Special Education – Page 2

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:

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).

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)

My presenter notes
Alternative to the term Web 2.0 is the Read, Write Web
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

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.
Resources for future teachers
- Social Network
- Bookmarks

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

Building on some online discussion that has been ocurring for the past year here and here.
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.

Should it be organized or self-forming?

Should the tool(s) be dictated?

An atmosphere promoting risk-taking is imperative.
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.

Teachers in the room are using Ning, Elgg, and several private online communities.
Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis updated us about the Flat Classroom and the Horizon Project.
How important are digital citizenship and pedagogy in these decisions?
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?

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!

Listen to RSS Feeds

Jott has added another useful feature to its list of services. Jott feeds makes it possible for you to “listen to your favorite news & RSS feeds, like those from your favorite blogs, Twitter, Google Calendar, or Facebook, all from your phone.” Like everything else from Jott, this service is very simple to use and it works well.

I see positive potential for this free service to be used in education and by those that have visual impairments, have difficulty reading, spend time commuting, and more. It could also be useful to learners that learn best through audio, to help students “hear” their writing during the editing process, to practice pronunciation and for public speaking as well as many other examples. While this particular service may not make its way into many classrooms it is exciting to know that the technology has arrived and consider the possibilities such tools and services bring to teaching and learning.

I set the service up for this blog. It took about 30 seconds. Would any of you be interested in using it?

Additional Resources

Introducing Jott Feeds – Jott
Jott Reads Feeds to Your Cell Phone – LifeHacker

Newsletter on Educational Technology

Throughout the years many of the preservice and in-service teachers in my classes, workshops, and presentations have requested that I start an email newsletter. They indicate that in addition to this blog they would like to receive occasional emails sharing rich resources related to technology integration. I’m excited to announce that I have answered these requests.

Clif’s Newsletter on Educational Technology focuses on the effective integration of technology with teaching and learning. Subscribers of this free service will receive occasional emails providing valuable resources and information about lesson plans, activities, technologies, research, etc., related to educational technology.

OPEN TO PUBLIC
Subscription to this newsletter is open to everyone. You are encouraged to share this with everyone with an interest in education (teachers, administrators, homeschooling families, friends, classmates, co-workers, etc.). Everyone is invited to receive this free newsletter.

MANAGING SUBSCRIPTIONS
You may subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter as you wish.

Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0

I’m teaching a special topics seminar this summer for graduate students. The topic will be Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 Technologies. I began preparing for this course in June 2007 and I’m very excited about it. While we’ll consider common trends and issues and survey many of the popular tools and services related to Web 2.0, the heart of the course will be learning to effectively integrate Web 2.0 technologies and principles with teaching and learning. The focus will be on K-12 education but accommodations can be made for individuals from other fields (health, corporate, military, higher education, etc.). This draft version of the Course Topics provides an overview of the likely curriculum.

While the dominate driving force in the development of the curriculum and resources has been the upcoming class, I always planned for this to be a relatively open learning community. In keeping with the principles of Web 2.0 I encourage the participation of everyone with an interest or expertise in this topic. You may contribute to the discussion and fun by using the following tag/keyword: idt7078

Related Resources

PBS Focuses on Digital Storytelling during May

I just ran across a couple of really good resources from PBS Teachers that I wanted to mention here. Here’s the first one.

May 1, 2008 – This month’s Media Infusion blogger, secondary school educator and filmmaker Joe Fatheree, looks at digital storytelling as a means to create independent learners, promote collaboration, improve research and writing skills, and educate the whole child. Fatheree takes readers through a step-by-step process of filmmaking that can be adapted for use in many contexts with students of varying ages.

“Technology has given us the ability to connect curriculum with the real world, and allow our students to step outside the boundaries of traditional classroom setting,” writes Fatheree.

PBS Teachers invites educators to visit Media Infusion in May and ask questions, comment on Fatheree’s suggestions or offer some of their own.

–From PBS Teachers