Apr 22 2011
Archive for the 'Professional Development' Category
May 26 2010
Professional Development Development
How do you or would develop professional development opportunities for the staff of an educational institution?
Should I fly by the seat of my pants and simply see what the year brings?
Do I involve my principal in the scope and development, or should I only go to him after I have the basic program?
Perhaps I should put together a survey online and ask for feeedback.
What I am going to try this year is bring together our rookie and veteran SMARTboard users and use them for recon in their various departments for PD requirements.
I am going to work with the Technology Coordinator to support teachers in curriculum development by suggesting technology and tech strategies in the process.
We are beefing up our assistive technology by adding 20 standalone Kurzweil Learnstations and 2 scanner/programming units – these require some serious PD.
Finally, I am going to put together a biweekly program based on
21 Things for the 21st Century Project
Based on the
National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers
This will be wonderful opportunities for learn for the love of it.
What do you think?
May 21 2010
Two books in brief
Silvia Tolisano is one of my favorite bloggers. She has branded herself as Langwitches all over the Internet. Her avatar is a witch. She is at least tri-lingual, with an international flair, teaching in the United States with both European and South American roots. Her site is Langwitches.org.
Her latest effort effort of self publication at lulu.com is Digital Storytelling Tools For Educators.
It is a compendium of the online tools that she uses to tell stories digitally. Included among the tools are Audacity, Google Maps, Mixbook, VoiceThread, Windows Movie Maker, Wordle, and various other resources. She explains the use of the tool with well-annotated screen grabs and her well-turned prose.
Not only can download a free .pdf from Lulu, but the she has licensed her work under Creative Commons according to the cover of her book, available for $8.50. She does not explain on the book cover or on the Lulu what the terms are, however.
Doug Lemov came to instant notoriety in the lead story in New York Times Sunday Magazine on 3/7/2010, entitled Building A Better Teacher. It sent shockwaves through the edu-blogging communities, and educator-readers of The Times. The crux of his proposal is that”The smarter path to boosting student performance, Lemov maintains, is to improve the quality of the teachers who are already teaching.”
He proposes to do this by teaching teachers 49 specific techniques that he says will help any student to be 
college bound. His DVD-supported book is called Teach Like A Champion published this year by Jossey Bass Teacher.
To say the least, almost anyone would find it controversial, sort of Skinnerian to those truly hostile. There are two teacher in the school where I teach who want to make this one of our two faculty Summer reading selections. They are sold on the strength of the just the Times article.
Find Silvia’s book on Lulu, and read the newspaper article about Doug and see what you think.
Jan 02 2010
Let’s ask our Politicians and Policy Makers about their views on education
Great suggestion from Tim Holt in El Paso-
I will be writing some of my own thoughts soon.
Nov 12 2009
Brand New Web 2.0 Tool List
David Kapuler spends a good deal of his time discovering folks on the Web who are talented and generous. One of the recent additions to his interviewees is Naomi Harm. This her list of tools. It is far-reaching, and easy to the eye. I would advise you to take a look:
Aug 12 2009
A New Job
I have been preparing all Summer to go to work at Pioneer Valley Regional School in Northfield Massachusetts.
I cannot stop smiling.
I am going work with the seventh grade three days a week and the High School Keyboarding Class five days. The balance of the time I will the Technology Integrator for both the Middle School and the High School.
This is a brand new position, so the tablet is blank.
Mar 29 2009
Am I a Wimpy Whiner?
Lee Kolbert published a timely blog post 3/29/09 entitled ‘Are you a Wimpy Whiner?’ Lee is from Florida and is the author of The Geeky Momma’s Blog. She is wonderfully intelligent, hardworking, articulate educator working in Instructional Technology.
Her district sponsored a conference with national prestige, but when people wanted to use Twitter to have a a backchannel discussion of the keynote address, they found it BLOCKED. It was confusing and dismaying, but a great deal of good has come from that event.
Writes Ms. Kolbert, “I’m particularly pleased to see the conversation take a turn to how teachers can begin to stop suffering in silence and seek a role in advocating for the very change they are seeking. It is always my contention that we should not “wimply whine.” We must take a part in finding a solution. If you are unhappy with the level of security placed on your desktops at your schools, what are YOU doing about it?”
I think this can be universalized for all the faculties and staffs in relation to a whole host of concerns. The issue of filtering is especially important, but issues like assessment, programmatic issues, even scheduling should not simply be whined about but should be researched and concerns presented to administrators in a cool and professional manner.
Dec 26 2008
Seven Things
I have been tagged by Richard Byrne - http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2008/12/seven-things.html – for a meme that’s been going around. I am tasked with listing seven things about myself that people may not be likely to know that, at the same time, would help my PLN to know me better. Here you are:
1. I tried four times to write novels. I was able to get up to 173 pages of the first draft on one of them.
2. I started college as a biology major.
3. I was a widower when Jan and were married.
4. I am the oldest of nine children: six boys and three girls. I am 18 years older than my youngest sib and 17 years younger than my mom.
5. I have been in one labor union or another for thirty years.
6. My favorite color is green. (I am relieved not to start one of these with ‘I’.)
7. I was a semi-pro first baseman for a while.
I’m tagging:
@amycordova
@jjohnson
@kmulford
@kcaise
@kobus
@skytrystsjoy
@beil
Dec 21 2008
2008 Edublog Awards
The winners of the 2008 Eddies are….
7. Best librarian / library blog
8. Best educational tech support blog
9. Best elearning / corporate education blog
10. Best educational use of audio
11. Best educational use of video / visual
13. Best educational use of a social networking service
14. Best educational use of a virtual world
Discovery Education Second Life
15. Best class blog
Nov 23 2008
Online Learning #5
On the face of it, there are two more issues that need to be set in place to complete the foundation of this discussion:
1. Online learning for professional development;
2. The applicablility of online learning for the community-at-large.
After these issues are reflected upon, we can begin to build our ‘school for lifelong learners’.
