Things happen when you’ve return from a conference. New ideas attach with old ones and a host of “how does this all connect” is sifted through a lens of “what if…”. At FETC, keynote speaker Michael Wesch (watch TED talk) talked about the fast rise of the new technologies (Youtube 2005; Twitter 2006) resulting in a new culture…
Tag: writing
Digging Deeper – How to Introduce Blog Commenting
How to Develop Blog Writing: Brainstorm Session Sometimes our questions may be “how do we start our classes blogging past the basics?”. Here is one way that may help to introduce the students to the idea of commenting. (We did this at our recent SCIT gathering.) This starts in the classroom with good questions. Record…
Using Plan Boxes in Writing Workshop
You send off your group to incorporate the ideas from your mini lesson – at least that’s your plan. And sometimes that’s exactly what happens. However, its more likely that some students may wander and forget what they’re supposed to do. So how do we get every student (at varying levels of writing proficiency) to…
Magic in a Flashdrive – MyStudyBar
The updated version 3 of MyStudyBar from the Regional Support Centre – Scotland, is out for those of you looking for more options for students with difficulties in reading, writing and organizational skills. While this is not nearly as robust as Kurzweil 3000, it certainly has tools that can be easily utilized and is FREE,…
Kurzweil 3000 – Session 3 Writing on the Calendar
This third session of Kurzweil 3000, which deals with writing supports has been rescheduled on the Staff Development Calendar to Wednesday February 23 (3:30-5:30) at Schou – TLC. Questions such as “How can Kurzweil support students who find written output challenging? What about the writers workshop process of braining, organizing, and drafting?” For more…
How Readable is the Information?
Readability may be defined as ‘reading ease’ or how content can be successfully understood. Teachers know that comprehension is dependent on many variables, one of which is the readability level of information whether online or in print. It matters little if you have the best list of websites for research but the students have difficulties…
A Peek at February’s Learning Calendar
Here’s a snapshot of what’s coming just around the corner. You will find all details and registration on the Staff Development Calendar. Don’t forget that our district pro-d day is February 25th. *Please note that these are ‘learning series’ and attendance is necessary at all sessions. Reading/Writing with Kurzweil 3000 (Alternate Ed Group): Feb 2,…
Handy Apps that Make a Difference
Some tools are just fun and some are handy to have. Then there are the tools that come along your way that you just know will make a huge difference in some of your students’ lives. This list will change over time and across the environments you work. eType is a downloadable application that provides…
Writers Workshop Learning Series #3 – Mini Lessons
Once again we gathered as a group to explore the writing process. Some things we tackled this time: how to create colour coded folders and move our google documents into those folders (AAAhh, you can just feel the sigh of relief with this organizational structure) how to use the revision history as a way to…
Kurzweil #2: Annotating – Making Thinking Visible
When you read anything, many things happen in your head that nobody notices. But good readers know and can identify these things. Sometimes we call them “movies in our head, thinking abouts, connections, questions or just plain wonders…”. The Study Skills toolbar in Kurzweil 3000 allows great flexibility in making this thinking visible so we…
Writers Workshop Learning Series – Session 1
This first session reviewed some of the basic tenets of Writers Workshop process. Much of the details came from Nancy Atwell’s work. We looked at the importance of setting purpose and identifying what is important to write about. We all have stories to tell. Consider the following: What I write about (topic) Who I write…
Blogs – Learning Series – Challenge #2
Here is your homework for Oct 20th: Challenge Activity #2: To get a feel for how your blog will act in posts, please create a few posts and create categories (logical words meaningful to you) to organize them. (Some examples may be homework, events, news of the day, questions to ponder, questions to launch a…
Blogs – Learning Series – Challenge Activity 1
Before the next Blog workshop, please try to complete the following tasks: A) Upload 2 – 3 images to your media library. 100 pixels by 100 300 pixels by 300 original file upload and resize in editor B) Create a List of 3 Links C) Change your current theme and identify the changes observed? What…
Learning Sessions Focused on Connecting, Communicating…
Imagine a simple way to share and connect information with your parent community, your student community, your teaching community. Imagine being able to update that information or receive comments anytime, anywhere. In our busy schedules it is increasingly difficult to share everything that we feel is important — enter the web world. Using platforms like…