Hold My Chalk

What do you do with a snow day? Many people would spend the day curled up by the fire with a good book. Others would sit around in their pajamas and catch up on their DVR. Still others would go out and play in the snow. Playing games, doing laundry, cleaning house and social media also come to mind. This morning the local twitter traffic exploded as teachers were confronted with a day outside of the classroom. It was great to see that the day trapped indoors would not be wasted by all, but instead would be a day mixed with some professional development. I saw a few links to the new #oklaed chat archives, inspirational quotes, links to articles and many other ways that teachers are continuing to learn and grow when others might expect them to be "slacking." This flies in the face of those that believe teachers work an 8-3 job with all holidays and summers off. In this profession, every break includes some time spent in personal growth and reflection. We plan and prepare, r...

Many of you are struggling with students doing everything except what you want them to in class.  I know some people believe the iPad is the biggest distraction to learning to ever appear on this planet.  I don't want to argue with you about that, but I do want to offer a solution. If you were not aware of it already, we have access to a device manager that allows you to control the apps going to student iPads.  It also allows you to lock a student into an app for as long as you need.  If you would like a brief tutorial on how to engage the app lock, follow the link below. One of the drawbacks to this feature is that there isn't a time component to it, so you will need to go back in and unlock the iPad when the class period is over or you will have a multitude of other teachers frustrated with you because they cannot use the device in their class.

You have been doing a wonderful job of infusing lessons with technology.  In fact your students have been working on their iPads and created some great presentations.  There is one problem, the file they created is too large for them to email to you.  What do you do? Even worse, you have some files you want to share with all your students, but they don't have email.  How do you get those files to them? Fortunately for you there is an app for that.  Look into Chirp - ASGI Ltd .  This app is currently available for iPhone, but could also be installed on iPads.  If you have this app running you can "chirp" the app to anyone in the room that has the app open on their device. If you create a file and students are unable to open the file from email for whatever reason, simply open chirp.  Have them open chirp, then add the file to your list and chirp it to them.  You will hear a chirping sound and then a link to the file will be transmitted to them...

How many times have you been asked a question that you know the questioner could easily have found the answer with just a few keystrokes?  When faced with a question we usually have a few choices in the way we can handle it.  First possibility is to give a direct answer or do it for person.  Any teacher worth their salt knows that this does little to benefit the learner because they have had to put forth little effort to obtain the knowledge.  If you really want someone to learn something, they need to work for it.  Then to prove they have learned something, they need to then teach it. Next possibility is to show them how to do it.  Hopefully when you show them, they are doing something to insure that they can handle the issue or answer the question if it occurs again.  When training, this is when a video tutorial is nice because it allows them to come back to it and watch it again if needed. Another solution is to point them in the right direction and...

After four solid days of sessions, keynotes and talks with vendors I am preparing to say farewell to my first TCEA conference.  I have expanded my PLN both in Google+ and on Twitter by finding new people to follow and have also picked up a few new followers along the way. For the next few weeks I will go over many of the ideas that I gathered at the conference and begin sharing them here, in district workshops, and on Twitter.  I thought for this post I would include the highlights from today. If you missed the keynote with Chef Jeff, you really missed out.  Many of you teach in schools that have the same socioeconomic makeup that mine does, more than 75% on free/reduced lunches.  You know the struggles that students have in a school of high poverty.  Make sure you remember some of his key points. Know your students-what motivates them, what they are good at. Let them know you care Above all, show them how what you are doing in class can get them to their dream....

Another full day at TCEA13 and once again they lost my number for the door prizes.  The keynote this morning was delivered by Greg Green (@flippedclassroom) one of the pioneers in the concept of the flipped classroom. In the keynote and in his later presentation he reminded us of some key points to remember when getting started with a flipped school. Start with just a few teachers. Have them start with one subject/class. Share the load-you don't need to create all the videos on your own.  There are many other resources out there like YouTube, Gooru Learning, Khan Academy, Brain Genie, SchoolTube or TeacherTube that can be used to find videos. Think of it like eating an elephant.  You want to do it a little at a time.   All of these are things we know, but when facing something new we forget to take it a little at a time.  We forget to start with the simple tasks and build up to the more complex.  Pick your analogy and apply it here. Models of Tech Inte...

So today was full of ideas and refreshers for me. In fact I had to skip one of the time slots simply because I needed time to clear my head. The first session I attended after the keynote was Becoming a Google Apps Certified Trainer led by Jennifer Bergland . This is something I have wanted to do for a while, but without hearing from someone that had been through the process I wasn't sure what to expect. Since I have been doing some training in Google Apps, it would be nice to have the endorsement of Google. The next session was From Template to Training Site in Two Hours led by Debra Atchison . I have played with Google sites and even developed my own sites for training. It is so much nicer when someone else does the work for you. If you choose the Google Apps template, they have the GAFE training videos already in the site, all you have to do is customize it to fit your needs. **Hangin' Out: Google+U for K12 was the next session. +Amy Mayer   led this session and did w...

Tomorrow begins my first time to attend the TCEA conference. I'm starting out with the Google Academy and I am really looking forward to it.   My hope is to do some live blogging, something I've never attempted before during a conference. I might also attempt to do some Google hangouts just to record my thoughts at the end of each session as a summary. The archive into the summaries for my own benefit and also so that I have some things I can pass on to other teachers that were unable to attend. If you're attending TCEA let me know by commenting and hopefully I'll run into you there.