I saw a meme in a twitter chat a few months back, which I had never seen/heard before. It referred to professional development as "#SeaGull PD". Interesting outlook on required PD. I do not have all the answers. Here are some resources that you may find useful.
It's Spring- which means that Edcamp season is upon us. I spent the day at EdCampBoston on Saturday. What I came away with, as usual, was a day of learning, making my own choices. If I couldn't find someone to learn from in the group of 200 educators who gave up a Saturday to share and learn, it was my problem. However, many times PD selection is not something I feel like I have any control over. One of the sessions at #edcampBos was led by Dan Callahan, entitled: Meetings Don't Have to Suck. Here's thelink to the collaborative notes. If you're wondering what else went on- Here's thelink to the spreadsheet with all the notes taken.
With the recent ESSA requirements taking effect over the last year or so, I thought that perhaps this was the time. A quote from EdSurge a year ago: "The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) establishes a new, more rigorous definition of PD that incorporates many of the ideas above. High quality sustained PD as defined in this recent report should “take place over an extended period; longer than one day or a one-time workshop.” It should also incorporate data on both teacher and student needs—that is, it should be data-driven. I haven't seen any real changes, but perhaps I am impatient; these things take time.
Steve Dembo delivered a session about PD called "Fear the Sitting Dead"
Luckily was shared on YouTube. Dembo served for ten years as Discovery Education’s Director of Learning Communities and led their Innovation and Strategy team. To learn more about Steve and his work, click here.
Vicki Davis recently did a nice podcast about rethinking PD. You can listen to it here, or check out the post on her site. Vicki interviewed Jarod Bormann, author of Professionally Driven: Empower Every Educator To Redefine PD who talked about designing PD that works and interests teachers.
www.coolcatteacher.com/e269
MOOCs and Books
Will Richardson, author of Why School?, has teamed up with Bruce Dixon to create Change School. Here's the blurb: "An inquiry-driven, interactive experience that will push your thinking and your practice, and leave you with a unique plan to move your school forward." You can spend 8 weeks learning with your cohort and come out with your own personal playbook of how you can effect change in your school.
EdCamps are generally my PD of choice. Here in New England we are lucky to have a lot of Edcamps to choose from, all within a few hours drive. Coming Up: Sat, 03/24/2018 - Edcamp BPS Boston Massachusetts Thu, 03/29/2018 - JPS Edcamp Johnston Rhode Island Sat, 04/14/2018 - Edcamp Vermont Winooski, VT Sat, 04/28/2018 - EdcampWMASS Huntington Massachusetts GATEWAY! Sat 05/05/2018- Edcamp Access, Burlington, MA Sat 08/10/2018- Edcamp CT, Simsbury, CT Sat, 09/29/2018 - Edcamp Grafton Grafton Massachusetts There will be an Edcamp down on Cape Cod, one in Malden, MA, as well as Southern NH and more...
Regardless of the professional development choices you make as an educator, they should be choices that you have some control over, that enhance your teaching. There's a reason it's called "professional" development. Teachers need more autonomy and more engaging choices.
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Google View Image Button
I sent this info out just before vacation to some, but Google has changed their image search and has deleted the view image button. From what I can gather, this was in response to Getty Images and others who were complaining that folks were stealing their images. I tend to go the route of "let's show students and their teachers how to"... search for public domain or creative commons licensed images and how to cite or get permission to use them in our own work, rather than put roadblocks up and create a generation of hackers.
I found out that the button was gone as I attempted to show 5th graders how to get images for a presentation project. It was yet another one of those moments when the teacher demonstrates how to work around unanticipated tech issues in front of students. You can click on the link, which will bring you to the website, not the image and you get to see if you can find it again. You can right click on the image, open it in a new tab, get the url and info for citation and then right click or command click to save the image. Or... you can install the chrome or firefox extension that will put that lovely little View Image button back on the search page. I have successfully installed the chrome extension and it works well. You can get it here. There is also a firefox extension. If you need a quick and easy link to share with students use: http://bit.ly/viewimagebutton LunchBots
I'm a little late to the party here, but caught a tweet the other day about LunchBots from Hummingbird Robots. If you aren't familiar, these are incredible kits to build all sorts of creative projects using some simple robotics and a well designed electronic board. I honestly cannot see what I am doing on most of the breadboards and raspberry pi boards I have tried and spend more time troubleshooting my connections than actually creating and coding. Hummingbird connections are color-coded, larger than most and easy to use. Here's their intro blurb: "The Hummingbird robotics kit allows students to create and program robots built from electronic components and craft materials. The Hummingbird is made by BirdBrain Technologies, a company devoted to cultivating creativity and computational thinking by providing flexible and inspiring products that engage students and teachers in programming and robotics" So... LunchBots...
These are quick 20 minute webinars, recorded on their YouTube channel; Byte-Sized PD that you can reference later. I happened on these as I was looking for other ways to explore mechanisms, fascinated with all the cool automata and contraptions I have been seeing from @TinkeringStudio #CuriousContraptions #automata. Check out the video below and then head on over to Exploratorium and see all their mechanisms too.
MassCue GooglePalooza
I spent one vacation day last week attending MassCue's Winter Google Palooza. The presenters at these events are teachers. They are in the classrooms and know all the pitfalls/wonders of using tech to enhance lessons. I always learn something new from Jenn Judkins and attended one of her sessions. She is the queen of useful workflows with sheets, addons and this time with templates for projects. Jonathan Schmid demo'd lots of great ideas for makerspaces in one of his presentations. He showed a link to this really cool cardboard pinball machine. So, of course I had to get one to try. I can't wait to have the kids design their own games and even hook up makey- makey to it. They have ideas on how to incorporate materials you can generate with your 3D printer too. Check them out here.
If you want to get a peek at all of the wonderful presentations,you can find them online. This is not as good as being there, but even for those who got to attend, it's always hard to just choose 4 sessions for the day and miss out on the others. I was looking through the presentation on chrome extensions to support struggling learners, saw some I hadn't known about and was thrilled to see that TDLR is back up and running for all those who need a quick summary of a web page. I couldn't get the options section to work, but otherwise it seems like it's back. Moonshots... anyone?
Image CC: By Rebeca Zuñiga
I recently read an article about Esther Wojcicki's work, watched a few of her videos and then saw that there is now an actual Moonshot in Education movement, a little like the 20% time that many of you have heard about. One of the primary goals is to give students agency in order to help prepare them for the real world. This really resonated with me as several of my colleagues were just talking about this today- allowing students to make decisions, to work collaboratively on real projects. The Washington Post recently ran an article about the skills Google was looking for in their employees: same skills that Esther is promoting: "Project Aristotle shows that the best teams at Google exhibit a range of soft skills: equality, generosity, curiosity toward the ideas of your teammates, empathy, and emotional intelligence. And topping the list: emotional safety. No bullying. To succeed, each and every team member must feel confident speaking up and making mistakes. They must know they are being heard." You can learn more about her work, her goals and maybe sign up to get more info and resources here.
Accessibility
H/T to Leslie DiChiara for sharing Hillary Goldwaith-Fowles' article: Digital Does Not Equal Accessible. As more districts incorporate digital tools into the mainstream student population, we often get the impression that the tech or the digital access will magically cure all. Needless to say digital ≠ accessible. OER ≠ accessible. UDL ≠ accessible automatically. Check out this wonderful article and all the crowd-sourced comments to help bring this issue into focus for all.
Diana Benner down in Texas has published the first in a series of articles on accessibility on chromebooks. Nicely categorized, features a short list of chrome extensions to check out. If you are looking for a more complete listing, or other options, check out Eric Curts' work here. #Ditch Summit report
I ended up binge-watching all 9 hours of Ditch Summit on a couple of those frigid days of the vacation week. As usual, it was worth my time. Two of the presentations really stood out. My favorite as far as potential gold mine of resources was Jon Corippo's EduProtocols: What They Are and How They Can Impact Learning. You can get in touch with Jon on Twitter: @jcorippo. He has so many great ideas to help streamline your workload and get more time with the students. You can get a quick synopsis from the notes Matt Miller provided. The other presentation I really enjoyed, although I have to say just picking 2 is hard, was Tanya Avrith and Holly Clark's presentation on Technology and Pedagogy. "How can we use technology to amplify great teaching instead of just putting technology on top?" Contact them: Website: hollyclark.org Twitter: @HollyClarkEdu & Website: tanyaavrith.com Twitter: @TanyaAvrith. These two amazing women are doing the work, not just talking/writing about it, and it shows in the way they approach the topics and in their solutions to the problems we all face. Here's the quick synopsis from the notes Matt Miller provided.
Storytime from Space
I saw this site referenced the other day and thought it was the coolest thing! Astronauts are reading/videoing children's books from the International Space Station. You can learn more about it here. Here's a short blurb from NASA: "Story Time From Space combines science literacy outreach with simple demonstrations recorded aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Crew members read five science, technology, engineering and mathematics-related children's books in orbit, and complete simple science concept experiments. Crew members videotape themselves reading the books and completing demonstrations. Video and data collected during the demonstrations are downlinked to the ground and posted in a video library with accompanying educational materials." You can read more about the research involved in this project here.
Excellent PD Opportunity
I attended this digital conference last year and this year it looks even better! I didn't have a chance to attend this weekend, so I have some catching up to do. "The Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit is a nine-day, FREE virtual event. It brings together some of the brightest minds in education to discuss technology, pedagogy and more." Sign up here. There are new speakers featured each day. The videos will only be available online til December 31st. Try it- great PD, on your schedule, and it's free.
New Assistive Tech Book
Chris Bugaj has a new assistive technology book coming out in April, but you can pre-order now. I have had the opportunity to read a bunch of different books on various aspects of assistive technology and to be honest- most are just "textbooks"- read 'em once and done. Chris's first book was the standout in a series of typically informative, but boring, textbooks. It was funny; it was informative; it was inspirational. I kept it. I even still look inside it. Now how many textbooks have you used for college or post college courses that you can say that about?
Here's the blurb: " School districts often struggle to develop consistent practices for meeting the assistive needs of special education students. This playful yet professional book will help public school educators select, acquire and implement technology to help all students, but especially those with special needs." What's blog post without #FlipGrid?
I got to introduce Karly Moura and Sean Fahey on Classroom 2.0 live this weekend. These two educators have been at the forefront of #Flipgrid Fever and have come up with so many ideas that you can take and use tomorrow. This is thelivebinder link from the show. There are resources for all age groups and disciplines. Here's a whole padlet full of ideas embedded below.
But- what I wanted to tell you- something new this month is the ability to get transcriptions of the videos- automatically- in 26 different languages!! You can set up captioning in the admin panel. It worked well for me in English- although I don't know how to tell it to put in punctuation, etc. I tried speaking English and having it transcribe in French. It didn't look to me like it translates and transcribes, only transcribes, but I could be wrong. Play with it and see. My thought was that this could be a way to make the videos more accessible- with the captions. Have to check this one with my AT experts and let you know. A Welcome Addition to Osmo
I just got myCoding Duo game pieces and downloaded the new app. This is the latest game from Osmo and I think it's one of their better games. It is a "collaborative coding experience that features Awbie and Mo, and is designed for all kids who love Osmo Coding. " The coding game introduced last year is fun, but it's meant for an individual to use. This game is collaborative by design. You do need to have both the Awbie coding game and the Coding Jam game in order to play (you use those game pieces). While I am not a fan of the Coding Jam game, not having a musical bone in my body, using the pieces for this collaborative game was fun! With the exception of the Hot Wheels Mind Racer game (what were they thinking??), the entire line of Osmo games can be a welcome addition in the classroom.
This is just a very small sampling of some of the PD that is available. I subscribe to blogs to stay up to date- FreeTech4Teachers, CrtlAltAchieve, and many more. I am no longer on Twitter 24/7, but check in on a few edu chats that I learn from. I try to attend every Classroom 2.0 Live session that I can, on Saturdays at noon, but if I have to miss it, I know that I can catch the recording and check out Peggy George's famous livebinders with amazing resources for the topic. Vicki Davis creates a 10 minute podcast, just for busy teachers. Matt Miller and Kasey Bell put together an excellent podcast, the Google Teacher Tribe. I follow folks on Twitter, on Facebook, etc- to learn from. Teachers all over the world are willing to share their expertise and make connections. There is no "one-size" fits all PD, but there are so many choices, you can be sure to find something that works for you. Try a podcast, try an edcamp, subscribe to a blog or a facebook group like Breakoutedu, Hyperdocs or GlobalEdCollaborators. Make connections, forge your own pathways. Show your students how to be a learner, by example. Read & Write for Google Chrome- TexthelpAs I mentioned at an HES staff meeting, we have a district-wide subscription to Read& Write for Chrome. This is not just a tool for special education, but an excellent UDL tool for all. Students will not naturally "just know" how to use this extension. They will need to be shown, or at least pointed to either the self-paced course or the playlist for older students.
KQEDI saw this article the other day, and since information literacy is such an important topic, clicked through to see what this bootcamp entailed. I had been to KQED Teach before, but the offerings have been expanded dramatically. Well worth checking out. CourseraYou may have checked out Coursera in the past, but once again- courses change and I love the course I am "enrolled" in. It's called Tinkering Fundamentals: Motion and Mechanisms, by the good folks at Exploratorium. I pop in and out, not taking it for credit, but learning a lot as I go. There are courses for whatever you would like to learn. Exploratorium is a favorite of mine, with 3 different courses offered. HoonuitMassCue offers all it's active members a free subscription to Hoonuit, formerly Atomic Learning. This is an excellent resource, especially for teachers, with resources like Integrating the 4 Cs into Your Classroom, Flipping the Classroom Training or Tech for Students with Dyslexia. If you are a new Massachusetts teacher this year, you can even get the membership to MassCue for free for a year! Check it out here. Simple K12Simple K12 can offer one stop shopping for quick shots of PD with a short video, or you can spend an entire day listening to various experts- other teachers- talk about how they are using tools or strategies in the classroom. It's a subscription site, but they continually offer free one day PD deals. This coming Saturday, 12/9/2017, brings an online Google Event called The Ultimate Guide to Google Basics: Using Google Tools in the Classroom. EdWebEdWeb offers a series of webinars on topics of interest to educators across all disciplines, preK- higher ed. I love the variety of topics and speakers and the fact that these are recorded to view at my leisure. You can earn PD certificates by attending live or by watching the recorded session and taking a quiz. They also have online PLC groups that you can join. Check out the amazing schedule here. Below is just a screenshot of the webinars coming up- this week and next. Professional DevelopmentWhat works? Where do you find it? How do you document it? As we all know, one size does not fit all. Just as in the classroom, the professional development teachers need must be personalized, individualized, relevant to their work, timely, etc. So how do you find this elusive PD? I tend to look online and access my PLN. Over the years I have used Twitter (since March 2008), Ning, Classroom 2.O, Google +, edweb and oh so many other online spaces. Some have lasted, others have gone the way of Plurk and Second Life. If I had to choose one space that is amazing- it has to be Twitter. I can get more ideas, and resources from my Twitter network in one evening than I could use in a year. This, of course does depend on your network. A really good network can be a godsend when you need ideas, how-tos, etc. One really good thing that has happened over the last few years, is that you no longer have to find the thousand wonderful resource people in your field- just pop in on a few edu chats and lurk. The very best way I know to do this- without getting overwhelmed by the speed of the tweets flying by is Participate. Tweetdeck is another choice, but can sometimes get a little wonky. I love that even if I miss my favorite chats- it collects all the links and resources shared and I can peruse them later. Check out what is on offer here. On just about any day, you can find anywhere from 15 to 60 edu chats- from all disciplines, from various geographic areas, for all teachers PreK- higher ed. Jerry Blumengarten, Cybraryman has a calendar of all the chats that you can add to have them all at hand. Hate Twitter? Try virtual conferencesI love/hate Twitter. It can be an enormous timesuck- worse than Facebook, which by the way has some excellent PD- BreakoutEdu, Hyperdocs, UpperElementary... are a few of the FB groups that I try to check in on every day. So, try a virtual conference. These conferences are generally broadcast live as well as being recorded to watch at your leisure. If you like handouts, most have pdfs or slides available afterwards. What are some great virtual conferences?
Interesting coursesI'm looking forward to this one from LifeLong Kindergarten at MIT. It starts October 18- and it's free! I took a similar course, maybe 4 years ago and am still in touch with the amazing educators from around the world who joined the class to learn about Scratch and creativity. Learn more here. "LCL is organized as a six-week online course (starting on October 18, 2017), but its real goal is to cultivate an ongoing learning community in support of creative learning around the world. " Everyday Topics- Short & Focused
Another contender for PD is Simple K12. I had a subscription for years and liked the webinars when I had a chance to watch. They also have a very comprehensive library of archived webinars. You can get PD certificates for live shows and after taking a quiz on the recording. Depending on what you are doing, it can get redundant. It is not free, although sometimes they do offer free days on some topics- ie. this coming Saturday: Amazing FREE Google Basics Training Online Event Saturday, October 14th Starting at 10:00 am ET They also have big "sales" for subscriptions- sometimes half price, or buy one year, get the next for half... etc. Check out the topics, see what appeals. How do you find your path to PD?The lists of PD providers seems to be endless. What works for you? Where do you find inspiration? Guidance? Discover new methods to use in class?
Growth Mindset
Some of you may remember that I wrote about this about ayear and a half ago. To be honest, my opinion has not changed... still think it's a buzzword. However, recently when doing a breakoutedu session in second grade I was talking with them about grit, persistence... and the students called it their growth mindset- so it looks like the lingo is sticking. I saw a blog post by Lee Araoz, who made this pretty spectacular collection of growth mindset materials. So- here you go:
Digital Citizenship
Every time I hear about problems around digital citizenship at our school or others, I wonder how, we as educators can possibly think that kids magically know how to use all this emerging tech as tools. We are hard pressed to find examples of civil discourse and good use of social media in the news. Of course students will make mistakes, they are kids. Of course we could/should help them figure it all out, just like we help with all the other facets of education. But we don't. Is it because we think that this is "outside of school"? It isn't. We have seen this in both schools in our district. These actions affect our school communities. Is it because we think that the kids know more about the tools than we do? Yes, in some cases. I'm quite sure that a typical high school student knows way more about snapchat and some of the nasty places online that teens go to pick on one another than I do. But, that's not an excuse not to have a comprehensive digital citizenship program in place. Commonsense media has one... it's free. Mary Alice Curran created digcitkids and ran her own digital citizenship conference down at St. Joe's in CT. Wes Fryer and Marcia Moore created this drawing, showing how all encompassing digital citizenship in today's educational world actually is. EdSurge has an excellent article with some great resources here. Yes, it's one more thing. Yes, it's important. We can see what happens when we don't have a comprehensive program.
Choices, choices. More Google Earth
I've been seeing more and more about the new version of Google Earth- almost all positive. I went to the EdTechTeam Geo webinar tonight and they shared the slides and lots of information. You can get thelink to the recording in the slides. If you're really into geography, apply to the Google Geo Institute- this summer- in California and it's free. Google has a new site to help you learn all the ins and outs and how best to use this tool in class. Check it out here.
Upcoming PD
Simple K12 is offering a free day of workshops on Google Tools- coming up on Saturday May 20. Learn more about it here.
Upcoming Free PDThis week brings some great free resources your way with a webinar from CAST on UDL: UDL Stories from the Field http://castprofessionallearning.org/free-udl-webinars/ Tomorrow, Wednesday, April 26 from 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. EST. EdTechTeam is sponsoring a live webinar on Tuesday May 6, featuring the new Google Earth RSVP HERE LIVE Webinar LINK
Google Earth NewsMany of you have probably heard/read about the great new changes in Google Earth. It is now accessible online- like on chromebooks. I have not tried this at school with a class of students and have no notion of how the bandwidth holds up. But it is good news. You can get the gist from EdTechTeam's blog post here. I wanted to share a couple of the blog posts and videos that have been posted about this change and that you may find helpful. First- Richard Byrne's video overview One thing that Richard notes is that it is hard to create tours in the new online version- but he followed that up today with a blog post about GE Teach Tour "a free tool that you and your students can use to create tours to play in the new web version of Google Earth." See his full informative post here. Google Lit Trips on Chrome: Another interesting post about using the new Google Earth came from Eric Curts. Eric will explain in detail in the video below and in a great step by step tutorial on his site- how you can now use Google Lit Trips on chromebooks. Check it out below and be sure to vist Control, Alt, Achieve to get the full picture. You have to try Voyager!This is the coolest thing I have seen in awhile. Remember way back when you could find your house on Google Earth? You thought that was cool, right? Bet you spent a lot of time just spinning the globe around, checking things out. Voyager is way cooler. They have created these fantastic lessons- cooler than lit trips (sorry). Before you click on the links- know that you will be sucked in, so get your "work" done first. But, as you immerse yourself in Voyager, imagine what you can do with this tool with students, what they can do... It is really fantastic. Check them out here. Here is the NY Times article about it. Solar Eclipse ResourcesI attended an excellent webinar from WGBH Education on the upcoming solar eclipse. This will not be an total eclipse for us, and it will be just before school starts up again. So, if you are interested, you will need to plan ahead. PBS Learning Media has you covered with a solar eclipse toolkit You can get more information here. Tuesday Tips from #GoogleEdu
This was a new one for me, hat tip to Kasey Bell of Shake-up Learning, but #GoogleEdu has a series of Tuesday Tips now. These are for Forms, Classroom and Google Expeditions at the moment, and come as a slide deck- see links below. I couldn't find any other source for these tips, so follow #GoogleEdu on Twitter to stay informed.
MAP Test Correlation Tool
I wrote a while back about the MAP test correlation tool being used by KIPP schools on the west coast, referencing this site and spreadsheets. This worked, but was pretty clunky and labor intensive to set up. Each student had a color coded sheet, which related to their scores on the MAP test, and they also had their own copy of a color coded Kahn Academy list of skills to practice and check off. A lot of flipping back and forth. Lo and behold the NWEA folks have come out with a new tool - a prototype- to do the same thing. This is the tool. It is easy to use; I tried it today with 3rd graders. Here's the instruction page for teachers. Students in grade 3, 5 and 6 are all set up with their most recent MAP scores. There is also a new icon on the hes.symbaloo page which matches the little icon on the top left of this paragraph. Don't ditch the other spreadsheets since this is a prototype and may disappear.
The other cool thing about MAP tests, and I don't say positive things about tests lightly, is the new next gen student profile section with breakouts for instructional ideas. I went to a webinar last week on it and was honestly impressed with the ways to use the data. A bit time-labor intensive, but when you have time- check out the next-gen student profile section. This is a link to the recorded version of “Student Profile Report – Instructional Module.” Below is an example of these reports. You can go through the step by step and see some short videos here. Cleaner YouTube
Most of us have had that magical moment in the classroom when the YouTube video we plan to show now has nasty ads, or obscene comments- which weren't there when we previewed it.
There are lots of ways to get around that sinking feeling, but they do take a bit of planning. Here's a symbaloo with some ideas for you. I will also pop this onto the HES Teachers symbaloo for those of you who use that as a start page.
So, what are these? The top row- are all places that you can paste the YouTube url and get a clean version to show your class. The row on the right- all ways that you can download the video and put it on your drive. You need to be aware that the TOS for YouTube asks that you do not download and view. The way YouTube makes money is through ads and clicks- not from folks downloading.
The row on the bottom is kind of a mish mash. You can chop out pieces of videos to show. Perhaps you only want the middle 3 minutes of a 20 minutes video... adjust it. I also added a couple of chrome extensions that you can use to hide comments or ads. One very easy workaround is to insert the YouTube video you want to show into a Google Slide. No ads, no comments- just the video, unless you click thru to the YouTube site. Overview of DitchSummitI spent some time over break listening to and learning from the speakers Matt Miller interviewed on his DitchSummit. Some I had heard of and follow online and a few others I had never seen/heard before. A couple of take-aways for me: Noah Giesel's "Don't Get Ready, Get Started" resonated with me, because like most of you, I tend to over plan and can be tentative about jumping into a new project without really knowing all the pitfalls/benefits ahead of time. Over the last 18 months or so, I have been doing "breakouts" with lots of different upper elementary classes. I had never done one as a teacher or as a participant before, but was totally intrigued by the idea. Luckily, I have a few brave teachers who let me try it out. It has been mostly a success, some better than others. But, my lesson learned- just do it. I can never anticipate everything that might happen- but "nothing will go wrong, if I do nothing at all", theory does not work well in practice. Here's a quote from Noah “Don’t get ready. Get started. Let’s do this. Be humble enough to be up front with our students to say, ‘This might not be perfect. This probably won’t be perfect. We’re going to make it better together.’” He went on to talk about preparing kids for the future. Worksheets won't cut it. "But jobs with info that can be Googled are not high-paying jobs. By playing it safe, we’re creating a huge danger for our young people’s futures.” One other presenter, (they were all good), who gave so many great examples, was Paul Solarz. Paul is the author of Learn Like a Pirate. He is a fifth grade teacher who actively shares his and his students' work online. Here's a quote from a review of Paul's book: "Would your class fall apart without you? Could your students learn if you didn't speak for an entire day? In Learn Like a PIRATE, Paul Solarz shares methods you can use to create a student-led classroom -- and prepare your students for a lifetime of self-led learning." - Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind I am not a big fan of buzz words- and the "student-led classroom" is right up there with mindset, and 21st century learning... What does that mean, anyway? But Paul makes the buzz words real. He gave example, after example of how he does this in his classroom. He also talks about all the things that teachers worry about- covering the curriculum, classroom management, grades, test, etc. You can follow him on twitter, check out his book site online- great info in those links- or check out what he is doing in his classroom. Paul advocates his "marble theory" of intelligence. This is a brief summary: "It’s a bit of a metaphor for how we are, intelligence-wise. I believe that all of us are born with the exact same number of marbles in our brain -- 1 billion (an arbitrary number). There are also thousands and thousands of Dixie cups. Each marble represents your ability to do something....We all have the same amount. It’s just about how you distribute them. In groups in the classroom, we need to ask, “How have my classmates distributed their marbles?” to determine their strengths. " My initial take- creating this type of community in the classroom takes time and commitment- but it is well worth it for both the teacher and the students. You can join the LearnLAP PLN by signing up on this spreadsheet. A couple of INFOGRAPHICS...These two images came through my twitter feed over the break and both are worth sharing. One is from the educatorstechnology blog and purports to show you the "9 fundamental skills for the 21st century teacher". First of... there is no "list" that can show you this... can we put flexible, curious, empathetic on there too? But, these are skills that are useful. Some of the tools that are listed, I would recommend, a few I have never heard of... So- here's your table of skills. The other infographic that I wanted to share is the ultimate cheatsheet for critical thinking from globalcitizen.org. I like the questions on this one- broad, versatile, can be used with just about any age group or topic. Looking for new Ideas- try #GAFEchat#gafechat is a twitter chat. You do not have to have a twitter account to follow a hashtag and learn from other educators. Twitter chats are easy to follow on participatelearning. You may surprise yourself! Try it! #gafechat is every other Tuesday from 9-10 pm. The GAFE- or google for education chat is fun- and you always learn something new. Here are the questions for tomorrow:
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AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
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