Language and Usage....

This entry is for my english teachers at my high school - a great way of introducing language, as well as expectations for word, and criteria making with rubrics.  A good start to the year.

This is an excellent video to start your English Class or even when learning how to use Microsoft Word.  The video is an excellent example of how language can be a great thing to play with.  Show the movie first, for a few minutes, then discuss what the students think for a while.  They will right away notice the vocabulary.  Next give the students a simple paragraph with simple adjectives and ask students to use the thesaurus dictionary in Word to elevate it, to brighten it up and change it so it flows with rhythm and poetry.  An example of something to give to students could be as simple as "A big, brown dog came out of a house, ran up to me, and bit my leg hard.  I yelled out loud, and asked for help but no one came to help me.  Finally, someone yelled for the dog to let go, and I fell to the ground in pain."

You can read them in class to see the difference.  You can pass the student's work around so other students can try and continue to update it.  Finally, you can discuss with your students what makes a good paragraph, and what makes an excellent paragraph.  A perfect into to criteria making and how you'll be able to mark rubrics.  This is a great way to introduce levels of achievement.

Then again if you want something to just show the importance of the punctuation, and not the poetry of the language there is always the below.  Simple, but to the point.

Making your own Professional Development Day

With the new school year starting up this year in BC with summer professional development, many teachers are complaining that their Pro D day is not what they want to learn, or study.  They want something different.  And although the Professional Development committee spent days planning not everyone in a school can be satisfied.  So what does the school do?  Who can develop the best plan for the teachers?  The teachers themselves.  

Teachers should create their own professional development based upon an identified need in their own classrooms, be it what the teacher needs or what the students need. For example, a teacher might struggle with assessment in their classroom, or they may have an interested in this area.   This teacher could attend a different school working in this area. But if there is not one available, he or she might also choose to work with a coaching model (if another teacher would volunteer to share some of their assessment methods, or model some of the tools they use), work with another teacher on  a book study (I strongly recommend Barry Bennett's Graphic organizers for assessment for learning), they could watch videos of conferences of the subject they are interested in on the internet, off of YouTube, or Educators' PLN, or  TeacherTube.   One more option for Twitter chat on the subject.  I recommend the hashtags #bced or #edchat, educators engaging other educators in discussions and exchanging ideas that lead to the best sources in order to access the specific PD or the teacher's interest. The chat on #Edchat is self-determined ahead of time, with teachers wanting to be a part of the discussion.  Even if you are too shy to be a part of the discussion, you can still follow along, and later chat privately with a member of the discussion who show great understanding in the area of your interest. 

Research & Development are closely tied to risk-taking. As an educator, we should constantly challenge ourselves to push ourselves into the 21st Century Skill of risk-taking, an area where students need to excel.  Risk-taking helps students push themselves beyond their security, hopefully forcing students to achieve beyond what they are comfortable with.  As we all know there is no such thing as failure.  If the students fall during risk-taking, turn the experience to the positive, ask students what have they learned from their mistake, making it a success in the end.  As another teacher once said (sorry, I forgot who)  "Risk-taking is one way of showing the students the floor and not the ceiling: show students the ceiling of expectations and some heads may bump the fan; show students only the floor and some will touch the clouds."  This can also be said for teachers.  Let the educators take responsibility for their own learning (as we preach for students to do), delving into areas of interest and growth.  

Each teacher should make up a professional growth plan that they could share with their administrator or a colleague. Alberta has mandated this process with a number of different PDF files to help you on this journey.  In British Columbia, this process is not mandatory, but I am suggesting that perhaps we as individuals should try this to help us all become 21st Century learners and force ourselves to continue to grow (if you make a plan you follow through with it).   

The plan could take many forms (mind map, visual graphic, word document) but it should include the following things:

Name Dates Goal(s) Strategies

Timeline Indicators or measures of success Exemplars of what you've done Reflections and implications

The goals should be meaningful to the teacher, asking the teacher to go beyond their comfort zone a bit and try new things, yet the goals should be attainable, and  have deadlines that help ensure success,  Each goal needs to be measurable to understand when you reached it.

A common technique for writing goals is to think about SMART goals.

S—specific and contextual
M—meaningful measures
A—achievable within the resources
R—realistic
T—time targeted

Action Words for Developing SMART goals:

Apply Attend Contribute Discuss Enrol Conduct Implement Integrate Investigate Join

Maintain Mentor Organize Participate Pilot Publish/blog Tweet Read Serve Share

In the end teachers need to reflect on the what they have accomplished and what they need to continue on developing.  Most people are their own worst critics, so it would also be wise to have a friend, colleague, a department head or the entire department (a great way to celebrate success in a department)  or even an administrator, to share this process with, to reflect with (showcase your learning) and contemplate what their next steps should be.  As educators we understand that learning is a life-time commitment.  Ruminate with others will help the teacher continue on with their journey of learning.

There are many examples of Professional Development plans online, so take a look or have a look at a copy of one I developed.   Have fun with your learning.

Teacher Initiative for Professional Success – One Step at a Time

Individual Professional Development Plan

Name	Date
A brief list of my current strengths and assets:
Based on your self-assessment, a mentor’s  or friend’s input, and/or any school or district initiatives you are interested in, what goal have you identified?  What is an area of knowledge or skill that you would like to strengthen?
Describe the connection between this goal and your teaching assignment.
What would success on this goal look like?  How will you know when you have achieved it?  What would count as evidence of success?
Describe the activities you will do to work towards your goal and their timelines.
Activity	Timeline
What resources will you need to better achieve your goal? (aide from colleague, helping teacher, books, materials, technology equipment
What will happen to show you that you have achieved your goal.
What evidence of growth will you share with a friend, a colleague, your department, you admin, or the entire staff (if it your choice of who you share it with).

Pro D for getting teachers to consider 21st Century Learning.

I came across this video through Thomas Whitby and the Educator's PLN.  It was part of the Educator's Conference.  The video below is an excellent way to get teacher's to understand why we need to become 21st Century teachers for our students: a great way to introduce the teachers to the concept and to get teachers to start thinking about changing their way of teaching in the classroom.  In our school many teachers are against cell phones in the classroom.  Teachers don't take the phone away but they do ask for students to turn the phone off, and with good reason.  I have been part of a number of cheating scenarios that involve cell phones with class notes on them and test taking.  I can understand why teacher ask for phones to be turned off.  Cell phones are so small, they are easy to hide, to take out and quickly put back.  But to have a policy across the school for the banning of cell phones is wrong, forcing others to follow this policy is  even more wrong. 

I understand I need to support my colleagues in some areas, the entire school is working to stop  plagiarism andcheating, etc.  But I need the support as well.  

The technology budget in a a school can only go so far and most kids have better technology then the school itself.  With IPads costing around $600, students have the resources to look up information, take notes, read books, practice for tests, and many other things.  So why are we stopping them from doing this?  

There is only so many wireless connections in our school, and we had a principal that had the foresight to get laptops for teachers to use, not only in the classrooms but at home as well (learning was taking place everywhere).  Teacher's needed to connect to the wireless when moving around the classroom, and placing their computer where they needed them.  But when outside devices (the student's cell phones, computers, etc) started to take all the wireless connections in our school, the wireless went down for the teachers, for the mobile computer labs, for everything.  Teachers would use the COWS (computers on wheels) with their class but have troubles connecting because a student's IPhone would be taking the wireless connection.  There was so much problems with connecting to the internet to use a web 2.0 tool in class that both the teacher and the students gave up.

We can't just give up.  We need to fix our wireless in our school (have more connections), and let the students bring in as many mobile devices as they need to learn from.  We can't stop the learning because of technology problems or not enough money.  We need to put the money into the wireless and let the students bring their own computers, which they would take care of, and respect more so then computers from the school.  

For those of you who rather read a paper then Tweet

For those of you who don't like to follow twitter (and I have a few friends like that) there is an alternative. It's called Paper.li.  It's a web site where you can set up an account, connect your twitter account and the site organized the links from twitter into a paper format.  In the setting you state who's twitter account will be followed, what hash tags to look at, how often the paper updates, and so much more.  The web site emails you a link of your paper that you can share with others.  In the end you have the articles all organized for you.  Like a newspaper, the highlights are at the start, then you click on a link and you get the full article.  Also like a paper, if you're not interested in an article, you just skip it.  The paper is subdivided into sections, I have business, education, etc, just like a normal paper.  You can go to the section you wish to read. It's fast, an easy to read format  and with this web page similarity to a  paper, people feel more comfortable reading the information.  Below is a link to my paper, one that I follow on education, Web 2.0 tools and the 21st Century Learning info. 

Just think that this would be great for students using twitter for research, looking through all the material in summary instead of waiting for it to come in one at a time.  Or you as a teacher using twitter to follow an authos and what they post for students to see in newspaper format.  If you are doing a hashtag for your school, consider the paper to summarize all the learning.  Our school is doing a research project where I hope to get teachers to tweet their findings, observations, etc.  Would be great to have it in a summary.   Just a couple of  ideas.  Enjoy and hope you try this.

Frames and Prompts for Portfolios.

I'm putting my things in order.  Lining things up like a train.  The following is a list of prompts I discovered from a friend (thanks Val) to help me develop my resources for the e-portfolios my students will be working on.  I was thinking of giving one a week when I get the students to set up their eblogs.  Please add any others you can think of in the comment section.  Thanks.

Frames and Prompts for Portfolio Assessment

• This piece of work shows….
• The best part is …..
•  If I did it again, I would ….
• It was hard for me to learn …..
•  I used to think …..  but now I know …
• Three things I want you to notice about my work are: ….
• I was surprised to learn that ……
•  A question I am curious about and want to find the answer to is …..
•  I was on the right track with my ideas about ….., but what I didn’t know was ……
• Today my thinking is like ….  Because both …..
•  I’ve been thinking …..
•  I was trying to ……  It make me feel …..
•  I was struggling with …….  So I …..
• Today I changed ……  because ….
•  If I were going to do this again, these are the changes I would make ……
• Today we worked on ……   and ……
•  The part I liked best about today is …..
•   The part I liked least about today is …..
• I’m having trouble with ……
• Something I’d change is ……
• I learned that ……
• I wish I had been told more about …….
• The part that still confuses me is ……..
• I agreed with …….
• I was surprised that …….
• This work/book/unit reminds me of ……
• The topic/issue I was working with today was …..
• I tried to make the connection between …..  and …….  So ……
• I found it easy to ……..
• I had some trouble …..   but I solved it by ……
• I still wonder …..
• I feel ….. with /about my thinking because …..
• When I made my plan I thought about …..  I should of thought of ….
• First I decided on ……  Next I thought about …..  Then I ……
• Most of my time today/this week was spent on …..
• Next time I would ….

Adapted from “Thinking in the Classroom” by the Ministry of Education in British Columbia

New Web 2.0 tool - The snacks - Podsnack

Podsnack is a web 2.0 tools that lets you upload a playlist of songs or Pod casts.  There are a number of versions to look at when setting up a playlist and how it will look on your web site.  See below for the one I chose.


There are many more you can choose from, but I wanted to try one that was very difficult.

It's simple to use, and could have possibilities.  But when you get an account with Podsnack you also get a number of other tools to play with.  I enjoyed the survey that lets you email the survey to others.  Great for Marketing classes in high school.  Have fun and try it.  It's still in the testing phase, but fun to play with and free.

Summary handout to students on what to include in Portfolios

The following is a google word document that I have been working on for a few days, of an outline that I want my students to follow when they start creating their e-portfolio. It is a combination of a cumulative and summative assessment outline.  Although I am trying it with an electronic portfolio (I work in a computer lab), I am sure it can work with a paper version as well.  I have opened it up for sharing, so please feel free to edit it, download it or comment on it below.  See below what the outline looks like so far.  I tried to get a number of Bloom's taxonomy levels in this outline since my inquiry question deals with Bloom's digital taxonomy.  Thank you for your help, in advance.

Parts of your Portfolio

You are gathering up examples of your work.  Your portfolio needs to include the following items in it to show me your learning, your strengths and your weaknesses.  The order of each section of learning is not important.  You need to do a table of content to organize your material later, but what you enter in your portfolio does not have to be in the order of what is listed below.  That is the individuality of the portfolio. 

I need to see what you have worked on and what you still need to grow with.  Each selection (all the selections) should contain a comment from your teacher and a number of your peers (more then just one).  At the end of the comments I need for you to answer the “Summative Assessment” (see these question below) for each selection.  This will show growth and help you when you will present your portfolio.  Thank you.

Creativity

This piece shows my creativity.  Please notice the originality of …….

Process

This sample shows how I develop my ideas before I complete a fnal product.  I would like you to notice how I ….

Improvement

This piece of work was chosen because it shows how much I have improved at …..

Perseverance

This item represents my perseverance at completing a difficult task.  I tried very hard to …

“Invisible” Pride

Not everything I do ends up on a piece of paper.  I would like to share with you the pride I felt when I …..

Continuing Growth and Learning

This piece I had problems with.  Although my strengths on this piece were ……  My weaknesses that I need to work on are …..

Remembering/Recall

In this piece I will describes an event that happened in class where learning took place.  I have included the stages of the work I did and the final product.  In this post I answer the questions who, what, when, where, how, describe, and list the events.

Understanding - Organizing and selecting facts and ideas

In this piece I retell (in your own words) the main idea of what I learned today.

Using these rules/guidelines/principles

  This piece shows I used the following rules/guidelines/principles …………….                

Analyzing - Separating a whole into component parts

 This piece is an example of the parts of  features of ………..

Classification

The following piece shows the classification of ………………..  The diagram is an outline of ………..

Comparison

These pieces are a comparison of….. and ………………  When you see these  pieces you can tell …………..

Evaluating –

This is my example of an opinions, judgments or decisions.   It lead me to ….. learning.

Prioritizing

This is an example of me prioritizing a project.  These problems occurred..  But this helped me …..

Disagreement/opinion

This is an example of when I disagreed with the teacher.  In the teacher’s opinion …..  but in my opinion …..  I believe this because of it’s importance ……  because……

Criteria Making

This is an example of a rubric/criteria sheet I created to mark this work of mine.  These criteria/areas of marking were important to me because ……

Creating - Combining ideas to form a new whole

In this piece I competed it alone.  I create/design a new ….  I should of …… and if I modify this……. or eliminate this then….    I had this problem but I think if I …….  then this would happen……

If I eliminated/reversed or rearranged

  a part of this piece……………. Then this happened ….

Synthesis – Finding a Solution

This is an example of a solution I came up with when I/my group had a problem.  This is what happened: …

Synthesis – Redoing something

This is an example of a remake of …………………  I decided to change ……………. And ……………  for the following reasons….

Summative Assessment

I think, after reading the quality of responses of my teacher and my peers, considering the criteria/expectations given in the class and what I should of learned, my feedback for this project should now be: (choose one and give your reasoning behind it).

Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Needs Improvement	Incomplete/ Inconsistent
Exceeds expectations, you went beyond what was asked for you to learn	Fully meets expectations, you’ve reach the goal that was set out for you.	Meets expectations but only to the minimum amount.  You did not want to fully explore this.	Can do better, and you know it.  You did not want to explore this to its fullest.	Is not fully completed.  Was not finished or no learning was shown.

Because of the following reasons (describe specifics to support your self-assessment – give proof).

Next Step

The Next step that I need to focus on to improve this area of learning is….

Connecting everything together

As I sit here typing up this entry on my new IPad I wonder why I'm connecting everything together. My admin team gave me this IPad to play with over the summer to test it, down different Apps that may enhance learning in our school and see how far the school/teachers could go with this new technology. It's my first time on an IPad, and I'm still learning (do we ever stop learning with technology?) how to download, how to get rid of Apps when they're on you pad, how to use the different apps, which Apps have trouble, etc. You know the drill, just play with as much as possible (what the necks up with this tiny keypad, two finger typing!!!).

So here I am, and I realize that I'll want students to upload their work to eportfolios or to blog their experiences, so now I've hooked up my Twitter and my blog to the IPad. Once hooked, how do you get it unhooked? Do you really think students will go to the problem of hooking and unhooking Eblog to each IPad they ever use? These IPads are like personal computers where the student will want to change backgrounds and settings,size of print, sound level, etc. Teachers will have to keep an eye out of what settings students change.

But is that so important? The changing of pictures on the pad? The important thing is for the teacher to know how to get inappropriate pictures off the desktop. That means more training into the settings of the pad, more so then how much teachers needed to know for laptops/computers managed (setting were locked up) that the teacher was using in class. More training in the control features (hooking up to the wireless, controlling the volume of the IPad,etc). It's not hard to learn, it will just take time, like typing on this small keyboard (that's it! I'm buying a keyboard attachment!!!!). Next job is listing everything I need to truing teachers on.

Thanks for listening.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
N. Painchaud

Teaching teachers new technology.

With the new school year coming up and the grant starting, there will be a lot of teachers going out of their professional comfort zone.  (See Tom Whitby's article on Professional Comfort Zone).  After reading Tom's article and then Andrew Marcinek talking about teaching teachers' at their pace, it got me thinking about what I do.  


Like Marcinek, I'm a technology specialist (we call it computer facilitator in Surrey BC).  It is part of my duties/responsabilities to help the teachers grow in the area of technology and to promote the usage of  technology in classrooms.  If a teacher wants to use the computers with a tool to enhance their learning, if anything goes wrong, they call me.  Usually they know the technology or they've seen it at a professional development or department meeting.  Great that they want to try it.  But I take it a step further.


Marcinek says that "If your colleagues use PowerPoint effectively and the kids are learning from it then let them go. Let them check it off as technology integration!"  I disagree.  Let them use PowerPoint, but at some point show a few of the students in that classroom, or the teacher themself an example of Prezi and what it's capabilities are.  Perhaps the teacher has never heard of Prezi, so give them a choice.  

A good example of this situation is ordering at a restaurant.  You've been at this restaurant before and you know that the last time you ordered something you liked how it tasted.  But if you continue to order the same thing over and over again, does it not get boring?  And what are you missing out?  When others talk about that restaurant you can only contribute the one item that you ate.  So what can you say?  Same principle applies


Instead, you have a choice.  Most people ask the waiter/waitress what do they recommend.  Or they ask others at their table what they've order, or (and this is what I model I follow for my method of training) they look at other tables and see what others are eating, and see what looks good.  They get curious.   That's what I try to do.  I create an example or get an example of a new software or Web 2.0 tool, and I show the teacher.  "Hey look at how cool this is...".  Then I send them a copy, and wait.  Most teachers are inquisitive, and like trying new things, to learn.  Soon, those teachers try it out, or come to me and ask if I can show them how to use the new tool.  It's still at their pace, but with this method the teacher gets to see all the options on the menu before making their choice.

I agree with both authors mentioned above, it's best to master what you're trying to learn before moving onto another tool.  Some tools take a few days to master (my favorite is Wordle - what a great tool for english teachers to show poetry and the importance of word usage - see example below of a Wordle of the Song - the Boys of Fall by Kenny Chesney)

Other tools can be used to a full capacity, and can take quite a long time to use all of its capabilities
See below for an example of Voicethread, a Web 2.0 tool

This year many of our teachers are going on Twitter to help publish their observations, using a wiki or blogger to annotate, upload lesson plans, give exemplars of students' work, to basically share with other colleagues.  Keep an eye here and at the Sullivan Heights Blog to see what we're doing at our school and what teachers are going out of their comfort zone to try new methods of teaching, new technology, and basically help prepare students for the 21st century.  

Wish us luck!

Edistorm

For a pre-assessment and assessment for learning this tool can't be beat!!!!  Edistorm is a brainstorming online tool that uses sticky notes to put up quick ideas when you put your students in groups, but it's so much more then that.  You can have students do work on it independently or in collaboration.  It has suggestions at the bottom (the bots area that has a thesaurus and related words.  You can have it public or private by inviting people.  It updates in real time when working collaboratively, and I the teacher can be invited in so I can see the work being done.

I asked the students to work in groups and to use colors but I was worried about them changing colors of their friends and such.  The first time we did it, we did an entire class storm, and there were students that were putting up garbage, but it was a great intro to what was inductive and critical thinking and what was just repetitive learning. Then we talked about marking for their solo projects.  I asked students to go into groups of no more then 3.  Then I asked them to do private storms and to invite me in.  Once there I could easily flip from one storm to another to see what they were doing.  But once more I was concerned about one student doing more work then the others.  I asked them to brainstorm at least 10 things each (that was 30 in total) of what they knew now about viruses.  I also asked them to use different colors but to change colors of the stickies was a click of the button, and I thought that maybe their friends (the quick ones) would do the work for their friends, so I wouldn't know for sure who did what.  When 30 ideas were on the bulletin board I asked them to vote and then delete all but the top 10 most voted ideas (once more going over what would earn 1 point, what would earn 3 points and what an excellent posting would be - 5 points).  In the end, students had to print out the summary report for me, and that's when I got what I needed, the names of the people who did what ideas, as well as the best voted ideas (I did not include the names here for protection of the students).  The report comes up with all the people in the group, as well as who created what.  After that, it was easy to put a mark (1, 3, or 5) by each comment and then take the time to discuss with the group why they got that mark.

This project was quick and entertaining for the students, completed the purpose of what I wanted - to assess what students were learning and if I had to continue to teach on the topic, and assessment included who needed more help and who could go on.  It also showed me who needed help to take a further leap of learning - to critically think beyond what I taught.

Great tool, I recommend it for a quick assessment of students.  Just remember that it did take me a day to train the students on how to use it (and no, I did not tell them about how it shows me who did what comment - they learned that at the end.).

Take care.

What is "Project Based Learning" and "Challenge Based learning"?

Thanks to @snbeach for sharing an article from Eurogates on Project Based Learning.  The video that was on the web site was excellent and one that I retweeted for my fellow colleagues. I have included the video for reference for my colleagues.  It's from Stenden University.




After viewing this video I found another one that has an easier explanation, and great to share with colleagues as well.

But lets take this one step forward and work towards Challenge Based Learning.  Something that we'll done on one occasion or another and never even realized it.

So here I go, looking at what I've done last year, and where I can change my projects to make them more meaningful.

Last year I asked my students in Information Technology Grade 12 class to pick a local web site that they considered really terrible in web design principles.  I asked them to use Photoshop to redesign it - to redraw the design and be prepared to defend their new design.  Once that was completed, students were to redesign the web site in Adobe InDesign, put it up on the web and contact the company with the web site and try and sell the site to them.  One group got $300 for their efforts.  That was a lesson that really paid off for the kids and the others took more time in considering their projects after that.

This motivational experience showed me that when the project is relevant, with the possibilities and reward outside of the school, the effort improves ten fold.  I am sure I can do this in more projects for next year.  But make them Challenge Based.  That's my goal in Information Technology class.

Summer Vacation Starting and the Learning Continues...

I had taken a week off to go on vacation down to Vegas and while sitting at the pool refreshing myself, I realized that here I was on vacation the first week of my summer holidays as a teacher and what was I doing?  Reading "Learning by Doing" by the DuFours, Eaker, and Many, a handbook for creating Professional Learning Communities.  My husband threatened me, stating if I took my computer, I could go out to dinner with it and not him.  Needless to say, the computer stayed home, but not the learning.  I think most teachers need, like a fix or addiction, to continue to learn, to evolve almost.

A couple of days ago I went for a long hike with a friend, then we sat in a park and had a picnic.  The conversation came around to how much I was enjoying Twitter, how much I was learning from this new network of people who had so much to share .  The information coming through this social media tool is astounding.  The articles sited, the Web 2.0 tools explained, the videos and conferences discussed have and continue to help me grow professionally to no end.  When I suggested to my friend to get on this tool to help stimulate her work in Social Studies (A great site was listed a while before that I was explaining to her), she said no thanks.  She wanted to take a break from work and this summer she wanted to do nothing.  She didn't want to learn.  After I picked up my jaw off the ground, I told her I couldn't believe I heard those words from her mouth.  Learning was not work if you enjoyed what you were doing, and it was fun to discover so much, while making new friends from all over the world.  There was a whole new world out there that others were showing me, and the trip was so exciting and refreshing, it was rejuvenated me, not making me more tired.  

This technology grant that our school has won will be tiring but still, it will be exciting, and rejuvenating as well.  This summer is the prep time to get ready for it and although it is my free time, I am happy to continue learning to improve myself, improve the manner in which I teach, and continue to explore how to help my students learn to the best of their ability.

As for my friend, I'll give her some time to relax, and then I'll start showing her what she can do, what is out there. There are ways to entice others into your PLN  ;)

p.s. - she just called - she's coming over Friday to get set up on Twitter.  Passion wins again!

  

PLN's

Saw the following on Christian Borja's e-Porfolio site and loved it.  I am not only going into e-Porfolios on Facebook but at our school we are working very hard to get our teachers on Twitter to create PLN groups. So far to count both Dewinetz, Neufeld and I  have an approximate total of 18 teachers hooked up, and counting... ;)  So what better way to understand it then this video.



or if you need it better in plain english see below:



Some Social Networks that as a teacher you may know are Facebook, Twitter, or Linkin.  The one that we are trying so hard to get teachers to develop both inside and outside social networks is Twitter.  With Hashtags teachers have the ability to look up other people that are interested in a common theme.  The sharing of material, opinion and research on line is phenomenal.

The video below explains about Twitter Search in Plain English.  Hopefully, this will show the importance of using Twitter in PLNs to my colleagues.

Bloomsapps

Bloomsapps is a web site that lists all the apps for Bloom's taxonomy. Each level is listed in order of Bloom's taxonomy.

It gives you a list of them as well as the price if need be. When you click on the picture (in white) you get a link to the app store and an explanation in more detail of the app. It's really something helpful when we start our IPad section of our learning. We set a budget of what we will spend in apps but I think it will be more then that. Interesting start to this project.

On average, apps can go from free to $2.99. The highest popular app I've seen is $14.99. If you have 20 IPads and get 10 apps for each one, you are looking at $300 a year to build your library of apps. Imagine that??!!!

Video on the different of education - then and now

Although I tweeted this video, I am still amazed that someone else summed up what we at our school are trying to attain.  An accumulation of different formative and summative assessments, using inquiry based learning, project based learning, differentiation, students setting their own goals, and a lot more.  This video motivated me to no end....



And if you want to see change in action see the video below but note it's quite long


this video explains why we need to change.



So why not change?  We need to in order to better prepare our students and even us for the future.
Finally, a way to start off the change with the school, the paradym shift, in a open, positive way, with a nice movie.  See below.