Conferences — Page 5

Tick Tock, and the wasting of the clock!

September 6, 2013 by Amber 2 Comments

(aside: I think all of my titles should rhyme!)

I remember the time crunch of being in the classroom. I never felt the pressure more than when it came time for our state tests. No matter how hard we’d worked I always had the thought in the back of my mind that if I could just have ONE more week, I’d feel so much better about what I’d covered. Just ONE more week…

Last week we met with teams discussing our new amazing RTI roll out process. My principal made the statement that if your team was supposed to get started at 10am, she wanted to see it at 10am sharp! Not 10:01, not 10:03…in fact, 9:59 sounded pretty good!

That stuck with me and brought me back to my classroom and being desperate for more time.I started to calculate the hours we spend with instruction.

Did you know that there are roughly 177 school days in our year? That equals 37 weeks of instruction. I averaged our school day to be 7 hours long, minus an hour for a lunch and recess…so 6 hours. Still with me?

If you miss 3 minutes of instruction a day…(think how easy that is…three measly minutes throughout the day…) Your students at the end of the year, will have missed 531 minutes. That’s roughly 9 hours…or a day and a half you’ve lost.

If you miss 5 minutes of instruction a day your students will have missed 885 minutes. That’s 15 hours of academic time…or 2 1/2 full days of instruction.

10 minutes? You’ve lost 1770 minutes. 30 (30!!) hours of class time, or 5 full school days.

15 minutes? You’ve lost 2,665 minutes or about 44 hours. That’s 7 and 1/2 days.

30 minutes? 5,310 minutes…89 hours…about 14 days.

Classroom management becomes even more important when looking at these numbers. No time to spare when switching subjects or coming in each morning. Our minutes are precious…just like our kiddos!Transition times, coming back from the bathroom, assemblies, etc…there is always something that seems to drag throughout the day. My goal here is just to remind you how intentional you have to be in your classrooms. Protect your instructional time…those opportunities to be the kin of teacher you’d want your own children to have. There are 1,0632 hours in the course of your school year…and you know how valuable they each can be!

Some links to help you think about classroom management:

Time Management Strategies

Tips for Managing Classroom Time

AmCuckoo

Tweet-tastic from #ISTE13, part 2

July 2, 2013 by Amber Leave a Comment

cc licensed by Flikr Tomas Hellberg

Continuing on with my tweets from sessions I attended at ISTE…this will be MUCH easier for me to reference back too, reflectively, once we go back to school. 🙂

Cool Google Tools for the BYOD Classroom, w/Tammy Worcester Cool collaborative tools for any device

Simple but basic, use google forms to aggregate answers from Ss, copy/paste into wordle…see what concept jumps out Use for everything from a get to know you to a review lesson
Don’t stiffle students’ creativity, give them options
The best way to get teachers to try new tech is by focusing on the “value” the verbs, not nouns!
Ss asked to pick smewhere else 2 live on google forms, gve reason, copy places, paste, and create a class where we could live map! Batchgeo.com lots of great social studies/community potential!
Google drive creates QR codes automatically for a link.

Who owns the learning? w/ Alan November I’ve heard this talk before but there are always gems to be found!

The very basic structures of our schools don’t allow Ss to own their learning.
Teachers shld do more listenN than talking. Some kids have the right answer but the wrong logic, allow group tests. Loves this idea. Allow for 20 min of individual work, 20 min of group work, and 20 min to create their OWN questions over the content. Adam Bellow said, “Cheating in the real world is called collaboration.” and I think this in the classroom would be an excellent gauge in students ability to both collaborate and rationalize their answers.
why teach digital citizenship – we have a moral and legal obligation to do so that impacts far greater than classroom mgmt.
What if kids checked their answers on tests by consensus with access to resources and then debate answers?
Schools don’t have technology problems,have a work ethic problem. We’re not creating passionate life long learners
Research shows adolescents prefer to learn frm a peer, not an adult. Every S shld be a teacher.
What if kids were so passionate about learning that we had to scramble to get out of their way?
Club academia: look it up… 🙂 a resource of student made videos
I did it the assignment b/c the teacher was checking it off as completed, but if I create a tutorial, I HAVE to learn it and learn it well.
Most kids only have one person as their audience – @globalearner says give the kids a voice in their learning and take it GLOBAL!
One day we schools will get over the fear of posting S vids & pics, like the rest of the world, and let kids inspire kids.
Most difficult thing to do in @globalearner ‘s job? Getting people to unlearn & shift control…making the adults in the room understand it’s ok to not have control.
Its not about technology, it’s shifting about control, relationships, and who owns the learning.
What you do in the first five days shows what you value in your classroom.
Teachers are needing to teach S to be able to ask the most interesting, sophisticated questions
The more you know about your content, the less you’re able to understand a first time learners struggle.

Compilingly,

Amber

Tweet-tastic from #ISTE13, part 1

July 1, 2013 by Amber 3 Comments

baseball-marquee_www-txt2pic-com

I have used twitter as my note taking guide from other conferences and it has worked fine. The problem with using it at ISTE was I was there for 5 days and there were over 50,000 tweets. Bah! Impossible to scour and dig deeper. Here are my tops from a couple of sessions I attended or *starred* while I was there.

Going Google:Save resources and maximize your chance for success:

Be curious, not cautious.
Going google allowed dumping of 280 apps, to switch to the cloud…Never waste a good crisis!
Dealing with teacher hesitancy on professional background sharing: I’m trusting you with my child, I need to know who you are
“I’m sensitive to teacher concerns: I still make them do it, but we talk a lot about it.”
Live google cally embedded into district site, allows for fast & simple sharing with stakeholders
I like tools that allow Ts to utilize 95% of the tools capacity…yea google! (He was comparing this to Microsoft…where 95% of teachers only utilize 5% of what it can do. Genius thought!!)

Untangling the web: Free tools to power up your teaching, authors Adam Bellow & Steve Dembo break down the best of the best

Key to finding technologies that last…book is a blend, looking at the of making it new!
Even if it’s old hat to you, chances are someone down the hall has never heard of it…hate the mentality of “oh, I’ve seen that, oh I know all about that.” Odds are the majority of teachers in your district HAVEN’T.
Get out your devices…and change the world.
All resources shared here: http://padlet.com/wall/iste13 Padlet offers secure & moderated pages, gr8 for Ts & Ss
http://Ipiccy.com @teach42 just said it was as good, if not better than picnik… does include all my picmonkey faves like adding mascara, a tan, and eye brighteners, also ALL free
Thinglink.com You can create mixed media interactive map…think timeline meets powerpoint, but cooler.
Thenounproject.com creating an image for every noun… Wow! Great resource for infographic creation. Can search just for free images; grab icon images that are clean and easy to transfer
Personas.media.mit.edu is a way to find your digital footprint ( I haven’t been able to get this to connect for me, boo.)
I didn’t know http://bighugelabs.com offered a free educator account tht offers a unique URL, no ads! great site!! Never seen that one before!! tons of free, fun sign makers including that Cubs sign up there, 🙂
http://Delivr.com edit your QR code, great site for management & sharing! This one is WAY cool, because it allows you to edit the QR codes. So instead of having to recreate and rehang, you can simply edit the ones in your building/campus. Like an Easter egg hunt, you never know what you’re going to find!
wevideo.com Amazing class video potential!!! My head is spinning with those campus possibilities!! You can have tons of media already loaded and let kids create their own mashups. What a time saver!!
PrintFriendly.com – make print friendly & PDF versions of webpages! Awesome 4 teachers trying to grab digital resources

Reflectively,

Amber

Get your game on!

June 29, 2013 by Amber Leave a Comment

Before I go Piaget and deep thinking on some of what I saw at ISTE this week, I want to talk about some of the sessions I went too. I’ve seen a push back via Twitter on people complaining about sessions in a couple ways. One person very snarkily asked if anyone actually went to session or if they just “hung out” the whole time. Another complained about the validity of so may many “tool” based sessions.

I went to a couple GREAT sessions…and I went to a couple of sessions that were written up very well, 🙂 That being said, in the same sense that studenrs take ownership and LEARN when they are interested and passionate, adults are the same way. I’m a glass half full kinda girl, so of course, I was able to find the good in anything I did there. Starting with the keynotes…

Jane McGonigal kicked off Sunday night. I had never heard of her before but have a lot of experience with gaming in the classroom pros/cons. I loved that she said,

passive vs engaged brain

“Gamers contribute to a broad network of inspired creativity.” With only 4 out of 10 high schoolers admitting to seeing a need for them to graduate, we need to do something to create a passion that wants them to finish. As our students grow up gaming, they’re immersed in a high engaging, high energy, high on feedback, and collaboration environment…schools have to adjust!

For those who think games are a waste of time…gamers fail 80% of the game. And yet, they keep going. Think of how different that is from the classroom. We have kids that give up before they even try. Games give you a hero, a quest, and a purpose, no matter how small. No wonder our students are attracted to it. They’re trying to change the world…why can’t we give them that opportunity in the classroom?

She showed a slide of the incredible comparison of a passive and an engaged gamers brain…you only “light up” when you are in control. Research shows that we start every game being bad at it. When we learn how to do something we charge up the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that is involved in memory forming, organizing, and storing. It is particularly important in forming new memories and connecting emotions and senses, like smell and sound, to memories.

One of my favorite researchers in positive emotion ratio is Dr. Barb Fredrickson. Jane mentioned this when she said that you should want 3 positive emotions to every negative…it’s a magic ratio that can add to your success in EVERY aspect of your life. Powerful! Is that happening for our students in the classroom? Because it is in other facets of their life. If we educators want to be a part of that passion play, we need just that…more PLAY in the classroom. This talk wasn’t just about the obvious, playing video games, but PLAYing in general. After all, as @TechNinjaTodd said, ” We want kids to see we can have fun being adults so that they want to grow up”!

Thinkingly,

AmGame

#ISTE13 Reflections

June 28, 2013 by Amber Leave a Comment

I’m so impressed with those who have already been able to get their thoughts down in some form or another about this week’s ISTE conference. I still haven’t even gotten my voice back, 🙂 I blame @MrHooker and his rousing session at EdTech karaoke that required squeals.

ISTE marked my third conference in three weeks. To say I was tired before we even got started is an understatement. To say my brain was full was laughable. In fact, I had multiple notes that are eventually going to be blogs on the other two that were more along the lines of “the way I wish things were” and then along came ISTE.

This wasn’t my first ISTE conference. I went in 2008, also in San Antonio, right after I was hired as a tech facilitator for our district. I can’t even remember ONE single session that I attended or an idea that I brought back. Now, understandably, that was 5 years and a three year old ago, but still. You would think there was something noteworthy about it…but nope.

This time? I think on the ride home Matt Gomez and I had a couple hours of silence where we were both still trying to process what had just happened. From the chatter filled ride down, to the reconnecting of people that I call now call besties, to the meeting of people I respect and admire professionally…there are SO many moments that won’t be forgotten.The sessions I attended all seemed to have a reoccurring theme, as did the tweets that I saw flying across.

Technology should enhance learning, not control it. The learning comes 1st & the technology 2nd. (ala George Couros)

From technology directors, to teachers, to principals, to program/app creators, to key note speakers…everyone I came across saw and recognized that if we start with people, relationships and learning, any type of technology is going to elevate the opportunities within your classroom. The PLN that we are connected to GET that. I can’t wait to unpack it all more!

I have so much more to say…and I’ll get to it all, especially more about the WHY I am sharing, soon.

But I have a lot of story time to catch up on, 🙂

missed mom,

Amber