Google Account....Do Yourself a Favor

GoogleDocs in Plain English

RSS in Plain English

OneNote resources

OneNote at Microsoft
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/FX100647161033.aspx?CTT=96&Origin=CL100626961033

OneNote tuts. at Atomic Learning (see Mark for Atomic Learning password)
http://www.atomiclearning.com/k12/en/onenote07

OneNote Custom Guide (2 page graphic detailed)
http://www.customguide.com/pdf/onenote-quick-reference-2007.pdf

Various tutorial documents at YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N16_h3BaPU0

Introductions

Name?
What do you teach?
What do you hope to learn (why did you take the class)?
Project ideas at this point?

How Could You Not Like This....

Mini-Assignments

Each class Kerry and I will present "new" content that may have smaller min-assignments associated with them.  It is one thing to hear someone talk about a new tool or idea, another to watch them demonstrate that same tool, but if you want to really learn it you have to use it/apply it yourself.

The Main Assignment

My main goal of this class is that it is useful for you and the learning of your students.  With that in mind you main assignment is find something you want to learn more about and then implement it in your class/position.

At the end of our class you will present your project to your classmates.

One of main the benefits of this class is that you have the time and the support of your peers to help you complete this project.

We have a diverse group of people with very different job responsibilities and requirements.    Kerry and I will help you as much as we can but it is extremely important that you are a self-directed learner.  Embrace the challenge and choose something meaningful for your position.

Tech Tools for Teachers: March 9th

Purpose of this class:

1. OneNote as a teacher/student teaching and learning tool
2. Learn how to take charge of your own PD via PNLC (extending the PLC)
3. Extend your learning and practice with summative and formative assessments to improve/guide the teaching and learning of your students
4. To learn more about the 21st Century Skills called for by "futurists"/economists
5. To learn more about various Web 2.0 tools and how you can harness their instructional potential in the classroom
6. To further your knowledge and practice of using technology to improve both teaching and learning

Week of 1/10/10 03/09/2010

• Curriculum 21 - Mapping the Global Classroom of the Future - Clearinghouse

  tags: 21stcenturylearning, web2.0, curriculum

• 7 Things You Should Know About Twitter | EDUCAUSE

  tags: twitter

• Twitter Handbook for Teachers

  tags: twitter, handbook, web2.0

• Twitter for teachers

  tags: web2.0, twitter

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Week of 1/10/10 03/08/2010

• My Library

  tags: music

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Week of 1/10/10 02/26/2010

• Home - The Cognitive Foundations of Learning to Read: A Framework

  great site concerning reading and a great interactive info graphic to help.  

  tags: reading_instruction, reading

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Week of 1/10/10 02/16/2010

• The CSSS Project

  Great list of various interventions useful for teaching kids reading, math, etc

  tags: intervention

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

We're Tasty

Working on some PD materials related to formative assessment and recalled this old SNL bit that while funny was't totally appropriate for our session.  It does remind us though that formative assessment is tasting the food while you are cooking it or testing while teaching.

Week of 1/10/10 02/05/2010

• http://help.diigo.com/how-to-guide/sticky-note

  tags: no_tag

  • 
    • - post by richardsom

• 2¢ Worth » 10 Ways to Promote Learning Lifestyle in Your School

  tags: no_tag

  • from outer

• Beyond The Book Report - Gifted Lesson Plans

  Great list of alternative book reports.

  tags: project ideas, bookreport

• YouTube HD Transfer - Home

  Another great YouTube downloading tool. Not as flexible as atube catcher but this one lets you preview, batch download, and select your download quality.

  tags: youtube, software

• Project SIKULI

  Those MIT wiz kids are at it again. Create your own macros using screenshots. Now if I could just find a ed application for this.

  tags: gui, macro, software

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Week of 1/10/10 01/30/2010

• Publications: SRN LEADS

  tags: no_tag

  • Tony Wagner

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Week of 1/10/10 01/26/2010

• Math and Algebra Help - Videos from MathTV.com

  Great site that might help students better understand the math we are teaching them (at all levels).

  tags: math, tutorial

• Week 2 Lecturecasting with Ustream, Blip.tv and MPEGstreamclip » Moving at the Speed of Creativity

  If you built it would they come?Great post about how you can "lecture cast". Record the audio of your lecture and perhaps even include some video of either you talking or graphics from your presentation. Wonderful learning opportunity for students. But I have to wonder if students will avail themselves of this change to "hear it again". What do you think?

  tags: lecturecasting, instruction

• SarcMark - Info

  How do we get punctuation? Apparently we get it from websites that are trying to patent it. Someone has a site with a new punctuation symbol....the sarcmark. Looks like a mangled question mark. If you want to use it looks like you have to download it for $. I don't recall paying for other punctuation marks.

  tags: punctuation, grammar

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online - NYTimes.com

If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online - NYTimes.com

Excellent article about newly published report on children's media use. A must read for all teachers and even more important for parents.

Highlights for me:

"And because so many of them are multitasking — say, surfing the Internet while listening to music — they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours."

“I feel like my days would be boring without it,” said Francisco Sepulveda, a 14-year-old Bronx eighth grader who uses his smart phone to surf the Web, watch videos, listen to music — and send or receive about 500 texts a day.

Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Boston who directs the Center on Media and Child Health, said that with media use so ubiquitous, it was time to stop arguing over whether it was good or bad and accept it as part of children’s environment, “like the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat.”

The study could not say whether the media use causes problems, or, rather, whether troubled youths turn to heavy media use.

“I don’t think parents should feel totally disempowered,” she said. “They can still make rules, and it still makes a difference.”

The heaviest media users, the study found, are black and Hispanic youths and “tweens,” or those ages 11 to 14.

Even during the survey, media use was changing. (At the start of the survey period Twitter did not yet exist)

So what are the implications for us as teachers? For us as parents?

Week of 1/10/10 01/14/2010

• Flexknowlogy – Jared Stein's ARCHIVED blog – update to jaredstein.org » Defining "Creepy Treehouse"

  Article discussing the Creepy Treehouse effect. Is Blackboard a creepy treehouse? For that matter, is any tool we "require" a student to use online a creepy treehouse itself?

  tags: Blackboard, creepy_treehouse

• Give It A Ponder: Things to ponder before you text

  Great videos to teach about thinking before texting. For the older students only.

  tags: internet_safety, texting

• Protecting Reputations Online in Plain English - Common Craft - Our Product is Explanation

  Great video to use with kids about being careful about what they publish online.

  tags: internet_safety, cybersafety

• Kidblog.org - Blogs for Teachers and Students

  Looks like a great tool for a teacher who wants to get at least get started with blogging with their kids. This could be used as a replacement for students who typically are required to keep a reading notebook.

  tags: blog, web2.0

• The Tempered Radical: Wasting Money on Whiteboards. . .

  Anti-whiteboard article. It isn't about smartboards as much as how they are used. Can't we say that about any classroom innovation?

  tags: IWB, whiteboards

• The End of Techno-Critique: The Naked Truth about 1:1 Laptop Initiatives and Educational Change

  One of the better articles about 1-1 can't work without a more comprehensive implimentation plan that goes well beyond just technology

  tags: 1-1

• A “Naked Truth” about Technologies in Schools? « Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

  Interesting argument about why 1-1 has failed to work as of yet. Larger argument is not necess. about tech as much as failed improvement initiatives.

  tags: 1-1

• Diigo Toolbar | Diigo

  tags: no_tag

• Google Chrome Extensions: Diigo Bookmarks

  tags: no_tag

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

How Do We Respond to Challenges?

How do we as teachers respond to new learning and/or teaching challenges. Do we take the initiative to solve our own problems (lifelong learner) or do we simply wait on the escalator?

Teaching, Training, Enabling

Today in long term leadership planning someone made the observation that perhaps not enough technology training opportunities have been made available. As a the main person responsible for providing said training I took exception to that.

I basically defended myself by saying "I don't turn anyone away". My principal had a problem with my statement and went on to quote the fisherman quote (see below). I have been a long time subscriber to the "teach a man to fish" philosophy but realize that people do need some basic idea of what involved in fishing. Fishing a pond, the ocean, and a river all require different techniques and sometimes you need to at least point someone in the right direction.

Tonight I come home recently re-energized about blogging after spending a day listening to Will Richardson speak with our school district. I popped open the bloglines account and Bill Ferriter was posting about a Scott McLeod post regarding codependence issues of "trainers" and their learners (teachers and admin).

The comments to each article are fascinating and may be summed up as "teachers need to step up their game". While I generally agree that teachers needs to "step it up" I wonder how many will until their job requirement or perhaps self-perception about those requirements change. I wonder how many commenters were classroom teachers themselves and not just tech staff...perhaps some were like me a hybrid position that wears both hats.

Teachers need to figure out how to restructure what they do and how they do it. I went back to the classroom for one school year several years back (after being in tech for 10 years) and one of the most time consuming parts of the job was the amount of paperpushing that happened. A teacher invests a big chunk of time in pushing papers at students and then retrieving those papers. The saddest part of the transaction is that very often this transaction is little more than an exercise in futility. A teacher is pushing paper at the students. The students may experience multiple paper pushers each day. The students' job becomes to fill out those papers and push them back at the teacher. In a perfect world the teacher reviews the papers as way to better understand what was learned and what has yet to be learned. In reality the teacher is so consumed with the retrieval of the papers from all students leaving little time for meaningful feedback. Sometimes the teacher makes the extra effort to provide that specific feedback only to find the feedback in the recycle bin. Yet, we keep on doing that. Pushing the paper back and forth and keeping track of who completed what (not who learned what) exhausts a teacher leavning little time for new learning.

Let's leave technology out of the equation for a minute. I am still amazed how little discussion might be generated about some powerful learning change on the horizon. Interesting discussions I've tried to start recently in the lounge with staff include the changing world (ie Flat World), the power of formative assessment, professional learning communities, and personal learning networks. The conversation lasts briefly and quickly shifts back to last night's episode of Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, or some other chewing gum for the brain program.

My concern is not about learning new technology...but rather the "typical" teacher's general lack of willingness to learn something new, anything new.....the lack of willingness to explore, argue, debate, discuss....all those things required to learning something new that may actually make us better teachers or at least more informed individuals.