March Madness: 21C Taxonomy

One of the very best Bloom's tools I've seen came across Twitter last week. These two flash tutorials offer a quick overview for and application of the revised Bloom's Taxonomy—with a representation of 21st century skills and a recognition of Creating as the ultimate outcome for learners of all ages. 

Source: Bloom's Taxonomy Tutorial Flash via the CCCS Faculty Wiki.

BTW, for a downloadable classroom poster of the new Bloom's, see this earlier TLC post.

M.E.

PS Thanks to Jeff Riel, GEHS, for helping me with the embed codes for this post.

March Madness: Gotta Keep Reading

On December 11, 2009, students at Ocoee Middle School near Orlando, Florida recorded a video to inspire kids to read. With over 74,000 views on YouTube, their message of literacy has spread around the world! These kids were granted permission from The Black Eyed Peas to use the melody of the hit song, "I Gotta Feeling". They rewrote the lyrics, choreographed a routine, and stepped out into the warm Florida sunshine to have some fun.



Ocoee Middle School's Gotta Keep Reading on TeacherTube.

Tanny

March Madness: Consider Twitter

If you think Twitter is only about celebrities, chitchat, gossip, and idle talk, read on.

If you'd like a way to connect with educators from around the world who share your interests, questions, subject area, problems, and perspectives, consider Twitter.

In the year that I've been tweeting I've built a professional learning network (PLN) that's taught me about technology, teaching, leadership, and learning and helped me make connections never before possible.

When Joe and Lori were looking for kindergarten classes to Skype with, for instance, I put out this tweet:

By the end of the day we'd connected with schools in California and Kansas and the Kinder-Skyping project was underway.

On Twitter I learned about free or very low-cost web tools like Voice Thread, Animoto, Delicious, and Google Forms. On Twitter I met Ken Royal (@KenRoyal) from Scholastic who met with our Ohio eTech team and Peter Pappas (@edteck) of Copy/Paste who agreed to work with West Clermont teachers next fall. Yoon Soo Lim (@DoremiGirl) helped me with Flip Camera and You Tube filter questions. On Twitter, I discovered online conversations with thinkers like Daniel Pink, Seth Godin, Kylene Beers, and Alfie Kohn.

Twitter was my window to Web 2.0 learning.

It's not everybody's cup of tea. But I invite you to spend a little time there just to "lurk and learn" for a while.

Get started with tips from these terrific teachers:

Why Teachers Should Try Twitter by teacher William Ferriter (@plugusin on Twitter) in the February 2010 issue of Educational Leadership

What Did They Tweet? by teacher Shelly Terrell (@ShellTerrell) on her award-winning edublog

Seven Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter by teacher Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) on his site Free Tech 4 Teachers

Twitter? Professional? ...C'mon!!! by teacher William Steltz (@jpsteltz) on his blog

And if you decide to open an account, click here for a list of teachers, administrators, or  PLN builders to follow.

M.E.

PS Follow me on Twitter. You'll find me @steelepierce.

This is post 4/23 in our March Madness quest

March Madness: Spotlight on A. Vaughn

Anita integrates technology with her daily message.

   What causes a "veteran" teacher to embrace the use of technology in the classroom? Of course, today's digital students thrive on instruction supported by technology, but how does a teacher make this shift? This was my question as I visited Anita Vaughn's classroom first grade classroom at Holly Hill Elementary.

   According to Anita, a 25 year veteran, it started with curiosity. She heard about SMART Boards while completing her master's program, but didn't know much about them. Then opportunity knocked. When Nancy Parks, Holly Hill principal, asked Anita to become a member of the district's SMART Board pilot team it was game on!

   Anita began integrating the SMART Board in her math class. She discovered many interactive activites and images that were helpful in viualizing math concepts. She began using dice for addition practice, base ten blocks, clocks, calculators, graphing, measurement, sorting, etc. Even students walking down the hall would wander in to check out the interactive math lesson!

   Once Anita saw how the use of technology increased student motivation and learning, she began to explore other ways to integrate technology and instruction. She now uses technology to project virtual dice with short vowel letter chunks for skills group, projects decodable books from websites, shows author interviews and has students interact with the SMART Board during daily message.

   "At first I was frustrated with some of the technical aspects of the SMART Board, but once I got it up and running, I used it regularly. Now everytime I explore I find something new I can use in the classroom. I find new uses everyday," stated Anita. 

SMART Board... SMART Teacher!

Cheryl

March Madness: Making Mistakes

Last Friday I got to hang out with the West Clermont art, music and  tech teachers during a professional learning session. Make no mistake: they are a fun group to spend time with!

We viewed a video clip of creativity enthusiast Sir Ken Robinson. Talk about an interesting guy. He is as informative as he is entertaining. And with this quotation, he reminds us that being wrong is very...well, right!

Sir Ken says, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never create anything."



His speech totally made me want to dig in, mess up, and create something amazing! Next time you see me, don't hesitate to ask, "What mistakes have you made lately, Tanny?"

Tanny

PS In case you're curious, Correct, Indiana is a little town situated between Madison and Versailles. Only go there if you're ready to be "in Correct".

March Madness: Getting to Done

Okay, it's the first day of March, and I have a crazy idea and a challenge: Can we create a blog post for every school day during the month? That's 23 posts. And that's madness.

But, I think we can do it. We have lots of ideas from Friday's Professional Learning Day, from our February trip to Ohio eTech, and from our recent reading.

We're currently reading Seth Godin's Linchpin. Great read!

Godin writes about "shipping," that is, moving from thinking, talking, planning, resisting, etc etc to DONE. Now I know that it's true in education that we are always "in process," and that we don't always see results right away. BUT, it is true that there is always an end-of-the-day or end-of-the-project, that is, there are lots of things that we CAN get done.

Godin shares Bre Pettis's Cult of Done Manifesto. Here it is is list form (you can see it in graphic form, here):
 1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
 2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
 3. There is no editing stage.
 4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
 5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
 6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
 7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
 8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
 9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

So in the spirit of getting it done, let the March Madness begin. 

M.E. 

Summarizing & Note Taking II

Amelia Elementary teachers respond via wallwisher to our Summarizing & Note Taking module at Friday's professional learning day.

As promised, here are the Summarizing & Note Taking links from the Voice Thread, and more:

Copy/Paste by Peter Pappas 
Pappas on Summarizing & Note Taking
Pappas on Taxonomy of Reflection

Robert Marzano Free Resources
Robert Marzano Meta-Analysis Database

Cornell note taking template

On Doodling here on TLC: Teaching. Learning. Community.

Janet Allen's Tools for Teaching Content Literacy (flip book)

We look forward to hearing your ideas about using these strategies in your classroom.

M.E.