Angela Maiers Educational Services

Live Stream at METC

Some fantastic conversations are going on at METC Conference this week, and you can take part on Twitter and even view select presentations from the METC_CSD back channel or via Twitter using the #METC_CSD hashtag.

I'll hope to capture my presentation on Digital Literacy in the Classroom and share here later. In the meantime, you can view some of the other METC slides on SlideShare

The whole schedule:

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 

• 8:15 a.m. – Keynote, Wes Fryer: StoryChasing: Empowering Students as Digital Witnesses 
• 9:45 a.m. – Digital Literacy in the Classroom, Angela Maiers 
• 10:50 a.m. – Beyond the Web 2.0 Hype: Focusing on What Really Matters,David Jakes 
• 1:00 p.m. – Literacy is not Enough: 21st Century Fluency for the Digital Age,Ian Jukes 
• 2:20 p.m. – Books are not Dead…Use Technology to Enliven Your Literacy Program, Gail Lovely 
• 3:25 p.m. – The iPhone and iPod Touch Application Class, Leslie Fisher Wednesday, 

February 10, 2010 

• 8:15 a.m. – Keynote, Deneen Frazier-Bowen: The Native are Restless 
• 9:45 a.m. – Deneen Frazier-Bowen’s Q&A 
• 10:50 a.m. – Creating Multiple Pathways to Learning, Lance Rougeux 
• 1:00 p.m. – A Day in the Life of a Teacher teaching with Technology, Darren Kuropatwa 
• 2:20 p.m. – The Empire of Google Education Apps, Scott Meech 
• 3:25 p.m. – Power of One: Changing the World of Education One Teacher at a Time, Howie DiBlasi

Together We Are Smarter. What's Your Take? Comment Here.

Strong Readers Don't Quit

Strong readers won't quit until they "get it" - and the "it" is not as much about the book as it is about the reader. 

In this week's mini-lesson video, we visit with a classroom of elementary students to discuss the strengths of a great reader. As one classmate put it: Crazy Good!

Together We Are Smarter. What's Your Take? Comment Here.

Are You Making Others Greater Than Yourself (#GTY)?

I find myself in the fortunate position of being both a fan and a friend of the brilliantly generous best-selling author, Steve Farber. 

Greater Than Yourself, the latest inspiration of his Extreme Leadership series of books, is a book every administrator, leader, teacher, and student (yes, them too!) should read. Now. It is a game-changing book. So much so, that educational and business leaders from coast-to-coast and in-between have been gathering as part of a GTY Summit discussing ways to deliver the GTY principles into school buildings and classrooms all over the globe.  

Here's a preview of Steve Farber's GTY message, a mini-lesson of sorts:

You'll be hearing more about the GTY Project here in coming months, as I have the great privilege of being part of charter Summit discussions (and you can also take part in some of the conversations going on at GTY's LinkedIn area or on Twitter using the #GTY hashtag)

Who is your GTY project?

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Chalk Talk - 02/05/10

Chalk Talk Friday represents conversations and brilliance I've discovered traversing my way through the Blogosphere.  From professional to personal development, these are the posts and links have in some way touched my head or my heart.

Most of you know how much I use SlideShare for my own presentations, but I also get inspired and information from others who share their presentations.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Buffy Hamilton: High School Media Specialist at Creekview High School
• David Armano: David Armano is Senior VP at Edelman Digital and the author of Logic + Emotion
• Cliff Mims: Teacher, researcher, author, speaker and educational consultant specializing in the effective integration of technology with teaching and learning.
• Kim Cofino: 21st Century Literacy Specialist at the International School Bangkok in Thailand.
• Dennis Richards: Self employed teacher, consultant, speaker and learner at innovation3
• David Jakes: Instructional Technology Coordinator at Glenbrook South High School
• Julie Lindsay: International educator, Head of Information Technology and E-Learning at Beijing (BISS) International School, China

These folks escalate my learning!

Together We Are Smarter. What's Your Take? Comment Here.

Pepsi Refresh: The Teacher Salary Project

You can help The Teacher Salary Project win $50,000. The project has been selected to be part of round one of the Pepsi Refresh Project, which is giving away $1,000,000 a month and allowing the public to decide on what gets funded by voting online for the ideas they like best. There are several categories, including Pepsi Refresh: Education.

Every day in February we can go to The PepsiRefresh page and vote for The Teacher Salary Project. All teachers (and students) will benefit from our combined efforts. Even if the project doesn't finish in the Top 10, the exposure will move the thought process forward.

Here's a 2-minute film entitled, "Before 9am":

In case the project is new to you, or you want to help us get more votes by passing this along via email, blog, or PLN, here's what we're about:

The purpose of The Teacher Salary Project is simple: to honor our most effective teachers and to demonstrate that they are critical to the viability of our democracy. With our ongoing digital archive of teaching stories and feature documentary film to premiere in May 2011 as the centerpiece of a national town hall event, we will change how our society values the people who have the greatest impact on student success - our nation's teachers.

Here's that Pepsi link again: www.refresheverything.com/theteachersalaryproject.

Together We Are Smarter. What's Your Take? Comment Here.

Nurturing New Ideas: Turning “Yeah, But” Into "Yes! How?"

We have all been there. We come up with a new idea or a creative solution, and instead of our adaptability being celebrated, we hear these two little words: "Yeah...but." In other words, “ARE YOU CRAZY?”

New ideas are fragile. The more creative, wild, or off-the-wall, the more fragile they become. Fragile ideas need to be nourished. This lesson intends to keep those new and creative ideas moving forward. It is far easier to kill an idea than to encourage it and turn it into a useful solution. I want students to be aware of how their language and response to new ideas can alter the course of discovery and breakthroughs. 

I tell students that ideas are like gentle flowers. In order to bloom, the flower needs tender loving care. Even a slight wrong move could stifle the flower’s ability to bloom. I make the connection that new ideas are like those flowers. In the beginning stages of growth, one wrong move and we kill it. We must be very careful with our new ideas; one wrong word has the potential to kill the fruit of our most capable creative thinking. Even if the idea seems far-fetched, we should never kill the thought or the practice of sharing new ideas.

Putting the words that could potentially damage or stifle a new idea on public display makes students aware of what to and what not to say. Here are some examples of our work. 

To kill an idea, say:

• A good idea, but ... 
• Too much work 
• You could never do that 
• They will never let us 
• It's not my job 
• Let’s talk about it some more 
• We’ve never tried it that way before
• If nobody else is doing that...
• Someone else is already doing that...
• We could never do that here 
• We tried that already
• more creative thinking killers

To nurture an idea, say ... 

• Wow, that could be very cool 
• Yes, and ... 
• That’s a good idea/point/comment 
• Great, let’s try it 
• How can we make time to see if it will work? 
• What resources would we need to do it? 
• Tell me more 
• How can we make it work? 
• Let’s try it out 
• What can I do to help this happen? 
• I like it 
• That sounds interesting, tell me more 

Hopefully you will see there are many ways in which you can be constructive. There are even ways to encourage an idea without necessarily agreeing on action. 

Be on a constant watch out for putting down an idea too early without understanding the positive reasons for it being suggested.

Photo on Flickr by km6xo

Related articles by Zemanta

• Creative = Common? (anamericanstudies.com)

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Van Meter Igniting Changes in Iowa Educational Patterns

Even though I was in Hawaii last week, and Iowa temps were hovering around freezing I could feel the warmth of Van Meter, IA and the trail the Van Meter Community School District is blazing from across the Pacific.  

On Tuesday (1/27/10), a roundtable video discussion with a few Central Iowa school leaders and the Des Moines Register heated things up a bit with conversations around a new model of educational systems:

Watch live streaming video from desmoinesregister at livestream.com

Two days later, Superintendent John C. Carver and Secondary Principal Deron Durflinger led the Van Meter school leadership team and several students to the state capital to present in front of Iowa Legislators (click here to see archived video - scroll down after clicking to see archived videos). The students wow'd them. So much so, that when Iowa DOE 21stC Skills Director Sandra Dop began blogging, Scott McLeod's hope for leadership change grew with her words.

I am so proud of these educators, the students, the community!

More on #vanmeter

• Van Meter's Think, Lead, Serve wiki project
• Elementary Priincipal's blog (new)
• Van Meter's Library Voice
• Van Meter Staff's Twitter stream

Together We Are Smarter. What's Your Take? Comment Here.

Reflections of January(s)

I like to use the transition of the monthly calendar  as a way to look back at the previous month's best posts (and the years before that) 

January 2010

• Making Room for Courageous Conversations in the Classroom
• The Strategy of Sensory Imaging: A Skype Conversation
• The Path Towards a Passion Driven Classroom
• A Peek Inside:  My Preparation | My Online Toolkit | My Offline Toolkit

January 2009

• 21st Century Reality: Where We Are, Where We Need to Be
• The Power of Our Words - Examining Teacher Talk
• Character Counts - But Habitudes Multiply

January 2008

• Those who CAN, Teach
• 7 Power Thinking Tools: Using Schema
• One Post - What's the Point?

Previous Reflections:  Decembers | Novembers | Octobers | Septembers

Together We Are Smarter. What's Your Take? Comment Here.

Chalk Talk - 01/29/10

Chalk Talk Friday represents conversations and brilliance I've discovered traversing my way through the Blogosphere.  From professional to personal development, these are the posts and links have in some way touched my head or my heart.

• Inventables is a great site for students to learn about materials and technology. From science to shop, or math to FACS - this site can be used in a multitude of ways
• Screentoaster is a super easy way to capture your screen during navigation, then turn your work into a video. Great for creating a tutorial.
• 7 Secrets of a Successful Edublog - well, they aren't secrets anymore because Richard has shared them with us so we can use them too:-)
• What the Web of Tomorrow Will Look Like - these four trends are really upon us already in many ways. Leaders, Teachers, Students take note and seek ways to implement
• #vanmeter - I am soo proud of this school in rural Iowa. Follow this stream and see how one school district is making a difference in their communities: local, statewide, and global. I'm hoping to catch a glimpse of Thursday's Legislative session soon.

Together We Are Smarter. What's Your Take? Comment Here.

3 Collaborative Tools I Look Forward to Trying

One of the fantastic things about the world we live and learn in is how fast things change, how rapid development has become, and how enthusiastic we are to share new things with each other.

Over the past few weeks, travel has kept me away from trying some new tools and ideas I've found through Twitter or my RSS aggregator. Here are a few I'm looking forward to (and would love your input or tips if you've given them a try):

• Thinklinkr - whether for your classroom or collaborative projects across borders, this tool looks great for outlining writing projects, creating groups of RSS feeds (via OPML), and organize thoughts. (HatTip to MakeUseof and FreeTech4Teachers)
• Glydo -  looks like a great site to build on and share research and relevancy as your surf and scan the web. (H/T to Mashable and MakeUseOf)
• Refollow - reports they can help me organize, discover, and even manage the relationships and conversations I want to have on Twitter.  If it helps save time and make better connetions, it's worth a shot. (HT to TwiTip)

Again, I haven't used these tools yet, so I'm not sure I can shout 'em out (though your opinions will be embraced). Once I give them a try, they may appear in a future Chalk Talk.  Almost home:-)

Together We Are Smarter. What's Your Take? Comment Here.