A Principal's Reflections
JANUARY 3, 2013
'I have read some very thought-provoking posts and associated commentary over the past couple of weeks focusing on how particular educators use social media. What I have found interesting is the powerful opinions as to how one should use social media. I think it is great that so many people have focused opinions on what social media should, could, or should not be with a considerable emphasis on specific do''s and dont''s.
The Web20Classroom
JANUARY 21, 2013
'When I was teaching science one of the best lessons I learned was about formative assessment. In my first year of teaching I taught the way I was told to teach. Deliver content to my students, assess at the end, remediate if necessary. With that cycle, I always had kids who were behind, who never seemed like they could catch up. I was talking with a teacher friend the summer after my first year and she suggested something simple.
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Educational Technology Guy
JANUARY 24, 2013
'Boundless is a service that provides free, open source, digital textbooks. There are 18 open textbooks with Creative Commons licensed content, for college subjects including accounting, biology, economics and more. Boundless provides a free alternative to expensive textbooks and they can also be used as supplemental materials for students. The content is changed and additions made, in direct contrast to printed textbooks that are usually outdated before they are printed.
EdTechSandyK
JANUARY 27, 2013
'When you first start using Twitter, one of the things you have to figure out is how to decode Tweets. What does each part represent? What does it mean when a word starts with a #? Below is a Tweet as it might be displayed on the Twitter website when viewed on a computer. Note that not all Tweets might include all of these exact attributes. If you are using an app or third-party service like Hootsuite or TweetDeck to read your Tweets, they might look slightly different, but the parts will still
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Baker's B.Y.O.D.
JANUARY 20, 2013
'While I use Twitter consistently for informal professional development and connecting with other educators, the opportunities for making connections on Edmodo are greatly increased. Unlike Twitter where one has to find and follow others (I follow 982, but only about 550 follow me), the communities on Edmodo provide areas for thousands of educators to congregate and post.
The 21st Century Principal
JANUARY 27, 2013
'A 21st century skill that all students need badly is the ability to spot misinformation. As educators, we desperately need to do as Loren Collins states in her book, Bullspotting: Finding Facts in the Age of Misinformation. We need to "arm our students with baloney-detecting tools to prevent false and unsupported beliefs so that such beliefs can be better contained.
EdTech Update brings together the best content for education technology professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
The Web20Classroom
JANUARY 28, 2013
'This is an update from a post a wrote a while back. I''ve included some new resources to check out. Recently, my district began a huge initiative to combat bullying/cyberbullying and to help students become more aware of the choices they make both in their face-to-face lives and their digital decisions as well. There is no one right way or right answer that will stop the problems.
Educational Technology Guy
JANUARY 2, 2013
'I am a big fan of going paperless whenever possible and technology just keeps making it easier to do. Google is one of the sponsors of the Paperless pledge and has some tips, resources and ideas for going paperless and I have collected a variety of resources and tips. Here they all are.Check them out and check out Paperless2013 and sign up for more tips.
EdTechSandyK
JANUARY 13, 2013
'Social networking is a great way to share our lives and keep in touch with friends, but it''s important that we all keep ourselves educated on how our settings work and only share information about privacy that is accurate. For example, I''ve lost count of how many of my friends have posted the status below in recent weeks: Hello, FB friends: I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you.
The Innovative Educator
JANUARY 3, 2013
'Recently Kris Nielsen , the Teacher Dropout I featured on my blog last month, wrote this to me on Facebook: A while back, I asked you if you saw any redeeming qualities about CCSS. Your answer got me thinking. Since then, you could say I've seen the light. To follow is the post he wrote that appears on his blog Middle Grades Mastery. Almost a year ago, I offered my time to the middle school at which I was employed to give a two-night presentation that promised to ease parents’ conc
Speaker: Andrew Cohen, Founder & CEO of Brainscape
The instructor’s PPT slides are brilliant. You’ve splurged on the expensive interactive courseware. Student engagement is stellar. So… why are half of your students still forgetting everything they learned in just a matter of weeks? It's likely a matter of cognitive science! With so much material to "teach" these days, we often forget to incorporate key proven principles into our curricula — namely active recall, metacognition, spaced repetition, and interleaving practice.
The 21st Century Principal
JANUARY 13, 2013
'In his new book, Building a Culture of Support: Strategies for School Leaders , educator and principal PJ Caposey offers school leaders three things: practical, down-to-earth advice for leading schools; concrete strategies in creating highly supportive school environments; and a compact approach to leadership that brings supporting staff, students, parents, and school community to the forefront.
A Principal's Reflections
JANUARY 31, 2013
'Kanchan Chellani, currently a math teacher at New Milford High School , is a strong believer in making the learning process fun, interactive, and meaningful for students. To engage students in her classroom, Mrs. Chellani has utilized a variety of tools to help her develop an interactive, student-centered learning environment. Through the use of technology, collaborative learning exercises, and teaching mathematical concepts in the real-world and interdisciplinary context, she has managed to su
The Web20Classroom
JANUARY 7, 2013
'It''s been a few years since I last took a formal "class." My entire Masters degree was done online back in 2009 and 2010 and that wasn''t all that traditional at the time. Now it is almost the norm. But I do enjoy learning and I am very interested in the ideas of MOOCs or Massively Open Online Courses and have been for a while. If you aren''t familiar with MOOCs the idea is that major universities (like Harvard, MIT, Georgetown and others) offer courses from their faculty free, and online, for
Educational Technology Guy
JANUARY 4, 2013
'GET ORGANIZED!! Here are some tips on getting organized. I am a very organized person (type A personality and was an engineer for ten years) and I used to teach organizational skills to other employees at one of my jobs. There are a ton of different organizational methods out there, but it is actually pretty easy to be organized and stay that way using some free tools.
This white paper examines and proposes revisions to the "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" introduced by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson in 1987 for today's technology-driven world.
EdTechSandyK
JANUARY 23, 2013
'Yesterday I learned from a TCEA Tweet that Google has launched an app search feature. What a cool tool for those of us working in mobile learning environments - whether they be individual teacher devices, pods of classroom devices, 1:1, or BYOD - to use to explore app possibilities without having to log into an app store first! I played with app search a little and made a quick tutorial video to show you how to access it and an idea I had for combining it with Google''s advanced search feature.
The Innovative Educator
JANUARY 13, 2013
'The Seattle Times reports the teachers union shares concerns the faculty at Garfield High has raised about district-required standardized tests. As a result, the Garfield teachers announced that no teachers at the school would be giving the tests this winter, even though the district requires them to do so. Nearly all the faculty signed a letter to the district saying they’re not against testing, but they think their standardized exams (MAP) is a flawed test that fails to help them or their
The 21st Century Principal
JANUARY 12, 2013
'Several weeks after Newtown, the debate about what to do to make our schools more secure continues. The NRA has called for armed guards in every school. Some school districts in Texas and Utah are arming teachers and administrators. One school district in Ohio is arming its custodians. ( Montpelier Ohio School Board Votes to Arm Janitors ) In typical American fashion, many reactions to the Sandy Hook tragedy have been to grip our guns even tighter and declare certain ideas like assault weapons
A Principal's Reflections
JANUARY 10, 2013
'The following is a guest post by Jessica Groff, an English teacher here at New Milford High School. In this post she discusses her experience with a cloud-based technology solution called ClassLink. Jessica also teachers Digital Journalism and has worked with her students to create The Lance , our school''s digital newspaper. Four years ago, I left a desk job to become a teacher.
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The Web20Classroom
JANUARY 30, 2013
'I''ve had the pleasure of spending time at the Florida Educational Technology Conference, better known as FETC. Held in Orlando, educators from across Florida and the world really, are here talking educational technology and learning together. Today was filled with lots of sessions and even a presentation from yours truly. Below are the links to everything I did today.
Educational Technology Guy
JANUARY 24, 2013
'Google Docs/Drive is a great, free resource that allows you to create, edit, share, collaborate on, and comment on Documents (Docs), Spreadsheets (Sheets), and Presentations (Slides), all online. Think Microsoft Office in the cloud with some other great features. I use Google Slides (Presentations), the equivalent of PowerPoint, for all of my presentations.
EdTechSandyK
JANUARY 12, 2013
'I know questions like this are insanely hard, but that doesn''t stop me from asking them! In preparation for a Twitter for Professional Learning workshop I''m leading at the TCEA Convention in early February, I''d like to know who your top 5 education folks to follow on Twitter are and why. You might think of it this way: If the Twitter rules changed one day and you could only follow five people in education, who would they be?
The Innovative Educator
JANUARY 6, 2013
'You may have read the post from an overbearing mom who was trying to control her kid because she purchased a phone for him. The level of contempt this mom shows for her son is disheartening. Fortunately, this mom’s whole desire to impose lessons upon him falls short if he rejects her gift. Teaching your child that money equals control is a shameful and dangerous lesson.
Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions
There are plenty of great authoring tools for developing eLearning, but the one you select could directly impact your course's outcomes. Depending upon your learners’ needs and your organization’s performance goals, you could be overlooking considerations that impact the both effectiveness of your courses and how long it takes to finish them. From general capabilities to specific workflow structures, some aspects are critical when it comes to learning objectives and deadlines.
The 21st Century Principal
JANUARY 21, 2013
'A recent Gallup survey delivered what I would consider much worse news than that our students aren''t first place on the latest international assessments. That news simply stated was: "The longer our students stay in school, the less engaged they become." In a word, we are boring our students into oblivion. This issue is not something a new set of standards will fix, nor will a "new generation of assessments fix.
A Principal's Reflections
JANUARY 23, 2013
'The following is a guest post by Sherry Spier, a K-12 Media Specialist Coordinator in the Cinnaminson School District (NJ). In this post Sherry reflects on here recent visit to New Milford High School, which took place on January 11, 2013. For the last year, myself and four other members of the Cinnaminson School District staff worked relentlessly to start a pilot Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) program at Cinnaminson High School.
Baker's B.Y.O.D.
JANUARY 17, 2013
'My district has enabled students and teachers to begin using Google Apps for Education. HURRAY!!!! I know GAFE is old news for many of you, but this is a big deal for my district. The roll out process has been slow and methodical so that issues can be prevented and addressed. I''ve been given the privilege of testing GAFE out with my 9th and 12th grade students, and I''m figuring out how to best keep the Google Drive organized.
Educational Technology Guy
JANUARY 22, 2013
'Google is once again hosting a Doodle 4 Google contest for K-12 students in the US. Students create a doodle of the Google logo based on this years theme: "My Best Day Ever." would be what? Think outside the box and use some imagination. The winner will see their Doodle on the Google homepage for a day, get a $30,000 college scholarship and get a $50,000 technology grant for their school.
Speaker: Amanda Davis, Chief Experience Officer and Liam O'Malley, VP of Association Solutions
The "new normal" is now a little less new, a little more normal. Does that mean your current LMS strategy is in need of a refresh? Is your organization or association leaning into the always-evolving eLearning environment to ensure you have the tools and content to remain relevant through all this change? There are many complex decision-making processes within your learning & development strategy and LMS lifecycle management, including: Selection.
EdTechSandyK
JANUARY 6, 2013
'I just found out about a new edtech podcast called Techlandia. It is created by Texas elementary educational technologist Jon Samuelson and Oregon K-8 teacher Alison Anderson , and they are using it as a vehicle to share apps and websites teachers will find useful in teaching and learning as well as recommending folks to follow on Twitter. I discovered Techlandia because Jon let me know he gave me a shoutout in the latest episode.
The Innovative Educator
JANUARY 23, 2013
'David Karp began learning HTML at 11 and soon after was designing websites for local businesses. Unlike Nick Perez who spent years being drugged and tortured in a school that didn’t understand his particular passion, Karp attended high school for one year before dropping out. This allowed him to focus on doing projects that enabled him to pursue his passions.
The 21st Century Principal
JANUARY 31, 2013
'In their book, Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online , authors Andy Beal and Judy Strauss entitle one chapter "You Don''t Own Your Company''s Reputation." That idea is equally true for schools and districts and should remind twenty-first century school leaders that they "don''t own their school or school district''s reputation either.
A Principal's Reflections
JANUARY 28, 2013
'Innovation and creativity are at the core of the American spirit and they are the qualities that build the foundation for progress in education, technology, business, and, well, just about everything. As a principal, I often write about of the importance of creativity, innovation, and discovery in the classroom. When it comes to innovating in the classroom, project-based learning has gained increased attention as teachers and reformers seek ways to the move our classrooms away from the often mu
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