Video

I love Edutopia! I get lost for hours when I explore their interesting articles and videos about engaging students in the learning process. One article that I downloaded is Edutopia Top 10 Tips for Using Media in the Classroom. It has some of my favorite websites and activities to do with students listed in one place. By researching and exploring Edutopia videos and articles, I’m inspired to take a risk and plan lessons that I’ve never tried before.

Also, I have thoroughly enjoyed using the GCSD Moodle Online Training Platform this summer. The students in our ALIVE class have done an excellent job posting to forums, reading articles, viewing videos and completing online training.  One of the blogs that we enjoyed reading is the Promethean Planet Blog . One idea that I so wish teachers would try is Flipping Your Classroom.  This is where the teachers records his/her lectures using video or podcast and posts the recordings on their websites or on their blogs.  Then all the time spent in class is actually creating projects, working in groups, researching, blogging, publishing, experimenting, writing, etc….

Many teachers also liked the website  www.Says-It.com that allows you to post the dates for upcoming events on cool signs (for example: McDonald’s Sign would have Test Friday, Study Your Vocab Words and it would be inserted into a Flipchart or Student of the Day would appear on a Concert Billboard sign.)  Check it out!

Online learning for ActivInspire is incredible on the Promethean Planet website. It allows you to learn at your own pace and get one on one individual feedback as you click the screen. Click here to view lessons: ActivInspire Course

Enjoy stretching your imagination and trying some of the online tips you learned about this summer with your class! They’ll love you for it!

I recently taught a workshop at Wade Hampton High School about Web 2.0 tools and I wanted to share some of my favorite ones with you.

The first one is www.tagxedo.com

Here are the directions:

Go to www.tagxedo.com and click on Gallery to see the tagxedos that have been created.

http://www.tagxedo.com/gallery.html

1. Visit this blog to view cool tagxedos : http://blog.tagxedo.com/
2. For our Foreign Language teachers:  http://www.tagxedo.com/languages.html
3. Click Create and install Silverlight. You may have to exit the program then go back in order for it to work.
4. Click Create again and then Click Load to load your words.  Suggestions: Copy and Paste a document that you or your students have created.  Use for Research Projects, Study Guides, Creative Writing, Foreign Language, Vocabulary Words, Poetry, Test Questions
5. The more times you type a word the larger it will appear. You or your students can type right into the space provided.
6. Choose the Shape you’d like from their templates or you can load your own image.
7. Then choose the Color, Theme, Font, Orientation and Layout.

Now you can click Save.  You can save as a JPEG or copy the Code Snippet and embed in Teacher Website or blog.

The next Web 2.0 tool I’d like to share is Voicethread.  www.voicethread.com

Here is a quick tutorial if you’d like to know how to make a Voicethread in 1 minute or less:  http://voicethread.com/share/8381/

Here is an example of a Voicethread I did with a few teachers last semester, just by uploading the pictures from the Windows 7 Sample Pictures folder.

http://voicethread.com/share/1486343/ Teachers and students responded using Web cams, typing, and recording their voices.

One more thing I wanted to tell you about Voicethread is you can go to the website and click Browse. You can find so many presentations on just about any subject. Just type the topic you are studying in the Search button and you can preview some Voicethreads that students and teachers have made to share.

I like to put Voicethreads on my Flipcharts in ActivInspire as Activating Strategies or on my blog or website as another way to learn about a topic besides lecture, PowerPoint, or the textbook.

If you’d like to see how to use Voicethread in your classroom, here is a link to show you how:  http://voicethread.com/media/misc/getting_started_in_the_classroom.pdf

In kindergarten, we are studying the value of coins.  Students are having so much fun counting pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.  Empty your pockets and see if your child can name the coins and count the value!  MONEY MATTERS!

Click here to view a Voicethread about money.

Highly Effective Teaching Classroom

I heard a teacher friend say this week that every student deserves a smart teacher and I thought how true! I reflected on the classrooms I visited and the teachers I trained, and our need for continuous training. Our goal should be to be the best teacher we can be every day of our lives. Our students depend on us to prepare them to be the leaders of tomorrow. Here is my suggestion for the day: find another teacher who is passionate about teaching and learn from him or her. Read blogs, attend workshops, take classes so you can experience the thrill of learning something new. It also helps you experience the stress that comes with the learning process. It allows you to relate to your students and the stress they feel throughout each day

Also, surround yourself with people who are as smart or smarter than you in one of your many intelligences.  You can learn something new each day and be a lifelong learner.  (I wrote the first post sitting in my car using my iPhone……I wasn’t driving! I apologize for so many typos!)

Fran Mauney

We are preparing for the Upstate Technology Conference and would love your input.  This year’s conference will be on June 14, 15 at Wade Hampton High School. We would love for you to present some of the lessons that you are teaching at our conference. The website is under construction now and will be available shortly.  www.utcsc.com

Here are some of the comments/suggestions that we received from our participants last year.

1.  UTC 10 survey results commented about having more skype, blogs, podcasts, tweets, about the conference…….. maybe have a few overflow rooms for popular sessions……… can  you wrap your brain around this and give feedback about the best way to do this?  Will you ask your professional learning community how we can best meet the needs of the teachers that attend?  That would be huge.

2. What topics do you think we need for next year?  Our theme is “What’s Your Vision?” spinning off the point that Hall made last summer about the lack of a shared vision……Will you tweet about this, post on facebook or ask your plc?

 
3. We have 4 big solutions to make this year’s conference better: 
a.  no long lines when you enter the building……. just grab a registration form, card and return the form to us with our card number on the form.
b. extra parking down the road at the athletic fields, I’m checking on buses to transport from there
c. shorter time to get your credit from the conference (new program was written for that) GCSD teachers will have a shorter wait getting points uploaded to the portal.
d. hopefully, less crowded rooms if we have more presenters and overflow rooms (we need YOU to present)
e. food tables spread out and colored coded tickets for different food choices.

Using the professional learning community mind-set, could you share ideas about ways to make the conference better?  Add your comments to this blog. I look forward to hearing from you and if you’d like to volunteer, let us know.

What is your vision for UTC 11?

Fran Mauney

Hall Davidson, nationally known speaker with Discovery Education, inspired over 1000 participants, presenters, and vendors last week at the Upstate Technology Conference to meet the needs of today’s learner.  He challenged us to create interactive student centered lessons using free technological resources that are available at our fingertips. When asked why teachers are not engaging students in the learning process, the answer was not the lack of funds, or the lack of good teachers, but the lack of a shared vision.  This revelation exposes how crucial it is that we form professional learning communities with the shared vision of revolutionizing our schools.

According to Education Week, “learning is no longer preparation for the job, it is the job. In a world in which information expands exponentially, today’s students are active participants in an ever-expanding network of learning environments. They must learn to be knowledge navigators, seeking and finding information from multiple sources, evaluating it, making sense of it, and understanding how to collaborate with their peers to turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into action.”

Sir Ken Robinson  challenges the way we’re educating our children. “He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligences.” It is true that most adults don’t enjoy what they do for a living, they simply endure their jobs until the week-end. But there are others who love what they do and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Their work defines who they are. Listen to Sir Ken Robinson’s inspirational talk at TED in February 2010 and see how we can help students find their talents and abilities.

It will require extra planning, more conversations with colleagues, time spent researching while we break out of our comfort zones and share the successful (and not so successful stories) we experience in the classroom. We need to form professional learning communities within our schools, district and across the state with teachers, administrators, university professors and student teachers as we collaborate about the best ways to help students find their talents. We need learning teams to help us become better teachers.

This summer as you prepare for the upcoming 2010-2011 school year, challenge yourself to incorporate more student centered activities. Choose one project that you could easily add to an existing unit and observe your students as their interest, excitement, and achievement soars. Give your students choices about how they’d like to learn. Incorporate the multiple intelligences in your lessons and add a technology feature. Check back on the Upstate Technology Conference website for hand-outs and links to help you prepare more student centered activities this year.

Our students spread their dreams beneath our feet, we need to tread softly.