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"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

"With so many Raspberry Pi projects to choose from, it can be tricky to find the one you really want to build. Our advice is to find a way to marry the Pi with something you really love. One great example is TV and movie robots - iconic characters from popular sci-fi that can be rebuild at home with a Raspberry Pi built in. Once constructed, your robot might be able to utter commands when a condition is met (perhaps a sensor detects motion). Or it might move around, learning about its surroundings, or reading information to you from Wikipedia. Whatever you have in mind, it should be relatively straightforward to plan and execute. It may take some time, however. Here are five example projects that show how you can combine a Raspberry Pi 2 or later with your favorite fictional robot. 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do The latest edition of the pint-sized computer is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that there's 5 things you can only do on a Raspberry Pi 2. READ MORE 1. R2-D2 We've all wanted our very own astromech droid, haven't we? Sure, no one on earth is (currently) operating a light speed drive, but Star Wars droid R2-D2 has far greater abilities than onboard spacecraft maintenance. For instance, he can hold torches, carry a tray of drinks, and launch lightsabers across pits in the desert. Okay, it's unlikely you'll manage to get your own R2-D2 robot to do that… but don't let that put you off. Check out this little guy, controlled by a Raspberry Pi. While this project was based on an existing R2-D2 toy, that shouldn't limit your ambition. You'll find plenty of R2-D2 builds on YouTube. There's a massive R2-D2 building community online. Finding one that has a drive unit should be ideal for integrating a Raspberry Pi (and perhaps an Arduino, which you can use the two together) and developing a more realistic R2-D2 experience. Arduino vs Raspberry Pi: Which Is The Mini Computer For You? Arduino vs Rasp

"One year ago, I wrote the article, Why Good Teachers Quit. It was hard to write and I struggled with sharing my friend's frustration and exhaustion. Yes, it was actually about a friend and not me. Today, I am happy to report my friend is still teaching. I am also sad to report her situation is no better. In fact, I might even say it has gotten a little bit worse. She still works long, hard, physically and mentally exhausting days. She is still overwhelmed by data and binders and often superhuman-like expectations. She still does it everyday because she knows she makes a difference to her students, to their lives, and their learning. The article I shared created a conversation I was humbled to read. Every few weeks, I would check the link and see a few new comments posted. Recently, I had another friend tell me that an educator she connects with from across the country via Facebook posted it. It thrills me that others enjoyed the article and it continues to live on a year after I shared it with TeachThought. It also scares me in so many ways. It frightens me that there are so many good educators who feel the same way. It scares me that there are so many educators who feel helpless in their fight to achieve more for themselves and for their students. It saddens me that the conversation has turned to unions and stress-related health sabbaticals for many teachers."

"At last week's iPad site visit, a student on the panel was describing her favorite iLesson: "It was in science. It is an interactive periodic table (app). We were learning about the elements. You click on an element and it gives you the history, who made it, how you use it, what it is used for. Another cool feature is you can make them. You can keep on adding neutrons, electrons, and protons as much as you like and every time you click on the plus or minus, it tells you what element you just made. The results were really amazing. We had more interest in the periodic table than we ever had before mainly because it was fun, it was interesting, we actually got to play around with it and see what we could make with it instead of just giving us a piece of paper and telling us 'research these'.""

"iPhone 5 Called ""Gadget off the Year"" by Time Magazine, Apple's iPhone 5 (from $199 on 2-year AT&T, Sprint or Verizon plan) is a serious piece of hardware. Along with its powerful new A6 chip, iPhone 5 works on 4G/Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks for wireless speeds that rivals your home's broadband connection. iPhone 5 also has improved cameras: an eight-megapixel iSight rear-facing camera (3264 x 2448 pixels) and front-facing FaceTime camera with 720p HD quality for video calling. Samsung Galaxy S III The Samsung Galaxy S III (from $149 on 2-year plan with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Verizon) is a true smartphone in every sense of the word -- and we're not even referring to its stunning 4.8-inch display, fast LTE speeds or versatile Android operating system. the Galaxy S III's front-facing camera knows when you're looking at the screen, so it'll give you the bright display you seek, but if your eyes look away it'll dim itself to preserve its battery. It also knows when you want to talk: if you're messaging with someone and want to call them, simply lift the smartphone to your ear and it'll dial for you. Nokia Lumia 920 As the flagship Windows Phone 8 device, Nokia's Lumia 920 (from $99.99 on 2-year AT&T plan), has a lot to offer, including a colorful Start screen with ""live tiles""; familiar Microsoft apps like Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote; and a People hub that aggregates all your contacts into one page per person (so you don't need to close, say Outlook, to see what that friend is up to on Facebook or Twitter). HTC Droid DNA and HTC One X+ A pair of Android-powered HTC devices are also worthy of ""best of 2012"" nods: the HTC Droid DNA ($149.99 on 2-year Verizon Wireless plan) and HTC One X+ ($199.99 on 2-year AT&T plan). Protected by Corning's uber-durable Gorilla Glass 2 technology, the Droid DNA's 5-inch 1080p HD screen was built for video, games, ebooks and web browsing. Integrated Beats Audio - an

"3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time By Peter DeWitt on April 10, 2015 6:50 AM Faculty Meeting.png Many school leaders walk into a faculty meeting with a single idea of how they want to move forward and walk out with the same idea. That's telling... John Hattie talks a great deal about the Politics of Distraction, which means we focus on adult issues, and not enough time...if ever...on learning. That is happening around the U.S. for sure. Recently the Assembly of NY State only furthered those distractions, which you can read about here, which means that school leaders and teachers have to work harder to maintain a focus on learning. Quite frankly, well before mandates and accountability, school leaders focused on the politics of distraction and not on learning. Compliance is not new in schools. Faculty meetings were seen as a venue to get through and something that teachers were contractually obligated to attend. During these days of endless measures of compliance, principals can do a great deal to make sure they don't model the same harmful messages to staff that politicians are sending to teachers. Jim Knight calls that "Freedom within form." In Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo quotes Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo) when he writes, "Creativity is often misunderstood. People often think of it in terms of artistic work - unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. If you look deeper, however, you'll find that some of the most inspiring art forms - haikus, sonatas, religious paintings- are fraught with constraints. (p. 190)" Clearly, constraints have a wide definition. There is a clear difference between the constraints of compliance and the stupidity of the legislation just passed by the assembly in NY. As we move forward, principals still are charged...or at least should be...with the job of making sure they offer part...inspiration, part...teacher voice...and a great deal of focus on learning. There is never a more important tim

"Although instructional design as a discipline has been around for decades (and probably was at its height in the 1970's and 1980's as a profession, its application and use has diminished in the age of easy to use software and access to and use of Internet. This is partly because it is so easy to create a course of almost any type, add as many "bells and whistles" as you like and then widely distribute it to a given audience. But in paying less attention to instructional design than we should we have lost something important and it is therefore high time we recognized that it is more important than ever in the modern world. After all, instructional design is the approach which helps to keep the process of training, coaching or development of any kind (on or off line) to be well-targeted and on track to meet the needs of the individual(s) at which it is aimed. Good instructional design therefore needs to appreciate that we are open to learning but find the best ways and moments to intervene in which to package it or parcel it up so that it can be successfully delivered. Although the approach is relatively straightforward, there is a best-practice way to conduct effective instructional design and this is shown in the 10-step infographic shown below:"

"2015 is the year the focus will finally turn the corner by organizations in education and the business world to get it right: it is about the learner. It is not about calling it "Personalized Instruction" or "Personalized Education." It is not about the technology, the curriculum, or instruction. It is about the learner making learning personal for his or herself. It is about teacher and learner roles changing. It is about calling students "learners." It is about transforming the system because now is the time to change the system. The current system is broken. It isn't working for most of our learners. The current system of content delivery and focusing on performance instead of learning is not making positive changes for our children and their future. So we put together four large concepts that encompass the 10 trends that you will see impacting learning starting this coming year: Learning Culture, Learning Environments, Deeper Learning, and Partnerships in Learning."

"Teachers are always looking for ways to educate and engage. I read, observe, listen and try to integrate meaningful platforms and experiences into student learning so that my students are drawn to the event. I'm no different than any other teacher; we know that engagement matters. So with that in mind, let's talk about Minecraft. Children are crazy about it--they collaborate and create for hours. They LOVE it and want it at school. They are always talking about it, asking for it, and relaying stories about it. I've tried it a few times, and must admit I've yet to understand it well, but my son assures me that as soon as I get the hang of it I'll be hooked."

"It's always revealing to watch learners research. When trying to understand complex questions often as part of multi-step projects, they often simply "Google it." Why do people migrate? Google it. Where does inspiration come from? Google it. How do different cultures view humanity differently? Google it. Literally Google it. Type those questions word-for-word into the Google search box and hope for answers. Educators cringe, but to the students it makes sense. And if you think about it, this is actually helpful-a rare opportunity for transparency into the mind of a student. When your formative years are spent working your fingers through apps and iPads, smartphones and YouTube, the digital world and its habits can bend and shape not just how you access information, but how you conceptualize it entirely. And among the most powerful forces here is the Google.com search engine."

" Apple has long touted its device's assistive technology as a powerful tool for the educational development of physically and mentally disabled children. The iPad's touch screen makes it easier to manipulate than more traditional educational tools. For children with autism, "the iPad is not a toy, but a tool that works best when there is a 'team effort' between parents and therapists encouraging its proper use," said Marc Reisner, co-founder of Reach for the APPs. "Our goal is to provide schools with iPads so they can reach every child on the autistic spectrum." Reach for the APPs built their site with an initial donation from Managed Digital. Now, they're seeking out donations of money and/or iPads from both individuals and corporations to propel the program forward. According to reports from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1-in-88 children have some form of autism, up 78 percent from just a decade ago. The demand for augmentative communications devices is growing. But the schools can't meet the demand, so the children are losing valuable time during critical developmental years. Lois Brady, a speech language pathologist and assistive technology specialist, said apps can help develop fine-motor skills, which will in turn make functions like writing and manipulating small objects easier for the students. "I have spent years working with the most challenging students that are considered profoundly disabled," she said. "And I have seen some small miracles when I introduce the iPad into our therapy, as the children have made huge gains in attention, focus, communication, language and literacy skills." Some experts also say that the iPad can lessen symptoms of autistic disorders, helping children deal with life's sensory overload. Brady will be contributing content to the Reach for the APPs website to inform therapists about the latest-and-greatest apps for children all over the autistim spectrum. Apps must be tailor

"For the last two years, everyone's been talking about learning to code. From Google chairman Eric Schmidt, to will.i.am and Barack Obama. But what is coding and why is it important for our kids to learn to do it? Coding, also known as programming, is giving a computer instructions to follow in a language that it understands. It can be as simple as programming a short sequence of instructions into a robot to make it move, or as complex as creating an app using a language called Objective-C. Political leaders and technologists believe it is important for the current generation to learn to code, so that in the future we have people with the necessary skills to create the new technologies we will need. This is going to be great for our economy in the future, but there is much more to it than this: it's also empowering, creative, social and great for developing problem solving skills."

"Don't try to put making in a box. Don't make it a kit, standardize it, and water it down.  Don't develop a canned-for-sale-program out of it.   Don't make it a packet to sell on website. Don't reduce it to a moment in a day, a day in a week, or a kit from the shelves. Don't make it into a program that a school has to pay billions to be a part of. Don't reduce making to that "thing" that happens in a certain room or a certain space or once a month.  Please just don't reserve making for gadgety electronics or robotics.  Don't just call it STEAM. Making is connecting, interpreting, and building a relationship with the world. Let's make school more about making. The mathematics and patterns in sewing, the joy in colorful art, the visual beauty in cooking, painting, the science of mixing colors, the music of sculpture in the wind, the flow in writing from the imagination, the collaboration in developing something together, the spark in sharing cardboard creations via Skype, the motivation in sharing with the world, the engagement in raw discovery, the fun in tinkering with a pile of junk, the passion in an idea grown from a seed, and the excitement in untouched exploration."

"As someone who primarily taught math and science when I was a classroom teacher, I associated robots, robotics curriculum, and robot apps as things that were only used in those subjects. However, this past year my school received a robot grant that provided ten robots for us from the company Sphero. Sphero emphasizes the power of play in education and has a variety of lessons that are aligned to the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards on their website. They also have a number of STEM challenges  in the form pre-designed engineering projects designed for collaborative group work with students and are helpful for teachers using the robots in their classes. Sphero is a robotic ball that can pair with an iPad, tablet, iPhone, or smartphone through Bluetooth, and getting started is relatively easy. Once you are ready to use Sphero, you take it off the charger stand and give it a "tap-tap" to "wake it up." When the robot wakes up, it starts to flash three different colors until it pairs with the device you are using it with via Bluetooth. Once it turns blue, then you know that it is paired and ready to go. There are at least 14 different education related apps that are available with Sphero: some of them use augmented reality technology, some of them teach the basics of coding, while others allow students to draw on a tablet to manipulate the color and movement of the robot. During the last week of June, I did a presentation at the ISTE conference with many other educators from all over the country who also received the robot grant. What amazed me was that people who taught subjects like language arts and social studies found incredible ways to integrate robotics into their curriculum to create some really engaging lessons for their students."

HOME is an ode to the planet's beauty and its delicate harmony. Through the landscapes of 54 countries captured from above, Yann Arthus-Bertrand takes us on an unique journey all around the planet, to contemplate it and to understand it. But HOME is more than a documentary with a message, it is a magnificent movie in its own right. Every breathtaking shot shows the Earth - our Earth - as we have never seen it before. Every image shows the Earth's treasures we are destroying and all the wonders we can still preserve. "From the sky, there's less need for explanations". Our vision becomes more immediate, intuitive and emotional. HOME has an impact on anyone who sees it. It awakens in us the awareness that is needed to change the way we see the world. (HOME embraces the major ecological issues that confront us and shows how everything on our planet is interconnected.)

"What if every teacher tweeted? Is there some kind of sequence of events we might expect? A teacher signs up for twitter after agonizing over the details (username, avatar, bio, etc.), follows a few dozen people, then sits slack-jawed and confused as that non-stop digital stream begins. We have to assume that somehow this trickles down to the learning experiences of the students-their writing, their skills, and the wandering of their thoughts-yes? No reason to tweet just to be all avant-garde about it all. It depends on how it's used-twitter, that is. Like any tool, twitter is designed for a task. The results of that task depends on the knowledge and skill of its user. There is nothing other-wordly about twitter, if we're being honest. It has its talents (a few of which we looked at in why twitter works in education), but it is, in shorty, some thing some one made. And as teachers, we can use it, or leave it alone."

"Our boys have just received The Lego Movie for their birthdays and absolutely love it. I think they have watched it every day since receiving it and now we all have the words "Everything is Awesome!" floating around in our heads all day every day. It could become our new family motto: Everything is Awesome!! This got me thinking about how we could use Lego in our homeschool. Since we have many boxes of the bricks and the boys enjoy playing with it, why not use it to help them learn! So I have made a massive list of how lego can be used as part of your homeschool.   I have split it up into subject areas to make it easier to navigate."

As is required of all women in their 30s, I am in a book club. At the first meeting of this group, one poor unsuspecting woman mentioned that she had listened to that month's selection instead of reading it. That, the rest of the group decided together, is definitely cheating. Never mind that no one could exactly articulate how or why it was cheating; it just felt like it was, and others would agree. She never substituted the audiobook for the print version again (or, if she did, she never again admitted it). This question - whether or not listening to an audiobook is "cheating" - is one University of Virginia psychologist Daniel Willingham gets fairly often, especially ever since he published a book, in 2015, on the science of reading. (That one was about teaching children to read; he's got another book out next spring about adults and reading.) He is very tired of this question, and so, recently, he wrote a blog post addressing it. (His opening line: "I've been asked this question a lot and I hate it.") If, he argues, you take the question from the perspective of cognitive psychology - that is, the mental processes involved - there is no real difference between listening to a book and reading it. So, according to that understanding of the question: No, audiobooks are not cheating.

"Start the NEW YEAR the right way! For January we have one inspiring quote for you for every day of the month! Every morning, write down the positive quote of the day on a piece of paper, put it in your wallet so you can look at it a few times during the day. Write it on a post-it and hang it on your fridge or your computer. Take a picture and save it has your phone or computer background for the day! Make it your motto of the day! Share it! Every morning write down the quote of the day and make sure to hand that note to someone else on that day to spread more positive vibes and energies to those around you as well!"