a challenge...

image from iClipArt
for schools

I was catching up on my Techno-reading today and found this quote in Tech & Learning

BLOG QUOTE OF THE DAY

Seek out at least one educator in your district who is not a connected learner.  Be a mentor, and listen.  Try to discover their perspective, and share yours.  If every one of the 20,000 conneted educators at ISTE does this, we will significantly expand our pockets of educational innovation - Nancy White

http://www.techlearning.com/default.aspx?tabid=67&entryid=6205

What a great place to start!!! Mentoring at its best!!

Creating Learning Environments 13 - Project Based Learning Day1

logo designed by FencePost Graphics

 What a great way to start our week!

Kevin Honeycutt and Ginger Lewman gave us an overview of Project Based Learning. As they shared from their experience teaching both students and teachers they painted a picture of how effective and enjoyable Project Based Learning is.

We were introduced to the idea of emotional learning...the deeper the emotions the deeper the learning.  Can you remember where you were and what you were doing on 9/11?
Emotion + Learning = Forever Learning.

image from The Locket

We also explored what our current social consciousness and responsibilities are to our kiddos. We need to take that responsibility on ourselves in the digital world - just like our parents and grandparents did in

the physical world. Kevin has this great example of mentoring grandmothers to provide them with the tools to watch out for their grandkids! facebook.com/DigitalGrannies

And that was only the first part of the morning!

He also demonstrated ways for students to find their authentic audience - the entrepreneurship of self-publishing and selling art work on line!

image from the Locket

And then it was time for some hands on practice! Ginger Lewman challenged the group to create an emotional hook that will grab the attention of your students and make them want to answer the more important questions.  As the participants worked on these projects they experienced that first jump into PBL.  And that continued after lunch when one of the groups bravely shared their project with the rest of us and we were able to praise and to wonder - the exact activities that students participate in during PBL.

To view these amazing projects and to follow us - check out our twitter hashtag  #cle13.

And the truth is, the afternoon flew past.  Participants were able to self-select their work environment...the library to go deeper in a small group with Ginger or the cafetorium all together with Kevin.

And so our week begins...and our journey down the path of Project Based Learning.

Check out our conference website  or follow us on twitter to join the conversation!

AutoMotivator

This is such a cool tool!!   AutoMotivator allows you to create those motivation posters that you have seen everywhere.  You start with one of the site's photos or one of your own and choose from two fonts to create this polished looking poster.

I can see student using this for lots of different possibilities.  You could have them create posters summing up different topics from a chapter or unit, or illustrate vocabulary words, or demonstrate steps in a process.

Or - they could create their own posters to illustrate their phrases to live by.

Thanks FreeTech4Teachers for reminding me of this great tool!!

Is educational blogging dying??

I read a post recently on the demise of library bloggers.  It was interesting to me because my Google Reader is almost always full of 1000+ unread blog posts.  So, I sort of bristled at the thought that people weren't blogging anymore.

But, that didn't make me read the 1000+ posts - it was the end of the year, after all and I had other things to do.

Today, as I begin the first day of my summer break, I decided to hang out on twitter for a bit.

And that's when I think I got it.

I have used my Google Reader feeds as a way of keeping up with what is going on in education.  My connection has been very one-sided... I read many blogs, but rarely comment.  And therein lies the problem. I think the conversation in edtech has moved on. It isn't that static, one-sided one. We are promoting a change in teaching from the sage-on the stage to more learner participation - yet the forum of blogs doesn't really model that.

Twitter does.  I sat in awe, last night, as the edtech chat flew down my tweetdeck. I could not even keep up.  The comments and questions flew.  The discussion was lively and full.  There were plenty of people referencing blogs and websites, but it was in the context of the conversation not in isolation.

But, I still only watched. I was too overwhelmed to attempt to take part. By the time my tweet was crafted the conversation had moved on and my thought was not even on the page anymore.

That experience helps me understand that it is a process.  Both blogs and twitter have a place and a purpose. Twitter is so fleeting - the content hangs out for a while and is gone. Blogs feel more permanent, more weighty.  You can really think about what you want to say, you can edit and redo.  Twitter doesn't move that way - it is vibrant and alive.

Anyway, I know that I will stay with my blog feeds - although not in Reader much longer.

Which brings me to the next problem.
I have spent way too much time trying to figure out what to use to replace Reader. I LOVE Diigo and am having a problem finding an RSS reader for the computer that plays nicely with it.   I do like Mr. Reader for the iPad - it is slick.

For now, I will my voice will live in blogs more than twitter. That is where I feel the most comfortable with the format. But, I will watch and attempt to interact on twitter more and more.  That is my challenge for the summer!

Now back to twitter - I might have missed something in the creating of this post!

LiveBinders

Looking for a way to keep track of tons of information?

Looking for a way to organized tons of online information?

Looking for a way to share tons of information online?

Feeling nostalgic and missing the filing cabinet of your early days of teaching?

LiveBinders is the perfect fit for all these needs.  And it adds a very important component that my filing cabinet in the corner of my room didn't...I can have access to other people's filing cabinets.  Live Binder has a very robust community that freely shares information!

Here are a couple of searches for livebinders you might find interesting...

Education                Technology Links                 Standards Based Grading              iPads in Education

A post of posts

There are bloggers and then there is Larry Ferlazzo.  He stands alone in the world of incredible blogs.  He creates these amazing lists of resources on a topic and shares them with the education blogoshpere!  His lists are very pertinent to events and thoughts churning through education online and in the news. 

I am sharing this with you - because today he has a post on Education Week on his most popular posts from this school year. It's interesting to look over this list and see the topics that have risen to the top - and how many of these are in our conversations as well.

Click here to link to the post

What are those topics?

• Common core
• homework
• Growth Mindset
• Differentiated Instruction
• Interactive Whiteboards
• Curricular Areas
• Good student writing
• teacher observations

If you are looking for someone to add to your PLN - I would strongly recommend Larry Ferlazzo 

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/

EduClipper

 I think this is such a good idea!!!

I love pinterest and I am deeply embedded in education - but i haven't been all that keen about having my professional world of school and my private world of pinterest collide.  I felt a little like George Costanza from the old Seinfield show.  It just made me a little creeped out.

What if I pinned student work to my pinterest board and they started looking through my other boards...they may happen across something that is not completely schoolish!  :)

So - I could make some of my boards private - or I could have two accounts. But the truth is that neither of those choices come very naturally.

Enter EduClipper...

It looks a lot like pinterest...it acts a lot like pinterest...and it's just for teachers and students.

One of my concerns is that it isn't as well known as pinterest and so may not be as user friendly.  For example if you make a movie in Animoto - it has a share to pinterest button.  That is super easy.
My belief is that if educators embrace the more specialized world of educlipper - it will work just like pinterest.

So, the more of us who begin using EduClipper the better it is for all of us!

It is one of the tools I want to explore more this summer.

Innovation is more than a checklist of tools

Anne Knock asks if you are becoming an innovative school in her post here.
It started my thinking - are we really innovating?
She offers a list of 10 points that schools need to consider as they look at their district.  They aren't earth shattering - or surprising - but they are quite comprehensive.

1. A vision for learning is incessantly and clearly communicated

2. Learning is future-focused

3. Culture takes time and persistence to embed

4. Engaged and motivated students are the goal

5. Equipped and supported staff are essential

6. Technology is an environment for learning, not the driver

7. Relationships matter

8. Learning is authentic

9. Spaces for learning are welcoming and comfortable

10. Creativity and innovation have expression

To me - the power comes in the final statements of her post...

When people visit Northern Beaches Christian School often hear them say:
“I thought I was coming to see buildings, now I know it’s so much more”

 So often we focus more on what it looks like to others.  But, that is only the low hanging fruit. The real power of innovation is way deeper than that.  I can have all the latest gadgets and tech tools in my room, but still be teaching with the same methods I learned 30 years ago and there is no innovation.  The power is what happens with the people.

That is my goal as a Learning Design Coach.  I need to help our staff move beyond the check list of gadgets and change the focus from teaching to student learning.  That is when true innovation occurs!  What an exciting time to be an educator!

Learning for the 21st Century Reflection

It is hard to even remember the details of our conference - Learning for the 21st Century - because so much has happened this summer.  I am disappointed in myself for not reflecting here - out in the open - about my experiences.

But - the past is past and it's almost time for the new year.

In so many ways I am already incorporating the experiences of the conference and the conversations and the observations into the new normal for the Learning Design Coaches at Mid-Praire.

It has all the potential to be a very exciting year!! Stay tuned!!!

A New Way of Thinking

I have been catching up on a lot of things now that scheduled school days are past.  One of the things on my list is this very neglected blog. I have a whole stack of blog ideas  - but they never seem to move from the idea stage.

I've been thinking and wondering why that is. What is it that keeps me from blogging?

What I have discovered is it's not the expected answer - TIME.  The truth is I have time for what I want to have time for.  And yes I ended that sentence with a preposition and am beginning this one with a conjunction - it's Summer! :)

No - what really freezes me out of this blog is the fear of saying something that will make me look stupid, of making a comment that someone else will disagree with, or showing my ignorance - in a word it's a fear of failure.

Good grief!  The most ridiculous part of that premise is that someone is reading this blog - and we have't really established that yet. 

And - well it's just an excuse I would not accept from my 4th graders. But, as I attempt to put my thoughts on the internet for my peers I realize the vulnerability my students felt.  It's a scary endeavor.  We are always one step away from the chance of total failure buried somewhere inside this task.

I have been reading different blogs recently - trying out some new ones, and I came across a 17 year old New York student, Nikhil Goyal,  who is really shaking things up. He is a published author, conference speaker and thinker on school reform.  One of his posts focused on failure...

Here’s a radical thought: Let’s make ‘F’ the new ‘A.’ Failure early, fail often. For instance, Thomas Edison performed 9,000 experiments before coming up with a successful version of the light bulb. From cardboard and duct tape to ABS polycarbonate, 15 years and 5,127 prototypes later, Sir James Dyson created his successful bagless vacuum cleaner. Compare entrepreneurship to the J-curve of returns: the failures come early and often and the successes take time.

Schools, on the other hand, paint failure in a terrible light. The poster ‘Failure is Not An Option’ is plastered on walls of brick and mortar classrooms far and wide. Kids crack under the pressure to be perfect all the time. Get that ‘A’ in science class or else you won’t be successful in life. It is simply ludicrous.

We are creating grade-obsessed students to “do school” — memorize enough information to perform well on a test, regurgitate, and then forget.

http://goyalnikhil.tumblr.com/ 

What if we incorporated this idea into our classrooms...failure is part of life
we demonstrate it
we acknowledge it
we accept it

Could we do that, as teachers?

I think that is what paralyzes too many of us from incorporating technology into our classrooms. We are so afraid of failing and looking stupid that we can't bring ourselves to try - unless we have perfectly orchestrated the situation.  Maybe we need to turn that on it's head and create learning opportunities for our students - demonstrate how to deal with failure and move on to a new solution.

Just a thought!!