Get a group of administrators, teachers and district staff together – add food and boxes and more boxes of brand new iPads. What do you have? Excitement, anticipation, a bit of wonder, “eyes wide open”, tons of chatter and buzz… Last week, we spent the afternoon with a set of goals: introduce the iPad,…
Tag: activities
Writers Workshop – Each Step in the Process
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” I was reminded of this quote as we worked through our recent session on ‘Writers Workshop‘. Not only the global concepts of ‘writers workshop’ (lots of time to write and explore, choice and voice, conferring during and not after the fact…) but what this…
TED Expands to Education
My fascination with TED just increased with the launch of its newest initiative dedicated to Education. It is called TED-Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing. TED was originally created to bring together great minds and grand ideas aimed at changing attitudes and ultimately the world. The website and conferences plays host to inspired thinkers and those who would engage with such…
Giving Voice to Your Story – Use an Online Tool
Capture that story (whether at school or home) with just a mic and a simple online recorder. Vocaroo (http://vocaroo.com) is a simple online audio tool just made for that purpose! Use it for audio recordings of class news, radio shows, as student assessments for oral readings or to increase skills in reading. You may even…
Writing Territories to Launch Choice in Writing – Session 2
“I don’t have anything to write about…” How many times have we all heard that? Using a structure like “Writing Territories” provides a powerful way to start scribbling their ideas. These ideas can be listed or supported through collaborative conversation. This mini lesson (* are specific and allow time for students to share their samples to…
Running Out of Space? Resizing Images is Magic!
Just when you get it all figured out, that dreaded message comes across warning you of your dwindling space on your blog. Most of the time this is due to posting images that are photo quality (right off the camera or ipad) but not web quality. Some of you already use IrfanView or Microsoft…
Growing Readers – Literature Circles Gone Digital – Part 1
I wasn’t quite sure how to title this, swinging back and forth from “Passionate Conversations” and “Growing Readers”, both of which I believe Lit Circles to be. I’ve been working with a fabulous teacher on engaging her class with Literature Circles. Oh not the process with all the jobs/roles (which I’ve done many times before), but the approach…
Little Tools that Do Big Things
Do you ever want to do something with your class and the whole technology thing is just too much? I get that a lot so I’m always on the hunt for tools that “take the mystery out of things” and just work. Remember that we are also in a world of constant change so…
Choice Words
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…
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…
Cultivating Conversation – Spoken Ink
Moving from the last post on Reimagining Conversation, I wanted to dig deeper into the importance of oral language as foundational to literacy development. We are creatures of connection and we use language to communicate our needs, ideas, feelings and discoveries. The abilities to express ourselves grow over time and practice…lots of practice. Yes, I know…
Apps Big and Small…
It’s nearing the end of the year and looking forward to a little warm weather and a slower pace. Over the next couple of months, there’s a bit of time to do a little play and see what’s just around the corner. In that vein, here’s a little bit for you to discover. Interactivity –…
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…
Digital Writing – Digital Teaching – Session 1
Digital Writing is… Session One (February 9, 2011): “If we engage students in real writing tasks and we use technology in such a way that it complements their innate need to find purposes and audiences for their work, we can have them engaged in a digital writing process that focuses first on the writer, then…
Powerful Messages Come Alive with Stop Motion Animation
Everyone has a story. The challenge is choosing how to bring it to life and who to share it with. Our Learning Series on Stop Motion Animation started today. Besides the technical “how to’s”, we discussed how to create voice, mood and motion. For example, what role does background music play in setting the tone,…
Words Their Way – Shedding Light on Process
Words Their Way is a program that offers a developmental curriculum for phonics/spelling instruction, reading fluency and vocabulary development. The hands-on activities engage students as they actively categorize their ‘word sorts’ and the assessment inventory provides a clear indicator of where each student is in the process of word development. We’ve been working with a…
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,…
Words Their Way – Making Connections…Session1
Today we started our first of 4 learning sessions on Words Their Way, by Invernizzi, Bear, Templeton and Johnston. In a nutshell, the program provides a developmental curriculum for phonics/spelling instruction, while also promoting reading fluency and vocabulary development. Its hands-on approach marries well with what we know about how the brain uses categories to…
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…