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"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

"The biggest and most oft-heard criticism of the iPad usually revolves around it not behaving like a desktop PC or laptop. The people making this complaint are simply missing the point. Apple aren't trying to make a laptop replacement, why would they? They make a couple of extremely good ones! The iPad is a new kind of device that asks you to think and work differently. The fact that it isn't a laptop, to me, is its greatest attribute:"

"When teaching with digital natives in a digital world, one question facing many educators revolves around integrating technology to help facilitate learning: How do you work technology into the pedagogy, instead of just using something cool? That task can be especially daunting in language arts literacy classrooms where reading and writing skill development is the crux of daily lessons. However, as 1:1 technology initiatives roll out, integrating technology into the classroom is our reality. With hundreds of sites, apps, Chrome extensions, and platforms available, choosing the right ones can seem overwhelming. As an eighth-grade language arts teacher, I've experienced this myself. Following are four tools that can help provide immediate formative assessment data as well as top-of-the-rotation feedback to help students develop personal learning goals."

"Integration into the Kindergarten curriculum was a rather loose connection, but definitely a great introduction to 3D printing. One of the Kindergarten writing units revolves around "Looking Closely" at different things and writing about them like a scientist. Many of the Kindergarten teachers like to choose leaves as one of the objects students write about, so I decided to expand this idea into the design of a 3D printed leaf. To support students looking closely at small details as well as develop fine motor skills, each class worked together to make a blown up drawing of a leaf. In order to avoid having the whole class fighting over space to observe and draw around one piece of butcher paper, I set up the class so that I had three stations for the students to rotate around. The other two stations were a Bee Bot coding station and an Engineering Design challenge with Legos (design a bridge strong enough to hold a water bottle)."

"Recently, my school adopted a new approach to Educational Technology Integration. We're following an unconference model, and this has meant that we meet weekly, for no more than 1/2 an hour, in small, constantly-changing groups. Before these meetings, staff announce (via the school intranet) what sessions they might be running. For example, they might run a session called, 'Using Evernote in Ancient History' or 'How I Used Scripts to Automate my Classroom'. Staff can then pick a session that suits their fancy - or their professional needs - and these small groups are constantly revolving as people share their new skills with each other. It's been revolutionary - a huge success, so this discussion is aimed at sharing ways to ensure that your school is getting the most from professional learning. Here are my 5 tips:"

"In my classroom, my students are collaborating together on projects, proudly sharing their creativity, asking thought provoking questions, celebrating classmates successes, and mending disappointments. I spent some time this week just watching my class. My students were having conversations with each other and as I took the time to listen, those conversations were revolving around students' work. Through these conversations, my students are learning! "

"So, what did I do with this new scary K-5 area? I reached out online. I found teachers who were sharing what they were doing in their classes through blogs and social media and podcasts. What I realized the past year is that innovation in an elementary school revolves around many of the same concepts and topics as the secondary levels…but it's not always about technology. That is the biggest misconception we have with innovation in education. Technology doesn't necessarily lead to innovation. Instead, technology often allows for new ways of teaching and learning…but only if used for the right purpose. Here are a few of my favorite ways educators are innovating at the elementary school (with or without technology):"

"Differentiated instruction is not necessarily a new approach to meeting the unique learning needs of all students, but it has certainly been enhanced through assistive technologies. The advancements with assistive technologies have been astronomical in providing teachers even more ways to reach out to their students (Dove, 2012) and differentiate the way they learn, practice, and explore concepts (Ciampa & Gallagher, 2013). As a researcher studying assistive technologies and a program facilitator for the Learning Disabilities Association of Niagara Region, I have gained valuable insight to help support educators with high-tech assistive technologies. For the most part, my experience with assistive technology has generally revolved around using Apple iPads and Chromebooks. With this in mind, the following tips will be coming from the perspective of a teacher very passionate about mobile devices in 21st century learning spaces."

"It was the summer of my disconnect… I've decided to try for a different focus this summer.  I want to spend a LOT less time online and tinker with technology that doesn't revolve around a 2D computer screen. Last year at this time, I was wrapping up my look at teaching computer programming to primary students.  I had just finished submitting in my Coetail Final Project and this was the subject-matter that I had chosen for my final project.  My investigation was done mainly through the 2D environment of the computer screen.    My own children and I spent last summer participating in two online "kids camp" programs that were an extension of my Coetail Final Project.  They were Scratch Programming and Minecraft.  We worked through several weeks of challenges, earned digital badges, and posted our creations online.  Some of them were featured in a weekly Show and Tell that was streamed over the internet by Pursuitery (has some connection with Connected Learning Alliance  and Mimi Ito of "Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out"). That was a huge amount of fun but it was all pixels."

"This week's Ted Ed list of talks we curated for you revolves around the theme: writer's workshop. This is basically a playlist prepared by Ted Ed Channel on YouTube featuring 16 Ted Ed video lessons from which we selected the ones below. The talks are particularly ideal for classroom inclusion. You can use them with your students to teach them about some of the mechanics of writing and raise their consciousness to the important elements that make a good piece of writing."

Dave Eggers TED Talk - http://www.ted.com/speakers/dave_eggers.html

"These questions are more about the student than you, your classroom, or education. What every student should know starts with themselves and moves outwards to your content area: self knowledge-> content knowledge. As an educator, your job is lead students to understanding, but student self-awareness and self-knowledge should precede that. These questions hit at a range of topics, but all revolve around that idea of a learner's identity. If it hasn't already come, the first day of school is probably imminent for you, and these kinds of questions could come in handy there as well. Get to know you type stuff. But they can also help set the tone in your classroom that introspection is a must, awareness and thinking are always-on, and self-knowledge is the ultimate goal of any system of learning."

"There have been complaints leveraged against out of the box robots like Dash and Dot, Ozobot, Hummingbird, Sphero. The complaints usually revolve around the canned and prescriptive nature of their uses and programs, that they lack creative engagement by the younger users. I personally love the excitement my learners have using these robots. As with all tools and technologies and with creative framing, though, they can be used in creative and imaginative ways. Mention robots to many English teachers and they'll immediately point down the hall to the science classroom or to the makerspace, if they have one. At many schools, if there's a robot at all, it's located in a science or math classroom or is being built by an after-school robotics club. It's not usually a fixture in English classrooms. But as teachers continue to work at finding new entry points to old material for their students, robots are proving to be a great interdisciplinary tool that builds collaboration and literacy skills. (How Robots in English Class Can Spark Empathy and Improve Writing) This past term, I had my 2nd through 4th grade students work on their robot-enhanced creative writing and stories. In small groups, students were asked to create a fictional storyline and use StoryboardThat.com to create both the physical scenes and the accompanying narrative. As part of their directions, they were told that they were going to create a 3D setting out of cardboard boxes, foam board, LED lights, and other craft materials; and that they would use Wonder's Dot with the Blocky App and Ozobot as the characters in their stories. Preparation time was divided between storyboarding, creating the scene, and learning how to use/code the robots. Because of all of the preparation and practice, the recording actually went quite quick and smoothly. Here is a break down of the learning events that learners were asked to complete:"

Have you ever thought about the things we use in our day to day life? Does your mind revolves around the logic behind its creation and upgradation? One of the most important thing without which this world cannot run is 'Money.' Our Indian currency notes also vest a historical logic behind it that consists of various Monuments, Ashok Chakra, Famous Leaders, Cultural Languages and Slogans. This blog will address the logic behind the creation and upgradation of the Indian currency notes.

With the emerging threat of COVID19 and the closure of schools, teachers are scrambling to move to online learning environments. This will bring with it a myriad of challenges the short time frame is not going to help the situation. While we are fortunate that there are many technological solutions for the provision of remote learning, the more significant challenges will revolve around how we interact with our learners.

often think in metaphors. They help me to clarify and communicate my thinking. A metaphor can make a complex idea accessible and comprehensible. They invite understanding and are a useful catalyst for conversation. A metaphor can be made even more powerful when it is combined with a practical demonstration. One metaphor I like to share with colleagues revolves around the impact that we might have as teachers. - A guest post by Stellina Sim