A Principal's Reflections

MAY 25, 2011

'Cross-posted at the Huffington Post. Last week my school was fortunate to have the NJ School Boards Association (NJSBA) visit to produce a live event called Learn@Lunch: Technology as an Engagement Tool. You can view the archive of the event here. A little over two years ago something like this would have never happened at New Milford High School. Yes, I was the Principal at that time, but my perspective and philosophy as to what constituted a 21st Century learning environment was vastly differ

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Poll Everywhere Social Media Personal Learning Network Tablets 247

The Web20Classroom

MAY 26, 2011

'At ASCD2011 I sat down with the good folks over at Follett and talked about a wide variety of topics surrounding technology, leadership and more. Here is the first part of the interview on Building A PLN. What do you think? What are some other important aspects of PLN building or just network building in general. What works for you?

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Technology 192

The 21st Century Principal

MAY 23, 2011

'“It’s time to lift the cell phone bans, open the wireless for student personal devices, and stop filtering social technologies.” That seems to be the idea in a position statement released by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. NASSP in this statement includes recommendations to school leaders on what to do with mobile and social technologies.

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EdTechSandyK

MAY 26, 2011

'Photo by Flikr User redjar Used Under a Creative Commons License Today is the last day of school in my district. Usually, this day does not cause me too much pause or reflection because for the last four years since I''ve worked from the district technology department, it has signaled a transition from "school year busy" to "summer staff development and projects busy.

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System Meeting Classroom Policies 74

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SpeechTechie

MAY 24, 2011

'This week, I thought I should acknowledge the S in my title (should I have called this blog LanguageTechie?) and feature a few products that make good use of technology in articulation interventions! 2 Gals Speech Products'' software program (compatible with Mac and PC) Adventure Pack takes the drill-and-play approach to a new level that is sure to engage your students while they practice sounds.

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Software Course Technology 74

The Learning Revolution Has Begun

MAY 21, 2011

'Join me Wednesday, May 25th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with Sir Ken Robinson about the extensively revised and updated version of his best-selling classic, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative. We''ll talk about why it is essential to promote creativity, what happens in schools to make us think we are not creative, and what schools and organizations can do to develop creativity and innovation in a deliberate and systematic way.

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Strategy Conference Company Training 78

EdTechSandyK

MAY 22, 2011

'I have been learning a great deal about the political process since the start of the 2011 Texas legislative session by participating frequently in legislative matters pertaining to public education. As the Texas budget crisis and its implications for our public schools drew my attention to politics in a way it had never been drawn before, I called, wrote letters , and emailed Senators and Representatives with my opinions.

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Connecting 2 the World

MAY 26, 2011

As promised, here is the first draft of my study findings. I'd appreciate feedback. The traditional model of collaborative knowledge is based on the type of knowledge (moving from tangible to intangible, explicit to tacit) and the place of collaboration (moving from the individual to the group to the organization). The assumption is that knowledge within an organization is housed and can be captured for use.

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Study Groups Training Report 63

SpeechTechie

MAY 22, 2011

'Articulation.notice I don''t write about it much. You can do the math. We all have pieces of our wide scope of practice that we enjoy more than others! To usher out Better Hearing and Speech / May Month , I thought I would do something different here and focus on a topic that I have thus far neglected: Artic! After this week I am going to go into my "Summer Slowdown" mode and you''ll only be hearing from me about once or twice weekly, while I recharge and get ready for an exciting Fall!

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iPad Tools 59

The 21st Century Principal

MAY 21, 2011

'The other day, someone asked me to explain to him why I thought it was so important for administrators specifically, and educators generally to become Twitter users. He had a Twitter account, but still did not see much use for it. He knew I used it regularly, so I really think he was looking for an argument. He really wanted to make sure I knew of his belief that "Twitter is a waste of time.

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Twitter Social Media Education Resources 93

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.

Training

EdTechSandyK

MAY 24, 2011

'As part of my research into Web 2.0 resources for possible use in our school district, today I looked into Voki , a website which allows users to create talking avatars. There are many options for creating the avatars, ranging from realistic looking people to fanciful animals. The speech of the avatars can be typed speech that is then spoken by a computerized voice, or it can be the recorded speech of a live person.

Classroom 66

Classroom Policies Resources Technology 66

The Electric Educator

MAY 23, 2011

'I am helping launch an iPad initiative at my school and was excited to get my hands on one a couple of weeks ago. Last week I had the opportunity to try out iMovie for the iPad ($4.99) while taking 45 9th grad students on a field trip to the Detroit Zoo. Throughout our trip I took pictures and video using the integrated camera. All of the editing was completed on the fly using the mobile version of iMovie.

iPad 49

iPad Mobility Video Twitter 49

SpeechTechie

MAY 25, 2011

'Continuing Artic week here at SpeechTechie, 5 Minute Kids by Susan Sexton is a very useful manual and resource outlining an approach that worked well for me (and my graduate student interns) in my last year at my previous elementary school. 5 Minute Kids does not relate to technology, really, but is rather an innovative "outside the box" approach to providing articulation therapy in the school setting.

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Elementary Policies Groups Resources 49

The 21st Century Principal

MAY 21, 2011

'According to the 2011 K-12 Horizon Report cloud computing and mobiles are on what it calls the “near term horizon” which means these technologies are likely to see mainstream adoption in the next 12 months. Our district has been using Google Apps for almost a year now, and I’m not sure anyone even remembers what life was like “pre-Google Apps.” Our adoption of this cloud-based service has impacted more and more of how we carry out our business as educators.

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Google Report Software Examples 75

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.

Technology

EdTechSandyK

MAY 24, 2011

'Photo Courtesy of MorgueFile User mzacha [link] There is no doubt that multimedia creation is an engaging activity for students who have grown up in a world saturated with video games, MP3 players, and videos and music everywhere they turn on the Internet. I am researching a few Web 2.0 tools that teachers in my district want to use with students. One of them is Animoto , a multimedia video creation tool.

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Policies Conference Video EdTech 63

wwwatanabe

MAY 23, 2011

'After reading Kathleen Morris'' post about digital footprints and LinkedIN, I thought very carefully about the digital footprints of educators. Some rights reserved by anneh632 What are Digital Footprints? During my first year of marriage, my front yard was the Pacific Ocean. Everyday I took a walk along the beach and loved feeling the wet sand on my feet.

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Digital Citizenship Groups Examples Learning 49

The Learning Revolution Has Begun

MAY 21, 2011

'Below are this week''s public, free, and interactive Webinars through LearnCentral.org , the social learning network for education that I work on for Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). The time of the events below will show up automatically in your own time zone when you are registered in LearnCentral and when you have chosen your time zone in your profile, or you can check the new event time converter on the event page.

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Blackboard ePortfolio Online Learning Google 46

The 21st Century Principal

MAY 23, 2011

'According to North Carolina Senate Leader, Phil Berger, "We''ve got big changes coming the public schools in North Carolina this year." Some of the earlier changes mentioned were: zero money for textbooks, instructional supply money cut by half again, and no professional development money. Our politicians want to hold us accountable for teaching kids but don''t want to fund the tools we need to do the job.

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Education Policies Classroom System 63

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EdTechSandyK

MAY 22, 2011

'If you visit this blog with any regularity, you''ll notice there''s been a bit of a makeover to its look. I loved the techie look of my previous template, but because it wasn''t originally a Blogger template, and because it was designed before Blogger rolled out features like the ability to create multiple pages and the "links to this post" feature, I was limited in trying out some new Blogger tools.

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Tools 56

The Daring Librarian

MAY 22, 2011

'I can''t believe I''m giving Rebecca Black another mention on my blog! But she and her viral video are really great examples of an Internet Meme. And after 146,797,514 views of her orig video below and a growing number of re-makes this is also another excellent example of the Re-mix Mash-up revolution as I''ve mentioned before! The Digital Remix Mash-Up Culture Explained Blog fodder FTW!

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Digital Divide Trends Report Video 38

The Learning Revolution Has Begun

MAY 21, 2011

'Join me Tuesday, May 24th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with author and consultant Stephen Denning as we discuss his most recent book , The Leader''s Guide to Radical Management. We''ll discuss the imminent changes he sees in the workplace, and the impact those changes are likely to have on how we think both about educating and the educational workplace.

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Education Study Learning 39

The 21st Century Principal

MAY 27, 2011

'Diane Ravitch recently was interviewed by Dan Rather on HDNet. During that interview, she emphasized several things the public needs to know about the current state of public schools. "No Child Left Behind has set our public schools on the road to destruction." I have often wondered if the true motivation behind that legislation was to simply make sure schools fail so that arguments for privatization would be stronger.

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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.

Comparison

SpeechTechie

MAY 25, 2011

'I''m continuing articulation week here on SpeechTechie, but again, I have to disclose more specifically that I have not worked with an articulation client in two years; my private practice work has been confined to language and social communication. However, since I am getting back in the game for the next school year, I am sure I will be having more to say about artic!

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Technology Exercises STEM Study 84

The Daring Librarian

MAY 26, 2011

'I can''t help myself. I love me some JT. He brings my Sexy Back! (not that it ever left! ;-).But almost as much I love Justin Timberlake, I adore this new app that "plays" the vinyl records of my youth AND let''s you "scratch" as if you had 2 turn tables and a microphone (Beck knows where it''s at!) And.it''s only $1.99! Thanks to my dear friends Joquetta Johnson & Donna Anderson - my Appolicious Queens of the i Pad I learned about this at the MSET spring board meeting last week!

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iPad Facebook Software Libraries 33

mauilibrarian2 in Olinda

MAY 22, 2011

'I got caught in an online marketing scheme this morning, and a Twitter stranger rescued me! This is what he tweeted directly to me, after I had posted a "Top 100" blog list from online colleges. "Please read this about ''top 100 blogs'' [link] And RT!" A money-making ploy, and I was an unwitting promoter! I did a little checking. Some of the URLs of these Top 100 lists change as the page is loaded, redirecting the viewer to online colleges.

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Khan Academy Twitter Learning 40

The 21st Century Principal

MAY 21, 2011

'Recently, I posted a list of my " Administrator''s Complete List of iPad Apps " and in that list, I suggested BlogPress as an app for posting to blogs using the iPad. BlogPress is simple to use, but it is not very elaborate and does not offer users a great deal of options. One of my commenters suggested as an alternative the app "Blogsy." I have downloaded the app and tested it out, and I have to say that it is a more tech-savvy option to BlogPress.

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iPad Video 55

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.

LMS

The 21st Century Principal

MAY 26, 2011

'According to professional bloggers Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett, "Web users are known for not staying on web pages long and for skimming content rather than read it word for word." According to them, bloggers need to write content that is scannable because that fits the style of most web readers. Suggestions for Making Blog Content "Scannable" Use lists: Bulleted or numbered lists make content more accessible than when it''s located in paragraphs.

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Training Tools Course Accessibility 59