quickly, you can even create self grading quizzes.

2) Google Sites - This is Google's wiki-like space allows for collaborative webpage building.

3) Google Earth - This is an interactive 3D atlas. Be sure to check our Lit Trips on Earth to see the lanmarks from great literary works already cataloged.

4) Google Maps - On Maps you can load information and pictures linked to placemarks. It is way more than just directions and street man can even give you a street view of many places.

5) Sketch Up - This is a CAD-like, but free 3D modeling program that can be downloaded and used to create INCREDIBLE, customized models. You can download models others have created as well. MUST SEE!

6) Google Books - This site offers a limited preview and/or full view of books in various genres.

7) GoogleAdvanced Search - This is a great way to narrow down a broad search with specific words, file types, sites, domains, etc...

8) NextVista.org - This is a free site featuring student-audience videos for use in lessons. All are invited to contribute to the site and all items are screened prior to posting.

9) Zamzar.com - This site converts files and more. You can even download videos from YouTube by entering url of desired video and convert. This site converts them and then sends you a message to download it for viewing.

10)PodSafeAudio.com - This site offers copyright friendly music that can be used for movies, slide shows and student projects. All you must do is give credit to artists at the end of the presentation

11)Creative Commons Search - This site porvides copyright friendly stuff for use in shows and projects including thousands of pictures.

12) CoolIris - This site is used in combination with Flickr. You can choose pictures and put them in favorites in flickr then create a photo wall for easy reference when teaching.

13) Tag Galaxy - This site also works in conjunction with Flickr to create a photo globe. By the way, this is by far the coolest thing I have seen - I couldn't possibly accurately describe it - see for yourself.

12)Fresh Brain - This site is a place for collaborating and finding resources for online projects

13) Urban Dictionary - This is not a site to show kids while teaching but will help you understand what they are REALLY saying.

Why do we need to embrace technology in our classroms and with students - technology is attention grabbing! But just using technology for technology's sake is not the asnwer it needs to help the kid learn better and save us time. That's the key!

Tech Tips for Teaching About a Greener Tomorrow

2009-01-24T20:00:00.002-05:00

This session was presented by Discovery Educator, Lance Rougeux.

He reminded us that kids spend approximately 6 1/2 hours a day consuming different types of media - usually more than one at the same time. This means, of course, that we need to know what they know so we can use it to further our own goals for them. There is even a site called transL8it! where you can translate "normal" language into IM text lingo!

Lance's main focus was on introducing us to several powerful tech tools that could be used by teachers and students to help sustain and promote conservation of our planet.

1) Blackle - the "Dark Google" is the energy conserving way to search Google. It's black and white screen offers no plug ins or flash and saves monitor usage.

2) Text Google - You can actually text Google at 466453 if you need to search without turning on a computer. As an example: If you wanted to sesrch energy conservation you would simply type web energy conservation in the message field and wait on the return text with links to internet sites you can access right from your phone!

3) Digital Storytelling - allow kids to create tips/commercials using a Flip video and green screen technology, movie maker, photostory, etc... Adobe Premier Elements is great for editing with green screen and MOONK is a free website for creating slideshows and videoshows. You upload there and then get link to embed to blog, website, or wiki.

5) Fodey - This site allows a student to create a newspaper like headline clipping for projects. Challenge students to create a headline and lead to story and type it in - you'll have a jpg of it in moments.

6) Glogster - The free education version can be found at glogster.com/edu. On this site students can create online posters or splash pages by simply dragging and dropping. The posters allow for the insertion of photos, video, text and links to blogs or websites. These posters can be printed or embeded in blogs or websites.

7) Google Earth - In the free version you can create content or find layers already created on global awareness with links to information about topics of interest. When creating layers you can customize placemarks with text, photos or video, and save it to your desktop for later. If the end result is really good you can even upload the layer to Google Earth for others to use.

Lance encouraged us to have students take the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge where kids submit plans designed to sustain our planet. You can find out more by visiting wecanchange.com. This site also has multiple resources, including virtual labs, for teachers to use.

For more great tips and ideas for student projects designed o promote conservation visit Lance's blog.

Tech Tips Green

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: den discovery)

The Top 10 FREE Web 2.0 Sites for Educators

2009-01-24T09:06:00.008-05:00

The session was presented by Steve Dembo, Online Community Manager for Discovery Education. Steve started out as a kindergarten teacher. Someone learned he could fix printers so he was promoted to technology director and now he works for Discovery Education. How cool is that?
Presentation can be found here.

What is Web 2.0? Web 2.0 applications should be entirely web based. So, for example, Skype or Google Earth, are not Web 2.0 tools. They have to be installed. Web 2.0 should be interactive in some way. It should also play well with other Web 2.0 applications.

#1 Bloglines - RSS feed Reader - It is a service that checks online to see if the blogs you subscribe to have a new post. You can quickly read through your blogs or newfeeds . You can also see who else subscribes to the people you read. You can check their feeds and borrow some of the same blogs to read. It's all about networking to find what would be pertinent to you.

#2 Del.icio.us - Social Bookmarking Where you can find your bookmarked favorites on any computer you are on because they are stored in a website. It also shows how many other people online have bookmarked a site. You organize your sites by tagging so you can look at what others have tagged and easily find sites to bookmark yourself. Efficient, easy.

#3 Crappy Graphs - Click over on the right for "Make your own" crappy graph. It would take a lot longer to do something like this in Excel. You can get the code and put it in your own blog. (The words crappy graph won't show up.)

#4 Voicethread - You can upload images to add voice comments to by webcam, microphone or even by phone! It creates a digital story that you are then able to link to or embed in your blog.

#5 Let Me Google That For You - Ok, you have to see this. It just kind of makes a point with people. It shows them what they could have done on their own...

#6 Poll Everywhere - It generates a text # for people to text in the response you request and then it will show up live in the site. You can also use multiple choice responses. You can also embed this in a powerpoint and it will show up in real time. You can also download a spreadsheet to show the responses and what phone numbers they came from. Don't spend the money on classroom response systems. Let the parents pay for the technology.

#7 Shout'Em - You go here and create your own network for microblogging which can be completely private for your students. It can also be sitting on your own domain.

#8 Mogulus - An entire TV studio in your browser

#9 osTube - Your OWN YouTube. When you go to the website you need to click English because it's a Danish site. It's not easy. You need to download it and an IT person may need to help you but it is very cool.

#10 Prezi - A new way of looking at presentations. Check it out!

It's not about spending more time online. It's about being more efficient with the time you do spend online.

Going Global, Going Public

2009-01-23T23:57:00.002-05:00

Dean started out by talking about how we could take a proactive approach to digital citizenship and online safety.

Have you considered your digital identity? You have one whether you like it or not. If you aren't managing your identity then Google is.

Have you checked out Rate My Teacher.com? People can start groups about you on Facebook or even create an account with your name. It is better to have your own accounts and manage it yourself.

Myths:
#1 Filters are important tools that protect our kids: Australia spent 30 millions dollars on a filtering system that a student cracked in 30 minutes. Filters protect schools and adults, not students. Teachers are the best filters. You cannot rely on software.

#2 Internet Predators pose a huge danger to students. Victimization of kids are usually by someone they know. Not strangers.

#3 Current strategies on internet safety and cyberbullying are effective. It is not just a one lesson thing. You need to use every teachable moment to build kids' understanding.

#4 Kids are internet savvy. They aren't afraid to use it but they aren't born just knowing how to use it.

#5 We need to talk to kids about whether what they are seeing online is real. Snopes is the best way to find out about hoaxes. Teacher need to teach kids how to find out who owns a site. They need to understand credibility.

So, have you Googled yourself? You need to know what would come up. Do it! That's the only way to find out what others are saying about you. How are we helping kids understand this? If you think of the internet as a place to look up stuff, you're missing the best part.

Leverage your network - Connect with other educators on del.icio.us, twitter, facebook.
It's a human network. Watch this:

We need to provide an academic stage for our kids to show off their work. Audience makes the difference. Would a basketball team hold a closed game without an audience? No! They want to show off their skills and work. Why? To get feedback (cheering).

A lot of Dean's thinking comes from Clay Shirkey. If you haven't read Here Comes Everybody, it's worth the read!

Here is a recording of the session that was taped LIVE.

Digital Storytelling: Makin' Movies

2009-01-23T22:25:00.000-05:00

Joe Brennan is retired from teaching over 20 years. His experience isn't in cinematography but it's his passion. He writes the digital storytelling blog for Discover Educator Network.

Here are some simple Hollywood tricks to pair up with writing you already teach. Download the handbook There are great resources there for you to use to teach kids the movie making skills they need.

Why do film making with kids? To help all students better express their deepest understanding. Harness the appeal of technology and media to engage your learners. Kids like technology. Enable all kinds of students to master the literacy necessary for life and work in the 21st Century.

AFI Screen Nation has a "Learn" channel with great videos for you or for your kids to learn about lighting, shooting and editing among other videos.

Here are some things to know:
Rule of Thirds in filming, Camera angles

Movie making conventions may include: black and white, repetition, slow motion. close ups, theme, green screen

Ideas:
Make public service anouncements with your kids
Re-enact a historical event
Explain a scientific discovery
Comparing Visual Language to Printed Word

Jen Dorman did not participate in this session, but a lot of things Joe discussed are in her presentation here:

Igniting Student Creativity Through Digital Storytelling

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: students learning)

Digital Copyright: How to be Compliant in a Digital World

2009-01-23T14:00:00.004-05:00

This session was presented by Lisa Scherer from Soundzabound. She started the session with this cute video and song by Weird Al Yankovic called Don't Download This Song.

A lot of school systems are having to pay good money for copyright violations. Publishing anything online with music in the background can be copyright violation. Artists aren't the only ones losing money by illegal use, it is also the people that worked on that music. Everyone that had a hand in it.

Educational Use refers to Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia The conference on Fair Use met in 1997 in order to establish some guielines for educational use. You can ask permission to use anything you want, but you can only use what you have permission to use.

The distinction between “fair use” and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

Fair use guidelines state that without specific permission there is no web publishing. In education, for fair use it must be relevant to course content, used for face to face instruction, cite the copyright holder, one time use.

Does all of this sound as confusing to you as it does to me? I have to say, I still really don't understand all the guidelines, but I do know there are great resources online to give me guidance. So, the best advice I can give you is to search for your answers and make sure what you're doing is right before you share online.

As I was attending this session, Kristin Hokanson tweeted this to me.

Check out that great resource here.

Geography is All Around Us- Connect through Technology

2009-01-23T13:46:00.002-05:00

Hi Chet's Creek. Thank you to Melanie Holtsman for inviting me to be a guest blogger on your great Professional Development blog.

My name is Silvia Tolisano and I am the Technology Integration Facilitator at San Jose Episcopal Day School and wanted to share my presentation "Geography is All Around Us- Connect through Technology" from the The Florida Technology Conference in Education in Orlando.

What is Geography?
Why Geography?
How to connect?

The majority of the session was spent on the third part "How to Connect?" by sharing concrete examples and ideas as well as what tools you can use.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to stop by at my blog and contact me.

Geography is All Around Us- Connect Trough Technology

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: geography learning)

Survey National Geographic- Roper Public Affairs 2006 Geographic Literacy Study.
Thank you to My Wonderful World Blog for permission to use their "We are not alone" image in this presentation
Tools

Google Maps

Google Earth

VoiceThread

Wikispaces

Blogs

Skype

Examples:

Scholastic- The first Thanksgiving

Teddy Bears Around The World

What Could It Mean? VoiceThread

Free Rice

Around The World With 80 Schools

Time zone Experiences

Read Around The World

In Search of Pachamama

Google Lit Trips

Posterous Blog- Defining Japan

Score! Winning Strategies to Conquer Information Overload

2009-01-23T12:29:00.007-05:00

Kathy Schrock shared how overwhelming it can be as a educator when information is coming from administration, other teachers and students. If you have a plan in place to conquer information overload you will overcome! The networked teacher can look like this:

Image by: Alec Courosa

Kathy took stock of her email and looked at the categories they fell in. She realised that many of the notices could be deleted without even reading. Every email has labels or filters you can use.
Here are her suggestions:
Monitor your email for 2 weeks.
Create applicable folders or labels.
Look for the "filter" instructions.
Create your filters or rules.
Monitor the folders for two weeks to make sure everything is going where you want.
Re-evaluate or add rules.
If this seems overwhelming try ONE rule or label in your filter.

Having a smartphone is information and organization at your fingertips. Kathy's dream is for every student to have internet access 24 hours a day. She thinks all educators should have one. Watch the video she made to convince you.

News Readers - RSS feeds send the information to your inbox instead of you going to look and see if something new has been posted. Here are some you can use Netvibes, Pageflakes, Google Reader and Bloglines. Watch this quick video to understand RSS feeds:

Kathy spoke quite a bit on PLNs - Personal Learning Networks that you connect up with on Twitter, Facebook, Nings. She spoke about privacy and maintaining a personal profile and a professional profile. These are an important way to add the power of what your network members know to what you know.

There was so much she covered I cannot do it justice! Please visit her wiki for more information. Kathy rocks!
Here is her wiki for this session.

The Net Generation: The Next Generaton, Are We Ready?

2009-01-23T09:14:00.007-05:00

This session was presented by Julie Young, President and Chief Executive Officer of Florida Virtual School
Florida Virtual School has been growing at 40% for the past five years. This year is the first year they have added K - 5.

She started the session with this video:

The theme is that we have failed you and now we are going to work with you in your world. Students and parents are going to be hearing a lot of this in the media.

As digital natives grow up and enter the workforce and college their expectation will be different from ours. We need to understand their wants and needs because they are our future. We have to understand and embrace change.

The word change and public school don't necessarily go together. Change can be painful or thrilling. We need to pull educators along with the change because the kids need it. It's important for us to ask the hard questions and get the answers.
Here is the spread of educators:
34% Innovators - Risk Takers
14% Early Adopters - Follow the risk takers right away and provide peer pressure on others
34% Early Majority - Will eventually accept the change but won't put themselves out there for the risk
34% Late Majority - Will only make change through peer pressure
16% Laggards - Absolutely late adopters, technologically phobic.

This generation of kids is disruptive. They enjoy disruption. They don't understand adults wanting them to power down at school. Kids feel like they are only engaged 15 - 20% of the time and they just play the game to get the grades.

Unfortunately, some of us are still living this way:

The kids aren't afraid to try and make mistakes. They are tech savvy, personalizers and connected. They are sharing their lives online and making it personal. Think about the ringers on a phone. Many of us have a ring and that is it. Kids customize their rings for each caller. They want things personalized. Why not their education? They want to learn, but we need to bring that connected world to them.

No longer can we teach and kids not learn. We are in a customized learning revolution. By using a virtual school kids are reinventing themselves online. They don't have to be a class clown, afraid to ask a question and avoiding peer pressure. Many special needs kids never need assistance because they are able to be engaged and meet their own needs.

New game called Conspiracy Code teaches American History. Students will play as characters living in new future and bad guy is trying to take over world by altering history. There are clues where you have to find the piece of history that is attempting to be corrupted. Every student has to find truth from fiction about history. It's very engaging. Kids had a say in the names of the characters, how they are dressed and how they talk. In the last 6 months since they have released this in Florida Virtual School they have had amazing positive feedback.

The future is virtual...

Off to FETC

2009-01-22T10:07:00.003-05:00

Live from the Creek members are on the road again, this time, not very far away. We're headed to Orlando, FL to the Florida Educational Technology Conference. We hope to be able to send back some real time learning for you about what we're learning. Let us know what you think!

Inside Google

2008-11-18T22:30:00.007-05:00

Much of our day was spent reviewing or learning all of the amazing applications Google has available for our use: Search, Reader, Docs, Sites, Blogger, iGoogle, Earth, Sketch Up and Maps. Most of these I will be blogging about on my own blog when I deliver professional development. But I want to share with you my favorite fun thing I do with my Google account = iGoogle. Check it out.

Google being Google, they made sure to add some fun tour time in our day. As we walked (we weren't allowed to use scooters due to insurance reasons) the city block length of the fourth floor of Google we walked past several micro-kitchens. They are spaced out about every 150 feet with many yummy snacks to keep your tummy happy and on task while you're at work.

Walking down the hall it's impossible not to notice the white boards on every wall and the write on glass of the offices. These all look like mind maps with ideas, doodles and random jots.
Isn't that fun? I really wanted to write on one but this security guy followed us around all day, so I was afraid to tempt it. :) Here's a video to show you a little more in real time.

We ended our amazing day with a wonderful dinner of crab cakes and filet mignon. And we all officially earned the title of Google Certified Teacher. I hope you'll follow me as I continue on this journey and as I explore all the wealth of resources I now have to go through. I'll share it all with you soon.

10 Things that Google has Found to be True

2008-11-18T16:35:00.011-05:00

In our opening overview session, Mark talked about how the 10 things Google has found to be true relate just as well to the classroom.

1. Focus on the student and all else will follow.

We can plan amazing things to do with our class, but if they're not engaged...does it matter? They have to be engaged in what we are doing, not passive.
2. It's best to teach a few things really, really well.

The content we must cover grows daily. It's rare that a teacher says they have covered everything they wanted to in a year. We're going to have to be masters of integration and choosing what to do really well instead of doing it all.

3. Fast is better than slow.
I really don't need to say much about this do I? We've all sat in trainings where we were bored because it was going so slow, it could have been summarized. Get through the lesson and work with the kids that need more of your time. Kids will tune out, just like you will!
4. Democracy in the classroom works.

Give kids choices about what they will do, they'll do better if they buy in.

5. You don't need to be at school to need an answer.
Learning happens 24/7, so questions will come up that kids need to know HOW to find the answer to. Self directed learning is what you are preparing them for. Think of the last few things you learned how to do. Did someone show you or were you self-taught? How did you find out the answers to your questions? Prepare you students for this.

6. You can teach without doing evil.
(Google's version of this is: you can make money without doing evil) I'll let you draw the parallels here.

7. There's always more information out there.

There is always more to know, there is always someone new to learn from...never stop learning.

8. The need for information crosses all borders.

The world is no longer round, it's flat - we're all connected. Reach out and collaborate, connect and share with others around the world.

9. You can be serious without a suit.

Not to be slovenly, but it's what you know not how you look.

10. Great just isn't good enough.

Keep pushing, trying, learning....the best is yet to come.

Which ones do you find to be true?

Racing into Google Teacher Academy

2008-11-18T08:54:00.002-05:00

We've been promised a wild ride here at the Academy with blinding fast information.

Mark Wagner referred to the book Speed Secrets and the life of a race car driver paralleling with that of an educator. (This will sound familiar to my Chets Creek friends.) Don't look at where you are or where you are going, but where you WANT to be. That is what the racers do and that is what we need to do as educators and learners.

Even though this is not new to me, it still resonates. I get as excited as the next person about what new thing I want to try in the classroom on Monday...but I need to keep the big picture in mind...what will my teaching look like in a few years? Am I doing the right things now to get me there?

Back to my fast paced learning going on today...

Arriving .....Finally, in New York

2008-11-18T06:44:00.004-05:00

Any of you who know me well, know that I wake up WAY early to prepare for my day. Part of the reason is that my naturally curly hair doesn't like being straightened and part of the reason is I don't like going anywhere without makeup.

So, I set my alarm for 4:30 am to get to my 7:15 am flight. Imagine my surprise when I peeked open one eye to see what time it was and it was 6:15 am!!!!!! You have never seen such a flurry of getting dressed as I'm screaming at my husband, "I don't know what happened!" (The electricity went off.) He jumped in his car and drove me at a speed that was quite over the speed limit. I arrived at the Jacksonville International Airport with no makeup, yesterday's hair-do in a scrunchy and ran up to the check out desk at exactly 6:47. There I was informed that if you don't have your bags checked 30 minutes ahead of time you can't take that plane. Yes, really. The next open flight out was 2 pm. My husband, who thought we made it on time, was already gone and I hated to call him back...so I had my morning getting ready routine in the public restroom. I only got a few strange looks at the hairdryer, curling iron and makeup spread out everywhere. Thank goodness for wireless internet or I would have lost my mind trying to pass the time!

I finally arrived in New York just before sunset, so the only real look I got at the city was driving through in my cab. A meet up had been planned by a few of the members from the Google Teacher Academy. Many of these people I know from twitter, but have never met face to face. It was fun to get to
meet them and share a meal!

I'm looking forward to attending the GTA today. Google has asked us not to bring cameras and they made us sign a non-disclosure notice, so I'm not sure what my post will be tonight...but I will have something for you!

Picture (left to right): Bill Bauer, me, Jen Dorman, Juliette LaMontagne, John Calvert, Kevin Glass, Andrew Bendelow, Catherine McNulty, Michelle Krill and Dori Eilon.

Keep an Eye Out!

2008-11-13T21:02:00.003-05:00

Keep a sharp eye on your Google Reader or blog subscriptions, because LIVE from the Creek members are on the road again in the next several days.

Toni Chant is headed to Houston, TX to present and attend at the National Council for the Social Studies. And Melanie Holtsman is headed to New York City to Attend Google Teacher Academy. Watch the sneak preview below for a peek into where the academy will be held at Google headquarters!

We can't wait to hear from you!

Electronic Gradebook Coming Soon!

2008-10-29T15:00:00.009-04:00

Today we've had the opportunity to attend training for our upcoming attendance and gradebook software. It's very exciting to be able to use this technology to make our lives easier. We will be working with a new gradebook program called On Course Systems starting in January. In addition, there is a planning feature which will allow us to work collaboratively to share lesson plans, class websites, and documents. The rest of our county will be using this program beginning in August of 2009. As Maria and Cheryl would say... It's so easy, a caveman can do it!

As we pilot this program in January, the teachers will only be required to use the attendance and gradebook feature. When this gradebook program goes live for the parents in the fall each parent will have a password to access their own child's grades. Progress Reports will go home that are generated from the system by the teacher. Look for training sessions on site to happen before the holidays... we all loved the program and we think you will too!

:) Lori, Susan, Melissa and Melanie

Fostering Math Talk in the Elementary Classroom

2008-10-19T22:24:00.001-04:00

Dr. Karen Fuson is the Researcher/Author of “Math Expressions.” She looked around the world at higher performing countries to see how they are teaching math. This session started with a slide that showed the average math lesson with teacher talk in the U.S. and China. The U.S. teacher’s ratio was 2/3rd teacher talk and 1/3rd student talk. The Chinese results were the opposite – little teacher talk and much more student talk.

What is Math Talk? The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) emphasizes the need for students to discuss their mathematical thinking as a way to increase understanding. It is more than having students take turns telling about their problem solving methods or participate in undirected talk rather than actually analyzing and comparing methods. Teachers should help students move along a learning path toward more effective methods of problem solving.

The components of the Math Talk Learning Community are: questioning, explaining mathematical thinking, source of math ideas, and responsibility for learning.

A. Questioning – There is a shift from the teacher as questioner to the students and teacher as questioners.

B. Explaining math thinking – The students increasingly explain and articulate their math ideas.

C. Source of math ideas – A shift from the teacher as the source of all math ideas to students’ ideas also influencing the direction of the lessons.

D. Responsibility for learning –The students increasingly take responsibility for learning and evaluation of others and of themselves. Math sense becomes the criterion for evaluation.

The question of “Is it language or is it Math?” evolved from how a problem is presented. Teachers should model the math, model math talk, stand to the side, and bite their tongue (let students solve, explain, and question.) This was an interesting session that approached math as a scientific discovery model.

Written by: Maria Mallon

FCTM: Computational Fluency in Subtraction

2008-10-19T21:04:00.003-04:00

By: Ashley Russell

The second session that we went to on Friday was a session called "Computational Fluency in Subtraction" presented by Ms. Pat Evans. In this session, Melissa Ross and I got many different ideas for ways to help our students become more fluent with their subtraction combinations (aka "facts"). Although there were many good ideas, Melissa and I particularly liked the following two activities.

Bump Minus 1

Materials: Bump! Minus One game board, one number cube (with numerals 3-8), 10 linking cubes of two different colors (each student uses a different color)

Directions:

1.Pass out game boards; one per every two players. Players need to decide who will go first by a roll of the dot cube. Lowest number starts the game.

2. First player will roll the cube and place the linking cube on the number rolled MINUS one. For example, if a 4 is rolled the child would say 4-1=3, and place the linking cube on the circle with the 3 inside it.

3. The second player repeats this and play goes on the same way until one of the players rolls a number that is covered by the other player. S/he may then "BUMP" the opposing player's cube off the number and place his/her cube on that number.

4. A number may be "frozen" (cannot be bumped) by the same child rolling the number twice during the game, thus stacking two of the same colored cubes on that number.

5. The game is over when all the numbers are "frozen" or when a player's linking cubes are all used.

**This game could easily be extended by changing the numbers on the cube or on the game board.

Card Magic

Materials: Deck of playing cards (remove tens and face cards, aces represent 1)

Directions: The student removes one card, does NOT look at it, and places it face down, off to the side. Lay out the cards, face up, to resemble a 2-D pyramid.

The remaining card are held in a "deck." The student then finds sums of ten within the displayed cards and removes them, placing them in a "discard" pile. As two cards are removed, two more cards from the deck replace the used cards. The student continues to find sums of ten until all deck cards are used. One card will remain unused. The student must then find the missing addend for the sum of the last ten by "magically" knowing the number that is on the card that was placed face down at the beginning of the game. For example, if the remaining card is a 7, the "Magic" card will be a 3!

This game was so much fun! It is also wonderful practice for combinations of 10 which is an essential skill that all students must master. Plus, the element of "magic" will be sure to lure any student.

FCTM: 10 Lessons Learned from the Olympics

2008-10-19T20:51:00.005-04:00

We had the opportunity to hear one of the "feature speakers," Cathy Seeley. She is a 35 year math educator and change facilitator at the local, state, and national levels. She has been a math teacher, district math coordinator, and state math director for Texas Education Agency. She has been part of the Peace Corps, and is a past president of the NCTM. We were all very excited to hear her and left feeling energized and excited!

Some people can accomplish amazing things. (Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt) Talented students need a chance to fly.
Sometimes a new star is lurking behind the others. (Kerri Strug, Jason Lezak) We need to expand our reach and know who needs to be developed.
It is easy to miss great things when all you are focused on is results. (Guo Jingjing) We need to look and listen carefully to what students are doing.
Persistence and perseverance pay off. (Dan O’Brien) We may be teaching students not to persevere (TIMMS Study) We don’t give students as much time to conceptionally develop strategies. “Constructive struggling” is good. We should expect students to think and work hard.
The right tools make a difference. (Michael Johnson) Write down something you are not good at and work to get better. We have to get past our fear of knowing that students should have xyz memorized before they get to us. We hold kids back trying to fill gaps. Sometimes when you move ahead, they will fill in the gaps themselves by using tools. Tools exist to get us to higher levels.
Sometimes success comes from where you least expect it. (Jefferson Perez) Raising expectations for every student does not mean to do the same stuff only harder or earlier. It does mean challenging our own habits or beliefs. It does mean setting standards high, believing students can reach them, and doing whatever it takes to help them get there.
We may not ever know what students are dealing with in their life outside of school. (Oksana Chusovitina) Our students are often preoccupied.
Sometimes we mess up. (US Mens Gymnastic team) The tyranny of testing the students may never show us what they know best on every test. Testing can be made more important than student learning. We have to use appropriate ongoing assessment to inform our teaching.
We can always improve – our capacity to learn is unlimited. We can do better than we have ever done before. Do we know who is in our classroom? Differences/challenges/struggles. Do we know or can we learn what it will take to help each student.
We have to pass the torch. Influence them to be the best they can be.

FCTM: Candi Shoppe Place Value

2008-10-19T20:39:00.006-04:00

By: Ashley Russell

Melissa Ross and I started the second day of our FCTM conference with a session called "Reorganizing the Candi Shoppe: A Place Value Problem." The presenter of this session was Joanne LaFramenta. We started the session by creating our own definition of the phrase "place value" from a student's point of view and from a teacher's perspective. From there, Ms. LaFramenta explained how uses the situation of a candy shop to get students thinking about place value. For this session, she made the problems more difficult than what would be used in most elementary classrooms. Here was the question that she gave us: How can a candy shop owner keep track of his candy in a more efficient way? All candies are packaged as 8 pieces in a roll and 8 rolls into a box. One situation was to find all of the ways to organize the quantity 192 candies. After several minutes of work time, participants came up with a variety of ways to organize the candies in rolls, boxes, and pieces or a combination of some of the three. Some solutions that were suggested were 3 boxes or 24 rolls. I liked the idea of teaching place value in this way. It would be easy to create accommodations (extensions and easier variations) using the candy shop model.

FCTM website

Art + Literacy

2008-10-19T16:12:00.007-04:00

I went to a workshop this morning on Art and Literacy integration. It focused on the emphasizing the elements and principles of Design using painting and poetry. Even through out instructor was at the High School level, there were some parts of the project that could be used at the Elementary level.

Students would create an origami or an accordian style book out of student designed watercolor paper. Students would, then, write on the pages, the elements and principles of design as well as a descriptive poem. Student also made pinwheels for the "Pinwheels for Peace" project incorporating the elements and principles. Some of the books, designed, were more sculptural in their design using intricate cut outs that "popped out" when opened, making for a beautiful art piece.

Other projects that our instructor told us about was having students create "new" inventions that reflected a certain principle of design. They worked in groups to go through elaborate planning and advertising of their new invention from the imagination" stage all the way through to the "advertising" stage. Of course, this would take more time than I have with the students, but it was amazing how many academic disciplines were involved from start to finish. The examples that she showed were really quite creative. Maybe we can do some cooporative work and bring this down to our students creative level

Written by: Jen Snead

NAEA General Meeting

2008-10-18T22:45:00.002-04:00

At our general meeting today we heard from Debra Reed who is the executive director of the National Art Education Association. She was also part of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, and is maintaining a relationship with both principals and Superintendants. She spoke about the current situation of the Arts and where America is heading. She indicated that even the Harvard Business Review indicated that companies are searching for leaders in creativity to move American business forward into functioning in the 21st century. That more businesses and MBA programs are bringing artists in to teach creative problem solving skills to their students.

"America is becoming an increasingly visual society." She quoted Daniel Pink - " We are all in the Art business." An interesting corrilation she made, while speaking about advocacy, was an interview with Wayne Gretsky. When asked what made him so good when he was slow and scrawney, he responded, "I don't skate to where the puck is, I skate to where the puck is going." >>>>>>> interesting! Where are we skating?

Autism in the Art Room

2008-10-18T22:37:00.003-04:00

I attended a workshop on autism in the Art Room, presented by Linda Carwley from Pinellas County. She has several classes of self contained autistic students and has really done some wonderful work with them, dispite their disability. At this time I am not in this situation, but thought it might be valuable for the occasional autistic child that we do get at Chets Creek. It was enlightening to learn that giving them SIMPLE choices can create a real problem for them and that we must have patience with them while they process their choice. Being very tactile, they enjoy lessons involving texture AND color. Giving ONE instruction at a time can help keep them more focused on the project at hand as well as using "first.....then" statements to keep them on tract with the project at hand. Really received a lot of great info that can be used in my Art Room.