SEE conference day 1

Here are my take always from the first day in Calgary.

1. It is nice to be in the company of like minded educators and experts.

2. The goal is to make the classroom experience magical, innovative, creative, and vibrant.

3. Are we asking our students to be extraordinary?  Can they articulate the secret to their own success?  Are they an eager learner?

4. Are we asking students to be combiners of ideas so that they can be inventors and innovators?

5. Can I get the students and teachers in my building or district to share my vision?  How are we transforming education?

Winter Resources

I have been hard at work on my resource google site for my school chums.  Let me know what you think.  This is my attempt to give back and hopefully entice my fellow educators to take a chance on using resources outside of the textbook.

https://sites.google.com/site/winterresources/home

Great quotes for us all to ponder

http://blog.learningtoday.com/blog/bid/36318/Web-3-0-Networked-Literacy-and-Information-Fluency-ISTE10?source=Blog_Email_[Web+3.0,+Networked+L]

“Teach kids for their futures not our past.”

“Kids are no longer on the web but OF the web.”

“You get out of the web what you put into the web.”

“Teach learners TO BE not simply TO DO or TO KNOW.”

“This is a PEOPLE revolution, not a technology revolution.”

Information Technology Syllabus

Information Technology Syllabus

But, but, but! How do we turn the but’s around?

Don’t Forget Your Audience! 5 Ideas To Connect with Real Audiences http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/

Please take the time to read this post from Lisa Nielsen.  She highlights some of the difficulties that can occur as we are trying to change the culture in our schools and move all of the stakeholders into a 21st century education.  Publishing our materials and getting feedback is essential to our growth.  We need to gently pull the ‘but’s’ along with us.  Show them a positive road map to follow with easy directions.  I learn something new from The Innovative educator every time I  pull up her blog.  Put her on your must read radar.

Zooburst.com

I am going to like this.

A new way to lecture

Open publication - Free publishing - More education

Found at www.teachersfirst.com

lessonsnips

http://www.lessonsnips.com/

Lesson snips is a resource that provides reading comprehension lessons for your students.  These can be used at all ages for differentiation.  I am going to use them to have my students practice for the state’s 8th grade reading and science test.  Since one of my goals for this year is to help them improve their test taking skills I think that these will be a good resource to use.

Virtual Summer

This looks very interesting. Thanks to Mike Fisher for putting all of this together. I know that I will be learning something new this summer.

Virtual Summer Camp

Winter Resources

It is the first part of July and there is no sunshine in Oregon.  So I have finally started myself imposed project, ‘Winter Resources’.  The overall goal is to put together resources for the teachers in my district to access.  Sometimes having a web address is not enough to get you to go to a site and experience it or to see if it would be helpful for our students.  My goal is to at the very least include a picture and hopefully a little blurb that might entice them to visit the site and incorporate it into what they are already doing.

Remember that this is a work in progress and I have just begun. 

I need to read this!!!

http://ineedtoreadthis.com/  I signed up for this.  It looks like it will be useful.  Try it out.

What is a 21st Century teacher?

I did not go to the Denver and attend ISTE, but I have been following along the blogs of my PLN.  I hope that they publish more of their notes and thoughts as the weeks of summer wane on.  A couple of things have already stood out to me.

1. The keynote did not go over well.  Something for me to think about and revise how I make presentations.

2. We can laugh at ourselves and our situations.  http://www.thenerdyteacher.com/  I do this already and most of my collogues and particularly outsiders do not think I am funny.  Oh well, I think that I will continue to do so and retain my sanity.

3. I need my PLN.  I have never met these people but I know that they are amazing.  I still want a local face to face PLN group, though.  So if anyone out there is interested let’s meet once a month or so.

4. I have finally found a definition of what a 21st century educator is that I really like.  I have tried to articulate my thoughts and ideas to others and I just get stares and rebuttals.  But now I have the words to use.  Thank you to Beth Hertz.

http://philly-teacher.blogspot.com/2010/06/dissecting-21st-century-teacher.html

21st Century Educators/teachers are really contemporary teachers.

“A contemporary teacher is one who maintains relevant content and delivery and allows students to explore content through whatever medium or pathway that is appropriate for the task, whether it is using technology or not. A 21st Century teacher is a contemporary teacher, integrating technology seamlessly with content, transforming lessons and building global citizenship amongst his/her students.  S/he is an advocate for his/her students, s/he connects with like-minded educators and never stops learning.” Hertz

Like Beth, I too, think that teachers today need to take the time to transform their lessons so that they allow for the students to think outside of the classroom.  I want to be a risk taker and an innovator.  I need to seek the opinions of others so that my students are networking and growing.  I want to be with other educators that are seeking out their own resources or even creating them.  I actually need the teachers of my own children to be as committed as I am.  I admire those that spend extra time thinking of ways to to challenge my kids and finding resources to use beyond a textbook.  I would rather present a project that challenges students and have it fall flat than use the tried and tired old stand bys.  I have found that students learn a lot more even when something fails than if I just cookie cutter out my lessons.

So, can we slowly but surely change the minds of the system that we live in or should we just change our own little corner.  I am for speaking out or even shouting out and making a scene.  Let’s get everybody to to realize that students really can get excited to be in the classroom.  Technology is not the answer but sometimes the use of technology can be the hook that grabs a student and excites them.  I say it is not really about the facts and figures that we must test them on but on how they can reconfigure the material into something new.  It’s the process.

I am finally getting excited for the next school year.  I am going to blow up and change up what I have been doing.  I have a dynamic and creative classroom already but when I think of the possibilities I almost begin to shake with excitement.  I teach in a district that is technology rich, with an amazing tech person for a resource, I have terrific students, and a budget that allows me to do what I want.  So it seems to me the ball is in my court and I can have a fabulous new year.

I am a contemporary educator, are you?

What a fun Guy?

So, one of my goals for this summer is to organize my lessons and create a Google site for my students to use to enhance their studies. Another goal is to set up a Google site for the teachers in my district of web sites they might find useful in the classroom with their students and to for them to use to grow as educators, and my final goal is to get together with other teachers and be a mentor for them.  I am going to meet with a teacher next week and I am very excited.  We are going to look at how she can use her smart board and cps system in the 3rd grade.  If anybody else would like a personal mentor for a day, please let me know.  I am free and willing.

I have also decided that my students are going to focus on reading comprehension in science and interpreting data next year.  So I am beginning today to set up lessons and activities that will focus on this.  One day a week is going to be spent on these activities.  As well as math in science.  I think that I already do this but I am going to make it a focus this year.  Hopefully, this will help them on the 8th grade state test.  We will see.  I make myself these promises and then I get side tracked by all the other fun things that I want to do, like model building, labs, group work, and projects using the web.  I want to blog, glog, and google site it as well.

No edtech for me

At the end of the year, this is how I feel after many discussions with the other educators that I work with.  I know that they have little time for a life, I know that new tools are hard to explore and figure out how to use and incorporate, and I know that they are essentially dedicated teachers.  But when I hear them say that they can’t teach math at a certain level, or that they need their new textbooks to teach with or the students will be lost, or that they never use their computer at home for school work, then I am mystified about how they can ever really become great educators that students can follow and identify with.  I am inspired by Ms. Francisco on many levels.

http://alexgfrancisco.webnode.com/

She has identified my frustrations but she has also inspired me to use these tools to create instructive materials for my students and to have my students create with them.  I have passed on her information to aspiring students that want to be teachers and I my goal is to inspire at least some of the teachers in my district to explore edtech and its uses with students, parents, and their own personal growth.

People should explore her blogs and I know that they will be inspired by the things she relates and the people that she is connected to.

In September and In June

How do I feel in September.

I am hopeful, excited, and eager.  I have spent the summer learning, researching, and planning.  I cannot wait to collaborate with my peers and students.  I look forward to seeing the lights go on as my students learn and explore.

By winter | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

 

How do I feel in June.

I am tired, lost, and alone.  I pray that I can make it through each day.  I don’t understand why they don’t bring a pencil, paper, or their work.  I want to scream, wake up, is anybody in there, and why don’t you care?  Did anybody learn anything this year?  Why am I the only one that cares?  What is wrong with me?

By winter | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Luckily this summer I am going to relax, refresh, and regain my perspective.  I am going to refine my style and learn something new.

I am going back to school in September a new and improved me ready to engage my students and provide them with a terrific example of how to be a life long learner.

Tech News June

Open publication - Free publishing - More technology

Math Project

web 2.0 and 21st century education

Check this out.  I hope to write something similar this summer and I am inspired and motivated to get cracking.

Open publication - Free publishing - More web 2.0

Let Out the Creative Beast

View more presentations from Betsy Streeter.

I found this at  http://kylepace.com/ .  I intend to share it with my 8th graders on the last day of school.  I hope that it makes them think and maybe inspire them to find their own creative ‘beast’ over the summer.  We give them so many rules and definitions for the first eight years of school and then we are shocked when they cannot think outside of the box.  I even found this to be true this year with college students.  They want to know how to get an ‘A’.  Therefore, they do just the bare minimum and do not renegotiate the terms of what needs to be done.  As an educator I am looking for the essential elements in any assignment that I give but I am also looking for the new and exciting twist that shows personality and creativity.  This might just be using color on a poster, adding a different element, or whatever to take the project to the next level.  Very rarely do I find students excited about what they turn in.  When a student is excited by their final project then I am too and it gives me hope that we have not killed off all of their creativity with our list of essential knowledge we think that they must have.  In any year there are a few, however that inspire me and they are not always the straight A’s.

Test Scores

Image from http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com

This week at our school we are taking the ‘No Child Left Behind, test for the third time.  We make all of the students do it three times even if they excel the first time.  As you can imagine middles school students begin to shut down and see no relevance in a test that does not impact their classroom grades.  My own personal child, that is a Senor this year, has taken A.P. Calculus, Chemistry, Physics,History, and English but has not managed to pass the ‘science test’.  What do I say to her?  Wow, what a failure you are!  Or do I suggest that online testing is not for everyone, or ‘hey it is not the end of the world’ and even I an exemplary educator, whose job depends on the students passing the test, see no relevance to it.  Move on with your life.  She has stated that she knows that all of the other parents will be pointing and laughing at her because she will be one of the ‘stupid’ students without a special tassel denoting that she has passed all of her NLB tests.  She says this and laughs but I wonder if she really does care and sees herself as ‘stupid’.  If so then I have done a terrible job parenting this smart, beautiful, caring, dependable, hardworking, sensitive, and funny young lady. 

I know that in my classroom I focus on the learning process.  Yes, there are certain concepts, facts, and vocabulary words that have to be presented and regurgitated by the students.  As a parent and an educator I have the overwhelming need to have my own children and my students learn to be learners.  I want them to participate in their lives and not just watch them go by.  If I can just get a few to be thinkers, leaders, and committed learners then I will have had a successful career.  So far I have been successful on the home front and I know that I have actually reached a few middle school students as well.  Therefore, as of this minute I am patting myself figuratively on the back and I hope to go to school tomorrow on another Monday and start the process all over again.