The Beginning of Mobile Learning Communities

What does a classroom look like when every kid has a technology device in their hand?  What can be done in that class?  How do we manage a class such as this?  Is it effective?  Does pedagogy change?  Is a tablet or a laptop more effective?  All of these questions and more is what we hope to discover in our 1:1 laptop/tablet pilot!

This is an exciting time in education because we are moving away from the traditional classroom of teachers and students to a community of learners.  With this paradigm shift comes many shifts in education.  The teacher is now a facilitator and a learner.  The students learn from each other and also facilitate their own learning.  Pedagogy shifts from recalling and remembering facts to evaluating, analyzing and applying content to their own lives.  Students and facilitators are no longer confined to the 4 walls.   Their community now includes 7 continents and a few planets.

Feel free to join us in our adventure of creating this environment for our students.  Join us as we climb to the higher elevations of Bloom's. Join us as our students soar to limits unknown.  We look forward to sharing our ah has and uh ohs.  We also would love for you to join our community and sharing tips or best practices you have experienced in your classroom.  I am so excited to learn this year with our community of learners.  You can follow the community's blog at www.wscommunityoflearners.blogspot.com

Election Season is Quickly Approaching

Election Season is quickly approaching and this season promises to be another scorcher!  You can sense it in the air and on TV.  One politician is going to save the world while sharing that their opponent is ready to destroy the world.  Yes it appears this is going to be a hot one that's expected to last until at least November.

Elections and politics can be an overwhelming and difficult subject to follow but luckily there are teachers out there to help us make sense of it all.  I was at West Forsyth High School a teacher shared with me many of her go to websites to help students find the truths behind politics and the political arena.

Below are her websites with a brief explanation of what they might be used for.


Often times people can tell a lot about a politician by the support they receive in election season. 

http://www.opensecrets.org/ is a great website that lets you explore who is funding the presidential and congressional candidates.  This website will be a great resource for students to back their arguments and leads to great discussion on how candidates vote while in office.  This website has data on fundraising amounts by candidates as well as their largest PAC supporters.

Many promises are made in election season.  One of my favorite websites is http://www.politifact.com/ .  Politifacts is a website that helps citizens follow a politician or idea (i.e. healthcare) and find the truths behind the claims made and the reality of those claims.  Politifacts is chocked full of information to help your students discern between what political ads claim and what is really happening.

During election season students may wonder where they stand compared to other Americans on certain issues.  Polls are a great way to determine this.  http://www.pollingreport.com/ is a great website that collects many polls and puts them on one website.  Polls from CNN, AP, Wall Street Journal and the PEW Research Center are just a few that this collection has to offer.  The homepage offers polls anywhere from the President and Congress to National Security and Issues that are recently trending. 

Three other local websites that would be of interest is the NC Democratic Party's website http://www.ncdp.org/ the NC Republican Party's website  www.ncgop.org/ and the Forsyth County Board of Elections website www.co.forsyth.nc.us/Elections/  

With the political season on the horizon I hope these websites offer a few tools to help you weather the storm.

Are you hungry for learning?

Do your students have an appetite for math or does math make them sick to their stomach?  In middle school we see both ends of this spectrum.  In searching for a proportions lesson I stumbled upon some snack food that will help feed our students in math classes.  The tool I'm about to share is really cool and engaging BUT the way I found it can give any teacher power to find new ways to engage students in math and all other subjects. (So stayed tuned to the bottom and find out a powerful tool to help find ideas for ALL teachers)

Math Snacks is a really cool website:  http://www.mathsnacks.com/ that is produced by New Mexico State University.  Math Snacks have engaging animations, a learner guide and a teacher guide with each math concept.

Take a look at this math snack on ratios and proportions. http://www.mathsnacks.com/badDate.html
I know that kids will love this video and it gives them an opportunity to experience ratios and proportions in a new light.  This particular math snack comes with a learner's guide that will them from the examples used in the video to other real life applications.  The teacher's guide is a detailed lesson plan with directions, answer key and extension activities.  Explore and check out this website.  It is still in development and currently has 9 available snacks and plans to have at least 20 by next school year.  It is sure to satisfy some of your most reluctant student's appetite for math.

Now for the really good part.  As a teacher, finding quality resources was sometimes difficult.  One of the biggest problems with finding them was TIME.  I would spend some time doing a typical Google search and in the end have no results.  I found this and several other activities using Edmodo.  Edmodo is an incredible social media platform for schools.  In the past I have used Edmodo as a collaboration tool for my students.  I have recently explored the communities in Edmodo.  Once you sign up for an account you can browse many different communities.

Once you see a community of interest, click on it and explore.  These communities are full of other teachers around the world who are searching and sharing innovative ideas.  You can choose to follow particular communities.  You can post a question.  For instance, if you were looking for new ways to teach inference, you might ask in a post for ways to do this.  Other teachers then share their ideas with you and the need for a Google search has been eliminated.  The resources and ideas shared are typically great and inspiring. 

So if you are appetite is for math, check out http://www.mathsnacks.com/.  If your hunger is for learning some new teaching ideas then check out the communities http://www.edmodo.com/. 


Bon Appetit!!!!

Great Teachers Make Master Gurus

This past Monday I had the opportunity to visit J F Kennedy High to share some information about our new email system.  In between sessions I had the opportunity to visit a few classes.  There are incredible things going on at JFK.  The first thing you notice when talking to any faculty member there is the positive attitude they have towards their students.  This attitude in conversation was also evident in their classrooms through their interactions with students.  I truly believe a positive relationship with a student is the catalyst for motivating him/her and helping them reach their full potential.

One of the teams I visited was the Masterminds!  What a great name for a group of kids.  This team inspired me not only on the surface but they have really made sure these kids know they have potential.  Instead of sharing with their kids they have an A,B,C,D or F they use the following terminology: Master Guru, Philosopher, Scholar, Apprentice, Recruit.   Each of those titles correspond to a letter grade but all have a positive connotation.  Imagine getting a recruit on a paper instead of an F!  F could shut a kid down while Recruit insinuates they could be on the path for Master Guru Status.  The kids also know what each of the status' mean and how to increase to the next level.  One of the neatest things I saw was how Ms. Thiel used her district website to promote the student achievements.  She posts her Master Guru list(not only for academic but for character) on her web page. Below are some excerpts from her Master Guru page.

We often times look for ways that technology can help in our classrooms and our own websites are a great way to praise kids to build those positive relationships with students.  I remember my mom wanting every newspaper with her kids names in it and how proud I was to show her when my name was in it.  Our websites allow us to publicly praise our students daily.

Another great feature of Ms. Thiel's classroom was her center driven approach.  When I walked in she was working with students in a small group setting, there was a center where students were working on hands on manipulatives, and then there was the computer stations.  I really liked this approach because often times as a classroom teacher it is difficult to sign up for an entire computer lab.  Using her approach she was able to stay in the classroom and use the few computers that were available to her. 

So how did she guide students in what needed to be done?  She was using Edmodo for her students to interact and to post assignments.  She had links to videos that students were directed to watch, links to interactive math games, links to quizzes etc....  Some of the assignments students had to take a screen shot of their results to submit while others she required them to message what they learned.  Students and teacher were able to track the progress of the student.  Edmodo is the perfect marriage of the student's need for online social media and the teacher's requirement of curriculum and standards. There are a multitude of resources for Edmodo that can be found on our district wiki.  Explore and give it a try. 

Often times we are faced with not having enough technology to do what we want.  Ms Thiel and the staff at JFK are taking what they do have and making it happen.  And that makes the kids smile....and me too.