"Contemporary curriculum design involves multiple facets: engaging 21st Century skills, using digital tools, collaborating with others around the globe, performance tasks, and more. Getting these design elements into a teacher's current curriculum demands that teachers create professional habits around Replacement Thinking."

"This collaborative blog post was written with help from friend and colleague Danielle Hardt of Starpoint Middle School in Lockport, NY. Danielle is a literacy rock star, a highly effective teacher, and a secret practical joke enthusiast (a skill I highly prize!). "

"Back in the early 90's, my grandmother taught me how to bake biscotti in a traditional way. She was a baker by trade and taught me about the precision of measuring ingredients to get a perfect dough consistency, how to lay out the initial loaf, cut on the diagonal and re-bake until the cookies reached their optimum crunch. Over the years, I've experimented with the basic recipe, adding additional ingredients, replacing others, trying different thicknesses of the cookie, dipping the cookies in chocolate, etc. My ultimate goal is to get to the cookie, even though my path to get there changes every year."

Mike Fisher's Favorites

"I had a wonderful modern learning experience this past school year Skyping into a first-grade class in Jacksonville, Fla. This first-grade class is learning geography (as well as global perspectives!) through an activity that they call "Mystery Skyping." The teachers connect with someone via Skype somewhere in the world. That person Skypes in and the students get to ask questions to discover where in the world that person is. I was so excited to participate and be one of the "Mystery Skypers!""

"This past weekend, I worked with Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 at an educational conference in Jacksonville, Fla. In the car on the way to the conference recently, Steve and I were discussing the "institution" of school and the "system" of school. The largest part of our conversation centered around the fact that we have, collectively as a nation, created a massive operation for educating children that does not work."

"In the next few weeks, Janet Hale and I will have our newest book published by ASCD, Upgrade Your Curriculum: Practical Ways to Transform Units and Engage Students. We will very soon be launching a new ASCD Edge Group and Discussion Board around the book to discuss improvements in instructional practice and design. We also want to hear the awesome ideas of all the educators who would like to engage in a dynamic multi-media conversation!"

LiveBinder Mike Fisher developed to house his Brainigami manipulatives to aid when studying vocabulary, concepts, and more!

Tweet iMovie By Mike Fisher ASCD Summer Conference Boston, MA, July 2011

I'm in China working with the Number 1 Middle School affiliated with Central China Normal University. These students are the first in the country to be a part of a 1:1 iPad initiative.

"Tutorial Videos that explain some of the web tools I use with teachers..."

"Did you see Jurassic Park 2? There's a scene that pays homage to the old Japanese Godzilla movies where the Tyrannosaur escapes and runs down the street, with the people looking back, running away in terror. For a lot of educators, I think the Common Core Standards and the state-specific implementation plans are a lot like that Tyrannosaur. There are a lot of things to consider, sure, but we need to think of "shrinking the change," using a phrase from the Dan & Chip Heath book, SWITCH. A handful of 2-inch tall T-Rex's are a lot easier to deal with than their 2-story originator."

Mike Fisher's collection of professional development workshop Wikis including SMARTboard, Wikis, Brainigami, Vocabulary, Web 2.0, and Wordle.

"In Chapter 2 of Heidi Hayes Jacobs' Curriculum 21, she advocates for having an awareness of a district's available technology. I was working with a district this week, and discussing this in terms of upgrading their curriculum maps. We talked initially about creating a list of the in-district available technology and ranking the list in terms of how those technologies will have an impact on student learning and achievement."

"In Chapter 2 of Heidi Hayes Jacobs' Curriculum 21, she advocates for having an awareness of a district's available technology. I was working with a district this week, and discussing this in terms of upgrading their curriculum maps. We talked initially about creating a list of the in-district available technology and ranking the list in terms of how those technologies will have an impact on student learning and achievement."

Mike Fisher's visual bookmarks

Welcome to the Time Machine and thinking differently about 21st century learning.

"Need an idea for a New Form, an authentic task, or just an upgrade to your current methodology? Have your students write a grant! If you've seen Heidi speak recently, or read some of the things she's written online lately, you know that she is advocating for curriculum upgrades in the form of "out of the box" thinking. She's discussed what other teachers are doing, she's discussed writing screenplays, and she's discussed writing grants. Specifically, the STUDENTS writing grants."

"Tonight at Niagara University, I had the pleasure of guest lecturing on technology tools with a task specific purpose. I started the night by asking the preservice teachers who are in a Master's program to tell me about their favorite technology tool and how they would use it in the classroom. They each created a page to contribute to this month's Digigogy Magazine. This is another example of how a 21st Century tech tool could be used to create student driven assignments, assessments, or test and study materials, in a collaborative model. Thanks to the students in Brian Scully's methodology class for their contributions!"

Great Prezi entitled Time Machine Tuersday, april 12, 2010