Passionate Professionals November 4, 2010

There is a lot to be said for being around other passionate professionals. As I had dinner recently with some colleagues I realized how much our heated conversation about the future of education helped to remind me why I have chosen this career path. The synergy and passion that I felt during our discussion that night is something that keeps me going. I am grateful that I opportunities to draw on the passion and enthusiasm of other great education professionals…its really what inspires me.
I hope that you have opportunities to engage in passionate conversations too! It really is an exciting time to be in education!

Thanks to @Plugusin for this great visual.

 

Google Forms: Making Assessment a Reality March 7, 2010

Using formative and summative assessments in our classrooms is a cornerstone for good teaching.  Although teachers know that they should use these assessments in their classrooms, creating, distributing and checking the assessments has complicated the reality teachers of using them on a regular basis.  Google forms has changed all of this.  Thanks to Google forms, assessments are freely created, distributed and checked without having to make copies, distribute them to students and then collect them to check for student understanding.  Assessments can also be shared with colleagues and saved from year to year.

The best part about all of this is that Google Forms is easy to use!  Below is a video and a link to a handout that will help you get started using Goolge Forms in your classroom.

Handout: Getting Started with Google Forms

more about "Google Form", posted with vodpod

Great Links: January 11 January 12, 2010

Great Links for Educators: Protecting Your Reputation Online

This week the links focus on protecting your reputation online. I am a big proponent of social networks and am a member of many,  both professionally and personally.   With that being said, I do think that we need to take precautions as professionals to insure that we protect our online reputation.    More importantly it is our responsibility to make sure that we teach students how to protect themselves.

Here are a few links that can be helpful for you and your students:

• Common Craft Video:  Protecting Reputations Online
• Protecting Your Online Identity
• 10 Things Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
• Teachers Guide to Using Facebook

The Company You Keep January 6, 2010

Recently I was re-reading a blog post by Jim Carroll.  In this post Carroll suggests that innovation has a lot to do with the company you keep.    He suggests to his clients that if they want to be innovative and stay competitive you need to surround yourself with the following types of people:

optimists. You need to hang out with people who see all kinds of opportunity – not gloomsters who are convinced there is no future out there!

people who do. Action oriented people. Folks who accomplish things. Those that do.

people with open minds. Innovators aren’t prepared to accept the status quo – they are willing to explore and understand different viewpoints, and use that as a kickoff for creativity.

people who have experienced failure. Innovation comes from risk; risk comes from trying things. Try lots of things, and many will fail. That’s good. That builds up experience, which gives you better insight into a fast paced world.

oddballs and rebels. Some of the most brilliant thinking and best ideas can come from those who view the world through a different lens. They may seem odd at times, but they can be brilliantly creative.

good listeners and debaters. They’re willing to challenge ideas, analyze issues, and think through the possibilities.

people who think differently than you do. If you really want to be innovative, go to two conferences a year that have nothing to do with what you do. You’ll be amazed at what you learn, and how it will re-stir your creative juices.

Although Carroll’s primary audience is business, I believe that these same ideas apply to educators and I can’t help but think about my own situation as I read over this list.   In reading this list I realized how fortunate I am to have my personal learning network!  Prior to becoming connected to my network, the only professional connections I had were the people who worked directly with me in my building along with a few other tech facilitators from neighboring schools.   While I worked with some great teachers and an amazing media specialist I was limited to a small group of professionals to draw energy from and therefore my creativity was somewhat limited.    My ideas were smaller because my scope of possibilities was smaller.

Today, however my story is much different.   My PLN allows me to surround myself with people who will listen to my ideas and give me feedback.  It offers me a way to connect to optimists and action oriented individuals who  inspire me to push the limits and bring innovation into our classrooms .    Without my PLN the world is small and limited to the ideas that I can imagine.  Through the help of my PLN, I am able to surround myself with people who have helped me become the innovative, creative educator that I am today.

The most exciting thing about all of this is that all educators can have this!   Thanks to web 2.0 tools, innovation  is not limited to a lucky few who happen to work with a dynamic group.    Innovation is within all of our reach!  So my question to you…. What company do you keep?   Do you have the right people in your network?   If not go out and get them.  Inspiration and innovation is within your reach!

Top 5 Videos for Transforming Education October 5, 2009

In my trainings I like to use video.   Video is a great way to engage an audience and get them thinking about a topic.   I typically begin a training with a video and then ask the participants to pick one point that really struck a chord with them.   Here is my Top 5 List of videos that I have recently used in trainings that I feel do a good job of provoking deep thought about our current educational practices.

#5 – Three Steps

more about "3 Steps", posted with vodpod

# 4 – Learning & Working in the Collaborative Age

# 3 – Learning to Change Changing to Learn:Student Version





# 2 – Learning to Change Changing to Learn





#1 – No Future Left Behind

Making Global Connections September 9, 2009

Assisting our students in making global connections  helps them develop their respectful mind.  Understanding diversity and recognizing commonalities will help our students as they live and work in a global economy. Here are two ideas for digital media projects that will help promote the respectful mind in our youngest students.

View from My Classroom Project
Students take pictures of the view from their classroom window each month and post the pictures onto a wiki. Students from other classrooms around the world, are able to view the pictures and compare the view from their classroom and another classroom around the world. (This project idea is from Jenn Tech projects.)

My Favorite Food project
Students create a class photostory/imovie video sharing their favorite food. Each class posts their video onto a wiki or voicethread for classes around the world to view.

My Favorite Blogs August 21, 2009

I started using a feed reader 3 years ago after attending a conference session with Will Richardson and David Warlick on RSS. When I first began, the blogs that I followed were those written by icons in the ed tech world. Today, I still have those blogs in my reader, but I have found several other interesting blogs written by teachers and tech facilitators that are quite intriguing. It’s not that I don’t like reading post by David and Will, but somehow, hearing from teachers who experience the impact that can technology integration can have on students, first hand, it really powerful!

So here are some of my blogs:

*http://keepingkidsfirst.wordpress.com/

* http://leadingfromtheheart.org/

* http://2teach.edublogs.org/

* http://www.21stcenturyschoolteacher.com/index.html

* http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/

All of these blogs help me stay connected to the struggles that classroom teachers face as they try to integrate technology, and assit me in helping teachers figure out the best way to integrate technology into their classrooms.

A Member of the Community August 6, 2009

I have been reading blogs now for several years but have not been a blogger myself.    I have wanted to start a blog for about a year now but have not taken the time to start one until now.   And thus “Contagious Learning” was born.  The name comes from my beliefs that  about teacher training and how we can transform teaching practices within our schools.

I believe that it is important to ignite excitement in teachers for using technology in their classrooms.  If we get teachers excited about their jobs and using technology to support the content that they are teaching, their excitement will be passed along to students.    As these excited teachers go back to their schools their excitement will be evident to their colleagues and hopefully it will be the beginning of a conversation about how they too can use technology tools in their classrooms.  And thus the excitement spreads contagiously, from one teacher to another.  Similar to  peer pressure at a middle school dance.

It is my hope that this blog will be a place that I can share my excitement for web 2.0 technology tools that teachers can use in their classroom.   I am glad to be a member of the blogging community.  I look forward to sharing my ideas and thoughts with you all!