Tag Archives: Twitter

Friday Four 5/18

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Cool Tools for Teachers

As I scanned the list of interesting items that I have run across this week in preparation for this week’s missive, I quickly noticed that quite a few of them included some neat “tools” that people might not know about. Hopefully, you will take the time to try one or all of these and find something that you can use.

The first few items are from one of my favorite bloggers, Richard Byrne, who writes the Free Technology for Teachers blog. I subscribe to his blog in my Google Reader and follow him on Twitter (@rmbyrne) so I run across his gems frequently. If you are not a reader of his blog, I strongly encourage you to check it out.

  • Seven great note-taking tools for teachers is a recent post of Richard’s that describes his favorites.
  • Did you know that you can do a Google search from right within your Google Docs? You can even include a citation or image with the click of your mouse. For students working on papers, this is a fantastic tool that I plan on showing my students right away.
  • Have you ever wanted to have a video conference with a group of students or wanted to invite a guest into your classroom? Sure you could use Skype of create a Google+ hangout, but both require all users to have a Skype account or a Google account. With Meetings.io, you can create a “meeting room” and simple share the URL with up to 5 people who can join your video conference without having to have an account.
  • I ran across a new app for the iPad called Nearpod that might be of interest to those of you who want to incorporate interactive multimedia into your lessons. I have downloaded the app (free) and will be field testing it soon. I will post my thoughts on its use as soon as I get a chance to kick the tires a bit. If I am lucky, I will get my capital request for a set of classroom iPads approved so that some of the Loomis Chaffee teachers can try it out next fall.
I have a few additional blog posts that I found interesting that I will include this week even though it will put me in violation of my self-imposed rule of only sharing four items in any one Friday 4 post.
  • One of the people in my PLN that I enjoy engaging with on Twitter is Brian Bennett (@bennettscience). He is a science teacher who uses a flipped-classroom model and is a leader among the online community of teachers using a flipped classroom. He recently wrote about Redesigning Learning in a Flipped Classroom. His thoughts and the comments on his blog post are a great read for those of you interested in the concept.
  • Here is a link to an article that I liked about the Joy of Not Knowing. What better way to model life long learning than to admit you do not know something and then engage in the process of discovery of new knowledge.
Enjoy!

Mid-May Friday Four

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 Friday Four – May 11

For most teachers, spring is mixed bag on several fronts. The end of the school year is in sight, which means that summer is right around the corner; yet there are still classes to teach and lessons to prepare, not to mention the papers to correct. If you are an AP teacher, your students have already taken or are about to take the AP exam which comes with its own flavor of stress and anxiety. Did we get through the entire curriculum? Are the students prepared to score well after all the time and effort spent to this point? If you teach seniors and are like me, you vacillate between wanting to see them graduate today and sad to see them leave after watching them grow and mature right before your very eyes over the past year or more. In my experience, Spring is a funky time no matter how you slice it. So…here is a funky assembly of interesting items I ran across this week for you. Enjoy!

  • Here is a short little video produced by Commoncraft that “explores the tools, policies and people that seek to make Wikipedia articles factual and high quality.” Thanks to Richard Byrne @rmbyrne who runs the freetechforteachers.com website for this item.
  • If you are planning your summer schedule and are looking for some FREE professional development, join me this August 10 at edcamp Connecticut at The Ethel Walker School. Edcamps are known as “unconferences” where the agenda is set and driven by the people who show up. Watch the video below to get a sense for what an edcamp really is.

 

  • As most of you probably know, I am a big fan of Twitter and have found it to be the single most beneficial professional development tool, hands down. Here is a piece from Edutopia.org that makes the case for why we as educators should engage with Twitter this coming summer. You could even use Twitter to share the ideas you pick up at the edcamp in August!
  • My final item this week is actually three separate links that address the effective use of technology in the classroom. Technology for technology’s sake is a bad idea. I think these three pieces do a nice job of looking at the topic from different perspectives.
Enjoy the remaining weeks!

Spring Break Friday Four

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Who said vacation was a time to relax?

It was not until this past Sunday night that I realized that I had missed posting my Friday Four last week. OOPS! In my defense, we had grades and comments due marking the end of the term on Friday morning and vacation waiting upon completion of advisor comments so I was a little distracted. Since I was remiss, I will try and make up for it by posting a couple of extra “finds” this week. Enjoy!

  • Recent blog post from Daniel Willingham, the author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” about school time, knowledge and reading comprehension.
  • TedTalks have created a YouTube channel just for education that just launched this week. Ted-Ed Lessons worth sharing.
  •  Here is a recent post from Tom Whitby, an influential figure in the education world, who can be found on Twitter @tomwhitby. In this post, Tom makes the case for connecting with fellow educators via social media in order to “know what we don’t know.”
  • A nice series of posts by Dr. Judy Willis about How the Brain Thinks from the Edutopia website.
  • An acronym that I stole from somewhere recently is one I like to say to my students “FAIL simply stands for First Attempt In Learning” How glad was I to run across this article: “Want Students to Succeed? Let Them Fail.“
  • The 2011 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher is out and can be found here. This MetLife survey examines the views of teachers, parents and students about the teaching profession, parent and community engagement, and effects of the current economy on families and schools.
  • Vacation has given me some time to catch up on my personal reading which is always the first thing to go once things get busy at school. I am about halfway through a book I would highly recommend if you are interested in the brain science of distraction and multitasking called Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. Here is a link to the book on Amazon.

Final Friday Four of 2011

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Friday Four – December 30, 2011

I like this time of year for a reason that may surprise some of you…I love all of the “year in review” shows and lists of top “whatever” from 2011. I enjoy/appreciate taking time to think back on how the previous year has unfolded and remembering some of the milestones from the past 365 days. I always find something that I had totally forgotten about or missed.

As I ruminated about the past year, I realized that this will be the 16th posting of my Friday Four, each Friday since the beginning of the school year. I have enjoyed sharing some of the interesting items I have run across and hope that you have found at least a few of them intriguing as well. If you have suggestions or thoughts about the Friday Four, I welcome your comments here, e-mails or tweets. Without further ado…

  1.  The NPR Argo network includes a website from KQED in San Francisco called Mindshift: How we will learn that frequently has thought provoking pieces. One that caught my eye this past week was “Three trends that define the future of teaching and learning.” There are 2 other pieces that are part of the series that I recommend looking at as well.
  2. Here is something for my colleagues in the humanities who do a lot of reading and writing in their classes. “The future of reading and writing is collaborative” comes from the Spotlight website. “Spotlight covers the intersections of technology and education, going behind the research to show how digital media is used in and out of classrooms to expand learning.”
  3. Here is an interview with Cathy Davidson, the author of the book Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. I plan on ordering a copy of the book for myself and the Kravis Center and will buy a copy for the first two LC faculty members who tweet me their New Year’s resolution for the classroom. (More on the New Year’s Resolution project in future blog post.)
  4. One of my favorite bloggers is Richard Byrne whose blog “Free Technology for Teachers” had a recent post that includes a link to a great resource “The Super Book of Web Tools for Teachers.”

 

 

Friday Four – Dec 9

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 Friday Four – December 9, 2011

Here are this week’s interesting blog posts, articles or random things I came across that you might find interesting. An eclectic mix this week…it has been busy so randomness is the theme! Enjoy.

  1. The History of English in 10 minutes. A neat little video I ran across on the Open University YouTube channel. Would love to hear comments from English teachers abou this one.
  2. If you are a fan of the “Shift Happens” or “Did you Know” video clips, you may like this clip called “Social Media Revolution 2011.”
  3. Blog post from one of my favorites, Tom Whitby, that asks and answers the question: Who is the best EDU consultant?
  4. Recent article posted on the Education Week site that looks at “How Twitter is Changing Professional Development for Educators.” Most regular readers of my Friday Four are well aware of my fondness for Twitter so this one should come as no surprise!

 

 

Friday Four 11/18

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Friday Four – November 18

The video edition

Here are links to four videos that I have recently run across, or in some cases, re-run across that I hope you find interesting.

  1. Keynote speech given by Eric Mazur at the Building Learning Communities 2011 conference. Eric Mazur is the Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University and a well-known and respected voice in the education world. He  found that lecturing wasn’t effective and began to adopt different approach in his big classes. In order to reach everyone in the situation of big classes, he is still striving to design structured flow and student response tools aided by technologies to maximize the depth of interaction between teachers and students. The video covers his entire address but is WELL WORTH watching in its entirety.
  2. Adam Bellow’s talk at this past summer’s #140EDU conference titled “Educational Tech Commandments.” Adam is the founder of eduTecher, an online tech resource for teachers that is loaded with web 2.0 resources for teachers of all disciplines. Free sign-up to boot! Adam can be found on twitter @adambellow.
  3. 21st Century Classroom Initiative. A video produced for a school board presentation. How many of these initiatives are going on at your school? What are the roadblocks that are preventing these initiatives from becoming reality? What are you going to do about it? Don’t be a bystander!
  4. Chris Lehmann’s TEDx Philly talk titled “Education is Broken.” Chris is  the Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA and can be found on twitter at @chrislehmann.

Friday Four 11/4

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Friday Four – November 4, 2011

Back on the grid at last!

Phew! This has been a crazy week for most anyone who lives in CT. A rogue Nor’ easter blew through the region on Saturday afternoon and knocked out power to nearly 1 million people in CT alone. As of this writing, We have been without power at my house for the past 6 days and still do not know how long it will be until we get it back. As a result of my town’s lack of electricity, I have been “off the grid” for most of the past week and am feeling a bit stretched to come up with 4 nuggets from the past week since I have not been able to engage with my electronic personal learning network. Despite the curveball Mother Nature has sent my way, I present to you this week’s interesting articles or blog post that I ran across (in the last two days!). Enjoy.

  1. New York Times article from 10/26 entitled “How Ready Are We for Bioterrorism?” that explores the state of readiness we are in a decade following the 9/11 attacks on the US. As a teacher of microbiology, I could not resist including this piece since I have spent time in class this fall talking about the topic. Scary reading!
  2. Blog post by Tom Whitby: PD Paradigm Shift. I enjoy reading Tom’s posts and I follow him on Twitter (@tomwhitby); he is a mover and shaker in the online educational world and is never afraid to speak his mind. I was drawn to this post as it relates to the mission and purpose of the Kravis Center. “Give teachers the technology training that they need, and the support they need to use it.” Professional Development is most effective when done at the grassroots level.
  3. Another NYT piece that should get you to scratch your head and think. Cellphones: Why Not Use Them to Teach? I must admit that inclusion of this piece was somewhat strategic. I am working with a few colleagues (Joe Cleary @jhcleary and Richard Scullin @richardscullin) on a workshop that we are going to host at Loomis Chaffee in April on the use of mobile technology as a teaching tool. What better way to drum up interest than to include an article on cellphone use in the classroom? Stay tuned for details about the conference by following me on Twitter. @smacclintic
  4. Ran across this video recently that you may not have seen. Education Evolution. How are we doing on these fronts?

Post Westminster Symposium Thoughts

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I attended and presented at the Westminster Teaching Symposium yesterday (10/21) and have a few thoughts and observations that I would like to share that may inspire others to action. First off, a great big shout out to Tim Quinn and his colleagues at Westminster School who put together a wonderful day of presentations under the title “The Many Ways of Assessing Student Learning.” The symposium was billed as a chance for teachers to learn from other teachers and did not include a keynote speaker or “hired gun” from outside; a wise choice in my humble opinion. Over the years, the best professional development seminars/workshops/conferences that I have attended were all teacher focused and teacher led.

I presented on the use of student response systems (“clickers”) as a formative assessment tool and attended two additional sessions during the day. Jeff Schwartz led a session on the challenges of assessing the new media that we are asking students to produce such as videos and blogs, and John Corrigan (@JohnRCorrigan) presented on the Harkness Discussion and its role in student assessment. The engaging and thoughtful discussions that took place in all three sessions was both encouraging and not at all surprising. Good teachers are always looking for new ideas and are never quite satisfied with the way they are currently doing things. Here is where the challenge comes in.

Quality professional development is critical to a teacher’s ongoing growth; and if asked, most teachers, especially veteran teachers, are yearning for more opportunities than our school’s typically provide. Clearly, Westminster gets it and has established the Westminster Teaching Initiative in response to its faculty’s desire for more professional development. “The Westminster Teaching Initiative was formed in 2010 in order enhance teaching and learning at Westminster School by encouraging collaboration and dialog among faculty members and departments about curriculum and pedagogy.” I am fortunate enough to work at Loomis Chaffee where we have established the Kravis Center for Excellence in Teaching, an on campus resource for faculty professional development. Both of our school’s have realized the value and importance of professional development as an on-going and constant need for our faculties. What was surprising to me was the number of colleagues from other schools who did not have a similar entity at their schools. I had several people come up to me and ask if they could visit my school and see what we were doing in our Center with respect to on-going teacher training and professional development. I was reminded of an article written by Alexis Wiggins about her experiences in several different independent schools and how disappointed she was in the lack of collaboration she found in one of them.

I would encourage all teachers who are yearning for more quality professional development to step up and become leaders in their schools. Attending conferences and workshops is good, but is really only the first step. If you do not have an on-campus vehicle for on-going professional development like those at Westminster or Loomis Chaffee, start your own PLN (personal learning network) of committed colleagues who agree to meet regularly and discuss the craft and challenges of teaching. If this seems too daunting, sign up for Twitter and join the conversations that are occurring each and every day between educators around the country and globe about education. I was surprised when I asked how many people were on Twitter at the symposium and only a few hands went up. If you are unsure how to get started with Twitter, check out this link for a nice overview from a fellow educator. I can be found on Twitter at @smacclintic.

Professional development is not an option. Teaching can be a very isolating profession unless we seek out and create opportunities to share ideas and help one another to improve. I welcome your comments and look forward to sharing with you again soon!

 

Friday Four 10/7

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Here are this week’s Friday 4. A collection of interesting articles/blog posts that I came across that you might find interesting. Enjoy!

Educational Technology for the classroom

  1. Google Docs for educators. I am an avid fan of Google docs for a whole bunch of reasons and have been sharing ideas with my colleagues on how they can use this tool in their classrooms. This link provides a nice overview of Google docs and a ton of resources on how to use the technology in your classroom.
  2. Why Teachers Should Join Twitter. A new user’s view on the value of Twitter for teachers. Skeptical? Give it a try! You can follow me at @smaclintic or our Head of School @SCulbertLC.
  3. 100+ Google tips and tricks for teachers. Who doesn’t use Google these days? This blog post includes some of the most useful and little know tips for teachers. For example: Search within a specific kind of site. If you know you only want results from an educational site, try “site:edu” or for a government site, try “site:gov” and your search term to get results only from sites with those web addresses.
  4. Blog post by Eric Sheninger, the Principal at New Milford HS in NJ, about the creative and innovative ways some of the teachers at his school are integrating educational technology into their classrooms. The final line in his post is “How is your school transforming the teaching and learning process?”  How would we at LC answer this question? Join one of our newly formed PLNs and share what you are doing with our colleagues!

Summer reading twitter chat post mortem

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So, I tried something new with our students and faculty this past weekend having to do with our all-school summer reading book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I posted some thoughts about the plan in an earlier post.

In a nutshell, I invited the faculty and students to join me for a twitter chat about the book the past Sunday evening. I posted instruction on how to follow a twitter chat for those non-twitter users and even created a Jing video to show them how to join the chat. I even went so far as to create a webdoc as a sort of promotional piece for the chat.

So, how did it go? While I was hoping for more people to join in, I was not all that surprised at the limited turn out. There were a bunch of students who joined in, a few parents of current students and a couple of colleagues as well. Given that school is still a few weeks away, I do not blame people for not wanting to join a discussion about the summer reading just yet. On the plus side, there were students from CT, GA, ME, CA and a few other states along with a student in Korea participating…pretty cool actually.

I know that very few of my colleagues are avid Twitter users which did not help. One of my goals this year is to encourage, promote and model how wonderful Twitter and PLNs can be for professional development.

Will I try it again? Definitely! I am fortunate enough to get to deliver a convocation talk to the entire community in the first few weeks of school about the book. I plan on hosting another twitter chat about the book following my talk. Hopefully, by then everybody will have read the book and will be more inclined to engage in academic pursuits on a Sunday evening. Stay tuned….I will post something after the talk and let you know how it went.

If anybody has experience with this type of twitter chat and their school community, I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.