Friday, April 9, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
New Posted Resources 04/06/2010
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Final Reflections Of TeachMeet Nashville 2010
What a great 2 days of learning in Nashville TN last week! There were large groups of teachers learning how to use Twitter and social networking for professional development to small groups of 2 or 3 people in impromptu learning sessions. There was talk about the closing of Etherpad and the use of alternatives like Typewith.me and Primary Pad. There was great discussion about meeting kids where they are and using music and the arts for assessment in the classroom.
But best of all was the connections. Twitter is a vast resource with lots of people who drop in and out. I have made tons of Twitter connections with all sorts of different people. But nothing beats meeting people in real life. And the really cool thing is I felt like I already knew these people on a person level.
It was so great meeting John, Deron and Shannon from Van Meter. They are really making a difference in the lives of their students and setting the standard for what education should begin to look like.
Then there was Philip, Dr. Tatum, Adam, Ric, and Clif. All great guys and great leaders in education. It was awesome being able to share and learn from them.
Nancy and Melissa worked so hard over the two days. Melissa presented several sessions passing along some great information on how she uses technology in the classroom and Nancy moderated a interesting panel on social media in education. They both were a valuable asset to the conference as a whole.
Then there was Jason, the organizer. After all the talk last week of passion in education it was truly evident with Jason. His dedication, hard work and countless hours spent putting things together really showed and provided a model for other educators to follow as they begin planning their own TeachMeets across the country.
I had the honor of giving the closing keynote. My talk centered around the past, present and future of education. Below is the presentation slides I used and the video archive of the keynote.
I would love to have your feedback if you watched it live or via the archive here.
Oh, and if you hear about a TeachMeet unconference in your area do yourself a favor and make plans to attend. I promise, it's worth it!
But best of all was the connections. Twitter is a vast resource with lots of people who drop in and out. I have made tons of Twitter connections with all sorts of different people. But nothing beats meeting people in real life. And the really cool thing is I felt like I already knew these people on a person level.
It was so great meeting John, Deron and Shannon from Van Meter. They are really making a difference in the lives of their students and setting the standard for what education should begin to look like.
Then there was Philip, Dr. Tatum, Adam, Ric, and Clif. All great guys and great leaders in education. It was awesome being able to share and learn from them.
Nancy and Melissa worked so hard over the two days. Melissa presented several sessions passing along some great information on how she uses technology in the classroom and Nancy moderated a interesting panel on social media in education. They both were a valuable asset to the conference as a whole.
Then there was Jason, the organizer. After all the talk last week of passion in education it was truly evident with Jason. His dedication, hard work and countless hours spent putting things together really showed and provided a model for other educators to follow as they begin planning their own TeachMeets across the country.
I had the honor of giving the closing keynote. My talk centered around the past, present and future of education. Below is the presentation slides I used and the video archive of the keynote.
I would love to have your feedback if you watched it live or via the archive here.
Oh, and if you hear about a TeachMeet unconference in your area do yourself a favor and make plans to attend. I promise, it's worth it!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
TeachMeet Nashville 2010
All sessions will be broadcast live via Ustream and I encourage you to tune in if you can.
Here are all the links for the broadcasts:
| Thursday Auditorium | http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tnteachmeet040110 Starts at 10. |
| Thursday Conference Rooom A | http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tnteachmeet040110a Starts at 11. |
| Friday Auditorium | http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tnteachmeet040210 Starts at 10. |
| Friday Conference Room A | http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tnteachmeet040210a Starts at 10. |
You can learn more about TeachMeet by visiting the wiki:
http://teachmeetnashville.wikispaces.com/
And you can follow the hashtag #TMN10 on Twitter.
It should be an awesome 2 days of learning. Kudos to Jason Bedell for putting all this on and bringing together so many awesome educators in one place!
Enduring Passion...
What Jaime had was passion...
This week for #edchat the format was a little different. Steve Hargadon and Classroom 2.0 sponsored a webinar with Sir Ken Robinson. The world acclaimed education author joined over 500 educators in Elluminate for a disscusion of his latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. For #edchat it was suggested we do a "warm-up" question, discussion passion in education and how could passion initiate change in education. Once again the discussion was fast but engaging. Here is a taste of what was said.
- Does passion = good teaching? Can you be a "good teacher" without it?
- Passion isn't something that is created but rather the results of the conditions under which learning is allowed to occur.
- To awaken "passion," we must broaden our focus to incorporate time to play, tinker, experiment, EXPLORE.
- Sometimes I think that my passion for what I do is what makes my job HARDER!
- It takes one that is passionate about learning in order to be passionate about teaching.
- Burnout is possible for passionate teachers - especially if they feel unappreciate often - luckily, recharging can happen.
As always there is an archive of the entire discussion and I encourage you to read it. Also you can catch the archive of the Sir Ken Robinson webinar. Worth the hour to watch.
Here are some of my thoughts...
I wrote about passion not to long ago. In that post I talked about educators who stifle passion in their students. And I can not emphisize that we have to avoid this. Seems like a no-brainer but seriously, whether they know it or not, there are educators out there who are killing the passion for learning in our kids.
Tonight at dinner I had the honor of sitting with @johnccarver, the Superintendent of the Van Meter school district in Iowa. They are doing great things with their 1:1 program and if you are not following him on Twitter you are missing out.
But I digress....
During dinner he told me of another district in Iowa that has incoming high school freshman write business plans or career skill papers. As part of the process the students can ask for a $2000 loan to carry out their plan. The district has store front space that the students can use to market and sell their wares. The students learn valuable skills and they just might make some money. John told me about several students who's ideas were being picked up by big business or bought out because they are so good. (There is so much more to this story. Once I can get John to give me more I will pass it along.)
The point of all this is that this district is fostering passion in kids. This district is allowing students to create and find out what they care about and are supporting them every step of the way. Why are there not more schools and districts out there like this!?!
Instead we have too many schools that invite kids in only to spit them out like factory cogs all the long killing any ideas of independence of learning or passion they might have. And on top of that we have educators who are pleased to follow right along.
What we need are teachers who care about kids. What we need are educators who have passion for learning themselves and want to foster that love in their students. What we need is teachers who have a fire in their belly for teaching, for discovery and teachers who want their kids to to experience the same.
I will admit. There are days when I was teaching I didn't have the passion to do it. There was even a time that I thought about leaving the classroom and education altogether. But when I laid in bed at night thinking about my future I knew what I was doing was the right thing. I cared too much and had too much passion to leave.
So do you have passion? When you go into your classroom or your school or your district do your colleagues know you have passion? More importantly, do your students know it?
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