DAY 5 - Final Thoughts and Presentations

Doug - don't get stuck on the escalator - Googledocs, blogger (teachers sharing practices and innovation), "build it and they will come (food)", Tony Wagner author, book studies are a great way to spark or create innovation for teachers, find ways to see exemplar practices,

Celina - communication and evaluation - geting rid of the old dog and pony show evaluation method and building a positive effective feedback environment

Angela - Read John Medina, Brain Rules - used Googlepresentation,

• survival - humans evolved from the reptilian like brain to FFFF, feeding, fighting, fleeing, F = reproduction, === abstract thinking,
• exercise - exercise boosts brain power = oxygen, changes us molecularly, don't cut PE and recess, humans used to average walking 12 hours a day, 
• sleep - sleep well think well, afternoon down time especially
• Stress - stressed brains don't function as well - stress research shows that is "scars blood cells"
• Wiring - every brain is wired differently
• Attention - we don't pay attention to boring things - connect a presentation to the person,
• Memory - repeat to remember, space and time in between repetitions,
• Five Senses - sensory integration 
• Vision trumps all other senses - vision takes up 50% of our brain energy
• Music - Musicians always perform better than nonmusicians in many sense driven activities and communicaiton.  Musicians are always more emphathetic
• Gender - they are different
• Exploration - we are powerful and natural explorers

 CARL - embrace technology and kids where they are right now. 

Breck

Debbie - build a culture of feedback in a two-way loop with admin and staff,
TALENT ED - program for evaluation and feedback for admins
used Googleforms to create an evaluation and feedback system = cool

Annie - Visions of Grandeur - webmaster collaboration

Michael

• Google + = communities, online forum, video chat hangouts, 
• photobooth
• evernote
• blogger
•  
• lifehacker.com = 
• Pinterest
• IMDB = internet movie database
• metacritic - accumulates critical opinions
• squarespace = web design templates

Robyn - used Googleforms for behavior data tracking

Yolanda - technology improving communication, engaging audiences, website building

Bonnie - blogger, website,

Day 4 - Seth - Technology for Administrators

blogging through Google can be used for building leaders to capture celebrations/events from the year.

John Medina on Vision from "Brain Rules"
Visuals are the powerful brain tools -

Michael Wesch - Kansas State U. - anthroplogy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

iMovie

Today I was excited to seek out lots of resources to use as scaffolds and supplements to our fourth grade reading and writing curriculum especially.  I'm really focusing on:

              3-4 Best Practices for teachers of ELLs

a.     Teach a set of academic vocabulary words intensively across several days using a variety of instructional activities.

b.    Student engagement

                                               i.     Writing from an authentic purpose

                                              ii.     Pair and group talk

c.     Building background

d.    Comprehensible Input

  My goal for this class project was to utilize as much online resources as I could for ELL's and lower language functioning students.   Much like Robyn mentioned in class, I am excited to take back what I've learned but have decided that I must model great work to my colleagues instead of just telling everyone about it.

So, I set up an Edmodo account with the intent of utilizing it for sharing of documents that will have weekly vocabulary sentence frames, writing prompts, resources, etc.  From their I can link websites to support the meaning of the vocabulary words using digital resources like Discovery Streaming, Wikipedia, Youtube, and Worldbook Online.  I was frustrated that any online visual dictionaries I could find had a ton of advertisements and distractions.

Next steps, in order to transform my curriculum while being led by the CCSS and paralleling my teaching partners, is to use our reading and writing scope and sequence to guide the themes and content.  I'm focused on the theme "Journeys" in reading and writing.  My goal is to support the opening of Writing Workshop and create some really juicy personal narrative writing to open the year (write about a person, place and an object).  Then, transition into realistic fiction per the Lucy Calkins curriculum.  Lewis and Clark, Japanese Americans, the Iditarod, the Titanic and 4th grade science concepts are available to me during the opening 6-10 weeks for building on.

DAY 3

Daniel Pink video

Sir Ken Robinson Video

Flipped Prof. Dev.
http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2013/06/12/03whatworks.h06.html?tkn=WNCCPKaOujIic+fPRXNzw6OK3iL6IcSzGPKO&cmp=clp-sb-ascd

Dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/

Great for sharing large files.  There is a public folder so that you can share powerpoints or other large documents there for others to access.

iTunes U.
iTunes University - Bend La Pine has a great set up of courses. 

Lit to Go
 http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/34/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer/

Libribox
https://librivox.org/

Website Design
http://creativecommons.org/

slideshare
http://www.slideshare.net/

screenr
allows screencasts and screenshots

Tubechop
allows the editing of youtube videos - picking out a piece

REFLECTION DAY 3
Today I am convinced that I will utilize one of the new applications that we've discussed in the classroom in order to foster written dialogue back and forth between students and me.  I was going to utilize BloggerGoogledocs before I remembered that I have access to Edmodo.  I am using the Edmodo tutorials on iTunes U that Bend La Pine created with our iPad rollout last year.  Hopefully the tutorials will help me decide which of the tools might be better for my classroom environment. 

Bend La Pine 1:1 Digital Conversion Plan and Guide

Overview:
http://www.bend.k12.or.us/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=4801

Digital Conversion Guide:

http://www.bend.k12.or.us/education/page/download.php?fileinfo=RGlnaXRhbF9Db252ZXJzaW9uX0d1aWRlLnBkZjo6Oi93d3c3L3NjaG9vbHMvb3IvYmVuZGxhcGluZS9pbWFnZXMvZG9jbWdyLzY2ZmlsZTEyNzYzLnBkZg==&sectiondetailid=4801

"Flipping" the Community School

Sir Ken Robinson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u6XAPnuFjJc

In my dream model of public education in the future, our brick and mortar buildings don't go away.  We just change the focus of what goes on inside and out.  These buildings would become a hub of community activity.  These community schools would give all citizens access to learning tools that include (but not exclusive to) computers, scanners, art, music, sports, health/medical and common trades (welding, cat design, etc.).  These hubs for the community would have structured classes and groups for all ages based on interest.  Citizens would go there to learn computer skills, languages, mathematics or animation. Soccer, baseball and dance classes would take place and the sports fields would be utilized in some democratic fashion.  There would still be a place for teachers in the new world view of teachers who act as facilitators and administrators of tools for learning and for organizing experts on topics who lead classes or seminars on topics needed by the community.  Daycare, as we know it, wouldn't exist because there would be a robust amount of activities being provided for all age levels that families could enroll their children in. 

You can imagine that these buildings would be unique to the culture and geography of their communities having focuses that are determined by the needs going on in that community.  What would be standard in all of them would be caring professional teacher/organizers who bring together the tools and experts (from within and from outside the community) to help with what the users need and want to learn.  

Consternation:
 Last year I had began slow change after having some experiences similar to this class.  I was inspired and intimidated seeing what outstanding educator were accomplishing elsewhere and feeling frustrated that no one around me was attempting to change our systems, pedagogy... policy.  While my district is implementing whole sale structural change, it will take a painfully long time to reach me.  In the mean time, I took risks and monopolized laptop carts, asked the kids to use Googledocs and pushed the limits of what my evaluator saw as teaching our curriculum with efficacy. My evaluation suffered and I believe that I was viewed in a negative light.  I'm not actually sure how others see me as suddenly, we have a whole new staff, new principal and our year was pretty contentious.  I do know my evaluators marked me down for not being as in tune with my grade level partners as I could have been. 

DAY 2

What is the best technology integration in education that you've seen?

• gonoodle - first grade - movement?
• 6th grade - globalization - child labor - website building, raise money, social media, final presentation,
• nearpod - read books, formative assessments, small group instruction based on assessments,
• classroom interactive software/tools/apps - 
• facetime - record themselves - staff member uses them to share with staff that are not there. 
• Evernote - Todd - notetaking, collection of digital content that is important
• SAMR model - how does technology improve the experience?

ZHAO:
http://zhaolearning.com/2010/01/25/the-medium-is-the-message-educating-generation-m/


Douglas Bundy - Beaverton School District - Raleigh Hills K-8 - guest speaker - Google certified teacher

Well, G. Douglas Bundy's visit just solidified my thinking more as a teacher for next year.  Although I am here to wear my administrator hat, the reality is that in September I begin another year teaching fourth grade.  I also am charged with welcoming and teaming with two new team members who are arriving from Spain.  The two teachers being added to my team will be teaching within our dual immersion program and geographically will be across the Bear Creek campus.  This resonates as I have been a part of a team that has been closely guided by our administration within a Mathematics lesson study program and following a scripted math curriculum called Bridges.  Additionally, our district has put a lot of energy into teaching teams planning together within reading and writing and staying together tightly along our curriculum scope and sequences.  My English speaking teammate is a probationary teacher who leans away from my use of technology and is much more traditional in her approach. 

  With all of this in mind, I am really nervous about breaking away from what everyone else is doing and developing more of what I've learned in this class and many of my other recent graduate classes.  To some up those ideas and what I believe I should be doing instead of what my teammates will be doing isn't that "outlandish."  My goals would be to utilize technology to incorporate student structured talk, media (video, images) and other technology tools to better lead my class.  My goals would be to differentiate more within the class and provide more opportunities for the kids to break away from some of the traditional activities that the reading basal program asks them to do.  I will follow our content standards in the same time frame as my teammate but I will incorporate more connecting of the big ideas to outside resources and reading. I will utilize video and outside sources of information on our learning themes to generate discussion and we will write a lot using Googledocs.  Students will also be asked to present various ideas within small groups and the class.  I do see a good avenue here for using the blog feature of Google.  Asking students to blog around various topics and issues would certainly create some great communication opportunities.