Once Upon A Teacher

30 Day Photography Challenge

2011-06-18T00:05:00.001-04:00

I really enjoyed and learned so much from doing the 365 day photo challenge last year. I only chose not to do it this year so I could give myself some time to do some online courses in photography. But I have missed the daily challenge of catching a photo to represent my day.

Yesterday, I saw a posting in my facebook feed for a 30 day photography challenge. Apparently, the challenge originated from a photographer who was looking to take some time for herself to capture some images that weren't for her job. Her original post became extremely popular, so even though the first challenge start day has passed many others are joining in when they can and completing the 30 days from their start. A new facebook page was started for the project and it is saying that the next start date will be Monday, June 20th. My first instinct was, "I'm in!"

So, what do you think? Does this interest you? Would you like to join in and share photos for the challenge? I'd love to meet some new photography lovers and also see lots of photos from people I know. You don't have to have a DSLR camera. You can even use your iphone if you like! Here's what you need to do after you take your photo each day:

Add your photo to this flickr group (join flickr).

Label your photo with the Day # and topic.

Look at other photos in the group and comment on a few.

Have fun and get as creative or as literal as you like!

Help us build the ARC!

2011-05-17T12:46:00.000-04:00

The majority of our at-risk students at Chets Creek Elementary come from one specific impoverished community nearby. In order to meet the needs of these students outside the school day, last year we launched an Academic Resource Center inside the community. My co-worker, dayle timmons, best describes the center here.

As we approach the first year anniversary of our center, we are looking for ways to fund more opportunities for children and families at the center. We decided to apply for a grant from Community First Credit Union. Here is the digital story I created to help let people know how important this work is:

I'm asking you to take a moment to help us. Please "like" our submission on facebook, to help us win. The "like" button is below the entry.

Do you have something similiar you are doing in your school? How is it funded? I would love to hear your ideas! Thanks friends!

Speedgeeking...The Sequel

2011-04-29T15:15:00.000-04:00

One of the most popular technology trainings we have ever done at our school was Speedgeeking. Speedgeeking is a great way to showcase several different technology tools in a short amount of time. It is also one of the most entertaining trainings we do. You can revisit my post from last year's session to get the break down on how we set it up because it worked so well we used the exact same format.

Last year, my technology team and I focused on tools for teachers to use with students. This year we wanted to focus more on tools teachers could use themselves. We have had so many people ask us about this training, we tried to capture as much of it as we could for you to see. Nothing fancy, just real teachers having fun, learning and sharing with the peers in an imaginative way.

Introduction: Done in the media center where we explain format and split up in groups.

Speedgeeking Intro from Melissa Ross on Vimeo.

Sessions: Where they rotate to the rooms where the tools are taught
JAMENDO

Jamendo from Melissa Ross on Vimeo.

WYLIO

BIG HUGE LABS

Big Huge Labs from Melissa Ross on Vimeo.

SYMBALOO

SKYPE

Skype from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

My technology team really owned this for the second year in a row. These are full time classroom teachers that only meet with me one morning a month and then endure my emails the rest of the time. :) A big thank you goes to them for teaching the sessions, planning and organizing and this year...FILMING so you could learn from them as well.

Our review from the faculty was done in the same cheeky way as last year. You can see the results here.
We would love to hear what you think and to get your ideas for topics we could possibly use for next year....speedgeeking, the trilogy!

My 2010/365 project

2011-01-06T13:47:00.000-05:00

When I first heard of the 365 photo project, which consists of taking a photo each day and posting it, I thought it was interesting. I enjoyed looking at the photos being shared on twitter and enjoyed perusing the 365 groups on flickr. As a mom with young children, there are many times I wished I had a camera ready to snap a cute moment. So in 2009 I gave the project a try ...and fizzled out.

But what I discovered from looking at my colleagues pictures on flickr is that I really enjoyed looking at how moments were captured; composition, lighting and expressions. I found myself continuing to keep a camera with me at all times and photographing moments and images I never had before. I decided to trade my point and shoot camera for a DSLR and a love affair with photography truly began. I couldn't wait to begin the next year with a new 365 project.

So here I am proudly sharing my first completed 365 project. You can look at them all individually here where I have written a little description for most of them, but what I really looked forward to doing was putting my completed project into a video like my friend Dean does. What I noticed while putting them together is that my photos really do tell the story of my year. They show my life as a mother, aunt, teacher, friend, reader, shopper, Floridian, Disney fan and most of all, photographer. I hope you enjoy watching. :)

Melanie's 365/2010 project from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

Thankfulness

2011-01-06T12:33:00.000-05:00

Ok, this is exactly why I needed the blog challenge. I need a post to be burning under my feet to get written. Even if I'm running late getting it up I am thinking about it constantly and crafting it in my head. (Over a MONTH late!) So, on that note, better late than never....here are my thoughts on thankfulness.

I am thankful most of all for all of the things I should be thankful for, my beautiful family, God, my job, friends, etc. I don't mean to belittle those things, because they are BIG things, but this year I tried to think a little further about things I take for granted.

The first thing that came to mind was simple: health. For the past 2 months I have watched my mother undergo radiation and chemotherapy for throat cancer. We have been blessed that they found it early enough to treat and she has a good prognosis for recovery. But during the treatment it has been difficult. I have been reminded to be thankful for small things we take for granted with our health... being able to swallow easy, a sense of taste, energy to get up in the morning, healthy skin and having the luxury of hair on our head.

I have also been reminded to be thankful for having a mother still walking on this earth.

Day by Day: Refining Writing Workshop Through 180 Days of Reflective Practice

2010-12-10T05:49:00.000-05:00

When Stenhouse Publishers recently contacted me to be a part of their new blog tour, I was thrilled to find out the authors of the new book were Stacey Shubitz and Ruth Ayres because I am a big fan of their blog! Their ideas are simply yet thought provoking as they focus on what they are thinking about and learning daily as teachers of young writers.

Reading their new book: Day by Day: Refining Writing Workshop Through 180 Days of Reflective Practice did not disappoint. It incorporates their same easy to follow style of writing in a format that makes it possible for teachers to pick up and use those lessons the next day as well as learn to improve on their lessons based on the reflections Stacey and Ruth have made following each lesson.

One of my favorite things about the book is that so many of the lessons include strategies for writing that really double as strategies for differentiation. One such strategy is the Plan Box. Before students even left the gathering area from the lesson for work session, they were to draw a plan box which basically consisted of the steps they needed to complete when returning to their desk. This helped students stay on task and helped students internalize mini goals for that day.

In the book, Ruth and Stacey have this quote from my favorite fiction author, Jodi Picoult:

I think we have stories because they help us understand who we are.

Often I have felt like that is an important, yet challenge goal of Writers' Workshop. Kids may be egocentric but they don't really understand who they are. Ruth and Stacey have a great strategy they call collecting bits of life called ephemera. Ephemera is artifacts from your life. Ticket stubs, doodle notes, drawings, candy wrappers...basically anything that represents who you are as a person. After reading about ephemera I have been noticing the little artifacts of my life. So many things that I have been tossing in the trash could be "seeds" for new writing ideas. I love that strategy!

There are so many things in the book that I have underlined and highlighted to try in a lesson, but you can preview the book online yourself here. This is a must read book for writing teachers that will be a great resource for you to return to year after year as you plan for your young writers.

In planning for my interview with Ruth I wanted to find out what the readers of my blog wanted to know about Writers' Workshop. I solicited questions from a few of my colleagues here at Chets Creek Elementary where I work and our friends at International School of Bangkok. Ruth was kind enough to agree to meet with me "virtually" on skype to answer these questions. (We had a little weather delay as a snow storm scrapped our first meeting time! Sorry for the delay in posting!) I enjoyed chatting with her and getting to know her better as well as hearing her thoughts in person. I hope you will enjoy this as well.

A Conversation with Ruth Ayres from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

Check out the previous stops on the Blog Tour:
A Year of Reading
Raising Readers and Writers
Write Brained Teacher

My Life as a Writer

2010-11-16T15:27:00.000-05:00

I never really considered myself a writer. I struggle with it even now, staring at the same sentence for five minutes, erasing what I just wrote and staring into space trying to gather my thoughts. I think it is because of the way I think. I'm not a sequential thinker. If you know me well enough for me to just randomly tell you what I'm thinking you might think I'm ADD. My thoughts and ideas jump all over the place. If I need to follow a thought or idea through I really need to make myself a list and keep myself on task for it to get done. And that is probably why I'm not a fluent writer. I don't write down a plan. I try to muddle though my thoughts in the post and many times end up thinking my writing sounds just like chit chat. I know that may be okay, but the chit chat has to stay on topic!

My life as a writer has had a complete metamorphosis in the last several years. Basically, the only writing I do on paper is a to-do list for the day. It keeps me focused, sitting on my desk next to my elbow. I have tried to replace it with online to-do lists. They just don't cut it for me. Other than that, my writing is done on this blog, on twitter, on my ipad, in email and on facebook.

It has occurred to me that my children probably wouldn't even recognize my handwriting if they had to identify it. That really bothers me, because I treasure the letters I have from my grandmother and father who have since passed away. I would recognize their script anywhere and it brings comfort to me to get out those old letters from time to time. I really need to sit down and take the time to put pen to paper.

What is your Life as a Writer like?

Catch up with other posts in the Fall Blog Challenge.

The Small Moment that Made a World of Difference

2010-11-14T23:08:00.000-05:00

Photo by hira3 on flickr

There are many small moments with my kids that I wish I could capture and remember for posterity. I don't mean the award ceremonies, dance recitals and birthdays, although those are really special memories. I mean the really small moments. Where they ask questions or share ideas. Or just surprise you with what they do.

Recently, my son looked across the kitchen table at me and said, "Mommy, do people on the other side of the world stand upside down?" I just had to laugh.

His class just finished studying the author, Mem Fox and learning about Australia. They even skyped a teacher from Australia! I remember specifically talking to him about how it was midnight for her and we just finished breakfast. I guess there is still room for misconception in there, but I'm struggling a little with how to make him understand.

Any suggestions?

Blog Tour Coming

2010-11-08T00:43:00.000-05:00

My latest professional read is Day by Day: Refining Writing Workshop Through 180 Days of Reflective Practice and I'm proud to announce that Ruth Ayres and Stacey Shubitz will be stopping by here on their upcoming blog tour! I can't wait to talk with them! Here are the stops on the tour:

Dec. 6 – A Year of Reading
Dec. 7 – Raising Readers and Writers
Dec. 8 – Write Brained Teacher
Dec. 9 – HERE !

There's still time to drop by Stenhouse Publishers to preview the book online or purchase your own copy. I'd love to have some thoughts and questions of yours to add to my own. Happy Reading! And Writing!

What Book Made the Biggest Impact on your Life?

2010-11-05T09:40:00.000-04:00

I have always been a good reader. I loved school, enjoyed going to the library and would rather draw or write than play outside most of the time. I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up from the first time I helped a little boy sitting next to me in first grade. But my passion for reading didn't develop until the fifth grade.

In fifth grade I learned about the presidents, was a school patrol and I fell in love with reading. Everyday after lunch we put our metal lunchboxes away and settled in our desks to hear our teacher read aloud from a chapter book. The one that I remember the best is: Where the Red Fern Grows by: Wilson Rawls

I was a ten year old kid living in the suburbs. Having no schema for this story's setting caused me to really use my imagination. I was transported to the Ozarks of Oklahoma, with a little boy saving his money penny by penny to have enough to buy two coonhound pups for companionship and to help him "treeing" raccoons. And even though I had nothing in common with the character in this story, I felt like I was there with him in his tragedies and triumphs. I hung on every word as my teacher read this story aloud. I dreaded the moment she would close the pages for the day. Tears leaked from my eyes as the story ended and I furiously wiped my face before my classmates would notice. I hated the story to end.

This book impacted my life the most because from that day on I always had a book ready to read. I tried to read all the Newbery award winning books, the entire Little House on the Prairie series and any books written by Judy Blume. I chose the specialty of reading/language arts as a teacher and enjoyed transporting my students to that place that my teacher had taken me, surrounded by the magical words of a story. I have grown up to be an avid reader myself. I surround my own kids with books and even though my 14 year old thinks she has outgrown read alouds, I hear her slip into the room while I'm reading to my 7 year olds.

Other bloggers sharing their posts from the fall blog challenge can be found here :)

My Life as a Mathematician

2010-10-24T23:00:00.088-04:00

Photo by DaveKav on flickr

To be completely honest, math was not my best subject in school. I managed through high school because I was a good student and I had a teacher that was willing to give extra time and help me, but in college it was another story. I took College Algebra my first semester and failed it. Waited another year and then failed it again. I finally ended up taking it my last semester of school (for the fourth time) and passing it with a C. Tutoring made only a marginal difference. I finally passed and understood what I was doing when I had a teacher that really taught me the how and why of algebra. She cared about whether I understood the material or not. She made me feel like it was okay to ask questions. I have never been more excited in my life to receive a C!

Today I know that my foundational problem was number sense. I am not able to figure sums in my head with confidence, or estimate reasonably. Directions, distance and elapsed time take me twice as long as others. I am beyond thrilled that I can calculate tip percentages and sale prices on my iphone. (I used to use a piece of paper.) And yet, the holes in my math knowledge continue to haunt me.

My 14 year old daughter struggles with math more than I did at her age. This year, she is taking Algebra for the first time. My life as a mathematician now has become...relearning Algebra! But there is a big difference between then and now.

Now, I'm not alone.

I have sent messages out on twitter to get help from my PLN and immediately had some great resources and tutorials that helped us struggle through her homework assignments. And thankfully, her teacher has agreed to hold morning tutoring sessions this year. This has made a big difference in my daughter's comfort in asking questions and getting help in class. She now spends most of our evening homework time teaching me.

So my life as a mathematician is all about learning right now. So maybe I won't have to use my iphone apps to "figure" everything out all the time anymore.

My "Class" Poll

2010-10-15T16:01:00.000-04:00

I wanted to add a class poll to the Fall Blog Challenge for the specific purpose of showing that sometimes...it doesn't need to be difficult. You don't need to struggle over what to post about on your blog. You can simply share the individual results of a question you posed to the class, such as their favorite part of an activity, what they learned in a lesson or their opinion about something. Kids also like to read what their friends wrote or answered.

That being said, I think there is an aspect of this that could be interesting to the edublogger as well. You might be surprised if you ask a question to the folks around you. I know I was.

I used my faculty as my "class" and asked the question: If you could buy any one piece of technology, what would it be? Here's what they told me:
Principal
S.Phillips - ipad

Kindergarten
J.Johnson - macbook

L.Perez - laptop

D.Barber - huge flat screen TV

N.Thomas - laptop

L.Sambito - ipad

D.Cothern - ipad

M.Ellis - ipad

JJ.Brown - ipad

V.Cole - ipad

B.Ciupak - ipad

First Grade

P.Wallace - smartboard w/tablet and ipad

T.Chant - smartboard

T.Ruark - smartboard

R.Roberts - smartboard

M.Mallon - ipad

C.Dillard - ipad for me, smartboard for kids

D.Harbour - electronic reader for me, smartboard for kids

D.Timmons - for tech to work!

Second Grade
R.Bridges - smartboard

H.Correia - laptop

L.Metzger- ipad

K.Morris - ipod docking station

J.Shaffer - headphones

D.Rossignol - headphones

K.Nelson - laptops for students

L.Morgan - iphone4 or ipad

W.Lankford - kindle

C.Walag - ipad

L.Thomson - flip video

C.McLeod - digital DVD recorder

B.Roberts - ipad

Third Grade

L.Patterson - new pool that can convert into a patio with push of a button

L.Hoffmann - smartboard

K.Symons - ipad

R.Timmons - student response system

M.Ross - ipad with camera

A.Russell - digital video camera

C.Constande - ipad

T.Sani - ipad

M.Corbett - smartboard

D.Evanko - flatscreen LCD TV

C.Tsengas - ipad

C.Chascin - kindle

Fourth Grade

J.Nash - student response system

C.Montero - smartboard

B.O'Connor - smartboard

J.Montisano - smartboard

A.Phillips - multimedia speakers

R.Pinchot - smartboard

M.Launey - whiteboard and laptop

Fifth Grade

K.Shannon - Google TV by Sony

T.Ruark - 4G cellphone

T.Lehane - laptops 4 kids

S.Rabe - iphone

C.Swidorsky - macbook

L.Werch - external hard drive
ResourceJ.Snead - large format photo printer

K.Cherney - 30 flip videos or ipod

D.Tamburrino - ipod docking station

N.Hall - flip video

R.Robinson - GPS for wife

J.Plank -smartboard

J.Gannam - laptop
S.Shall - macbook pro

B.McCall - ipad

And for me, I've been wanting a good pair of multimedia speakers and a microphone :)

I wasn't surprised that so many wanted ipads. I looooove mine. But I was surprised that so many wanted a smartboard. Especially since I'm not a big fan of smartboards, and neither are the few teachers I know that have them. It surprised me for sure.

What would you buy?

Check out the other posts from the fall blog challenge in the right sidebar of my blog!

My Life as a Reader

2010-10-10T21:47:00.001-04:00

Many years ago, I heard Lucy Calkins speak about teaching reading. There were many things she said that day that impacted my teaching in so many ways. One of the things she said was: Share your life as a reader. Let kids hear about your reading habits. They need to know it's not just a subject, but a part of everyone's life. I also think that sharing a little bit of the "personal you" with you students helps them feel more comfortable with sharing their own thoughts with you.

I am a zealous reader. If I don't have a book to read and a book waiting to be read...then something is very wrong. I love learning new things, meeting new characters, reading a new author's craft, settling in to a familiar writing style and escaping to a different time and place. If I find an author I like, I try to read all of their books. I'm such a snob about new authors because I don't want to waste my precious time on a book I won't like, so I only read books that have been recommended to me. I even keep a digital book log in Google docs, by author, to keep track of books I've read so that I don't accidentally reread them years later (I am the only one stupid enough to do that? ) But it's very handy when I'm at the store or library. I simply pull up my docs account on my iphone to check to see what books I haven't read by a specific author.

People ask me all the time, "How in the world do you find time to read?" I like to use a phrase that I learned from Lucy Calkins. I make time by carving out time for reading in my day. If I look at my busy day that starts at 5 am and ends after my 3 kids' extra curricular activities and their homework then I wouldn't find the time. But I start by always keeping a book with me. I read while I'm drying my hair, sitting in the car line after school, at the waiting room during appts. with the kids, while waiting for a training to start and then maybe for 15 minutes in a quick bath before bed. (My favorite reading spot!)

My life as a reader has changed in one signifigant way this year: the iPad! Once I read a book on my iPad, I was hooked! It's easy to keep in my purse, I always have the next book ready and waiting to read. I. Just. Love. It. But I do have one confession to make, after reading about 5 books in a row on the iPad, a friend loaned me a book she had bought. I opened up that paper book after several weeks of reading and realised... Acckkk! I could barely read the words. I had been using the larger font feature on the iPad and turning up the brightness on the backlighting. Ahhh, I guess it's time for glasses.

Check out posts by others participating the the Fall Blog Challenge 2010 on the right sidebar of my blog :)

Are You Ready for a Challenge?

2010-09-30T10:09:00.001-04:00

Are you a steady blogger? Always coming up with more ideas than you can possibly write about, zapping out regular posts to your readers?

Well, I'm not.

And when I do have an idea for a post, it never seems to get written. Other things bog me down, or it seems that I let them. And I'm always feeling guilty that I'm not a better role model for those I coach. I know that if you provide regular content and read and comment on other blogs, you build your readership. And that's what I want to model for others. So I decided that I need to ramp up my blogging with a challenge. A challenge to myself to blog regularly and a challenge to the teachers I coach to think about different topics to blog about and to provide posts that they maybe hadn't thought about writing about on their blog.

So here's the challenge: Write one blog post a week for 10 of the next 11 weeks. Tag your post with "fallblogchallenge2010" and I will link back to your posts here as well. I would love an email so that I know you're joining our challenge. Here are the topics you can use, feel free to modify them to suit your needs. I felt like these are things, as a reader, that I would love to know about any educator.

TOPICS

Are you ready to dig in your heels and accept this challenge? I'm committing myself to being a better blogger and hope you'll join me. If we're all in this together we'll be stronger bloggers and blog readers in the end!

Let's Get It Started!

2010-09-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

Ready to get your students started working with technology? Just like any new class year or procedure, you have to start with rituals and routines.

This week I had the pleasure of working with some classes on the rituals and routines of using laptops. After having some "aha" moments and tweaking as I went, I thought it might be worth sharing what I learned.

Prepare the kids in advance with a lesson where you chart some basic expectations for getting out the laptops or entering the room where the laptops are located. If they have to get them out, how will they carry them? If they have to share, who goes first? If you're in a lab situation, do they have assigned seats? One thing that is unique to a technology lesson is that sometimes students will have to look at the screen and sometimes you want them to look at you. How will you get their attention? What do you want them to do to show you that you have their attention? Put your hands up, hands on head, hands under legs... Simple things but they make all the difference in a smooth lesson and positive experience for you and the students.

I tried having students sit in front of their computers and follow along with me once and in another class we had them sit on the floor and went over procedures with a document camera. I think the document camera worked better. They were focused and motivated about learning so they could get their hands on the equipment. We went over things like: power button, trackpad, left and right click, using the shift key (why you need it) and enter. We played a quick oral game while they looked at the keyboard from the document camera. I told them to say "shift" or "no shift" and called out things like: capital M, question mark, dollar sign, comma.

Once it's time for the students to put what they learned into practice you have to tell them what to do to access the internet. Our pc laptops currently have internet explorer and firefox installed on them. Our technology lab has macbooks with firefox and safari installed. Tell the students which one to use, because later when you're giving instructions about opening another tab or a new window it is easier to have the same directions for all.

For each class I wanted to have some kind of quick activity for them to do online to practice with the trackpad and for a fun ending to the lesson. What I learned there is to check to make sure what you chose isn't blocked on the student wireless network! I found a great science game with drag and drop labels on a diagram but it was blocked to the kids due to high school content. Ugh! Fortunately we were still able to do a quick keyboarding practice website they enjoyed a lot. I think keyboarding is a great way to start and as we move into projects and activities they'll have these practice sites to return to if they finish early. Here are some favorites: Keyboard Climber, Keyboarding Games, Free Typing Game, Computer Lab Kids and Powertyping.

I would love to hear some more ideas about what to do with kids the first few times they come to the computer. Please share yours!

Make Me a Story

2010-07-30T11:32:00.000-04:00

You know if you read a professional book during your summer break, it better be good! I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to read Make Me a Story: Teaching Writing Through Digital Storytelling by: Lisa C. Miller. This book met me right where I needed some help.

I have been very familiar with digital storytelling and have toyed with it in my work the last two years, but never felt like I could use it meaningfully with students. I have used and enjoyed Photostory, Voicethread, Windows Movie Maker and imovie but trying to get students to really use digital storytelling has been a challenge due to the lack of computers for student use.

This year, we have the exciting prospect of three laptop carts to be used in classrooms and I'm looking forward to supporting some deep and meaningful instruction with theses new tools. Lisa's book, Make Me a Story, was a great refresher for me on Photostory. She gives step by step instructions with screenshots. Perfect for the digital storytelling newbie or for a teacher to share with her students. The book also includes a CD with student examples of completed projects. A great tool for your instruction!

Finding a way to use digital storytelling in a Reading/Writing/ Language Arts class is a natural fit for me. In planning for other content areas, such as Science, Social Studies and Math, I have been floundering for purpose. Everytime I think of a project it seems like an unecessary "addition" to the work that is already being done by the teacher. In Make Me a Story, Lisa used a list provided by The Center for Digital Storytelling in California to state the elements that can make up a good digital story.

* an interesting question to answer
* impact
* a clear point of view
* economy
* the power of a student's voice
* art that helps tell the story
* the sound track

She has adapted this list to fit elementary students, with explanations of each point in her book. This is the road map I needed for content area digital storytelling! I can see using these elements to do a story explaining a math problem, explain a clear point of view on an event from history or use impact to demonstrate understanding of a science experiment or concept. I can't wait to dive in and give it a try!

I had the pleasure to speak with Lisa Miller about her new book, so I took that opportunity to record a podcast (I've been wanting to try one for a while!) We had a great conversation about meeting the needs of diverse learners while doing digital storytelling, class management and why you should give digital storytelling a try. I hope you'll give it a listen and I hope you'll order a copy Make Me a Story to use with your lesson plans this year. It's a great guide for all levels of digital storytelling learners!

Denver, CO - ISTE, Here We Come!

2010-06-26T00:09:00.000-04:00

My principal and I arrived in the Mile High City tonight excited and ready to attend ISTE 10 and our first Leadership Bootcamp! What a surprise to find Florida weather like ours that turns into jacket weather as the sun goes down. Who knew? We hope you'll follow us and learn along to with us too. I'll be blogging all conference sessions on our Professional Development blog: LIVE from the Creek Hope to see you there!

What We Learned from Philippe Cousteau

2010-06-04T10:41:00.000-04:00

Today we had the opportunity to listen to Philippe Cousteau in a webinar about the effects of the Gulf oil spill, presented to students through Discovery Education Network.

Discovery Education sent an email out yesterday letting us know that over 60,000 educators had registered to attend! They were unable to host that many in the webinar, so we were fortunate to get in and DEN was awesome enough to get the whole thing archived quickly for others here.

Philippe explained, in terms that students could easily understand, what has happened with the oil spill in the Gulf. He explained that even though oil drilling technology has progressed over the years, the technology for cleaning up oil spills has not progressed. They are guessing at what would work each time a new "stop the spill" strategy is tried. He showed them images of wildlife affected by the oil spill as well as video footage where he went diving in the oil.

One of the most powerful moments in the webinar was when Philippe told the students that they should see from this that we need scientists and technology to find solutions to protect our environment. He told them that everything they do can make a difference if they protect our earth's resources. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. The students were totally engaged in every word he was saying. The teacher standing next to me looked at me and we both stood there with tears in our eyes. Hearing this message from Philippe Cousteau was so dynamic.

Philippe left the students with a call to action:
* Stay informed
* Join the Water Planet Challenge
* Become advocates for environment
* Reduce dependency on oil

When the webinar was over we ended by showing the live video feed of the oil spill. I think seeing the actual motion and force of the oil coming out as opposed to photos made the students really see the impact of this spill. I asked the teachers involved in attending the webinar to share with me their students thoughts. One teacher even sent me their class' wallwisher! Here are some of the students' statements that I thought were very meaningful:

* I learned that this disaster is the worst natural disaster in the U.S.
* I can help the environment by using public transportation and reusable grocery bags.
* What I learned was scary. It looks like it will come to our beach. (Jacksonville, FL)
* I will use reusable water bottles and ride my bike a lot more.
* I'm so sad that animals are dying from this.

Many, many of the students thanked Discovery Education for teaching them all about this, as well as Philippe Cousteau. I think it made a huge impact with many. For teachers interested in teaching their students about this, there are also follow up activities offered by Discovery Education Network here.

Speedgeeking

2010-05-16T21:08:00.001-04:00

In my school district, every other Wednesday we have an hour and a half at the end of the day for professional development . This year, we have had two of the training days with technology break out sessions that teachers could choose their learning with tools such as Windows Movie Maker, Voicethread, Microsoft Excel, imovie and Google Calendar. This week was our last early release training day of the year, so we decided to kick it up a notch.

Last year at NECC, I heard the term speedgeeking mentioned in passing but was never able to find out how it was implemented in practice. Through my PLN, I was able to see examples implemented by Kim Cofino and Karen Ditzler, but my Technology Team and I found a way to do it Chets Creek style...

A few days before the event I put a flyer in the teachers' mailboxes inviting them to a "Speedgeeking Event" with the following cheeky phrases listed on the flyer:
       * Have you had trouble finding Web 2.0 tools that are technologically compatible with your needs?
       * Fast, fun, safe, comfortable way to discover technology tools
       * FIVE fun tools in one afternoon

* Confidential feedback given to the technology instead of awkward personal contact

* You may find the technology that changes you life!!!!

When teachers arrived in the media center for an overview of the event we were playing the theme music from Love Boat to set the mood. We handed each person one of an assortment of five color cards so we could sort them into five groups. The plan was to send each group to one of five classrooms in a row where they would rotate through the sessions. I gave two minutes for transitions and ten minutes for each session. I asked the presenters (my Technology Team) to follow this guideline: two minutes - name tool and tell what it is used for, three minutes - show quick examples of the tool, three minutes - create a product with the tool to demonstrate steps and two minutes - questions and sharing how they feel they could use the tool. One of our team members, Maria Mallon, manned the intercom system with intermission messages such as, "Match maker, match maker, make me a match! Time to move to the next session..." "Don't call me, I'll call you. Time to move on to the next session." It was a nice comic relief and seemed to really get everyone quiet at transition time to start moving.

At the end of the event, teachers were asked to go check their email for a link to google form provided for feedback on each tool and the event in general. I wanted to keep the feedback in the form of our "theme" so I listed questions this way:

Do you think this is a tool you would use in the future?

___YES!

___Maybe, if the chemistry is right

___Only on a double date (if someone helped me)

___No way

The open comment area at the end of the form made it clear to me this training was an overwhelming success. They enjoyed the new training format, learning about the new web 2.0 tools and had fun with the playfulness of the theme. Our leadership team is already thinking about how we can infuse more fun themes into our trainings and how to change some of our typical trainings into more fast-paced learning.

Here are the tools my Tech Team shared during speedgeeking:

Flixtime - Cheryl Chascin and KK Cherney shared this fun tool that makes video slideshows. It has the ability to use images, video and text. It creates a product similar to Animoto, but has the added feature of text.

Time Toast - Melissa Ross shared this useful timeline tool. If you look at this example of the Gulf Coast oil spill timeline you will immediately begin to see the usefulness of this tool with your students. 2nd graders used it this year to make a timeline of their own life.

Jing - Toni Chant and Lauren Morgan shared this valuable tool that can snap a picture of your computer screen, record online actions on your computer and can be shared instantly through email or shared links. Look at Toni's example jing on how to log in to your wiki at wikispaces.

Wallwisher - Rachel Bridges and Dorry Lopez-Sinclair shared this unique tool that can post a virtual wall with sticky notes. So much like the actual charts we use in a classroom, this tool extends learning to home and our global audience. Check out the wallwisher that Mrs. Bridges' and Mrs. Correia's class did on the facts they learned about frogs.

Fotobabble - was the tool that I shared. It is a really fun tool where you can take an image and upload audio that goes with that image. Look at some examples of how these kindergarteners used it as a visual for their poetry reading.

If you have a similar type of event we'd love to hear ideas about how to make this and future trainings better and more engaging. Feedback encouraged!

Skype in the Classroom

2010-04-17T08:38:00.000-04:00

We have been asking to be able to use skype as a tool in our classrooms for many years. If you're not familiar with skype, it's a free software application that allows it's users to make audio and or video calls online. Our district has not had the bandwidth or security features they needed to feel comfortable to release this to us. With all of the budget cuts in education, it has complicated the problem even more. So we were thrilled to learn recently that we could begin testing skype on our system.

Our first opportunity to skype came with an administrative leadership team meeting. One of our team members had to stay home with a sick child and we were able to skype her into the meeting so that we were still able to complete her portion of our agenda. What a simple solution! In the past, we would have had to have an additional meeting or add more items to the next agenda.

To get started on skyping in the classroom, I read Sylvia Tolisano's post about skyping Around the World with 80 schools. I signed up immediately to make my contact information available to other schools looking to participate in this project. Before I had time to even think about what we wanted to do first, I received an email from a teacher in PA. Her class was participating in the project and wanted to set up a time to meet with a third grade class at our school. I videotaped our meeting so that the class could share it on their blog with their parents:

Skype with PA from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

The kids loved this virtual meeting and I learned a lot of things I never even considered when using skype personally. Here are the things I need to fix before skyping with a class again:

     * Get an external mic. I never thought about the fact that the kids couldn't all get close enough to the computer for the other class to hear them. I should have had an external mic ready.
     * Bring in my webcam that is not attached to the computer to use. The other teacher had her webcam placed up high so we could see a large portion of the class. I'm not sure how much of us she could see with the limitations of the webcam on our laptop.
     * Have a place ready for the laptop that reaches all the cords and locations it needs to be. This hadn't occured to me when I went into the 3rd grade class and I ended up using books to prop it up. Which worked, but...

The kids on our side were adorable to watch. They waited for each word the other class said and ooohed and ahhhed at their answers. It surprised me when they got so tickled to hear students' names from the other class that were the same in their class. They thought that was so cool that kids in other places had their name. They were very interested to hear that we didn't have the same exact subjects and resources in school.

If you watch the video, you'll know that with just this one exposure, the kids were able to see the possibilities for how skype connects us to the world. They are ready to skype other classes and scientists that can answer their questions! The possibilities are endless. I can't wait...

Graduating to Nintendo DSI

2010-04-13T23:34:00.001-04:00

A little over a year ago, my 6 year old twins got Nintendo DS games. I never really knew much about videogames, so what they could do with them surprised me.

I think my husband is reliving his childhood through the twins because he is constantly buying them new games before they even ask! Recently, he decided they needed to trade up for the latest version Nintendos (which I must say, they knew nothing about...). So he took them up to Game Stop, our favorite used videogame store, and traded the Nintendo DS machines in for Nintendo DSIs.

My son and daughter were immediately able to figure out how to work the camera in the DSIs. They've watched mommy taking a lot of photos lately and couldn't wait to have command of their own picture taking. They cracked me up taking pictures of their toys:

A special blankie:

Things in stores that they want to buy:

And using the camera edit features in the game:

It wasn't 24 hours before I had to tell my son not to surprise people in the bathroom and take their picture. He was so proud of himself for the capture that only promise of consequences got that rule to sink in.

Of course, all of the games that they use and love from their old Nintendos still work with DSI, but I really need some help with what I should be showing them to do. I put parent controls on downloads and wifi. I have no idea what to download and can't really find any good ideas online. I can absolutely think of what to let my kids do on a computer, but the screen is so small on the game that most of the websites they love won't work properly on a DSI. Can you help me? Any suggestions?

Can I Have a Copy of that Picture?

2010-03-22T22:51:00.000-04:00

When I first started blogging, I think one of the most exciting things for me was having the ability to share all the photos I took in my classroom. I knew that my students' parents would enjoy seeing them as much as I had enjoyed capturing those moments. I was a slideshow master, embedding them in blog posts whenever I could. Parents would sometimes ask me for a copy of one of the photos and I would have to get their email and remember to send it to them when I had a moment. Not a huge chore, until you have a big class event and everyone wants you to email them a photo.

There have also been several times over the years where a parent forgot their camera at a special event, or missed the shot they wanted. I always pointed them to the other parents standing around taking photos, but I'm sure they felt unsure approaching others parents they didn't know.

Over the last few years many teachers have asked me, "Isn't there a place online where my parents and I can upload all of our class photos together so everyone can share?" My answer was no for a few reasons. First, in order to use photos from a class everyone in the photo has to have a digital release (per our district). Second, in the interest of proactive safety, I encourage teachers not to post photos of students posed standing alone (which is a very popular shot among teachers) and instead have them use candid shots or group shots of class activities. Third, if you have a "pool" of photos for your class you won't be able to control if the other parents follow the first and second reasons...

This year, a few teachers have tried creating accounts with stores like Walgreens and giving all of the parents the username and password to upload and download from the account without publishing them online. This is a good way around our problems, but not very efficient. Parents would have to know to keep checking the account and some parents may not want to use Walgreens for their photo needs.

Late this fall, I was excited to come across a solution to our problem on my favorite photo website, Shutterfly. They have a service for photo sharing called shared sites.

Shutterfly shared sites allows you to upload your photos in the privacy of your account, create albums to organize your photos by event or however you like and then share the photos or albums you choose to share. To try shared sites, I created a site at Christmas time for my family. I picked which photos I wanted to be accessible when pulling up the site and used that unique url to send out with my Christmas cards. Shared sites can be made public or private. For this purpose, the site was public so that my family members didn't have to log in to view my photos. Not only were my relatives able to see which photos I put on the card, but they could peruse my summer vacation photos and whatever else they wanted to flip through!

After the holidays, I approached my child's teachers and shared that I thought this would be a great way to share classroom photos with the parents and for parents to share with each other. One of the teachers immediately got excited because she already used shutterfly for her photos. She went back to her classroom and created a private share site that day! It can be done in less than 10 minutes, by clicking "create a site" under share and it will walk you though the steps to make your site using your photos in shutterfly.

Our class site is private. That way parents can upload whatever photos they wish to share. When the site is created, parents can be emailed an invitation to join the site and members can either order prints on shutterfly or just as easily download photos to a flash drive. I really like that feature, because I don't print all of my photos. Everytime there is an update to the site, members receive an email to view the new photos there.

It really is as easy as it sounds and we haven't really found any downsides! Do you have a favorite way to share photos in your classroom privately?

Getting Started with Twitter

2010-02-23T14:20:00.011-05:00

The first year we focused on technology in our professional development of our faculty, we highlighted web 2.o tools. This year, we've tried to design more opportunities for teachers to build a PLN and learn what will help them grow personally with technology use. Recently, I sent out a Google form survey to my staff to try to determine what they would like to be offered as small sessions after school. I had several teachers say they wanted to know more about twitter.

I started the session showing this video. My favorite line from it is "real life happens between blog posts and emails." That really is what twitter is to me. Take a look:

Many of the teachers I met with had concerns about privacy. Recently, there have been news articles about supposed crimes committed against people that have posted they are leaving home, thereby notifying criminals it would be a good time to rob their home. Personally, I think that is a stretch. The fact is that if someone knew my name they would be able to Google me and find out where I work. Obviously, I would be at that place of work Monday through Friday all day because I am a teacher. I share my thoughts with folks when they ask, but really it's all about personal comfort level. I would rather be transparent and informed than hidden and in the dark. I think everyone has to make a personal choice. I find it a valuable tool in my professional and personal learning journey!

If you choose to venture into the land of twitter, here's how I think it's best to get started:

* Set up your account by chosing a name that is a username that is easy for others to remember. Many people use their first name and last initial, or last name and first initial, just last name or nickname. Try not to use lots of numbers or a really long name, if you can.

* Make sure you set up your bio profile right away or people may not follow you block or may even block you thinking you are an anonymous spammer. Look at bios of others to summarize yourself the best you can.

* Find a twitter mentor, someone who is already embedded in the twitter process who can help include you in discussions and will be able to answer questions if they come up. I didn't have someone like this when I started but I spent a good bit of time stalking (yes, stalking!) on twitter before I joined. Just watching how the interactions were done and the tone of conversations.

* Find like-minded educators to follow. Twitter 4 Teachers is a great resource that has grouped teachers by subject or specialty area. Click on the persons name and that will take you to their twitter page. If you are logged in, all you have to do is click the follow button.

Once you have an account, set up your profile, tweeted a little yourself and have added some tweeps to follow, I've noticed that some people don't go any farther because they think they have nothing to say. What I would say to you is... give it time. The value grows with the time invested and the relationships you develop there. You begin to notice what others are sharing and it shows you what types of things you could be sharing. Spend time responding to others' posts by replying to them. Place the @ symbol plus their twitter name immediately after it and they will be able to see it later if they aren't online at that time by clicking the replies button on their home page. You should do the same everytime you login to see if someone had replied to you.

One of the ladies in my session asked me, "How do you keep up with this?" My simple answer is that I don't. I follow a lot of people and when I check in I don't go back and read every thing that has happened since I was on last. I check my replies and scan through the recent postings and dive in! :) Twitter is the #1 tool that I use for personal and professional development and it is well worth a try. Do you have any twitter tips to share?

What the 365 Photo Project Taught Me

2010-01-01T11:14:00.007-05:00

A few years ago, I started hearing about the 365 photo project on twitter. I googled it to find out it was a simple project with the challenge of taking one photo every day for a year. The people who had completed the project the year before talked about how much it taught them about taking pictures.

I thought joining the project would be a great way for me to tell the story of a year in the life of this educator and mother of 4 with a crazy, hectic life. I also thought it would help me stay disciplined about taking regular photographs instead of binging on holidays, so I dove in and gave it a try. I did pretty well for about half of the year and then I let circumstances in life get in the way for a few weeks and I found it too hard to catch up. I should have just picked up from there, but I gave up in frustration.

Here is what I learned during that time:
* Always keep your camera with you at all times. Everywhere. No excuses. (You never know when that perfect moment will happen.)
* Get that "film" frame of mind out of your head and don't be afraid to take tons of pictures. You can delete all you want later.
* Take a picture, then change your angle or position on the same subject to take the next picture.
* Find a close up shot to try out on the big picture you are taking.
* Looking at other people's photos on flickr will teach you about how to take better pictures yourself.
* It's ok to take the posed shots, but look for the image with the story (the surprised at having your name called for an award instead of posing holding the award).

Here are the results of my 200 + photos in my first attempt at a 365 set:

Even though I gave up on the project a little over mid-way through, I didn't give up on photography. I continued to follow my flickr contacts. learning from them by what they were doing. I purchased my first DSLR camera, a Nikon D60....which I have since sold and traded up to a D5000. I began to get brave enough to ask other educators questions about photography. Thanks to Ben and Ken I started turning off the "auto" setting and began learning about shutter speed and aperture. Photography is definitely a passion now.

Everyone doesn't have the same experience with this project. But the one thing I notice throughout other group members photos is that they learn to look for the image that tells the story. It doesn't have to be a fancy camera to capture it. Many group members use their iphone camera to take their photos. But if you watch their images over time, they change from staged photos to photos of moments in time. The photos that catch everyone's eye. The photos that tell a story. Aren't we all suckers for a good story?

My friend Dean tells his story well. He put his 365 photos together in video form. Even though I have never met his family, or been with him at his job or house, I feel like I really have peeked into what 2009 was like for him. Grab a soda and snack, click here and be inspired.

Join me on this 365/2010 journey!

A Place for Wonder

2009-10-21T21:46:00.004-04:00

I have heard Georgia Heard speak about her passion for teaching poetry to children and it inspired me to write some poetry of my own. When I heard she had written a new book with Jennifer McDonough, I was intrigued. I began reading it the day I received it in the mail.

A Place for Wonder, Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades, explores the importance of classrooms that encourage curiosity and discovery. What seems like such a simple thing can be easily overlooked if teachers don't consciously provide a place for exploration and wonder as well as integrating habitudes of curiosity into their curriculum.

What I liked about this book, was that it wasn't simply a "how-to" recipe for teaching nonfiction. Don't get me wrong, the lessons, directions and artifact photos are there for you to use and implement in your own classroom, but there is also a lot of thoughts between Georgia and Jennifer about how they came to their ideas and decisions. Reading their after-lesson reflections was what made their work even more powerful. It really helped me understand and visualize their classroom work.

Curiosity and wonder seems like a natural fit for science lessons, but I really would like to see more of it infused in lessons across the curriculum and through the grades. Georgia and Jennifer aren't the only ones talking about teaching curiosity. A recent blog post by Angela Maiers shows her conversation with literacy coaches about looking for evidence of curiosity in classrooms.

Do you have a classroom environment that supports curiosity? What kinds of things do you do?

Kicking off with a Wiki

2009-10-11T09:40:00.009-04:00

Last year, we taught teachers at our elementary school how to use blogs, wikis and other web 2.0 tools to work and teach. We gave teachers choices about when to adopt their use and how they would use them. This school year, we felt like it was important to embed technology use in everything that we could, where technology was the best tool to use. Putting our money where our mouth is, so to speak. So when summer planning began, we considered our tools...

In years past, teachers were given binders containing the faculty handbook and essential schedules and forms they would need at the start and throughout the year. As the year went on, updates were placed in mailboxes or emailed to teachers.

Last year, we purchased a flash drive for each teacher with all of this information pre-loaded, but then still had to email out updates and hope that the most recent file was the one saved.

This year, we decided to keep all pertinent forms, schedules and information on a faculty & staff wiki. We kept the wiki private because it has teacher addresses and phone numbers as well as other sensitive information, but everyone was invited to join so they could upload when needed.
I even managed to convince my principal to film a little welcome message to everyone. I used Pinnacle to put it together. It is embedded on the home page of our wiki. Our school theme this year is prominently featured. I'll let you watch to find out more about it:

The wiki has had many additional benefits we never considered. Here are some examples:

* Instead of turning in meeting agendas, teachers can upload a copy to the wiki for documentation.
* The master calendar that normally is kept in the principal's office is now an embedded google calendar.
* Faculty members that may have not tried to actually use a wiki last year when they learned about them are now having to weekly use and get comfortable with this wiki.
* Our district has limited the size of our email boxes, making it difficult sometimes, to receive powerpoints or other large files. The wiki is a perfect place to store these items for future use.

It seems like the more we use wikis, the more ideas we come up with to use them. We would love to learn how other schools are using them. Please share!

National Educational Computing Conference 2009

2009-07-03T00:12:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone! I just got back from the National Educational Computing Conference in Washington, D.C. and I am on learning hangover! What an amazing experience. My colleague, Suzanne Shall, and I blogged all we learned on LIVE from the Creek (our school's professional development blog) and we're not finished yet! So please hop on over there and check out what we learned. We'd love to hear from you.

Plan on ISTE 2010 in Denver, CO this time next year. We hope to see you there!

Ending with the Beginning in Mind

2009-06-19T21:52:00.018-04:00

When we started this school year going Around the World in 180 Days on a Virtual Learning Adventure, we kicked it all off by spending the first day back for teachers immersed in technology and it's possibilities. We proceeded to have an amazing year of many firsts and I can honestly say I think everyone grew as a learner. I think everyone has schema for where they are going and what their own personal next step will be regarding technology integration and I hope to support them with their steps through next school year.

My principal, Susan Phillips, always ends the last day of school with an awards luncheon for the teachers. We have a catered lunch at a different location each year and enjoy the downtime with our colleagues. But the part that everyone really looks forward to is Susan reading exceptional letters written to her, recognizing faculty and staff for specific awards and revealing our theme and focus for the next year. Keeping our yearlong theme in mind, she "tech-ed up" our awards in fun, meaningful ways.

The Tag Team award went to our PTA President and SAC Chairperson for their year of service and dedication to our school.

The Focused Filters award went to our beginning teachers for wading through (filtering) all that they are responsible for as first year teachers along with the regular responsibilties of classroom teaching.

The Hard Drivers award went to our National Board Certified teachers who received their certification this year. These teachers must amass an abundance of information to successfully achieve the NBCT standing. We had six new teachers (including me) inducted which brings our total to a whopping 22!

The Avid Avatars award went to our Teacher of the Year and Employee of the Year. Like avatars representing the person they are for, these people finely represent their titles and exemplify what a teacher and employee truly should be.

RSS Feeders award went to a group of people that made a difference. We learned this year that the RSS feed was what made a difference in our online contacts. You don't have to go find things online, they come to you! These people came to us with suggestions and help in different capacities that made a true difference in our school.

The Mash Up award went to teachers and staff members who took their knowledge and mashed it up to make new programs and activities that we never knew could exist. These "mash-ups" yielded major amounts of money for charity and birthed new teacher leaders for our school.

The Networkers award went to a group of teachers that "gave back more than they took in". They collaborated online with other classrooms across the world, they used our technology strategies taught through Book of the Month each month and they led their students so that 100% made state standard on assessments.

The Web 2.0 Widgets were faculty choice award. These three teachers were selected because they quickly showed us how technology tools can be easily used and make your classroom a fun place to be.

The Jump Drivers award is the Team award for the best "team" of the year. This year, it was the Foundations Team. They identified a need, early in the year, for an anti-bullying program which they have successfully implemented and plan to continue into the new year.

The Logging Out award was given to all teachers moving away to new opportunities and areas.

The Logging In award is given to new teachers coming to our school for next year.

The most anticipated part of this end of the year luncheon is our new theme video which is shown as we finish our desserts. A pin could drop as the the lights dimmed and we watched:

I'm looking forward to another amazing year at my school. Orchestrating a Symphony of Student Success!

To Homework, or not to Homework...That is the Question

2009-05-25T17:14:00.014-04:00

Even after reading thought provoking blog posts by my friends dayle timmons and Silvia Tolisano about homework, I've been pondering whether to share what I have to say about the subject. A few years ago, I probably wouldn't have shared because I know people have such strong opinions about homework. I think I would have argued with my own self several years ago...but personal experience has taught me a lesson.

Most of the years I taught in the classroom, I had this written somewhere on or inside my students' homework folder: Homework is a way of reinforcing what we learn and do in school each day. I truly believed it. I felt like it was a necessary task. I assigned what I deemed appropriate amounts in a variety of subjects and provided rewards...and lost playtime for unfinished work (I'm ashamed to say). Just as I do now as an educator, I only did what I thought was best at the time...

Being a mommy changed my mind about homework.

I have a 19 year old daughter, a 13 year old daughter and a daughter and son that are 5. My oldest daughter sailed through elementary school. Every day, from kindergarten on, she brought home homework that never took her more than 5 or 10 minutes. Frequently, she finished it on the bus on the way home. I never had to study for a single test with her. The most I ever heard about homework was when I had to purchase supplies for a project. I never really thought about it at the time, but now I look back and think...did that really help her? Was that necessary time spent or could she have been doing something better with her time?

My second daughter had a much tougher time in elementary school. I had to sit with her every homework night from kindergarten on to encourage her and prompt her to do her best. By the time she hit fourth grade, it became what I honestly think of as traumatic. She didn't really understand the concepts the first time they were taught, so the evening's practice was totally worthless. I tried my best to review the work with her again, but she was so frustrated, tired and unsure that we inevitably ended up writing a note or talking to the teacher to get extra help. Fortunately, she had great teachers who gave her as much as she needed during the school day to get her through the toughest times. Teachers helped her. Homework didn't.

Now, in middle school, she needs help almost every night to complete pretty meaningless practice work. She frequently says to me, "I'm just not smart," when I tell her to try her best. Many times, I am unable to follow the directions on the assignment myself! Twice this year, she was assigned "seek and find" word puzzles with more than thirty words to find. Not only does it take her a good hour to do something like that, she does not learn the words in the puzzle as she "seeks and finds." She managed to make good grades this year, but I promise you it wasn't due to homework assignments. How do I know this? Because if it weren't for my help and input her homework would have never gotten completed. It was really more my thinking than hers.

But, I digress, because this really isn't about what is being assigned. This issue to me is: should there be homework at all? I would have to say: NO

The students working above grade level are speeding through their class assignment, the below level students are struggling through and either practicing their work incorrectly or are unable to do the work. What is that teaching either of them? I tried differientiating homework once, and the kids that I felt needed practice the most never did it anyway!

I think that students extending their learning at home needs to come willingly. If they are inspired they will go online and look for more information about what you taught them in class. They'll build their own blog or wiki. They mashup what you have taught them into something new and much more meanful. I can agree with the fact that we may need to provide some tools for home use, such as books at a child's reading level and/or practice activities for a parent to use if they request it. We may even need to spend some time teaching our parents, to help them understand how their children are learning now and what is expected in class.

I've had this conversation with some of my colleagues and we must agree to disagree. I respect their opinion. I have to because I used to have the same opinion. Everytime I ask a teacher why they feel we HAVE to have homework they all have very good reasons. But when I ask them if all of their students do it they all say, "no." And so...are the kids that truly suit those reasons for giving homework really benefitting from the practice work? Does it really "help" kids?

I don't think so. But that's just me. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Building a Kid PLN

2009-05-22T21:41:00.007-04:00

I have always encouraged my 12 year old daughter to blog. In the past she has gone through periods of wanting to write a blog post and periods of not wanting anything to do with blogging. But this year, she has embraced blogging as her personal place to share. I have tried to inspire some of her topics and motivate her, but my influence can only go so far. She looks for comments and cluster map hits. Just like adult bloggers, her audience is important to her.

I explained to her that if you read and comment on other blogs, those blog writers may, in turn, come visit your blog and comment. We set out to find blogs written by kids, for her to read. The few we found weren't up to date, so I put a message out on twitter. Those of us that had some links to share decided it would be nice to have a place to find active kids' blogs to share....so, the Kid Blogs wiki was born!

My daughter's Personal Learning Network (PLN) has begun. I showed my her how to use a Google Reader. It's easy enough for even elementary students. Please utilize this space and spread the word! Kids that are actively blogging need an audience to encourage them. Let's help give it to them!

http://kidblogs.wikispaces.com/

Bringing Flat Stanley into 2009

2009-05-04T20:28:00.019-04:00

Have you heard of Flat Stanley? It was at least eight years ago when I first heard of the Flat Stanley Project. It was probably the first project I ever tried online. In case you haven't heard of it....Flat Stanley is actually a book written by Jeff Brown. In the story, Stanley is flattened by a bulletin board and his family tries to make the best of it by pointing out the advantages to being flat - such as traveling wherever he would like to go in an envelope! The project begins by reading the book aloud to your class, then allowing each student to make their own flat "Stanley" to virtually travel.

When I last participated in this project (around 2001), my second graders eagerly mailed off their Stanleys around the world and waited with anticipation for a return package. We enjoyed receiving the letters and goodies that came back to us and the whole class benefitted from what each "Stanley" learned on his trip.

Recently, my twitter friend Chris Harbeck, asked me to participate in a Flat Stanley project with his children. You see, Chris has twin 7 year old boys and he knew I had twin 5 year olds (boy and a girl). I readily agreed, and soon his envelope of traveling visitors arrived from their long trip from Winnepeg, Canada to my home in Jacksonville, FL.

While the Stanley twins were here with us, we took them around the area and captured as much as we could in photos. In the past, I would have carefully written down all we did in a letter to mail off with copies of the photos. Instead, I uploaded the photos into a voicethread where I could record my twins telling about all they did with their flat visitors. The exciting part about using a voicethread was that the Harbeck twins could then comment back to us about what we said and ask further questions. I think it brought the virtual trip to life. Listen and see what you think:

We still put together a care package to snail mail back to Canada. We wanted the class in Winnepeg to be able to see brochures from sights in the area, have a few shells from our beach and be able to taste the salt water taffy they make so plentifully here. And...the Stanleys needed a way to travel back to their owners!

We had fun bringing the Flat Stanley experience into 2009! Consider participating in this project yourself and make the most of it for your students.

Don't Be a Chicken!

2009-04-21T10:58:00.004-04:00

Each month, my principal rolls out a new Book of the Month to the faculty. The Book of the Month is a common piece of literature that every student in the school reads to create common dialogue among students and teachers. Teachers frequently share or post what they are doing with the Book of the Month on their bulletin board, or on their class blog.

This month we're kicking it up a notch! We love seeing what other students in our building are doing, but we'd really love to see what other kids around the world do as response to literature after reading this book. Anything goes!

Willing to participate? We're looking for preschool through sixth grade classes to add one post on our Big Chickens blog! Here's all you have to do:

* Read the book Big Chickens Written by: Leslie Helakoski
* Do some kind of activity in response to reading this book.

* Email me and request an invite to the Big Chickens blog (please include your name, email, grade you teach, school name and where you are from)
* Accept your invite and add your post to the blog

If you are unable to participate or don't teach elementary ages, please visit the blog and give us some feedback. The kids would so appreciate hearing from their audience.

"We have chicken power. We have chicken brains. We have chicken guts." - Big Chickens by: Leslie Helakoski

A Visit with Seedlings!

2009-04-12T01:11:00.005-04:00

This week, my principal and I were fortunate enough to be invited to speak on SEEDLINGS.

My GTA friends Cheryl Oakes and Alice Barr as well as my new friend, Bob Sprankle hosted a lively conversation regarding the role my principal has taken as technology leader at our school and the ways that I support technology work at our school.

If you'd like to have a listen. Go here :)
Thanks Cheryl, Alice and Bob providing us this opportunity. We had fun!

Engaging the Eye Generation

2009-03-12T21:41:00.003-04:00

I hope you've had a chance to preview Johanna Riddle's new book, Engaging the Eye Generation - Visual Literacy Strategies for the K-5 Classroom. Today, she's visiting here as the last stop on her blog tour. I had some colleagues and readers email me some questions for Johanna after previewing her book and I have so enjoyed the experience of reading her work I really wanted you to meet Johanna virtually! So, Johanna agreed to let me record a Skype conversation for my readers. I hope you'll take the time to watch it. It's well worth your time!

Johanna Riddle - Engaging the Eye Generation from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

To read more about Johanna and Engaging the Eye Generation, you may want to visit the first three stops of the tour:
March 3: Archipelago
March 6: Teching Around the Web 2.0
March 9: Technology in the Middle

Thank you Johanna and Stenhouse for making this tour possible and giving the readers of Once Upon a Teacher such an opportunity. I can't wait to hear what you think!

The Eyes Have It

2009-02-25T21:44:00.005-05:00

If you haven't faced it yet, it's time to take a good look at the students you're teaching. Students sitting in classrooms today are members of the Eye Generation. These students are multi-taskers of their digital, visual tools such as cell phones, ipods, computers and television. They transition from tool to tool without interruption of thought passively taking in their environment's visuals. These students need to be taught to critically examine the images they are encountering on a daily basis in order to come to important conclusions.

In her new book, Engaging the Eye Generation, Johanna Riddle shares her visual literacy strategies for teaching in the K-5 classroom.

Her entire book is available for FREE DOWNLOAD here.

Our friends at Stenhouse Publishers have invited the readers of Once Upon a Teacher to participate in a conversation with author, Johanna Riddle about her new book. What an opportunity! Being able to ask Johanna something about her book or just about teaching visual literacy strategies. And she will answer! Let's take advantage of it.

In her book, Johanna challenges us to all consider a broader view of literacy. Consider the following eight essential categories of literacy in today's knowledge-based society:

* Basic Literacy: The language and mathematics skills needed to function successfully on the job.
* Scientific Literacy: The ability to understand scientific concepts and processes to make good personal and social decisions.
* Economic Literacy: The ability to identify and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of public policies and economic conditions.
* Technological Literacy: The ability to understand and use the tools of technology to reach identified objectives.
* Visual Literacy: The ability to "interpret, use, and create visual media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning."
* Information Literacy: The knowledge and skills necessary to find, analyze, and synthesize information using technology.
* Mulicultural Literacy: The ability to understand and respect differences among cultures.
* Global Awareness: The ability to understand the world's interconnections. (Weis 2004)

Our conversation with Johanna will be posted on March 13th, so now is the time to send me your questions, wonderings or reflections. Please use the comment section of this post or email me to let me know what you think. Let's dig in and really think about how we're addressing the needs of our 21st Century Learners. Free learning, instant access to material and questions answered...what are you waiting for?!?

Looking forward to the conversation...

From PLN to P-L-A-N for Moving our School Forward

2009-02-22T10:00:00.011-05:00

Recently, I read a blog post by Steve Dembo asking, "Is joining a PLN bad for morale?" I was captivated by his examples of situations where educators got hyper-connected with a Personal Learning Network (PLN) online, which, in different circumstances led them to greener pastures.

I can certainly understand where this could happen. I've worked in schools that were not the best for my morale and I did move on, but I HAD to share in my comment to Steve that there is an example of another possibility. That example is my story:

In the Spring of 2007, I began reading a few blogs related to education. My favorite blog was by Rachel Boyd, a primary classroom teacher in New Zealand. I felt like by reading her blog, I was peeking inside what was happening in her classroom. I loved the idea, but didn't really think that I could do it until I saw a file Rachel had attached in the sidebar of her blog. It was titled "How to Start a Blog". Five minutes later, I was blogging! I couldn't believe how easy it was! I also noticed that several of the bloggers I followed were on something called twitter, so I joined to find out all about it. My personal PLN was born.

As the last few weeks of school rolled by before summer, I thought I'd offer to show anyone who was interested how to blog so I sent an email out to my colleagues. About 5 teachers met with me and started their blogs. So that handful of teachers and I blogged last school year. As the year went by we began talking about different ways to use blogs: class news, student work, coaching teachers, highlighting best practice and information dissemination. Other teachers became interested in starting blogs. My principal was very impressed with our work and started her own blog for the faculty. In retrospect, I think that was our turning point. I continued seeking out new ideas and learning about Web 2.0 tools through my PLN in blogs and on twitter.

This school year we kicked off the year with a new theme: Around the World in 180 Days, A Virtual Learning Adventure. The first commitment my principal made to technology was releasing me full time from the classroom to create a new position at our school, Instructional Technology Coach. We planned our first day back for teachers as a showcase for the possibilities for the year. My principal purchased the book Web 2.0 New Schools, New Tools for the entire faculty as well as a wristband flash drive. I contacted a member of my PLN, Jeff Utecht, to ask if he would mind skyping in to our first day session to speak a few minutes about why technology was so important to harness for our students. I watched my faculty coworkers look at the big screen in awe as this charismatic educator spoke to them from late in the evening in Manilla about how technology connects us all. It was a day full of fun, learning and new ideas. We were reborn as a faculty.

Where are we now, in the last half of the year? We have over 50 blogs on our faculty. (Which can be found on our website) My principal blogs, our instructional coaches blog, we have a blog for new teachers, grade level teams blogging, resource teacher blogs, many classroom blogs, school mascot blog, a conference blog and a teacher recognition blog. It's a blog BONANZA! Teachers are also using wikis to share their work.

How does this all pertain to my PLN and the PLN of some of my colleagues? Almost EVERYTHING we learned to do was due to our PLN. We techno-evangelized and the work is being embraced on our faculty. Now I realize that this is not the case for many, but I think it sends an important message that CHANGE IS POSSIBLE!

I am still hyper-connected. I power up at work in the morning and spend my 15 - 20 minutes on twitter, checking replies from the night before, joining in on conversations of the day and adding what is going on in my work. This week alone I learned how to record a skype call and learned some more about copyright. Not many are ready to join me on that journey, but my PLN turned me on to Facebook where I have begun connecting with over 35 faculty members there already! That's what I love about being connected with so many educators, there is always a new idea, always something new to learn and always someone to support you as you try to build a PLN for your workplace.

That's my story, what's yours?

Critical Friends

2009-02-02T12:18:00.005-05:00

I had to to do it. I've seen several blogs sporting their mosaic of twitter friends, so I know it's nothing new...but I love it because most of the twitter profile pictures are the faces of the actual people I'm connecting with on twitter.

I get lovingly ribbed from time to time here at work about "those twitter people" I talk to, but I couldn't professionally grow the way that I have in the past year without twitter. I learn from my "twits" through their "tweets" and I have over 300 people all over the world that I can ask questions.....AND get answers!

Thank you, twitter friends, for helping me grow as an educator. I hope that I can return the favor in the future. <3

Get your twitter mosaic here.

New Mentoring Connections

2009-01-29T09:42:00.007-05:00

Last fall, we were involved in a mentoring project with preservice teachers in Dean Shareski's class at the University of Regina , in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. So, we were very excited to be able to participate again this term.

This time, Dean has teamed up with Alec Courosa to have even more college students mentoring classes across the country. The way it works is that Dean and Alec's students choose from a list of teachers/classrooms which blogs they would like to follow and mentor. The last time we participated, the college students left comments, exchanged emails with the teacher and posted a video online teaching the class about themselves.

Since most of our teachers only began blogging this year, the first mentorship project was a window into possibilities. Instead of just wondering how they could encourage parents to comment on the class blog, they became interested in what our global visitors might have to say about the work going on in their classroom. Watching clustermap hits was a much more personal experience and the students became much more interested in "who" was making the comments when they saw comments approved on a post. They enjoyed getting to respond to comments if it was needed.

We're so excited to be involved in this project again that we wanted to kick it up a notch by starting off with an introduction video from the three classes involved, Jessica Lipsky's 5th Grade, Cathy Daniels & Randi Timmons 1st Grade and Debby Cothern & Michelle Ellis' K class. Last time, the kids enjoyed getting to actually "see" video clips of their mentor, so we recorded a few quick things to introduce ourselves to the mentor. I hope it will help make the personal connections click with the college students. Give them a quick view of the little faces behind the blog and what they are hoping to get out of this experience. Here are the videos:

Kindergarten Mentor Video from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

First Grade Mentor Video from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

I can't wait to see what this term's project brings!

LIVE from the Creek turns ONE

2009-01-24T09:41:00.009-05:00

I was recently reminded by Clustermaps (as they notified me of the yearly archived map) that our Professional Development blog, LIVE from the Creek, has just turned one year old.

LIVE from the Creek began last January as the ten members of our leadership team headed out to a conference in Hollywood, CA. We wanted to share everything we were learning and doing with our teachers and decided the best way to do that would be starting a blog.

Since that time, we've made blogging a requirement for everyone who attends professional development. If they are chosen to attend and would like to continue to attend trainings, they have to be willing to share their work. It's been a huge success. Not only do we have over 90 teachers logging in to read about our learning, we have developed a global audience that gives us feedback through comments.

We just returned from a few days in Orlando, FL at FETC where we blogged our learning. Please jump on over and join in on the conversation!

7 Things You Don't Need to Know About Me

2009-01-02T22:22:00.012-05:00

I got tagged on the Seven Things You Don't Need to Know About Me meme by Anne Oro and Bill Genereux . Some of my office mates know me TOO well, so I had to really work on this! So Anne and Bill, here you go:

1. My best friend in high school was Kevin Bond. We used to sit on the bus together and share Walkman tunes. We lost touch after high school but he has recently moved near my brother so I'm sure we'll see each other and catch up again soon.

2. I am afraid of heights. I don't ride roller coasters, climb ladders or look out the window in airplanes. I can directly link this back to a bad field trip experience. When I was in second grade, I lived in Chicago, Illinois and we went on a trip to the Sears tower. I remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as the elevator climbed over 100 floors. When we got to the top floor the kids in my class all rushed to the ceiling to floor window/wall and I got caught in the crowd. I was unintentionally pushed face first into the window looking down on miniscule Chicago. My mother will tell you that when I brought home my drawing of my favorite part of the trip...it was a drawing of me sitting of the bus returning to school!

3. I love to draw and paint. I am very critical of myself and don't do well when being artistic on command, which is the only reason I did not choose some area of art for my college degree. I used to fill sketch pads with drawings. This is the last one I drew and it is dated '88 (I had my first child the next year). All of the paintings I painted were framed and hung in my dad's house until he died and now they are in my closet. I really can't look at them.

4. All of my family is from Kentucky. I was born in Lexington, KY. Every summer of my life I visited my mother's childhood home in Jenkins, KY on Wheaton Hollow. She grew up very much like Lorretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, which is very nearby (same mountain). My grandfather was a coal miner. When I was little I remember him leaving for work before sunrise and arriving home covered head to toe in soot. The whites of his eyes were the only part that resembled the Papaw I knew. My father grew up in Bagdad, KY on a tobacco farm. My Mamaw always told me stories about having to "switch" my daddy. She said she had a peach tree in the yard that never did get to grow!

5. My favorite kind of music is Hip Hop. It all started in high school with songs like this and this. The top 3 songs in my Ipod right now are this, this and this. I know - I don't fit the mold...but that's the way it is. I also like Country music artists like Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley and Little Big Town.

6. My hair used to be half blonde and half brunette. I was 15 and my favorite rock group at the time was Berlin. It was a interesting look that got a lot of attention, but I wasn't the only person in my high school sporting it. It didn't really suit me, as you can imagine. It didn't help that my hair is hopelessly curly and we didn't have flat irons back then.

7. My first and last car accident wasn't as amazing as Alec Courosa's but it was unusual. I lived in New Orleans, LA when I learned to drive at the age of 15 (you can get you license at this age there). One of the first things they teach you in Driver's Ed is to roll down your windows if you are going into a canal. (The canals run down the middle of almost every street.) The reason is because the water pressure can keep you from escaping. So...when I drove on my first wet road and my car went into a spin...I saw myself heading for a full canal with my brother in the car. I immediately began screaming for him to open the window. I found out that when a car goes airborne into water it will fill halfway up on impact. I watched my brother escape before I tried to get out and the water was up to my neck by that time. With the car in a vertical postion it was hard to wriggle free but I managed to escape with only a few scrapes and the lovely smell of sewage all over. Because the engine was on, the car was totalled. But even though it had just been paid off, my father never complained. Now that I'm a parent, I know why.

I tag the following people:
Susan Phillips
dayle timmons

Suzanne Shall

Jenny Nash
Alice Larson
Christine Cowan
Vicky Banks

Resolutions for 2009

2008-12-31T23:11:00.012-05:00

As I logged in this morning to check in on my PLN, I saw a question that Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach was posing. Before you had a computer or used it as much as you do now....what did you USED to do? This really got me thinking.

I'm constantly trying to find a balance in my work and personal life. I am passionate about both so it seems like just as soon as I get caught up I have gotten myself started into a new project or two....or twelve! So, what did I used to do before I worked on a computer?

#1 Needlepoint - I have a huge case of embroidery floss that has been waiting for a project. I started building my stock of colors when I was in 8th grade. The last project I did was several years ago. At this point, I plan on saving it for my 12 yr. old. She seems interested in learning.

#2 I used to clean regularly - Well, this is self explanatory. Now I find myself looking at a dirty floor or counter and saying, "Oh! I need to clean! Better do that today." When I used to just do it regularly.

#3 Board Games - When my older children were little we played Candyland, Uncle Wiggly, Trouble and Chutes & Ladders. When my friends came over I was always the one to drag out the Trivial Pursuit game. Now, I log in to Webkinz or visit Starfall with my kids way more often than we play board games. I haven't played Trivial Pursuit in many years.

# 4 Write letters on paper - I cannot remember the last time I wrote a letter through snail mail. Part of me thinks I never will again. The other part of me thinks of the shoebox of letters I have saved in my closet that were penned to me through the years from my Great Grandmother, my Grandmother and my father. All have since passed away and it is simply dear to me to see their handwriting with the words
... Dear Melanie,
Anytime I am feeling sad, I pull out one of these letters and read the sweet words written to me by these people. Their handwriting is unique and it makes me sad to think that I'm not sure my own children could pick my handwriting out in a group.

SO! Here's my New Year's Resolutions for 2009

#1 Write a handwritten letter to each of my four children at least once this year.
#2 Play board games with my children more often.
#3 Finish my last incomplete needlepoint project (my youngest daughter's Christmas stocking)
#4 Take better care of myself by losing weight and eating healthy.

I hope this post helps you ponder as I have, how your life has changed and where your year is going. Would love to hear your thoughts...

Reading to Your Child

2008-12-30T23:08:00.009-05:00

With my oldest child turning 19 this month and my youngest two being 5, I've had many years of practice reading books aloud at home. No one showed me how and I wasn't teaching yet when I became a parent, but my own love of reading made me anxious to share it with my children. There's just something magical about pulling your sweet little one into your lap or tight up beside you to share in a story.

Every parent should do their best to make it a priority in their routine. As stated on the Reading is Fundamental website:

Research and practice show that one simple activity — reading aloud — is the
best way to prepare children for learning to read and to keep them reading
as they learn and grow. Reading aloud helps your children develop the
language skills that they will use in school and throughout their lives.

I never really thought about parents not knowing "how" to go about reading aloud to their child, until my friend dayle brought it up. I asked her to remind me about our conversation regarding this many months ago and here was what she said,

"My mother did not read to me as a child so I didn't really have a model for reading for reading to my own child. I had read to the children in my class and had learned to give a performance to keep them engaged, but I had never really applied that to reading to my infant son. I had tried to read to him a few times because all the books said I should but he seemed so uninterested. About that time I happen to see a video of a mother reading to her child, drawing him into the book with voices and questions and conversation. It was so warm and safe. I remember thinking - "oh, that's what it looks like." That single video made all the difference."

dayle's brainchild was to create a bank of videos that demonstrate examples of parents reading to their children. We began thinking about our large faculty and realised that we had teachers with kids of every pre-school and elementary age to possibly use...and that is where I came in. See, my big joke around work is that my job is, "to do whatever dayle tells me" because basically I do! I'm very lucky to share an office with someone with such brillant ideas so I gladly do what she asks. We don't call her "the Queen" for no reason.

So after months of scheduling, taping, editing, posting, etc...the project is finally complete. I didn't always get the lighting and locations I wanted because we had to catch the kids and parents when we could, but the content is what is important. For my techie friends...I edited the footage in Pinnacle and then uploaded to Google video. We wanted to keep each video under three minutes, since this is just a sampling.

View all of the videos on our school website under the page on the left labeled "Read with your Child". dayle has added suggested ideas also, since the videos are just examples of things you can do with your child. I hope you will be able to use them or refer them to someone who may use them. Special thanks to the teachers who allowed me into that personal "magical space" with their child: Haley Alvarado, Meredy Mackiewicz, Randi Timmons, Angela Phillips, Debbie Rossignol, Cheryl Dillard, Rick Pinchot, Julie Johnson, JJ Ossi and Tammi Sani. Below, I'm embedding the most recent taping I did of Meredy reading to her daughter. Happy reading!

Geek Up

2008-12-19T14:38:00.012-05:00

Even though I am now a Google Certified Teacher and a National Board Certified Teacher, I still have A LOT to learn. Sometimes I feel intimidated by how knowledgable other educators are, but it doesn't stop me from asking questions and learning! Keeping this in mind - I try to remember all levels of learners when I'm explaining something in formal training or deskside coaching.

One of my tasks as a Google Certified Teacher is to share what I learn from being a part of that group. I have some classes planned at my district training center that educators can register to take, but I wanted to provide some kind of regular, just in time learning for my faculty. For me, that means I can learn and tinker with something when it is a convenient time for me. Sometimes that is during the school day, but most of the time that is after my kids are all in bed.

So, as I explained in my December newsletter to the faculty, I'm going to be sending out an email with a link to a Google Site that will include "how-to", tips and tricks to use Google Tools. Twice a month I will mail out the link to the site which will include a new page each time. This site will be called - "Geek up with Google!" If you're interested in being a part of this mailing, I would be glad to include you. Just leave your name and email address in the comment section or email me directly at mholtsman@gmail.com I'd be glad to help you geek up!

My Christmas Card

2008-12-14T19:22:00.009-05:00

For the last several years, I've made my Christmas cards online and mailed them out to family members with a newsletter enclosed. Unfortunately, there are many family members that we never see and this is one of the few times that we connect.

This year I wanted to kick it up a notch and do something online as well. I thought that I could include a note or a label that would direct the reader to a link to access something newsletter-ish. My first plan was to put together a video and embed it in the new Google Docs template for a video newsletter, but trying to get my family all together in the same room or trying to find a variety of video clips in my stock became too much... Then I thought I might use the newsletter template and just do an online version of what I normally do, which didn't excite me at all.

After several days of procrastinating, I came up with the idea of using a voicethread. That way, I was able to add what photos I wanted to use from the year and then record each child when I had time. As an afterthought, I grabbed a flip video and filmed a few segments too. I thought the flip turned out a little grainy...but I still used it. I consider this all an experiment anyway. I know some people will never visit the link, but those that care enough will. Here it is, if you care to watch. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

Applying for a job

2008-12-03T13:24:00.003-05:00

The next time I'm explaining why we need to allow kids to create and collaborate online, I'm going to show this video. It was made by a teenager named Judson Collier, who is applying for a job. He was obviously given the knowledge, tools and time in his education to create and innovate. The most interesting thing to me was visiting his website and seeing how he looked up some other videos for inspiration. Self-directed learning is a skill that all students need to be prepared for. Everytime I want to know something I do the same thing, look up examples of how others did the same thing...

Would you hire Judson or someone with a great paper resume'? Which one better informs you about the person applying? Check out his video:

Stop-Motion App-uh-lu-cat-ion from Judson on Vimeo.

Wordle Meme - Documenting your Zeitgeist

2008-12-01T20:55:00.007-05:00

I can always count on my friend, Silvia Tolisano, to push me to try something new. (We all need friends like this.) This learning comes in the form of a meme.

Wordle Meme:
1. Create a Wordle from our blog's RSS feed.
2. Blog it and describe your reaction. Any surprises?
3. Tag others to do the same.
4. Be sure to link back here and to where you were first tagged.
5. Create different Wordle clouds of your blog's RSS over a period of time. Do it once a month for the next year.

Save your Wordle screenshots in a special folder on your computer or even better create a set on Flickr to store your archived clouds. See what story your Wordle clouds tell as you compare them to each other. Start documenting your “Zeitgeist” (Spirit of the Times) as mentioned by Chris Betcher in his K-12 Online Conference presentation I like Delicious Things. An Intoduction to Tagging and Folksonomies

6. Share other uses (at least one) you have found for Wordle (for your students or personally) to your blog post

Here is the Wordle cloud for the RSS feed from Once Upon a Teacher on December 1, 2008.

My reactions? Well, honestly, I'm a little embarrassed that the word shopping is so big. But...on my behalf, I did just get back from New York. And, the word "know" looks like the biggest word! Well, that has to be because of things I want to know, not because I know it all!

I think Wordle would be an awesome tool for writing teachers to use with their students for them to evaluate their word choice in their writing. I can also see it being used as a tool for teachers to evaluate current events/news stories to look at key words being used in the media and if students thought those words should be the focus words.

I know I will use it from now on to avoid the word shopping...

I am tagging the follwing people to join in by contributing Wordle uses in the classroom and getting into the habit of “wordling” to document their “Zeitgeist”:

1. Cheryl Chascin
2. Jenny Nash
3. dayle timmons
4. Suzanne Shall
5. Susan Phillips
6. Lauren Skipper
7. Jen Zawis

Virtual Becomes Reality

2008-11-28T23:13:00.010-05:00

File this one under: Just for Fun.

When I entered Second Life this summer, I didn't know how to do much of anything. So what's a girl to do first in a virtual world? Well, shopping, of course! See, they are nice enough to give you some clothes to start, but this is what I looked like. Plain dress and hair that looked like I just woke up. I don't need a second life to look this way - I can do that in real life! :)

I was fortunate enough to get some tips from a Second Life pro and learned how to teleport and search for clothes, hair, etc... I jumped on twitter to announce my first shopping trip and it just so happened that a fellow twitter-er, Kristin Hokanson, was also learning to do the same. We decided to meet up at a shopping mall in Second Life. I had never met Kristin at the time. I began following her on twitter after seeing her co-present a session on Open PD at NECC. Yet, our avatars met and did a little looking around for new duds. Here's how my appearance changed after my shopping trip. My daughters are horrified (I think they are afraid I will really dress this way...which I will if I ever look this cute.)

Anyway, fast forward five months, Kristin and I both get accepted to the Google Teacher Academy in New York City. Very few of the attendees were staying an extra day for shopping or shows, so we connected up through email and twitter. I reminded Kristin that we had been shopping before...and we had a good laugh on our reality shopping trip.

Thanks for the fun day Kristin - it was nice really meeting you!

Connecting with Everyone

2008-11-25T13:57:00.007-05:00

When I consider my faculty, I see a multitude of learning levels with technology. Not unlike a classroom of students, instruction for all levels needs to be planned and implemented. I'm available for formal or informal coaching sessions with teachers, but what about the learners that aren't asking for help? In a classroom, do we ignore these students? Of course not, we differentiate the instruction to meet their needs. We meet them where they are. I feel I need to do the same with teachers.

Blogging is a great way to disseminate information, ideas and ask questions. But what if the audience you are targeting doesn't all read the blog? Even if they do have a reader service, what if they are way behind on their reading? They won't know that you are giving them essential information. Sometime when I log in to my reader it's too overwhelming to ever catch up. I try to think of these things when I think of other teachers.

Wanting to find an avenue to connect with everyone is where the idea for the technology newsletter was born. I know it seems kind of old school, but almost anyone will take a moment to read a flyer or newsletter. So...you kick it up just a notch with hyperlinks and a limited amount of information - waaa lah! When I began planning the newsletter I considered doing it in Google docs with a newsletter template, but I wanted it to look as much like a traditional newsletter as possible so I simply created it in Microsoft Publisher and then converted it to a .pdf file. I may try docs or Google sites in the future, but I wanted to start out with this and get some feedback.

All of that being said, I almost didn't blog about this. I pictured people running across this post and thinking, "She's doing a newsletter?!? What's up with that?" but then I decided to take a risk and put my thinking out there for you. I just know this will meet the needs of some adult learners and I'm hoping there will be enough interesting tidbits to keep the interest of my advanced learners. Maybe I'm overthinking it all. Sometimes I think about things to the point where the obvious is not apparent! :)

What do you need as a learner? How are you meeting the needs of the learners you are responsible for?

Wireless Please!

2008-11-16T09:52:00.007-05:00

I know wireless access may seem like like a luxury when you have wired ports for the internet, but it's becoming a necessity in our growth as digital learners.

Here is an example:
Our first grade teachers meet for all day training in the conference room which is really the only place where they could all meet on a day where school is in session. There is one internet port in this room (which I'm sure they thought was sufficient when the school was built eleven years ago), so we use a port replicator so everyone can get internet access. That works for surfing easy loading websites and checking email, but not for any kind of collaboration.

I came in for a portion of the day to demonstrate how to add links, documents and videos on the wiki the first grade team just started. As soon as everyone started trying to add things on the wiki the connection either timed out or the upload symbol would
continue and never upload anything. How in the world were they supposed to practice what they just learned? So frustrating!

The same thing happens in the classrooms when you try to check out the laptops and do an activity with the students. I don't know what exactly the speed is on our line, but I've been told our bandwidth doesn't support these kinds of tools yet. At least not on more than one computer at a time. Can't really complain to the technology department alone, they don't do the purchasing for the district...but I need to find out how to help the powers that be see the urgent need. We're trying to educate the digital generation and support digitally literate educators. Wireless with more bandwidth, please!!!!

Why Am I Surprised?

2008-11-15T23:55:00.008-05:00

Even though I know I'm a digital immigrant, I try really hard to keep up with what the digital natives in my house know. This time, my youngest two taught me a lesson!

I recently gave my five year old twins a Nintendo DS for their birthday. They had been playing their sisters' games and enjoying them regularly so I wasn't surprised when they pulled them out every chance they got.

But I was surprised when I heard them giggling at the same time and it occurred to me...if they are playing two different games, then why are they laughing at the same time? I went to investigate and this is what I discovered.

They were texting each other!

First of all, I didn't know that a Nintendo DS had this feature. Second of all, my twins are non-readers and non-writers. So how were they texting? In rebus style!

I shouldn't be surprised. This is why I love technology. Kids do things with technology that exceed my expectations. All. the. time.

Early Release Tech Training

2008-11-12T14:40:00.008-05:00

In my district, we have early release every other Wednesday to provide teachers some time for professional development. Over the years we have used this time for a variety of topics, but this year we are really trying to regularly use it for technology training.

Like a classroom of students, my faculty members are all working at different levels in their technology learning journey. It's important to differentiate their instruction and offer options for them to move in the direction they are most interested in, so the first step in preparing for this training was a survey.

I took the survey results to our leadership team meeting and we decided on these topics for training:

Excel 101 - How to sort data and view reports.
Web 2.0 - What is it? Cool tools to use.
Voicethread - What is it? How to use it.
Wikis - What is a wiki? How do you add to our school wikis?
Blogging 201 - I have a blog, how do I add gadgets and photos?
Document Camera 101 - How to use it, how to snap photos with it.
Email 101 - Adding a signature to your email, folders in Microsoft Outlook.

Breaking up into SEVEN groups would not be possible without my tech savvy leadership colleagues. Thank you: Suzanne, Rick, Melissa, Debbie, Jessica, KK and Susan. After looking at the training needs we simply let everyone offer to lead a session they felt comfortable running. We asked one classroom teacher to join in when we needed an extra hand. Each group had no more than 15 attendees.

Have you tried to do break out training at your school? I'd love to hear other session suggestions or models of in-school training sessions. We felt like ours was so successful that we're offering it again so people can choose different sessions this time!

Three Cheers for the Boss

2008-11-04T20:19:00.004-05:00

I think I may have to retitle my blog to be: I'm so Lucky. I'm definitely going through a gratitude phase, maybe it's the upcoming season.... but I HAVE to spout the praises of my principal, Susan Phillips.

If you watched my Google Teacher Academy video you know that my principal has embraced technology to the point where she commited to allowing me to leave the classroom to work full time at helping teachers integrate technology. She is blogging every week. She attended NECC for the first time this year. She purchased the book Web 2.0 New Schools New Tools, for everyone on the faculty. Most importantly, she allows me to keep pushing the envelope and keep moving forward.

Reading the blogs of other educators, reminds me that if the leader doesn't "get it" it can shut down your possibilities. My leader doesn't only get it, she is tech savvy. Every Tuesday morning, I offer a tech help session called BYOL. It was evident to me around 8pm Monday night, that I wasn't going to make make it on Tuesday because my daughter was ill. I sent a text message to my principal asking her if she could cover me for BYOL. She messaged back -no problem! So, no need to cancel, she covered me. I mean, how many tech coaches could have their principal cover for them?

I'm so lucky! Thanks Susan!

Thank You Google

2008-10-24T20:38:00.004-04:00

The emails went out today for Google Teacher Academy and I AM IN!!!! Thank you to everyone who kept their fingers crossed for me. I can't wait to learn, learn, learn and share, share, share. Watch for more info to come after the GTA on November 18th in New York City.

Google Teacher Academy - Please Pick Me!

2008-10-12T21:53:00.006-04:00

Several months ago, I noticed that a few of the people I follow and learn from online were Google Certified Teachers. I searched Google, and found out that they had attended Google Teacher Academy which is a one day intensive training offered only a few times each year. I registered to receive emails on future academies and found out that Google would be offering their next academy on November 18th, in New York City.

Google Teacher Academy is an opportunity to get hands-on practice with Google tools and other technologies, learn new and innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues and the amazing chance to absorb the creative corporate environment that is Google. The only thing they ask in return is that you share what you learn with other educators.

Only 50 people are chosen for the academy and I can only imagine how many apply. Everyone in the world is invited, but preference is given to those located in the region nearest the academy. It may be a long shot, but I think, well worth a try.

Here is how the website defines a Google Certified Teacher:

Educators who attend a Google Teacher Academy become Google Certified Teachers.

Google Certified Teachers are:
*Exceptional K-12 educators with a passion for using innovative tools to improve teaching and learning.
*Creative leaders who understand their local needs and can spread innovation as a recognized expert.
*Ambassadors for change who model high expectations, life-long learning, collaboration, equity &
inclusion and innovation.

Google Certified Teachers are expected to:
*Develop a "Personal Action Plan"
*Lead at least three local professional development activites over the course of 12 months.
*Actively participate in the Google Certified Teacher Online Community.
*Share the impact of their work with other Google Certified Teachers through an end-of-year reflection.

In additon to a free day of training, Google Certified Teachers get:
*Access to the GCT Online Community
*Access to additonal free ed tech resources
*Opportunities to give Google feedback on educational uses of tools
*Invitations to join Google at special events
*The right to post the GCT web badge on their website or blog

The application process is a few essay questions and a one minute video that demonstrates "Motivation and Learning" or "Classroom Innovation". ONE MINUTE! Can I just tell you that a one minute video takes a whole lot longer than a minute to plan, prepare and create....? I probably spent at least a week stressing over what show in a minute. It finally came down to the basics for me. GTA is about learning and sharing. The way I got the position I am in now is by learning and sharing...so I told my story. And, hopefully inspired Google to see that I'm capable of spreading what I learn from them to many others... here's the video submission to my application. I'd love to hear what you think...and I'll let you know what Google says in the next few weeks when they announce the academy members.

After I'm Gone

2008-10-10T19:37:00.006-04:00

As my eighteen year old daughter and I got ready to head out the door today, I stopped to spritz my hair with hairspray. For some reason, the smell transported me back to the years where I was a little girl sitting on my grandmother's bed watching her tease, hairspray and put her hair up in bobbypin curls. I told my daughter the story and we had a long conversation about old hairstyles and what "teasing hair" means.

Then I thought, I wonder what sights, smells or sounds will be imprinted the strongest in the memories of my offspring. So I asked my daughter, "What kind of thing do you think will make you start thinking of me?" My daughter thought for a minute and then said, "You know the sound the computer makes when you start it up?" Oh well, I guess there are worse things she could remember about me!

*Photo taken in 1990, from left to right: my daughter, me, my mom, my grandmother and my great grandmother

A Helping Hand

2008-10-09T12:32:00.007-04:00

I think all classroom teachers need a person on staff they can go to for troubleshooting issues whenever they need it. Technology is a beautiful thing....when it works.

Perfect example: A fourth grade teacher at my school wants to do a voicethread project with her large class but there are only two desktop computers to use. So I say, "No problem, we can use our cart of Mac laptops and get your whole class to record their thread at the same time. It will only take 20 or 30 minutes."

So, Day One, I go to the class and set up the wireless routers and show the class how to record their voice with their image in voicethread. As I begin to set up the laptops and have kids log on I realise the signal is weak. It takes at least five minutes to load a site. I try to attach two to land lines eventually and they are doing the same thing. By this time, it has been over thirty minutes and the teacher needs to move on to preparing the kids to dismissal. So I pack it all up and set up a time to return the following day with a plan.

Day Two, I head back to the class with a much less ambitious plan. Main goal is to help this teacher get the project done, so I hook two macbooks to the land lines and try to set up voicethread. Once again, the loading of website is taking forever and failing. After ten minutes, I scrap the idea of using the macs and run back to my office to get external mics to use the desktop IBMs. I'm sure that now...it will work. Log in, go to site....and the SAME PROBLEM.

I finally realize that all student ports are not allowing the use of voicethread. What?!? I call the Technology Help Desk in our county and they tell me that student computers will not allow you to upload any content on the web. Ugh! In the meantime, everytime this class sees me show up they look at me with expressions like, "Maybe today, she'll let us do it." Sigh.

Day Three, I show up before school with the intent to not leave this classroom until they have completed their voicethread. I bring my own laptop this time because I know it is A) a teacher computer B) I can log in to a teacher port and C) I have recorded on voicethread with my computer in the past, so I KNOW it works. I log in easily and call over the first student to get started. She reads what she wants to add to her image and when we replay it... no sound. Really! I have to then send her back to her seat while I proceed to troubleshoot sound settings and then sit on the phone with Technology Help Desk for 40 minutes while they screen share my computer and try to diagnose the problem. I end up with a "ticket" for someone to come out and look in person. (I'm sure at this point the teachers in the classroom are wondering why I have this job!) I borrow the laptop of the teacher in this classroom and log in there and WA LA - it works! No problem, easy peezy. I have the whole class done in under 20 minutes. If you want to peek at their thread you can do that here.

My point to this post is that if I were the classroom teacher in this case, what are the chances that I would have given up and not finished the project? Would I want to do this project again? Who would I call for help if there wasn't a technology person on staff? These are the reasons that I begged to take on this job. I hope I can make a difference.

And the World Gets a Little Smaller...

2008-10-04T23:27:00.006-04:00

This may only be our first full year as a faculty connecting ourselves to the world online through blogs and social networking, but we have some exciting projects brewing.

Students Teaching Students is a project that is the brainchild of Kim Cofino, from the International School Bangkok, Thailand. It will focus on sharing teacher and student reflection and work in the Lucy Calkins model of Readers' and Writers' Workshop. At the beginning of the summer, I saw a blog post Kim did about how her school was learning to teach in workshop model and I immediately contacted her to share that our school had been in that model for ten years. We are actually a National Model School for America's Choice which is a reform movement that includes workshop model teaching in literacy, math and science. Kim graciously agreed to connect us with two of her fifth grade teachers, Chrissy Hellyer and Aly McAloon, as well as a few other teacher from around the globe. A fifth grade teacher at my school, Jessica Lipsky, has already begun to share her student work and class lessons on her blog. She says the kids in her class feel their work is so much more important because it is being shared with a global audience. Look for more to come on this empowering project - I know these kids will exceed our expectations.

Dean Shareski's Blogging Mentor Project is a project where he requires his pre-service teachers in Saskatchewan, Canada to follow classroom blogs and comment regularly thereby making themselves a presence in that classroom. We were honored to be included in this project. Developing relationships with these future teachers will be a win-win situation for first grade teachers, Maria Mallon and Cheryl Dillard, second grade teachers Melissa Ross and Carrie McLeod and fourth grade teachers Meli Launey, Dorry Lopez, Rick Pinchot and Angela Phillips.

We had the pleasure of virtually meeting these students last week through Elluminate, which is a virtual classroom environment. Due to the time difference, we huddled around my coffee table at 10 pm (with snacks and socializing while we waited) as we introduced our class blogs and teachers and listened to others do the same. It was interesting to follow the students' back channel chat during the meeting. They seem really excited about the project and we're looking forward to getting to know them better. I wish someone had done something like this with me when I was in college!

The year is off to a great start, and especially since we're on a Virtual Learning Adventure, Around the World in 180 days, this year.... we'll be looking for more friends to connect with around the globe. If you have an interesting project you think we might collaborate with you on - let us know!

My Donors Choose Project

2008-10-01T20:31:00.004-04:00

After being inspired by a colleague of mine, I wrote my first Donors Choose grant. Donors Choose is an awesome website where teachers can create an account, submit a request for materials and donors can log in and choose what programs they want to donate to. After Melissa recommended the site to my faculty, many others have applied and received book sets, microscopes, radios and variety of other classroom tools.

What I really wanted to acquire is some Flip cameras for teacher checkout, so I took about 25 minutes and wrote up my proposal. I'm excited to see if it will get funded. I know that if I can get those cameras available for the teachers to use they will stay checked out. Try Donors Choose and see how easy it is to get some cool tools for YOUR classroom!

The Questions in the Middle

2008-09-16T22:59:00.013-04:00

In my new position as Instructional Technology Coach, I am still trying to decide what needs teachers have and how to best fill those needs.

In my own professional development, I know that when I learn something new I walk away excited and when I try to attempt my new skill I have a glitch, come up with a question or sometimes it just isn't as easy as I thought! Not being able to go back to the training facilitator or friend who taught me something new makes it easy to give up.

The questions in between the learning can sometimes BE the learning for me. So, keeping that in mind, I decided that I wanted to have one morning before school each week where I will be completely free to be ready for "drop-in" help.
It was from this idea that BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop) was born. I have the wiring set up for teachers to drop by with their laptop and plug in show me what they need help doing on their computer.

Just as I thought, the needs varied at our first BYOL session:

#1 Google Reader - A week ago, I delivered a short inservice on how to start with Google Reader
so a few people needed help with setting theirs up as well as how to toggle back and forth from the list to the reader to copy and paste the subscriptions.

#2 Setting up a Distribution List - My principal demonstrated this at a faculty meeting recently, so one person needed more help with how to get started setting hers up.

#3 Changing emails and passwords associate with accounts - A task that may seem simple can be tedious if you've never done it before and don't know about toggling back and forth with your email to verify changes before moving forward.

#4 Downloading Flash Player - Many of those updates that are necessary for seamless use of technology in the classroom can't be updated by anyone but school technology contacts.

I'll be continuing BYOL sessions Tuesday mornings every week as long as I feel they are needed. Hopefully answering the questions in between the learning will help move the learning forward in our building.

Hey Blogger - What's up?!?

2008-09-15T12:50:00.003-04:00

I have used blogger as my blog service for over a year now. I have never had a problem I couldn't quickly figure out. Over six months ago, my leadership team members and I ventured into the world of team blogging when we began our professional development blog. We had great success sending back instant professional development from whatever conference we were attending as we all sat in our separate break out sessions.

This year, I developed two new blogs to be used as team blogs. One blog is being used to highlight faculty members innovatively using technology and the other blog is being used to document the travels of a special ambassador for our school. The problem is....these are meant to be team blogs and blogger invites are not working!

Adding team members is supposed to be a simple process, you enter the email address of those who you would like to invite to author on the blog and it sends out a message requesting acceptance from that person. I have sent multiple invites (even to myself to see if it is working) and the invites won't work!!! When you click "help" on blogger it suggests you leave a message at their help center, which I have done. In frequently asked questions, it suggests that you log in on different computers or browsers. I have done that. FOR TWO WEEKS, OVER AND OVER!

I don't know what else to do. I would like to keep all of my blogs with blogger, but the lack of support is unacceptable. I'm hoping someone from Blogger will see this post and help. If not, I guess I need to figure out how to switch over to another service without losing anything. Ugh! What an aggravation! If you have any solutions to relieve my pain - please help!

Help Me Rebuild My Laptop

2008-09-04T21:49:00.004-04:00

I work in a Windows environment, so when my shiny new Macbook Pro arrived 6 months ago I wasn't quite sure where to start. I fiddled with it for about a month and ended up putting it away a lot and getting out my trusty IBM. I just wanted to get my work done and was frustrated with how to do similar tasks on my Mac. So, I signed up for Apple's One-to-One classes.

Slowly but surely, I began to only use my Mac. I ended up taking my Macbook Pro to NECC and leaving my IBM at home! Then one day, about two weeks ago, my Mac crashes. I mean...dead, gone, black screen...nothing. I take it to my local Apple store and the Genius tells me, "Your hard drive crashed, you'll have to get a new one. I hope you didn't save anything on it." I smugly replied, "Oh, I never save anything on my hard drive, so I'll be fine." Then I realized...I'll have to remember all of the applications people told me to download over the last six months. Some of which I'm not sure what they did, but maybe they were essential? Oh boy!

SO, THIS BLOG POST IS A PLEA...

I got my computer back this week. I've re-downloaded Second Life and Flip4Mac, but please help me by telling me must-have applications I need to download to get my Mac back in fine working order. I'm writing them down somewhere this time as I download them!

DRA 2 - Online for you!

2008-08-30T21:14:00.006-04:00

This year, our county transitioned from using the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) to the DRA 2. School started a week ago, but we just got our kits! The teachers were ready to assess but needed training on this new tool. One week into the school year it is impossible to have all of the reading teachers take a few hours off for some training ...sooooooooo, technology to the rescue!

One of the reading teachers at my school, Jenny Nash, was the designee who received the training on DRA 2 for our school. I arranged for her to be out of her classroom for a few hours while I filmed her explaining and demonstrating the DRA 2. I spent a little over a day editing the footage with Pinnacle and then uploading it to the web. Instant professional development! I hope we will be able to use video and internet applications like this for more professional development this year.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

2008-08-23T22:08:00.009-04:00

It's been several months since I read Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds, but I think I needed that time to reflect, process and enact change before sharing my thoughts.

I've never been a big fan of powerpoint. It always seemed more like a prop for the speaker than something that added to the speech. In Presentation Zen, Garr uses Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind as a framework for explaining how presentations should target the left brain and right brain. A presentation is really storytelling and storytelling is made more powerful with the images. I learned so much from this book about images. How negative space in an image conveys part of the message...how choosing the right image can change the point of the message. A book well worth reading, and one I will return to for reference.

With Presentation Zen in mind, I built my first Keynote presentation. Searching for the right image to convey a message became my mission when I began working on the presentation for my principal's opening day message. I really enjoyed perusing through stock photos and thinking about how particular images changed the message. Here's how it ended up:

Opening Day 8 11 08

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web2.0 teachers)

What I didn't expect was for my personal lens to change as I chose photo shots of family, school life and nature. I'm as amateur as you get when it comes to photography, but now I think about composition before I shoot and I find myself searching for the camera when I normally wouldn't have taken a photo. Today was the perfect example, I took my kids shopping at the party shop and they hopped up on these fun little stools. Normally I would have smiled and said "let's go", but today I saw the image in head and began reaching for the camera from my purse.

I've joined a group on the photo sharing website, flickr, called 366photos. They take a photo a day from their life, a snapshot in time each day over the year. I can't wait to see how I grow as a photographer and a storyteller. I hope you'll follow along...

Back to School - Blogs are Born!

2008-08-20T18:22:00.006-04:00

Last year at my school, a handful of us became bloggers and blogevangalized to everyone who would listen. This year, our school theme and focus is technology and meeting the needs of our 21st century learners. Most everyone is wanting to dip their toe in the pool on blogging. So, during our first few days of teacher planning I offered Blogging 101.

What do we do in Blogging 101? It's really quite simple.

#1 What do you want you want to name your blog?
I tell teachers that they can name their blogs whatever they want, but to be smart about the blog description listed under the title. Blog readers that are surfing to find new blogs to subscribe to might not go past the description, so tell them what or who will be doing this blog (your students, you, a group of teachers, etc. ).

#2 Consider something easy for your blog address.
When I created my blog I didn't know any better. I thought it had to be the title. Now I know if your blog is titled, "Mrs. Moore's Third Grade Mathematicians" it would be much better to have an address like math3.blogspot.com rather than mrsmooresthirdgrademathematicians.blogspot.com. Make it easy for your readers to remember where to come if they don't have a blog reader service.

#3 Follow the steps on Blogger to create your blog.
(There are many other platforms, but when training a group it is easier to stick with one and we know it is unblocked where we teach.) It literally only takes a few minutes.
#4 Make a post before you leave!
I like teachers to make a post telling something interesting about themselves or telling about their summer adventures. This gives us the opportunity to learn about hyperlinking and looking for images for the post. Also, it gives the reader something to read when they go there, because they will give out the address right away!

As I went through my Blogging 101 sessions last week, one of my seasoned blogging teachers said, "Hey, what about me?" I said, "You already know how to blog!" She said, "Teach me something I don't know how to do!" So.... Blogging 201 formed.

Here's what I decided to do in Blogging 201:

#1 Ways to build your readership.
Read other blogs and comment so they will track back to you and read yours. Blogs are for two way communication, leave thought provoking posts with open ended questions at the end of the post soliciting responses. Make sticker labels to put in students' daily planners to remind parents to read the blog ad comment.

#2 Tagging
If you tag your posts they will be easier for people to find and link to you. You will also be able to sort through your old posts easier.

#3 Images
One of the first things I noticed as I continued to read blogs was the images that other bloggers were using in their posts. It always seemed like everyone found better images than I did. Most teachers know how to use Google images to find a particular image, but most don't know about stock photos. Here are my favorite free sites:
Stock.xchng
Stock Vault
Public Domain Photos
Every Stock Photo

#4 HTML Code
Now, I don't know much about html code, but I handle it like I do everything else...I fiddle until I figure it out. I've had many people ask me why a widget or video posted on their blog was too wide. Sometimes I can't fix it. But...many times if you look through the code and find something that says: width 350 x 550 or something like that, you can tweak the numbers until it fits. The key here is writing down the original numbers in case you need to go back to the beginning.

101 and 201 Bloggers alike have started off this first week of school with their blogs which are all linked on our school webpage under Websites, Blogs and Wikis. We'd love for you to follow us!

Second Life with Daniel Pink

2008-08-15T20:00:00.004-04:00

One of the reasons I wanted to know more about Second Life was the professional development opportunities there. Recently, Kevin Jarrett put out on twitter that Daniel Pink would be presenting about his new book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko. Last year, I read A Whole New Mind and loved it - so I couldn't wait to hear about Daniel's new book.

I followed the link to his event and my Second Life avatar showed up in an area with a large screen and an avatar with Daniel Pink's name. (In Second Life, your name appears over your head.) See the photo with all the audience members? That's me in the maroon shirt, near the bench.
It was an interesting experience. The screen shows the slide show and as the presenter is speaking you can speak to other avatars and ask questions. I can't wait to try it again!

Johnny Bunko is a different business book that Daniel Pink has written entirely in manga . Here's a video to tell you more about it.

Back to School - Jeff Utecht Style

2008-08-11T20:09:00.023-04:00

Today was the first day back to school for teachers in my district. At my school, our theme and focus for the new year is technology. We're going on a "Virtual Learning Adventure"! We arrived at school this morning ready to board school buses to be shuttled to our county's professional development center. The room was prepared for a day of learning and connectivity with laptops at each table.

After our principal welcomed us all back to the new year, we were fortunate enough to receive a skype call from Jeff Utecht. Jeff was able to capture his screen and show us on Google Earth a mini-bio of Jeff Utecht, from Washington to Bangkok. What a great way to connect right away to this amazing international educator. The room was silent as Jeff shared his thoughts about harnessing online tools for education and giving students a global audience for their work. In the short time span of about ten minutes he was able to show them some websites with powerful collaborative possiblilities and global audience.

The impact on my faculty was evident in their notes to Jeff:

Jeff,
This morning's presentation by you was perfect. You punctuated so many of my points for today - I think our faculty really loved hearing from a REAL teacher! Thank you for taking the time to visit with us.
Susan Phillips, Principal

Jeff, You made my head spin with all of the possibilities that we each have as educators. This morning you gave each of us the confidence that "we could empower our students in the world of technology".
My thanks to you for a great 1st day.
KK Cherney, Media Specialist

It is very nice to know that in a very fast-pace changing world, we will always have someone to teach and guide us along the way. I am very excited about infusing technology into my first grade classroom this year. However, I know that I have to take it one step at a time and I'm very thankful that we have instructional help from teachers such as yourself that are willing to walk us through the process, no matter where each of our own individual start lines are. Thank you for taking the time to share with us!!
-Haley Alvarado 1st Grade Teacher

It was great to have the opportunity to learn from an expert who had such a modest and personable presence. I really enjoyed hearing about all of the places that Jeff has traveled to as well as some of the "rough" conditions he experienced :) He spoke in a practical manner and gave applicable every day ideas and suggestions that I am eager to try out in my classroom. Not to mention, I had a major mojito craving by the end of the conversation! [Jeff said that on the first day, teachers were probably thinking about the mojitos they wish they were having]
Jen Zawis, Teacher of the Gifted

I would just like to thank Jeff, first of all for his time. He didn't have to stay up late, but because he is so passionate about what he does, and about educating others, he did. I thought his message, the fact that we were actually speaking to him half way around the world tied in our theme and excited the faculty. He shared many new and informative sites, ideas, and I loved his message, '"being safe in a new learning landscape" because so many of us have those concerns.
Christy Constande, 4th Grade Teacher

As I sit hear tonight and think about all the possibilities that Jeff opened up to us today, I am still simply amazed that we were able to hear and interact with someone in Manila! As commonplace as that must be for so many people around the world, it still blows me away. I think Jeff made me believe that there is nothing that we can't do if we can imagine it. I'm already thinking about an Australian wiki for first grade teachers as they study about the country during their Author Study of Mem Fox and skyping in a friend that is playing baseball for the Canadian team at the Olympics so he can have a conversation with 5th grade students learning about China and... the list goes on and on. I just can't thank Jeff enough for taking his time to help me believe in what I once would have thought was impossible!
dayle timmons, Exceptional Education Teacher

Jeff, I was completely enthralled with your presentation this morning as we viewed you from the Schultz Center. What a great way to start the new school year by hearing from someone so knowledgeable and real as you! I had heard of you from Melanie, as she just thinks that you walk on water. Now, I can see why. You are a very cool guy who is not only on the cutting edge with technology, but you are a very real and normal guy, with a terrific sense of humor. You explained things to our faculty, in a way that is easy to understand without making anyone feel ignorant or incompetent.You made us feel like any of us could do what you were explaining. Thank you for being so motivating, inspiring, and for believing in us and making us feel that one day we might know what you know in technology. One of the many quotes from your presentation that I wrote down was, "Create content through a medium they love to use." This statement really hit the bull's eye with me. As teachers, we are always trying to find ways to connect to our students and motivate them. Technology is meeting them where they are and taking them further. I got so much out of your presentation. Thank you for taking your time to share your knowledge. It will reach more people than you could ever imagine as we use it to accelerate our students' learning.
Dorry Lopez, 4th Grade Teacher

Jeff, I loved listening to you this morning. You are such a great motivator and I really enjoyed getting my brain started to think about how I can push myself to new limits along with my students. Thank you for sharing your passion with us.
Debbie Harbour, 1st Grade Teacher

What fun to speak with Jeff this morning. He was such a nice "everyday" teacher, it made the whole concept of web 2.0 seem more attainable to many of us, I think. I loved some of his simple ideas that he relayed with us for elementary level applications (i.e. publishing via personal page of class blog). Like Jeff, I, too, loved the comment from the child's father. How powerful is that? What a special treat for a child to receive such public praise and current connection from their loved ones!
I'm looking forward to making connections with other students, teachers, and other interesting people around the globe this year. I have recently felt the power of how the internet can bring people together (via Facebook). I've been fortunate to reestablish connections with old friends and family who, now, have scattered themselves around the world. I am excited and inspired to draw them into my classroom and share their global knowledge and experiences with my students.
Thanks, Jeff, for your time today! I've added your blog to my reader and look forward to tagging along on your journeys!
Jenny E. Nash , 3rd Grade Teacher

Dear Jeff, I want to thank you for your time and insight into the world of technology and its impact on education today. You had a wonderful impromptu presentation - it was interesting and insightful.
Thanks again, Maria Mallon, 1st Grade Teacher
P.S. I skipped the Mohito and had a Margarita instead :)

Master Jeff in a sort-of Jedi way,
Your message really made me feel like I am going in the right direction with my teaching (blogging, web page building , emailing (ruarkt@duvalschools.org )...). I do agree that the powers that be need to worry less about the flow of inappropriate information at the expense of the flow of meaningful info. We must model and then trust kids to do the right things. I would love for my kids to have an open and genuine wiki for homework help, but I fear that if I over-manage the endeavor, the kids will not engage, and without engagement you have nada. I am all ears, if you or others have suggestions.
Thanks for your time and your insights. I love to listen to people that simply have the will to make things work out, gives me hope!
Peace to all,
Tom Ruark, 5th Grade Teacher

Jeff, Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with us. We're so excited about expanding our classroom to, virtually, the world! I especially enjoyed the Google Earth tour. My father-in-law is a huge fan of GE and shows us all kinds of places when he comes for a visit. (For example, the house he grew up in back in Ill.). Now I have something to share with him - the compound in Saudi Arabia was my favorite. I hope you have a wonderful school year and I look forward to reading your blog.
Sincerely, Lori Metzger, 3rd Grade Teacher

I absolutely love watching technology in action in the teaching world. It is amazing to me to see how easy collaboration becomes through Skype, Wikis, etc. What a great way to bring the world and so many different cultures into our classroom at the click of a mouse. Thank you Jeff for taking the time to share your world with us.
Melissa Ross, 2nd Grade Teacher

A mentor once taught me that nothing will ever change until there is a sense of urgency established. Too often, it is my fear that teachers don’t feel that sense of urgency the way say business executives trying to drive up profits would. However, I feel that the tide is changing. Technology and Web 2.0 have made the world so much smaller, so much more connected. That is why I was so excited when Melanie said that Jeff had graciously agreed to Skype with our faculty on opening day. Teachers not only got to hear about how connected the world truly is, but got to experience it first hand. I hope Jeff realizes the aftermath that his conversation is having. Teachers, today, when they could be doing any number of other things, are setting up wikis, creating blogs, and sharing ideas about infusing technology to promote student engagement. They will most definitely have students writing to a world wide audience this year. They will know their voice is heard. Thank you Jeff for planting the seed of urgency and possibilities! I know this year will most certainly be a Virtual Learning Adventure!
Suzanne Shall, Standards Coach

Thank you again, Jeff, for your time and inspiration - as you can see, talking to you was just the ticket to get our year started!

Latest Videogame: Your Classroom!

2008-08-03T21:26:00.007-04:00

Video games...kids love them. They can't wait until they get home to play them. They hold their attention for an extended period of time. They hate it when they get them taken away as punishment. Kids that can't sit still for a fifteen minute mini lesson sit glued on the spot while interacting in the video-virtual environment.

How can this behavior translate to a classroom? What teacher doesn't want her students to love their classroom? Look forward to coming every day? Pay attention to every morsel of information delivered in the lesson? How can we make our classroom more like a video game?

David Warlick, in Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools, says we need to study the experience of video gaming for a child. Here are the elements that keep the kids returning with gusto for more:
1. Responsiveness
2. Convert-able and convers-able rewards - Kids work to increase their own level. This is desirable for bragging rights and also to share strategies/short-cuts used to achieve their level. Also, when moving up levels the game environment changes.
3. Personal investment - Video game developers learned that kids return to games they have invested in. This can be done by generating currency in the game, health points, extra powers or an inventory. Kids have to invest time, skill and learning into the game to increase their level.
4. Identity building - Customizing your video-game presence. Personalizing the player's experience.
5. Dependability - Most video games give a sense of the solution to the problem being attainable in some way.

This got me thinking...how can a classroom environment harness these powerful elements? I think the easiest thing would be identity building. As a classroom teacher, every summer I worked hard to decorate my classroom and label each desk with names. Everything matched and looked great. I never thought about the fact that it was an identity I assigned. Each desk could have an identity the kids assign. Some easy ways to do that? Allow the kids to cover their desk with a piece of gift wrap from home ( or bring an assortment in ), by the time they tore off it would be time to choose a new identity. They could put stickers, notes or photos taped on the wrap. Students could bring little pillows from home to sit in their chair. Or...have a class project to bring in a favorite fabric pattern and sew them in class. Allow students to move around the room to work if they work well that way. Many of the teachers at my school allow kids to choose an area of the classroom for their "book nook" for reading.

Think about what kind of personal investment your students have in your class behavior system. I think the biggest mistake teachers make is never varying what they do throughout the year. Change the rewards involved or offer alternatives. Allow students to earn non-tangibles such as special priviledges (helping out in another class for 30 minutes, inviting someone from another class to recess, eating lunch with the teacher one on one...if you need new ideas, ask the kids for suggestions). Offer rewards "points" for coming to school on time, kindness, 100% effort, neat personal spaces, etc.

Most teachers probably feel their class encompasses dependability already. We feel like we give students strategies to attack problems and comprehend...but many students still aren't getting it and they know they should because everyone else is understanding. Do they know what to do? They don't want to raise their hand or admit in public a lack of understanding. Provide a private way for students to communicate. Have a teacher mailbox on your desk for notes. Let them know the solution is attainable and they can ALWAYS say they don't understand.

Convert-able and convers-able rewards is a BIG new idea. Bragging can seem negative, but what if we allow students to be "experts" on certain things. You can make a chart on your wall that labels experts on topics such as: naturally good spellers, organizers, multiplication facts, artist, welcoming committee for visitors, musical, book reviewers, etc... Students would then have permission to go to those students for needs in those areas and would generate an opportunity for bragging when the student explains why they are an expert. It could be possible that one day a week you allow an "expert" to teach a strategy on what they are good at doing.

The only thing I think about responsiveness is that sometimes the relationship you have with your students can be more powerful and life changing than any other thing you do all year. Think about how well you know you students. Is there a way you can know them better?

I hope this idea of looking at your classroom the way a child looks at a videogame has impacted your thinking like it has mine. I can't wait to hear your thoughts and your ideas...

Welcome Newbies! Let's Skype!

2008-07-11T22:59:00.011-04:00

Tonight was our annual dinner for new teachers. It a tradition. My principal invites leadership team members and new teachers to her home one evening in the summer to help us get to know our new school-family members and to help them feel connected to us. It's an evening with food and fun! We always play ice breaker games to learn little-known-facts about each other. Don't worry guys....I'm not telling. :)

This year, our traditional dinner stepped into the 21st century as we Skyped in one of leadership team members that was unable to attend. I am always surprised when people don't know about cool tools like Skype since it is free and can be used for personal communications. I call my brother in another state all the time on Skype.

Our media specialist, KK Cherney, appeared on the screen with enthusiastic greetings for all and then proceeded to ask for one on one introductions, which only required me to walk around for the built-in camera to get closer.

Skype is a tool we would like to use at school but it is blocked by security at this time. I wonder how many other school districts have it blocked? It seems like so many other educators have access to it. I wonder if there are ways to make it safer? I'm not sure, but it does seem to be the industry standard and if other people have it downloaded on their computer that is what they're going to want to use to connect.

One of our goals this year is to have classrooms all over the building collaborating globally with other kids around the world. Skype is a tool that could help us make those powerful connections. Has anyone else had this struggle? Does anyone have suggested solutions?

It's Official

2008-07-09T22:12:00.003-04:00

My little brother was wrong. I'm not a nerd and here's the proof!

The only questions I have is...does taking this test make you a nerd!!? Are you a nerd?

Technology + Exercise = ????

2008-07-07T21:42:00.005-04:00

I joined a health club a few weeks ago to use my summer to kick start getting myself in shape. The first thing I should tell you about me is that I HATE exercising. I hate getting sweaty. I find exercise boring. And I spend most of my exercising time thinking of things I would rather be doing. Enter technology...

I received the wonderful gift of an IPOD touch for Mother's Day and have enjoyed listening to my favorite tunes while walking or running on the treadmill. BUT...after 30 minutes I am tired of listening to music and find myself literally counting the seconds until I can stop. (Maybe I have attention issues. )

SO....this weekend I came up with a plan of attack. I went into itunes movies section for the first time and choose a lifetime movie to download and play while exercising. Perfect solution! I have four kids, my life is crazy busy, so I never get to watch movies.

So tonight, I smugly saunter over to my treadmill with my IPOD ready to go. I begin walking briskly working up into a light jog and I am feeling like queen of the universe. I'm watching my movie, the sound is turned up loud to block out the buzz of the treadmill and I am transported into exercise utopia. Isn't technology grand? Then, 20 minutes into my movie (which I think is a light drama) the character has a terrifying near fall from a cliff from out of nowhere. I jerk so fast to press pause when the sinister music startles me that I get my arm stuck in the cord, the IPOD flies off the treadmill and I stumble to the side catching myself on my knees. My daughter, who is on the treadmill next to me, stops her machine and stands gaping at me. I started laughing so hard I couldn't stop!

So...I think I'll stick to music for a while. Anyone else have a tip or trick to make exercise more fun? I don't trust my ideas!

Virtual or Face-to-Face...It's all about Relationships

2008-07-04T11:44:00.005-04:00

Those of you that know me know how much I love technology. If I have a free moment - I'm logging in to see what I can learn and to practice what I want to learn.

Over a year ago now, I stumbled across twitter and became connected with other educators around the world who have pointed me in a direction with my professional development that I couldn't ever have imagined. Those relationships have led to professional growth, personal growth and a new direction in my career (looks like I'll be full time in technology next year). I have never felt more energized and connected about what is new in my practice and how it could be implemented. I truly can attribute all of that to the educators I meet and follow online.

When I arrived at NECC and saw how many of the people I know virtually were there literally...I wanted to try and document it visually for you and give you the way to connect with some of these amazing educators also. So here are a few I tracked down for photos.

Jeff Utecht
Formerly of Shanghai American School
Next Year will go to Bangkok
The Thinking Stick
jutecht on twitter

Stephanie Sandifer
Houston, TX
Change Agency
ssandifer on twitter

Maria Knee
Deerfield, NH
The Kinder Kids' Classroom
MariaK on twitter

David Jakes
Naperville, IL
Strength of Weak Ties
djakes on twitter

Dean Shareski
Moose Jaw, SK, Canada
Ideas and Thoughts from an Ed Tech
shareski on twitter

Kevin Jarrett
Northfield, NJ
Welcome to NCS-Tech!
kjarrett on twitter

Ginger Lewman
Kansas
Gingersnapz!
Ginger TPLC on twitter

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Virginia Beach, VA
21st Century Learning
snbeach on twitter

Nedra Isenberg
Holland Patent Schools, NY
My Journey into the World of Elem. Tech
hockeymom1788 on twitter

Adam Frey
Co-founder of Wikispaces

Vicki Davis
Camilla, GA
Cool Cat Teacher
coolcatteacher on twitter

Thanks to you all for being a part of my network and inspiring me on my journey. :)

**cross posted on LIVE from the Creek

My entrance into Second Life

2008-07-04T11:22:00.002-04:00

I have been wanting to know more about Second Life and have been avoiding learning about it (yes, me, avoiding learning) because..
A) it looks complicated
B) it looks like playing and
C) I haven't had time.
BUT - many, many educators that I follow that I know for a fact know way more than me, have said, "You HAVE to learn about Second Life."

First of all, what is Second Life?

Second Life^® is a 3-D virtual world created by its Residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe.
From the moment you enter the World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.

You'll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow Residents. Because Residents retain intellectual property rights in their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other Residents.

The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the inworld unit of trade, the Linden™ dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden dollar exchanges.

**taken from secondlife.com/whatis

This is where your elementary students will go after they outgrow Webkinz, Club Penguin and other virtual worlds. These are real places where people work, earn money, learn new things.

In the session I went to they showed us a nursing school using Second Life for interaction building lungs, to discover which are healthy or not. In another session, a college literature professor has built her literature classroom in Second Life and students must visit "Beowulf"'s area to interact as a part of their assignments. Students all "show up" at a designated time.

Pros in Second Life here at NECC encourage you to get out of education areas and go into other areas to make connections with people and business. They say, "If you are going to be a part of the future, you can not NOT go into Second Life."

MY JOURNEY

So...taking my own advice about "getting wet"...even though I was unsure...I dove in. I built an avatar (character that represents me) in Second Life and was "born". (That part was a little scary - you just fall out of the sky into a virtual world.) Then I found out really quick that if you don't walk and move somewhere, the next person born will drop in on you. That was weird. So I began moving around the beginning island that is set up to orient you with how to use your avatar. There are mini tutorials to run through.

I ran through some more the second night and began to get tired of strange people like me who didn't know how to work the darn thing - we're all running into each other! I went to seek out Kevin Jarrett, my twitter pal, for some help because he has been saying for months that Second Life is a must do! He said he'd straighten me out in a few minutes, and he did! He got me off that island and got me over to the Educators Island so now I am there in my virtual space! Whoo Hooo! I can't wait to see what comes next.

Now it's time for me to make connections - to hook up with other educators who can direct me to the learning available. There are online events, projects to view and places to go...how exciting! If you've been on this journey yourself --- I can't wait to hear your tips. If not, consider stepping outside of your comfort zone and trying something new!

**cross posted at Live from the Creek

What I Want to Learn at NECC

2008-06-25T21:40:00.003-04:00

The number one thing I have learned this year is that I still have SO much to learn. That's okay with me, because I love to learn and I get excited about improving my craft...so as I prepare to head off to NECC, I'm thinking about my expectations.

Here are the things I really want to know more about:
1. Classroom applications for wikis
2. Ideas for a podcast radio show for our elementary students
3. Global collaboration projects
4. How to use Second Life (on recommendation of Kevin Jarrett)
5. How to use Second Life for professional development
6. E-Portfolios
7. Teaching kids cyber-safety

I am also excited about the prospect of meeting face to face with the many educators who have taught and inspired me on their blogs and twitter. I hope no one has conflicting sessions!
I plan to take lots of pictures and share some of my learning here, but most of my live blogging will be on http://livefromthecreek.blogspot.com So, as I pack my bags to leave in the morning, come follow me to San Antonio and let me hear from you while I'm there!

Proudly admitting....I'm an Edupunk

2008-06-18T21:11:00.012-04:00

Edupunk? That what I thought when I first heard the term this week. The fifteen year old girl that dyed her hair purple that still resides somewhere inside me was immediately interested in finding out what it meant.

Apparently it is the brainchild of fellow blogger, Jim Groom. The term embraces the Do-It-Yourself style of inventive teaching and learning. In other words, directly opposing pre-packaged learning curriculum and software marketed by companies and embracing the mash-up of curriculum learning tools and web 2.0 applications available to create something much more personalized to the teacher and learner. Thereby creating the limitless extent to where that learning can go!

Watch this for a quick overview on Edupunk:

Despite brief acting out phases with my hair, I never really set out to be a non-conformist...but as a teacher...you do whatever it takes to reach and teach a child. For years, I supplemented or changed the curriculum where I needed to in order to suit my student. Now, as a teacher who has embraced web 2.0 in the past year, I find myself fully thrust into the role of Edupunk.

I am in awe of the amazing possibilities available with tools my students can use online voicethread, google docs, youtube, blogger, etc. AND...the limitless possibilites or what they can create using these tools together. I don't know why people are so afraid to try some of these new things and I get frustrated that with every new discovery it has been a fight to get security to unblock applications even just for teacher use!

Where do you stand on non-conformity? Are you an Edupunk?

Getting Connected

2008-06-09T20:48:00.003-04:00

When I first started teaching, my professional network consisted of the six teachers on my wing. I went to them for lesson ideas, behavior management advice, holiday activity ideas and morale support. I rarely had time to speak with other teachers in the building, so my network remained small and linear.

With the technology we have available now, my network consists of hundreds of teachers here where I live in Florida and around the world. I can walk next door to my neighboring teacher or log on and speak to teachers across the world in my twitter network. Networking online has become my number one tool for lesson ideas, advice on everything and morale support.

Creating a ning for the teachers I work with was a way for me to show other teachers how easy it is to connect and share online. Our school is a National Model School for America's Choice
and we host visitors all year long to tour and observe in our school. One way we are using the our ning is to post demo lesson videos for many to view at their own leisure.

In the few months our ning has been developed, we have close to 180 educators all over the US and one in Canada. If you haven't joined an online network like twitter or a ning - get connected! You don't know what you're missing! Please consider this an invitation to join Setting the Standard. See you online. :)

Visit Setting the Standard