Making Kids Googlable

On his weblogg-ed, Will Richardson askes administrators:

[...if you are Googling people who you might want to teach at your school, what are you doing to insure the kids in your classrooms are “Googled well” when they go for their own interviews? And I don’t just mean telling them NOT to post certain things online. I mean what are you doing to help students shape their online portfolios so that when their future employers or future mates run the search, what they find is not just a lack of negatives but a potential plethora of positives? Not surprisingly, the answer is basically “not much.”]

http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/making-kids-googlable/

Dailies-Allison Knox Keynote

Each day, the director of a movie checks the dailies to see if the filming is acceptable progress toward the vision he or she has for the film. Allison used the analogy to encourage us as teachers and educators and especially as leaders to continually check our progress toward our 21st century learning goals. She shared statistics showing that 99% of voters think 21st century skills need to be taught in today's schools and the greatest skill needed by employers is critical thinking--with innovation coming in fourth, just a few percentage points lower.

We need to ask ourselves if our dailies are ensuring that our students will have critical thinking skills. We need to focus on the higher levels of the new Anderson taxonomy that puts evaluation and creativity at the top. We need to continue to campaign for creativity and innovation in our schools, and to provide evidence that students are on the 21st century learning pathway. How can we do this? What practical things are we doing already? What needs to change?

Power Up 2 Integrate Technology

Power Up 2 Integrate Technology
Kris Baldwin, Debbie O’Doan & Jackie Jessop Rising, TIE
Participants in this grant shared their experiences when they integrated Web 2.0 tools in their classrooms.
They said the most beneficial aspects included
Enough exposure to wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and other tools to now feel comfortable using them.
1. Paticipating in online classes that focused on one particular tool.
2. Student centered classrooms motivate low achieving students and engaged them in learning.
3. Gaining confidence that they can create a unit that is meaningful and engaging.
4. Seeing detailed units that other area teachers are using.
5. Powerup project wiki at http://powerup.tie.wikispaces.net/ to access resources

Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works

In answering the question, Why Technology? Roxanne Everhard made the statistics from Marzano’s work easy to understand and builds a case for reading and using the texts: What Works in Schools, Classroom Instruction that Works, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. From her experience, Roxanne explains to us “Our students and children these days demand technology, they don’t just want it, they demand it.” From Survey Monkey, Bubbl.us, Del.icio.us, Wikispaces, to blogs, Roxanne leads us through some Web 2.0 technologies. For more information on Using Classroom Instruction that Works, sign up for the online graduate course at ESA 6 or TIE. You can also call the TIE office or email Roxanne Everhard or Jackie Jessop Rising for more informaiton.

Technology Professional Development in Your School

Lisa Tolliver & Rodney Dally from the Wagner Community School District have created a new and innovative way to differentiate professional development in their district. Some of the new ideas included a rotational in-service day schedule (discipline training, cultural diversity, technology integration, RtI, and collaboration), earning two credits for participation and implementation of professional development topics, and (one of my favorites) compensation for improving their technology skills!

This was a great session on how to make professional development more teacher and paraprofessional friendly!

Indepth on Windows Movie Maker and PhotoStory

I was fortunate to work with a group of TIE participants sharing Windows Movie Maker and Photostory.

Feel free to check out my website that I used for this indepth.

http://www.garretson.k12.sd.us/TIE2008

Dr. Tim Tyson's Keynote Address

Dr. Tim Tyson shares the importance of schools not accepting the idea of “this is the way it is always been”. The world is changing and so should schools. Students need authentic learning experiences to get them excited about learning. Dr. Tyson asks us to think about questions such as:
What if students really wanted to learn?
What if they wanted to create content?
What if they wanted to connect with people to share?
So, how can we make learning irresistible, so irresistible that students want to do it, all the time?
At what age does meaningfulness start?
Ask our students what do you have to say that is so important that everyone in the world needs to hear it?
For more information on student projects, visit Maybryonline.org

Pat McGill Energizes Educators

Pat McGill started out this humorous and exciting session with stories of her own teaching experiences. Her positive energy spread throughout the room helping educators avoid negativity. One of her key points was that individuals motivate themselves; in education our job is to provide environments where the motivation occurs. Grow the gifts! Instead of thinking outside the box, she encouraged us to grow the box (story by Leo Buscaglia).

Leadership is the power of influence. Educators model, monitor, and mentor. Participants at the session then chose a psychometric shape. This shape indicated your personality traits.

Her five R's included being real, rural, ready, reachable, remarkable. She suggested we read the Four Agreements. And left us with lots of golden nuggets to reflect on!

21st Century Skills for Administrators

Kris Baldwin lead this in-depth session on how school administrators can use technology successfully in their school districts and buildings. One area of interest included finding out about people through websites such a My Space, Facebook, and Bedo or looking at teacher certification. Another good way to find out about someone is to "Google" their name. But, make sure that you put "quotes" around their name to narrow your search.

Kris also discussed how students are Digital Natives and we are Digital Immigrants. The students are changing, we need to learn how to change with them, and connect with them digitally. She helped us to create and use wikispaces, Del.icio.us, and Blogs. These programs will meet students at their level, as well as helping teachers collaborate when they can't be together in the same room at the same time.

Kris has a wealth of information on her wikispace. Make sure to check out all of this digital information and begin connecting with your staff and students at a new and different level!