Clif’s Notes

Collaborating with Online Word Processing

We’re in the second and final day teaching our professional development workshops with the Power Center Academy. This is a new charter school that will open its doors to students for the very first time next week. Take a look at PCA’s mission and consider ways that you can contribute to their worthy efforts.

We’re going to be looking at collaborating with online productivity tools this afternoon. I’m briefly going to highlight a few strategies and examples for using Google Docs and leading a quick collaborative activity. I went ahead and put together a self-guided module to which the teachers can refer for additional resources, video examples, and a more in depth look at integrating online word processing with teaching and learning. I invite you to share your related ideas and resources at the bottom of the wiki page.

Be an Extraordinary Teacher

It’s the time of year when we teachers begin preparing for the start of a new school year. I though it would be a good time to share this resource about extraordinary teachers. Reflect on this simple activity as a mini-professional development opportunity.

Thanks for teaching. You make a difference.

The Extraordinary Teacher Quiz
By Diana Loomans

There are 12 important qualities that separate good teachers from extraordinary teachers. How do you rate yourself? Are you the kind of teacher that inspires your students to achieve the extraordinary in their lives? Take this simple test to find out.

–from Diana Loomans.com

It’s Good to Be Back

I’m excited to be working with Kannapolis City Schools again (Previous Posts: 1, 2). I’m helping provide professional development for part of their grant funded technology integration initiative called IMPACT. I’ve been asked to facilitate the following workshops:

• Instructional Design in the Digital Age
• Interactive PowerPoint Games and Modules
• Selecting and Implementing WebQuests
• Telecollaboration in the Classroom
• Educational Podcasting

Please share any resources, information, cases, scenarios, etc. that you think will help teachers learn more about these topics by clicking on the session titles above and adding your contribution to the Notes and Resources from My PLN section at the bottom of each wiki. Rest assured that I welcome your input in this endeavor!

Greetings from Selmer, TN

I’m spending today and tomorrow with teachers in McNairy County Schools. I’m looking forward to them discovering Andrew Churches’ revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and related resources. We’ll also explore ways to effectively integrate a wide variety of digital technologies and Web 2.0 tools with teaching and learning. Watch for us as we venture out into the network. We’ll be using the following tag for everything related to this professional development workshop: mcnairypd (and #mcnairypd on Twitter).

Noteworthy from NECC

I’m still trying to catch up from my recent trips to Kannapolis, EduBloggerCon and NECC. I have notes, pod/vidcasts and photos that I intend to share but more pressing matters (Family, research and writing, preparations for professional development workshops and 2nd summer semester courses) have kept my attention. Here are a few things that I want to make sure I at least go ahead and point out.

Measuring What Really Matters: The 21st Century Skills Assessment Project
“…a collaborative effort designed to create viable methods of assessing of higher order learning outcomes, and the higher-order skills required by independent, lifelong learners.”

• This handout provides a good overview of the project and includes the current iteration of the assessment instrument.
• SIGTE Forum: Assessing 21st Century Skills–Next Steps - NOTE: I’m interested in exploring this further with those sharing an interest in this. Perhaps we could set up an online discussion group or something. Drop me a line if you are interested.

ISTE’s Classroom Observation Tool (ICOT)
"A FREE online tool that provides a set of questions to guide classroom observations of a number of key components of technology integration."

Ed Tech Action Network
"ETAN provides a forum for educators and others to engage in the political process and project a unified voice in support of a common cause – improving teaching and learning through the systemic use of technology. ETAN’s mission is to influence public policy-makers at the federal, state and local levels and to increase public investment in the competitiveness of America’s classrooms and students."

Possible Federal Funding for Educational Technology
There is a possibility that we will see more funding for educational technology and perhaps even a large funding program similar to the PT3 initiative.

Write Elected Officials about Educational Technology Funding

We learned about this possible opportunity during the Teacher Educators (SIGTE) meeting during NECC. I’ve been intending to write a post about it, but I think my good friend, Drew, covers all the high points. The following message was originally posted on The Playground.

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved legislation to fund an educational technology initiative. However, the U.S. Senate looks to be undecided on whether they will support funding. You can be involved. Go to the Ed Tech Action Network and put your zip code in the box at the top of the page. It will generate a letter to your U.S. Senators that you can modify as you see fit. In the next month, there is a chance that we will see more funding for educational technology and perhaps even a large funding program similar to the PT3 initiative.

Please take some time and voice your opinion,
Drew Polly

NECC This Afternoon

Here are the presentations/discussions that I attended/ participated in during the first half of this afternoon.

A Plan for Wiki Adoption by Ken Pruitt
Ken’s presentation was an adaptation of Stewart Mader’s Wikipatterns. Ken shared suggested strategies for implementing the use of wikis at all levels.

Educational Technology and the Law facilitated by Jon Becker and Scott McLeod
While preparing for the Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 seminar I’ve realized how important it is that I become more knowledgeable about copyright, intellectual property, plagiarism, and related topics. I especially liked how they were able to pose existing IRL analogies for the virtual situations under discussion.

I’m off to the the much anticipated (at least by me) poster presentation of the ISTE Classroom Observation Tool. I plan to share what I learn soon.

NECC This Morning

I’ve spent most of today participating in the following sessions and meeting online friends in the Bloggers’ Cafe. I’m looking forward to the presentation of the ISTE Classroom Observation Instrument (ICOT) later today. I’m curious to see how it stacks up against similar instruments like LoTi. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to post my thoughts about it. For now, here’s what I’ve attended to day.

Diigo: A Swiss Army Knife for Your Browser by Maggie Tsai, Diigo Co-Founder
Maggie gave a crash course in the basic features and use of Diigo. After her presentation she asked to interview me on camera and I reluctantly agreed. I shared some of the most common ways that Diigo is being used by my students, teachers with whom I mentor in professional development, and by me. She also asked me to share ways that I thought their technology could be improved and I reiterated ideas that I’d previously shared on Miguel’s discussions (here and here) related to this topic. I was pleased with her responses to my technical and design suggestions (She even contacted the engineers about one of the issues while we were talking.) and she provided Diigo’s rationale for why the ads, for now, will continue to exist throughout the tool. She assured me that they are indeed considering

Creating a Ning Network from Scratch by Steve Hargadon
If you want to learn about setting up your own Ning you might as well learn from the master. I’m comfortable using this “tool” but Steve provided useful insight regarding design and implementation which I found valuable.

Using Understanding by Design (UbD) to Create Technology Rich, Deep Learning Unit Plans by Chris Lehmann and Marcie Hull
There are oodles of similar models out there but I found this one to be practical but thorough. I’m going to take another look at Understanding by Design when I return home.

This Afternoon at EBC

Diving Deep into Google Earth and Google Maps

• Lucy Gray’s presenter notes
• Adding images in Google Earth
• Geotagging
• Maps, directions, and more
• Google Book Search Library Project

Web 2.0 in Teacher Education (Program Info)

1. My presenter notes
2. Alternative to the term Web 2.0 is the Read, Write Web
3. Teacher education and professional development that effectively helps teachers better integrate technology with teaching and learning
• Allow the teachers to select their own goals and help them reach them
• Online social networks can more easily provide the in-time assistance, coaching, mentoring, etc. that individuals during development/learning, but teachers often don’t think about using the networks
4. How do we prepare teachers to teach in the 1-to-1 environment?
   • The emphasis should change from "teaching" to designing learning that engages the students.
5. Resources for future teachers
   • Social Network
   • Bookmarks

Designing the 21st Century Global Learning Environments (Program Info)

1. Building on some online discussion that has been ocurring for the past year here and here.
2. If there were no barriers what would education look like? Brainstorming notes

This Morning at EBC

I’ll be updating this post throughout the day to alert you of things happening here at EBC San Antonio. The full list of sessions is here. I’ll be sharing information form the sessions that I’m attending. The session titles are in bold.

Social Networking for Professional Development

Scott Merrick is sitting next to me and streaming this discussion live.

1. Should it be organized or self-forming?
• Should the tool(s) be dictated?
2. An atmosphere promoting risk-taking is imperative.
3. Teachers know what they want to learn. Professional development should be tailored around them rather requiring them to attend PD in which they had no say.

Social Networking in the Classroom

Vicki Davis is sitting by me and is streaming this seession here.

1. Teachers in the room are using Ning, Elgg, and several private online communities.
2. Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis updated us about the Flat Classroom and the Horizon Project.
3. How important are digital citizenship and pedagogy in these decisions?
4. If someone says a curse word in the classroom do we close the school? If there’s a fight at recess do we quit having recess? Why do we over react to these problems in online spaces?

EBC and NECC Preparations Underway

EduBloggerCon (EBC) and the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) are just a few days away and I’m very excited about attending each. In addition to the great presentations and workshops I’m sure I’ll experience I’m looking forward to meeting many of the people from my online personal learning community (PLC) in person.

Here’s a bit of information about me and my EBC and NECC activities. I hope I see you in San Antonio.

Most of you have probably figured out by now that I don’t actually look like the image to the left, so I’ve included a photo of what I do actually look like in this post.

I’m a member of the NECC 2008 Nework at Ning and encourage everyone interested in K-12 technology integration to join this group regardless of whether or not your attending the conference. You can view members’ profiles and add them to your network. Visit my profile page to learn more about me and add me as a friend.

Drew Polly and I are presenting a bring your own laptop (BYOL) session Tuesday morning. The title is Integrating Virtual Manipulatives into Elementary Mathematics Classrooms and it promises to be fun, energetic, and engaging. Full details about meeting time and place are available here. We’d love to have you join us.

I’ve agreed to be part of the Diigo team’s EduDiigo presentation. I think there are many positive implications related to the rollout of this educational-friendly version of one of my favorite Web 2.0 tools. I’ll share the details of this session once I have them.

I also think I’m teaching a session as part of the NECC Unplugged slate of goodies. I’ll post the details here when I have them.

Greetings from North Carolina

I’m spending the next couple of days providing professional development for some of the tech-savvy outstanding teachers with Kannapolis City Schools. My classes will be focusing on teaching and learning with Web 2.0 (Becoming my new thing, I guess.) and creating and using podcasts in the classroom.

Note to my online PLC:

I hope to demonstrate the power and benefits of an online personal learning community (PLC) during my time here, but I’ll need your help with that. Please share your ideas, resources, examples, and advice on these topics. I’m sure the teachers here at KCS would appreciate and benefit from your input. You can respond in the comments section of this post or add information to the related section on my wiki.

PLEASE share!

Teaching Economics with an Educational Game

What do a stranded alien race and microeconomics have in common? You just have to see this to believe it!!!

Here are some random thoughts that I’d very quickly like to share.

Discussion

1. What is your reaction to this instructional strategy?
2. What other ways could this be integrated with the curriculum?

Learning to Change - Changing to Learn

Here’s something that will be of interest to all of us. Those with an interest in STEM areas like me should especially take note.

To emphasize the importance of education to the nation’s future and to drive home how much schools need to change in order to educate the children of tomorrow, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), and the National Education Association (NEA) have teamed up to develop a public service announcement (PSA) campaign aimed at the presidential candidates. [More...]

Source: eSchool News

Further Reading