Info Librarian

NETS

Setting goals for the new school year is always a challenge. Finding the right framework to evaluate your completion of the goal will help you create a measurable goal.  I have included a link to the International Society for Technology  in Education ISTE Standards for Teachers, Students and Administrators called the NETS.  National Educational Technology Standards. These standards provide a framework for teachers to measure their success with technology integration into their curriculum and daily lesson planning.

NETS for Teachers in Brief
1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments.
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

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Leading the Learning for the Net Generation

June 17 and 18, 2009 at IU#13

Keynote Speakers were Doug Johnson and Alan November.

I attended sessions on Power Up Your Professional Learning Network, Schools and Libraries for the Net Generation, Teaching Students to Think, Students as Authors: Blogging in the Classroom, and Technology Tools for Differentiation.

Each of these sessions encouraged teachers to incorporate technology into their classroom. Educators are charged with designing rigorous and motivating assignments. Encouraging students to become authors of digital content on the “digital learning farm” is the other charge.

The amount of resources that were shared was awesome and substantial. Fortunately we have several of these resources available in our district for you to use with your students!! WordPress Blogs, Google Apps, Wikispaces, Thinkfinity, Moodle.

The hashtag of #iu13lead was used on twitter throughout the workshop so that you could search twitter for great comments and links to the resources at a later date.

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Building your Personal Learning Network!

In Andrew Churches’ article “Eight Habits of Highly Effective 21^st Century Teachers” he lists these skills as being crucial: Adapting, Being Visionary, Collaborating, Taking Risks, Learning, Communicating, Modeling Behavior, and Leading.

One way to accomplish these skills is to create a Personal Learning Network. Find people to connect with who share the same teaching philosophy or have a common area of expertise. Follow someone whom you respect and can learn from their work and their experiences. Reading blog postings on a regular basis can provide invaluable insight into other people’s ideas on education. You can use a RSS tool to have the blog post delivered to you in the iGoogle or Google Reader. This allows you to read all of your blogs in one location rather than having to visit each blog site for the latest blog posting.

Shorter blogs called Microblogs can be found on services like Twitter. Following people on Twitter can provide valuable connections to resources without having to read a post longer than 140 characters.

It is important to share back with others from your wealth of knowledge as well. Using tools like Delicious or Diigo provide you an opportunity to not only save your own favorites or bookmarks but to share them with others in your personal network. There is so much information available on the internet that I often find more valuable search results on Delicious or Diigo. By searching the bookmarks of my PLN I am better able to focus on good resources for education.

The first step would be to go to these sites Twitter ,Google Reader , or Delicious , and sign up for an account. Proceed with a few “friends” you already know like: christopher.smith23, mcgaw, pmcclune are all on delicious. See who they follow and check out their personal learning network.

I try to follow other educators, librarians or local people who have something in common with me and my areas of interest. I am quick to unfollow any one who is inappropriate in their language or their choice of bookmarked sites.

You can find more details on each of these tools on the CFF wiki http://cff.cvsd.wikispaces.net/Build+a+PLN or by contacting me for an appointment to work on a resource together.

Article: “Eight Habits of Highly Effective 21^st Century Teachers” by Andrew Churches Information Technology at Kristin School in Auckland as found on http://www.nz-interface.co.nz/articles.cfm?c_id=10&id=28

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The newest release of Promethean Software will be available in March. This software blends the best of the Windows and Mac Versions of the software creating an more user friendly module to access tools, resources library and the Promethean Planet. The look and feel of this latest version is smooth and dynamic. I think teachers who have been using the Active Studio software will be able to transition easily to this new sleek platform. I am sure it will win over a few of the Smart board users in the building as well. The Promethean Planet has a wealth of resources available to a classroom teacher and I am sure no matter which type of Interactive White Board you are currently using YOU WILL FIND some great resources to include in your classroom!  I have been doing some advanced Promethean training and I am excited and hopeful that this new version will reduce some of the number of steps to completing some of the advanced processes. I know the placement of the resource library and the redesigned access panel have already won me over. The seamless integration of the ActivExpressions and the ActiVotes will reap added benefits in many classrooms.  I look forward to sharing this tool in my classroom and with my staff!!  The Primary and Standard Workspace are available in the same software piece. This allows you to toggle back and forth between the two versions much like you can now with design mode and active mode through the use of the Activsoftware Dashboard

This is the new Activsoftware Dashboard

The Student Database

This tool allows you to Edit YOUR Student Database and brings the best of the ActivExpression software which used to be a separate program right into you Active Studio screen. Putting the power of interaction with your students at your fingertips!!

Seamless integration of these powerful classroom tools!

The Resource Browser

This is the Resource Browser Window and it seems easier to navigate!

You can visit the Promethean Planet to take a sneak peek at this upcoming version of the software!!

http://www.prometheanplanet.com/server.php?show=nav.16615

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Wikispaces@CV — the private label edition — has arrived at CV. A wikispace is a collection of web pages that one person can author or that can be edited by a group of people. This tool allows a teacher to share information about the class projects or class assignments on the web. It also allows for students to become content creators for their class.

Students can also create a wikispace as a place to showcase their projects, create a personal mission page and have it available on the web.

We hope to provide students with safe and effective web tools. We strive to promote a positive digital footprint with our students.

Our Wikispace is managed by our CV Technology Department.  By managing this web tool in house the technology department was able to create accounts for all teachers and students at the HS.

For more on creating your wikispace you can view the CFF Wikispaces or the CV Tech Page

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Delicious is a social bookmarking tool.

You can register for you own account on the delicious website by clicking the Join Here button at the top right side of the page. As you create your account you will have options to upload YOUR FAVORITES from your current web browser.

Why USE Delicious? As you load your bookmarks you can have the delicious tool add subject tags to your websites. Then you can search your own bookmarks to find the items on a subject. I have so many bookmarks I needed more organization that just the file folder format.

• You can search your own tags (subjects)
• You can edit and add new tags to your current bookmarks
  
• You can share your bookmarks with friends (or keep them private)
• You can view other peoples bookmarks to get ideas of what other people think are great sites
• You can add other people to your network and review their bookmarks regularly.

I network with other teachers and librarians to share bookmarks on all sorts of educational issues.!!
My links can be found at http://delicious.com/mcgaw

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Wordle is a tool to creative mix words and rank them by priority.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. You can CREATE YOUR OWN!

You can create a list of words, Use the RSS feed from a website or the feed from your del.icio.us account

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This is another cool tool I have used to create an avatar. My PLN on Twitter shared this fun tool.

Face Your Manga is a flash based website. You can create the Avatar and save it to your computer and then use it as your online presence on Twitter, MSN, Blog site or anywhere you would post a photo of yourself!

Enjoy

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Do you need an alter ego for your avatar? Try a LEGO Mini-Mizer. What fun to create a LEGO avatar of yourself or your superhero alter ego. You can create as many as you would like so try a different one for different moods too! This simple tool allows for creativity and a nice little distraction. There are simple directions for copying the screen and using the Paint tool to edit the mini-mizer to the size you need. Don’t forget to save it as a .jpeg file in your Pictures file so you can use it later!! This is just an enjoyable tool that makes creating an image icon easily. And of course it is free. Chris Doyle Presents this fun tool for anyone to use freely. Now why might you need an alter ego icon?? Well if you Twitter, blog or have a website you might enjoy Mini-Mizer!

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