Wonderful Weekend Website

image source: http://blog.startapp.com/2013-holiday-season-numbers/

One of our FISD elementary schools uses the Class Messenger app to communicate with parents. They send pictures of what they did that day, communicate information and can even do a quick survey. It is different from Remind because it allows for two-way communication.

Another one does Hassle-Free Fundraising with the Shoparoo app. It turns your shopping receipts into donations for your school. 

Click HERE for Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers. Each graphic organizer has teaching notes with lessons and tips on how to use it in the classroom. What makes these PDF's different than regular PDF's is the ability to type on them. 

Check out this Google App called Timer Loop. It is a simple application to create multiple timers and loop through them in sequence. Perfect for managing your students time. Get it from the Chrome Store. 

Wonderful Weekend Websites

Image source:http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-its-awesome-its-new-its-here/

Google Classroom!!!!

Here is what Google is saying about Google classroom --- ".....is designed to help teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly, including time-saving features like the ability to automatically make a copy of a Google Document for each student. It also creates Drive folders for each assignment and for each student to help keep everyone organized.Students can keep track of what’s due on the Assignments page and begin working with just a click. Teachers can quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback and grades right in Classroom." 

 I've learned a few things after playing with it, make a class for each section that you teach, and teach students how to make an appropriate comment.   Ready to try it?? Here is a link to some videos that will help you set up Google classroom. Don't forget you can always contact me for some one-on-one training. I can't wait to see the AWESOME ways Forney ISD will be using it.

Tuesday Tech Tip 8/19/14

Image source: http://orva.k12start.com/images/schools/schoolscomputer.jpg

Here are some helpful Technology Tips to start off your year.

Teachers get 4 hours a day of streaming time, so make sure you download your videos and music. Just FYI: If you click on an app to play your videos/music it is streaming. To download video use Anyvideoconverter from the Self Install Folder. 

Students get 1 hour a day of streaming time, remind your students to download their music so they will be able to use their device for educational purposes later in the day.

Image source: http://icons.iconarchive.com/icons/cornmanthe3rd/plex/512/Communication-gmail-icon.png

To help all of us get to know one another make sure you have a signature on your Outlook and school Google accounts.  Here's a link to the tutorial. 

Want to forward your Google mail to your Outlook mail? Click here for a link to the tutorial. We are working on way to forward the other way from Outlook to Google. 

Here's a short video for some beginning of the year Forethought Scheduling tips. If you need more information there are a number of other tutorials on the District Handouts and Tutorials website. 

Need to access your 'H' Drive at home? Click here for the link. You will have to input your username and password. 

Tuesday Tech Tip

You may have noticed some pretty significant changes to Google Drive lately, but if you haven't, no doubt you will as you begin the 2014-15 school year. Here's a great overview from Alice Keeler's blog, a Cheat Sheet from Shake-up Learning and a video from Fried Technology.  Hope these help you get started on the right foot! Let me know if you need any help with these changes. 
Image source: http://www.droid-life.com/2014/03/13/google-cuts-the-price-of-drive-cloud-storage-starting-at-15gb-for-free/

Reflections from CAMT 2014

Another great 3 days of learning at the Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching. WAIT -- don’t stop reading because you don’t teach math, because guess what I don’t either. Good teaching is good teaching, best strategies are best strategies regardless of the content area. I’m sure you will find at least one thing you can apply to your classroom.

Check out this great resource for financial lessons plans for Math, ELA, History and Economics.

Our own Elementary Math Facilitator Wendy Smith presented two fact filled sessions on Flipping the Classroom for Parents.  Did you know that programs and intervention that engage families in supporting their children’s learning at home are linked to higher student achievement? Many participants said it was the best session of the conference. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/FlippedCAMT2014

image source: http://inservice.ascd.org/whole-child/digital-divide-2-0-engaging-hispanic-youth/

Roger Fuller from Tyler ISD presented an entertaining session on Integrating STEM/PBL with Rigorous Mathematics. He demonstrated easy ways to distribute papers and turn over the learning to the class. During the presentation, we did 3 micro PBL projects, including which one of your blinker bulbs burns out first the left or the right? He suggested that we should not be as interested in the answer as we are in the process.  Some of my favorite quotes; “Students can’t all run at the same speed, so why do we think they should all learn at the same speed” and “a teachers job is not to give the answers but to give the students the tools to solve a problem.”

image source: http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/part-5-14-amazing-project-sites-a-stem-pbl-common-core-series-a-goldmine-of-resources/

Cindy Schimek & Libby Chaskin presented Resources That Make You Think. There is research that “rich” tasks are more important than more multiple choice type questions. Formative assessment should be about looking at student work and not about giving a grade, they refer to this as OMG’s – Obstacles, Misconceptions and Gaps in Learning. Here are 3 websites that have “rich” tasks. Website 1 - MARS Tasks and Tools for Teachers, make sure you check out all grade levels. Website 2 - Illustrative Mathematics can be sorted by grade level or subject area. Website 3 - Mathematics Assessment Project has everything; complete lessons from pre-assessment to post-assessment. According to the presenters is is critical to do the lesson they way it is written. This site even has some professional development with how-to videos.

One of the best sessions was Dan Meyer, he is an amazing presenter, check him out on Twitter @ddmeyer. His presentation covered what is and what is not modeling. Modeling is Identifying Variables, Formulating Models, Performing Operations, Interpreting results and Validating Conclusion. It is deeply satisfying for students to see the whole cycle. Most of what is labeled in textbooks as modeling is not modelling at all. Instead of making math into real world, we want to take the world and turn it into math.  An example of this is the Super Stairs. Capture your curiosity!!!

As a non-math teacher this  session on alternatives to algorithms really stretched my thinking. Leslie Koske suggested giving students fewer problems to solve  but have them solve it in multiple ways and then defend their answers. Another suggestion was not to give “naked” problems, in other words make stores to go with them.  I’ll upload her presentation as soon as I get it.  

image source: http://www.quickmeme.com/p/3vo66k

What did you learn this summer that you can share with the rest of us?

Contact me if you need help sharing.

Wonderful Weekend Website

Make your images interactive with Thinglink.com.  To learn what thinglink can do for education, click here.   

Contact me if you want to give it a try.

Adjusting for the Google Generation

In a recent blog post "10 Ways Teacher Planning Should Adjust to the Google Generation"  Terry Heick points out that "information isn't scarce and students need help with data navigation.... The things students need to know is different than it was a half-century ago." I say the things students need to know is different than it was even 5 years ago and if you are still teaching like you did 5 years ago, you are failing your students. Some of you will say, "That's not me, I wasn't teaching 5 years ago" but are you teaching like you were taught? If so, then you are failing your students.

Let's look at Mr. Heick 10 suggestions:

1. Make the work Google-proof -
      If they can Google the answers then maybe you are asking the wrong questions.
2. Force them to grapple with big questions without answers - 
      Try some project or problem based learning, or use scenarios and learning simulations. 
3. Actually make social networks and media channels part of curriculum -
      Use what students are familiar with.
4. Focus on learning strategies -
      Help students learn how to understand and work with information.
5. Create curriculum and lessons that absorb data seamlessly - 
6. Anticipate student needs - 
     Be proactive and allow for choice.
7. Focus less on “understanding” - 
     When we "tell students exactly what they will understand, when they will understand it and at what depth, and how they will prove it" we are setting ourselves up for frustration on both the student and our parts. 
8. Use spiraling by design - 
    Decide on the most important ideas and practice them at different levels of Bloom's. 
9. Discourage use of traditional units - 
    Emphasize the learning
10. Illuminate the nuance of the world - 
    Students need to be able to separate what's worth understanding from what's not for themselves. 
11. Promote discovery and curiosity and self-direction over coverage and compliance