Learning, learning, learning: Perfect Day!

What a fabulous day of learning!

My day started by checking on Twitter around 4.35 am, it is always unbelievable how many Tweets have been posted overnight! I posted a couple of good links as I try to become more of an "informer".

At 7 am we had our second PLP Virtual Session. The topic was on Network Literacy. Will introduced three note-taking tools Evernote, Zoho and Zotero. I really liked Evernote as Zoho looks pretty much like Google Apps and Zotero is an add on for Firefox.

I've signed up for an Evernote account and will be ready to give it a try.

We had a small group discussion on Network Literacy and I was in a group with Ohio teachers. Our discussion circled around Effectiveness (so many links to click, so little time!) and Ethical uses (copyright and safety).

The last part of the session had to do with our Research Project. Sheryl walked us through the steps of the project and showed us a few samples. As a good multitasker I created a Site for our project (PLP Research Project) and send out invitations to the team for a meeting tomorrow before school.

I was very proud of our Parish team as they were engaged in the conversation!

Had a great day at school, was able to help Dave Monaco set his students as collaborators and then create their own blogs. I was relieved that everything went well and we didn't have any technical issues. I will be 'teaching' his class on Thursday so I need to be prepared!

At home I was enjoying reading Twitter when Alec Couros posted a link for an Elluminate session.
Wow! that was phenomenal! It was called The Power of Sharing and was lead by Dean Shareski. I learned even more! For example, I was able to add my Delicious Network to my Google Reader!! I didn't know that you could do that, now I can keep up with new bookmarks more efficiently!

All in all, just a PERFECT DAY!

I created the Wordle with words that resonate with my understanding of Network Literacy

wordle.net

Presentation for Inservice

Today and tomorrow I will be presenting to faculty during inservice days.

For the Upper Elementary teachers I will introduce the Myths and Legends Creator, hopefully some of them would be excited about trying it.

In the afternoon I have a session for Middle School teachers about Possibilities for 21st Century Teaching and Learning. The session's goal will be to introduce the three major 21st Century frameworks. I will start with Alan November's talk on Myths and Opportunities, followed by a Prezi and the introduction of the NETS-based professional development model.
Tomorrow I will present two sessions for Upper School faculty.

Here is the Prezi for the session, it was a lot of fun to create!

Professional Development NETS based

Just finished the PD program that will be presented to faculty during inservice. I designed it using the NETS for teachers as a framework. Includes digital tools but also sessions on teaching and learning like: authentic instruction, assessments for learning, Bloom's taxonomy and digital citizenship.

Pretty ambitious? yes, doable? sure but only with full administrative support and faculty buy-in!

This is the Academic Technology website that I created.

This is the page for the Professional Development model.

Blogging: important aspects to reflect upon

Will Richardson posted a blogging scale to determine how students and teachers are using blogs (here is the original posting). Scale:

• Posting assignments. (Not blogging)
• Journaling, i.e. “This is what I did today.” (Not blogging)
• Posting links (Not blogging)
• Links with descriptive annotation, i.e. “This site is about…” (Not really blogging either, but getting close depending on the depth of the description.)
• Links with analysis that gets into the meaning of the content being linked. (A simple form of blogging.)
• Reflective, meta-cognitive writing on practice without links. (Complex writing, but simple blogging, I think. Commenting would probably fall in here somewhere.)
• Links with analysis and synthesis that articulates a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind. (Real blogging)
• Extended analysis and synthesis over a longer period of time that builds on previous posts, links and comments. (Complex blogging)
  

Where in the scale do I place my students?
I believe that they are closer to Real Blogging as they are articulating their personal understanding on a specific topic and they are paying attention to their audience (their peers, me, outside of school viewers).

Although my original intention for the Digital Portfolio project is for students to reflect on their own learning through a series of structured assignments, I would like to shift my focus and challenge the students to write on a regular basis. I would love to see their writing continuously reflecting and extending their knowledge beyond what is covered in the classroom.

Our challenge? Move to Complex blogging!

Professional Development

Had a great exchange of e-mails about ideas for incentives for faculty professional development.
Last bit of good news, big prizes is a go!
I need to come up with a PD model a.s.a.p since I had great buy in at the FLC meeting. Was quite surprised by having it as a mandate for departmental lunches.

21st Century: jargon? buzzword?

This video makes a good case for TEACHING not just using technology tools.

Concept Maps: Bubbl.us

Really easy to create:

PuzzleMaker from Discovery Channel

KINEMATICS

CROSSWORD PUZZLE:

Across
3. how fast an object moves
6. rate of change of velocity
Down
1. location of an object
2. a quantity with direction
4. how fast and in what direction

Glogster

"Glogster is a revolutionary way of expressing your mood, feelings and ideas, and it goes miles beyond text or video! Creating a Glog lets you express all those things you haven’t been able to describe by words. It opens the door to a whole new world of communication – just choose a background, throw in some shapes and characters from our galleries, add text, your own videos or photos and perhaps a pinch of music and there it is! In just a few minutes, you can make a digital poster, a colorful medley of ideas, reflecting your own special style."

GLOGSTER website

Here is my first Glogster:

Velocity Glogster

What really matters

Pedagogy and technology go hand in hand.
A global collaborator, a global communicator. 21st century life-long learners.

Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom by Alan November from Brian Mull on Vimeo.

Using Pixton

Here is my first attempt using Pixton to create a story with comics. The possibilities for editing are virtually endless!

The website has very good tutorial videos. Just click on the Create Tab and select How to Videos from the pulldown menu.

My students had to answer the Kinematics Essential Question using Pixton.

Honors Physics e-portfolios

Finally we were able to start! The kids were hesitant at the beginning but then just took over!
I introduced the portfolio project as an authentic assessment, we discussed digital citizenship, and proceeded to go over the digital portfolio guidelines.
Students created their blogs, learned how to use Wordle and embed it in their blogs. Finally they created simple Vokis.
Great start!
Here is the link to the project:

HONORS PHYSICS DIGITAL PORTFOLIOS

Digital Portofolios_2

I am wondering if Blogger is a better platform to do the e-portfolios. For one thing, enabling comments is a breeze. I also like the ability to post Video and other cool Digital Storytelling Tools right there on the post.

Digital Portfolios

Ready to start the Digital Portfolio project with Honors Physics.
Trying to figure out the best way to write guidelines, how many projects, assessment, how to encourage collaboration.
Lots of good resources to explore!

21st Century Skills

Last week I started the conversation on 21st Century Literacy.
Upper School: not really a conversation as time allowed was minimal
Middle School: the session exceeded my expectations, no doubt that MS is the foundation for preparing students for US; hopefully this will lead to department meeting trainings
Early Childhood: great conversation with Melissa, I was particularly impressed with her Google Site, a very professional look, and did I say I learn how to add items to the sidebar?

Digital Tools: Voki

Here is my first try at Voki

Digital Tools: Wordle and Animoto

Here is my first assignment from the PLP!

My Life: All Around the World.

Used:

- BeFunky to do my pictures in "charcoal"

- Picasa to crop and save the pictures

- Wordle to create my Video opening screen

- Animoto to make the video