Halloween 2.0

Source: Comics.com 10-30-2010

edcamp Cincy

W-T Elementary School was the host site of Greater Cincinnati's first edcamp, Saturday, October 9.

Learn about edcamps here.

Learn about edcamp Cincy here.

Follow the updated edcamp Cincy wiki here.

More photos and interviews here.

Sixty educators from around the Greater Cincinnati region gathered to create their own personal learning agendas and networking conversations. West Clermont participants included Julie Schneider, Tammy Marcotte, Cheryl Koehler, Kathy Stemmer, Joan Stear, Jeff Riel, Kendra Herdtner, LeAnna Webber, Joe Stahl, Alicia Walls, Scott Morgan, Matt White, Cheryl Turner and M.E. Steele-Pierce. Ask them about the day!

A (Brief) History of Learning: How Do You Learn?

At last Friday's kick off of Powerful Learning Practice, Will Richardson asked the 75 educators in the room, "How do you learn?" He challenged us that no conversation about educational reform can begin unless the focus is on LEARNING. He challenged us to consider our own learning systems and styles.

This morning I ran across this Prezi with commentary by Dallas McPheeters, entitled, "A 5000 Year Timeline of Learning Theories" (don't worry, it's 5000 years in 13 minutes). It begins and ends with the question, "How do you learn?"


5000 Year Timeline of Learning Theories from Dallas McPheeters on Vimeo.

One other thing, you'll find this Prezi and many, many other resources, videos, topics, and conversations on The Educator's PLN. It's a wonderful site for those of you building your own personal learning network. If you haven't toured it yet, please do. I invite you to join the conversation, or just lurk and learn for a while.

M.E.

PS And thank you to Tom Whitby, a member of my PLN, for posting the tweet that led me to the video.

Tech Tapas

We'll be serving up some tech tapas to Ohio's English language arts supervisors during Thursday's fall meeting at the Ohio Resource Center. Tapas are appetizers, designed to encourage conversation. Legend has it that originally tapas were salty, to provoke thirst. We're hoping that some of the tech tapas served will make our colleagues thirsty to learn more.

On the menu board (all FREE or very low cost)
Delicious: share you bookmarks, browse others by friend or topic
Voicethread: interactive way to teach with images and audio
Wallwisher: collect feedback
Jing: capture whatever's on your screen
Skype: use free audio and video conferencing
Twitter:  microblog (keepin' it concise) to learn, share, network
Ning: network securely and share resources
Google Docs: collaborate on all kinds of documents
Bit.ly: shorten those long URLs
Blogspot: blog from an easy-to-us template
Animoto: create video from your images

Buen Provecho!

21C Skills for the Arts: Customizing to Our Circumstances

"If you're doing a thing that you're passionate about, time takes a different turn entirely," said Sir Ken Robinson in his 2010 TED Talk. We'll begin our K-8 Fine Arts professional learning day with Robinson's talk, "Bring on the Learning Revolution!"



Robinson urges us to examine what we take for granted and to consider what we need to leave behind to teach and learn in a new century. He invites us to change our metaphor of education from an industrial model (one size for all) to an agricultural one (organic and adapting). He goes on to talk about customizing to our circumstances, quoting Lincoln: "Let us not rise to the occasion. Rather, let us rise with the occasion."

Rising with the occasion, our K-5 Fine Arts teachers began their 21C Skills conversation* on our September 1 professional learning day. We used the Skills Map for the Arts created by P21, Partnership for 21st Century Skills. We'll be joined September 24 by our middle school arts teachers as we continue our exploration.

As we gather again on Friday we will focus on two of Robinson's themes: sharing our talents and collaborating on lessons that customize to our circumstances.

We'll enjoy the morning with our teacher showcase—sharing our diversity of talent. On deck so far: Tim Kloth will debut his newly completed composition, Mark Messerly will play a piece from his Thursday night gig at Grammers, Jennifer Witsken will share her pattern designs for knitting, and Pam Hall will show her favorite jewelry creations.

Then we'll follow Robinson's second charge—to customize to our circumstances. We'll play, experiment, innovate, and adapt to redesign a current lesson plan or unit, customizing with two or more 21C Skills:

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Creativity
• Innovation
• Information Literacy
• Media Literacy
• Information, Communications, and Technology Literacy
• Flexibility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Self-Direction
• Social and Cross-Cultural Skills
• Productivity and Accountability
• Leadership and Responsibility

We'll end the day collaborating and sharing our unit makeovers. Stay tuned for a showcase of lessons!
________________________________
*About 21C Skills and our September 1 Arts conversation, what's the word? See for yourself:

Not Your Granny's Open House

Amelia Middle School's 7th and 8th grade open house let parents meets their students' teachers and their classrooms' technology tools. Parents got a chance to sign in on interactive white boards and practice texting responses to teachers' questions. Classes across the district and across the country adapt to 21st Century teaching and learning. Take a look!

Class of 2014: No Wristwatches, No Email

Yearly since 1998 two profs at Beloit College, Wisconsin, have created a Mindset List to help faculty better understand the incoming class. For those of us talking 21st Century Skills, this list is a powerful reminder.

Meet the CLASS of 2014, for whom...

1.  Few in the class write in cursive.
2.  Email is just too slow, and they seldom (if ever) use snail mail.
3.  Buffy has always been a vampire slayer at Hemery High.
4.  “Venti half-caf vanilla latte” has always been lingo.
5.  Clint Eastwood is known as a director, not as Dirty Harry.
6.  DNA fingerprinting and human genome maps have always existed.
7.  Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.
8.  Their first computer's an Apple II. It’s now in a museum.
9.  Czechoslovakia never existed.
10. Second-hand smoke has always been an official carcinogen.
11. Bud Selig has always been the Commissioner of MLB.
12. Russians & Americans have always lived together in space.
13. Food’s always been irradiated.
14. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.
15. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.
16. Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties.
17. Michelangelo was just a computer virus.
18. Beethoven has always been a dog.
19. With cell phones to tell time, there’s no need for a wrist watch.

Source: Beloit College 2014 Mindset List. See the complete list here.

Image by Simon Peckham Flickr Creative Commons