District 68 Twitter Talks

I had the incredible opportunity to spend an hour after school with the staff of Murphy Elementary School yesterday to talk about the benefits of using Twitter.  As I shared the benefits for using this incredible tech tool, it wasn't so much about "how" to use Twitter as opposed to "why" educators use it.  The presentation revolved around this essential question: "How many ways can I get connected and build community by using Twitter?" Instead of just going over the basics of Twitter, I used this question to let us go deeper in our understanding.  The great thing about this type of PHAT question (pretty hard and touch) is that it allows for our brains to give us exactly what we ask for.

Take a look at the presentation slides below for my notes:

In addition, here's a link to the spreadsheet containing weekly Twitter chat dates/times, d68 staff members Twitter handler names, and recommended edutweeps/gurus to follow!

http://goo.gl/UKDnLj

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My Brain on #ICE14

I've been at the 2014 ICE conference for the last three days... yeah, it's my first time here. I can seriously say that my brain has caught on fire at ICE.  I've had the privilege to surround myself with brilliant Illinois educators and listen to my techie, passionate, guru mentors delve deep into what it truly means to engage the learners of today. When I finally have a chance to decompress and dump my brain out on my colleagues, I'll post some ideas that I've gained over the last three days. For now I'll resort to a quick snapshot of my blog posts yet to come.  D68 educators be warned! You'll probably see another one of these appear on the wall in the PD Center!

Wed. @ ICE:  Do you have lessons you can sell tickets for?

I spent the day learning from #HashtagMan...the pirate himself, Dave Burgess (author of Teach Like a Pirate, @burgessdave).  I use Twitter, but I've never taken part in a Twitter chat and I'll say that the #tlap one will be the first one I try out!  This is my first year out of the classroom, and as an instructional coach I have the power to impact the lives of all of our students.  Yet, I couldn't help but feel that my heartstrings were being tugged on (or completely torn out of my body at some points) as Dave Burgess reminded us all to teach with a fiery passion.  Three remarks of his resonated with me...

If the students didn't have to be there, would you be teaching to an empty room?

Do you have lessons you can sell tickets for?

It's not supposed to be easy.  It's supposed to be worth it! 

A few take-aways...

• Twitter filters out all of the energy vampires
• It's okay to create a superhero or supervillain to teach your content
• Three words... the mullet ratio
• Wedding photographer resilience
• Can I... How can I.... How many ways can I....?
• Creative alchemy: Zombies vs. humans vs. pirates vs. ninjas
• It's hard to be passionate about... railroads
• Pulling a red bra out of a bag may get you fired, but the kids will never forget that learning experience!

Thurs. @ ICE: Aren't you glad that we benefit from people who can't stand to be bored?

Thursday kicked off with a brilliant keynote by Mike Muir (@mmuir) followed by a mishmosh of workshops.  Although some workshops highlighted very different tools or learning experiences, they all held a common thread: giving students and teachers access to plugged-in power to amplify their voice, choice, and empowered leadership.

A few take-aways...

• Scout-like badges for adults: Digital Badges for PD
• Feed-forward instead of feedback
• Oooh... that question was P.H.A.T!
• Genius hour will seriously blow your mind
• So long KWL... Hello KWHLAQ!
• The most incredible tech tool on team common core: SubText
• 1:1 is about more than just giving all kids a device, and it is SO beyond just having phones aka "pockets of excellence"

Fri. @ ICE: #BeMoreDog!

I've followed George Couros (@gcouros) on Twitter for awhile, read his blog posts, and have viewed his TEDtalk, but this was the first time I've gotten to hear him speak in public when he did Friday's keynote speech.  I told my boss, Greg Wolcott (@TeachLearn68), that this was the best keynote I've ever seen, but then was quickly reminded that I say that for just about every keynote I see, haha. Here's a re-cap of his best points:

A few take-aways...

• Transform yourself... aka: #BeMoreDog (you've got to watch the video above).
• Embrace connectivity... and take selfies with the Pope
• I'd take a video-gram on YouTube than receive a card any day
• Newsletter 4.0... we were ALL engaged in a NEWSLETTER! Wow!
• Disrupt your routine.  We can learn a lot from Taylor Swift "Trouble" remixes
• "The need to create never goes away," says our 12-year-old self
• Kids are sick of the cyber bully talk. We’re just saying “don’t be horrible” and instead we should be saying “hey kids you have the world at your fingertips - go do something amazing!"
• A Must-Do: the Innovation Day
• insert Justin Bieber joke here.

So how can I possibly wrap-up the last three days?  Learning... it's messy, and success is equally as messy. It’s all over the place. The biggest game changer in education has NOTHING to do with technology.  Rather, it all comes down to the educator's mindset. Think differently and grow.

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Communicating Visually with ThingLink and Lucidchart

I had a great time yesterday chatting with two teachers, Melissa Barron and Leslie Loboda, and we were mustering around ideas on better tools for annotating texts and images online. With Diigo already something many teachers and students are accustomed to (see my previous post on Diigo here), we talked instead about ThingLink and LucidChart for visual communication tools. In addition, due to the fact that we decided not to renew our district subscription to Glogster for this year, these are great free tools that can supplement similar experiences for our students.

ThingLink allows users to add media-rich content and text to image files. It's somewhat like Facebook tagged-images meets storytelling and annotating as images come alive with music, text, video, images, hyperlinks, etc. It is extremely intuitive to use. Students can create and explore advertisements, time periods, vocabulary, authors and other topics by creating media bundles on one collective image. Here is a brief intro to ThingLink as well as 26+ strategies on how to use it in the classroom.
Note: If you're a teacher or student, you can upgrade your account to Education; it’s FREE. If a student is under the age of 13, a teacher, parent or legal guardian must provide consent for the child to use ThingLink.

A Brief Look at ThingLink

26+ Ways to use ThingLink (by Donna Baumbach)

Here's a sample

Lucidcharts is a common tool that Melissa uses with her 7th and 8th grade science classes as a shareable and interactive brainstorming, annotating, diagramming/flowchart tool.  Lucidcharts integrates instantly with Google Drive, and for students and teachers that are already accustomed to the sharing/editing aspect that goes on within Google Drive, using Lucidcharts will seem very familiar.  Simply sign up for a free account with your Google (D68 teachers - your email is a Gmail account) and then head on over to the Chrome Web Store and download the Chrome App, also free.  Once you have an account, be sure to do the free K-12 education upgrade!

Link: 10 ways to use Lucidcharts in the classroom

A Brief Look at Lucidcharts integration with Google (disregard the portion on Visio docs)

Here's a sample of a Lucidchart that D68 new teachers worked on together

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Challenge accepted - the chain blog!

I received a tempting challenge over the two-week winter holiday from my friend and colleague, Tom Hierck, that has been lighting up Twitter like wildfire.   My middle-school self would be appalled of my delay and failure in turning in this "homework assignment" on time, but I was a bit distracted with all of the (what I now know as) binge-watching of Downton Abbey and House of Cards, and finally... finally getting to read Divergent!  The invitation to the challenge is to create a blog, or write on your existing blog, and list 11 random facts about myself, answer Tom's 11 questions, pose 11 of my own, and pass it forward to 11 recipients.

My 11 Random Facts:

1. Teaching is in my blood - I come from a family of teachers.
2. I'm a singer in a country cover band named Lincoln Don't Lie.
3. I am a foodie - I absolutely love to cook, but I still hate it when my food touches other food on my plate (weird, I know!).
4. I've auditioned for both American Idol and The Voice (didn't make it to the judges round, though).
5. I still remember the very first time I had to "turn my light to red" in 1st grade...
6. I was born with a cleft lip and palate and have had 13 reconstructive surgeries
7. I was captain of my softball team in high school, but I turned down full-rides to college to play softball after feeling overwhelmed from living and breathing the sport since I was 11.
8. My dog Wrigley loves to watch TV - she sat through (and watched) all of Avatar.
9. Studying abroad in London during college was the most rewarding learning experience I've ever encountered.
10. My last name used to be VonTesmer (somewhere along the line my ancestors changed it...).
11. I graduated from the University of Iowa but originally went there for their College of Nursing program.

Tom's Questions:

1. What was your favorite TV show as a child? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

2. What cartoon character do you most identify with? Not sure... but I really liked Rainbow Brite when I was growing up.

3. What ability would you like to have that you don't currently possess? I wish I could tap dance well.

4. What did you pick as your last meal? I'm currently on a fruit and veggie detox so I don't know if I whole-heartedly chose my last meal.  I had a mango and strawberry smoothie. It was good, but I'm pretty sure I'm ready for some bacon and pancakes!

5. What was the best present you ever received? My Martin acoustic guitar when I was 13.

6. If you could spend one hour talking with one person (living or dead) who would it be? My grandfather on my dad's side.

7. What would you buy if money was not a concern? A vineyard.  I would love to have my own wine.

8. What's the best sport to watch live? Hockey

9. What animal would you be and why? Probably my dog - she's got it good.

10. What age would you remain at and why? I'd stay 8.  When kids turned 9 or 10 it was no longer socially acceptable to go out and play with other neighborhood kids for some reason. Nights were full of campfires, ghost in the graveyard, flashlight tag, painting the neighborhood streets with chalk and creating a "town"... life before things became "too cool".

11. What is the best book you ever read? I think I say this about every great book I read.  It might be cliche but I'd choose the 3rd Harry Potter novel (The Prisoner of Azakaban).

My Questions:

1. If you could be anyone for one day, who would you be?
2. What is something you get nerdy-excited over?
3. If you were back in elementary/middle/high school again, what is something you would do differently?
4. What is one new activity you wish to take up this year?
5. When are you happiest?
6. What's the strangest thing you've ever eaten?
7. What's your favorite part about today so far?
8. What was your favorite grade/year in school?
9. If you were going to write a book, what would you call it and what would it be about?
10. What is the best advice you've ever received OR given?
11. If you could time travel, would you travel to the past or the future?

My 11 chain-blogging recipients:

1. Katie Matthews
2. Amy Medows
3. Diana Parker
4. Pete Ceresa
5. Jen Oswald
6. Sara Tomasevich
7. Lauren White
8. Nate Driessens
9. Pam Basford
10. Regina Leeberg
11. Di Ander

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Two Chrome Extensions to Help Students Engage with Online Texts

Two extensions that have been pushed out to all Chromebooks are the Diigo annotation toolbar and Google Dictionary extensions.  Diigo will appear as a blue box with a white "d" and the dictionary will be seen as a red book (as seen in the image below!).

If you were to search for these extensions in your Chrome Web Store, you will notice that they are checked off and appear as installed in the top right corner of the Chrome Browser.

These two extensions become a double-whammy when students are reading and annotating content online.  With the Google Dictionary installed, all students need to do when they come across a word they are unfamiliar with is to simply double click on the word.  A yellow bubble pops up above the word that defines the word, allows for the word to be sounded out by the computer, and allows for more options to be viewed as alternate definitions, synonyms, and antonyms.

Even as an adult learner, I save all sites that I bookmark onto Diigo as a way to collect and organize my work and online reading.  That way, no matter where I am and what internet browser I am using, I can access every site I have bookmarked. Here's a few helpful tips and screenshots for the first-time Diigo user. 

Diigo Social Bookmarking Directions for Students
Diigo Social Bookmarking Directions for Teachers

1. When you're on a site that you want to bookmark and save into Diigo, simply click on the blue Diigo icon and an "Edit Bookmark" window will pop up.  Click "Save" and add the site to a list (note: with your first time you'll need to choose "Create a List", name it, "Add" it, and save it).  You can add a description and click on tag-able words to categorize the site.

2. You can also highlight and write notes on the text by clicking on the "Annotate" button (note: you cannot edit a PDF).  In addition, this pop-up window also contains tools for you to take a screen shot, share the page, and go directly to your Diigo library.

 3. When you click Annotate, a three-icon toolbar will appear on the right side of your website.  Click on the pen and click anywhere on the text to highlight.  You can also click on the sticky-note to add notes of your own to the page (you can drag those around the page too-not limited to just placing in one location).

4. When you go to your library, you will see a mega list of your bookmarked pages, as well as any notes you may have taken of highlights of the text you've done on the page.  When you click in the area of that article, you will also notice 5 icons appear on the right side (the last one includes a Send-to and Get Annotated Link options. You can choose to send the site to others with or without your notes on them).

5. Finally, on the left sidebar of your Diigo personal library page, you'll notice a list of your tags (words that categorize your articles) and the lists you've created within Diigo.  These become extremely helpful when you've been using the tool for awhile and need to search for something!

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We Engage 2013 Keynote and Closing Presentation

Jefferson Junior High

Friday, Dec. 13th

8:00AM - 3:30PM

Our 21st century engagement inservice, We Engage 2013, is upon us!  This Friday, Woodridge 68 staff will meet for a day of awesome sharing, empowering, and collaborating over brain-tingling goodness (aka strategies to boost overall student engagement with AND without technology).  Keynote starts at 8:05!  Staff are encouraged to bring a Chromebook from their building or BYOD (bring your own device) as guest wifi will be provided!

I am beyond thrilled to be giving this year's keynote and closing sessions!  During this time, I will go over the philosophy behind the changes to our inservice, the theme for this year (shifting control/who owns the learning), the 4Cs, and redefining the role of the classroom teacher.  Below is a copy of the keynote and closing slides (links to the videos you'll see on Friday are placed as http addresses in the slides below)!

Slideshow created on Haiku Deck (beta web version).

Our Schedule is still live on our Sched page (http://we13.sched.org).  Go there to see your schedule, room assignments, and review any information on whether or not you need to bring anything with you (noted in the session descriptions).

See you Friday!

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Getting to Know Sched for WE13!

This week, staff will be introduced to our online scheduler for We Engage 13 (http://we13.sched.org).  This scheduler will be hosted on the website, Sched.org.  Take a look at the video below to get a tour of the site, and see the Google Presentation underneath to learn how to add Sched to your smart phone/print your personalized schedule.

View the W.E. 13 Schedule Page

View the W.E. 13 List of Presenters

Feature Tour for Attendees from Sched on Vimeo.

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Fostering Connected Learners

During my undergrad at Iowa, I felt that the classes I had the most success in were the ones where I felt I had a pretty good bond with the teacher.  With that came an effortless connection with not only my fellow peers in the class but with the content being taught as well.  When I entered into the teaching profession as a language arts teacher, I felt that even though I had to uphold my duties to cover the standards designated to me, but I also felt a strong need to educate my students on how to be a better person - to teach what it means to be a good person.  In a time when much importance is designated to formative and summative assessment strategies, the idea of simply education students "how to be" gets put on the back burner.

With the 2013-2014 school year came district-wide initiatives of forming strong, caring relationships with and between students. Think of your classroom. There are many opportunities that you allow students to make connections and build relationships with not only one another but also with the content you are teaching. If you're considering integrating technology into this, consider this goal in mind of redefining your classroom practices to connect your students.  To learn more, please view my edu-flyer on Smore or click on the Connected Learners image to the right.

How can we provide opportunities for our students to become efficient, connected learners? Think about how you can inspire learning to continue beyond walls the of your classroom. Too many times when integrating technology into educational practices, we forget that our goal is not to have the students "master" the technology tool but rather it is that we enhance their abilities on the skill(s) being taught.  

Before we unleash a plethora of tech-strategies to our students, we need to be comfortable with letting go of control and allowing for students to harness multiple paths, paces, time, and places for learning.  For more information on blended learning strategies, see Top 10 Reasons Why Blended Learning is Worth the Hype and Blended Learning Demystified.

Think about what you want your students to do. What do you want them to get out of the learning process? In this case, we want our students to become thoughtful collaborators and communicators in order to become connected learners. Technology can help get our students there when it is effectively integrated into this goal.  Take a look at the Smore flyer for a few suggested classroom strategies to build off of before you're ready to fully integrate the additional tech tools.  Once you're comfortable, consider the quote below... :)

image courtesy of Venspired

Tech tools highlighted in the Smore flyer include Collaborize Classroom, Blogger, and Diigo.

Here are two video clips on Collaborize Classroom: the first is a basic overview of the tool and the second is an example of how English teacher Catlin Tucker uses Collaborize Classroom with her students.

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Strategy of the Week: Fostering Connected Learners

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Remind 101: Receive Updates from Tarah

Many teachers this year are using the free classroom text messaging system Remind 101, and I hope to begin using it as well!  To keep things simple, roughly 2-3 messages will be sent out each week.  Messages can include information pertaining to workshops I'm providing, video screen casts that I've placed on the blog, or any other information pertaining to educational technology.  If you're a District 68 staff member and would like to receive message alerts from me, please follow these simple instructions:

To find out more information about Remind 101, check out the bulletpointed section of information on my Tips and Handouts page here or visit the Remind 101 website.  Currently, we use this application for the fall musical for sending out alerts to regarding rehearsals and important information to parents and students that are signed up to receive our messages. You can view the widget installed onto our musical's blog page here to get an idea of what we send out to message receivers.

For staff using Remind 101 and a classroom blog page, you can embed the Remind 101 widget onto your homepage.  See Remind 101's screen shots on how to do this here.

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How are you planning on engaging your parents and students?

Today's learners are connected to information in diverse technological ways, and with our focus on forming strong relationships with and between our students, parents, and fellow staff members, it is vital that educators consider new platforms of communication. There are other avenues beyond e-mail and parent phone contact, and perhaps these formats are no longer the tools educators can rely on to be the most engaging tool of communication.  Consider how you can use the technology you already have (or can download quickly for free!) to amp up the the paths of connectivity you will have with you new students and parents this school year.  

Here are a few of my Best Bet communication tools you can keep in your toolbox of resources. Try a few, and share your stories.  If you have any other resources that I have not included on this list, please feel free to add them as comments below!

Remind 101

• Send text message reminders to students; stay connected to parents. One way communication from teacher to students and parents. See my Tips & Handouts page for all information regarding Remind 101 and how to set up a free account.

Twitter

• Fastest way to reach out globally and on the go to others w/in our profession.  Creating a professional Twitter account allows you not only to stay up to date with best practices, but you can also use it as a bridge to communicate out to others all of the amazing things going on in your classroom!

Google Voice

• Allow user to create one free phone number through Google - never attaches to your actual phone number and can send and receive texts, voicemails, and phone calls.  Messages can be emailed to you, heard OR read from the web, or sent as a message to your actual phone (advanced use with using Google Voice for Podcasting: http://goo.gl/LxKLSB).

Google Forms w/Form Emailer

• This application that is found through Google Drive can be used in so many different ways, but teachers can use it daily as an entry or exit slip. A great way to take Google Forms a step further is to use a Form Emailer - this allows you to send individual results AND your feedback to student email addresses - or even parents! (Here’s Catlin Tucker’s tutorial on this: http://goo.gl/0fCbBI)

Classroom Blogs

• Easy to create blogs with the ready-made templates on Blogger (and it syncs to your Woodridge Gmail account!).  An all-in-one hub for students to collaborate and contribute to the learning process. Check out some great examples created by staff in the district here: sample 1, sample 2, sample 3, sample 4, sample 5.

Google Sites for ePortfolios

• A presenter from ISTE '13 and BLC '13, Catlin Tucker, uses Google Sites as the platform that her students use to create Digital Portfolios.  Here’s a link to her blog post on Digital Portfolios which features many samples of her students’ work: http://goo.gl/eWirX1

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