Wissahickon Staff Developers

"Simply installing interactive white boards and saying use them is not the answer. Adequate professional development must be included with the installation. This is the primary reason why so many teachers become frustrated with the technology and are using them ineffectively in classrooms."

"The most powerful and ample resource for change in education is teachers' own expertise. Yet, teachers are regularly overstepped when it comes to leading school improvement. In the United States, less than one-fourth of teachers feel that they have great influence over school decisions and policies in seven different areas, as noted in the National Center for Educational Statistics' Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) database for 2003-04 reported by the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) in Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad."

"Are there specific technology tools that educators should use during the first weeks of school? Yes! In case you're not sure where to start, I asked my Twitter colleagues to tell me what tools they are planning to use, or have used, and why."

"Summer has officially started for many of you! I know that you will probably be relaxing for the first few days, but eventually you may feel the need to be inspired and motivated for the upcoming school year! Social media provides us with incredible opportunities to choose the way we want to develop professionally. You can choose the topic, the medium, and who you want to learn from. You can choose the way you like to learn, because social media provides us with several multimedia experiences, such as webinars, LMS, live video, and more. The experience is usually dynamic and motivating because you are learning with others around the world! Additionally, you will be developing your Personal/ Passionate Learning Network (PLN)."

"It is essential that educators be supported in their time of need. We have created the Help Desk website to provide more support and materials to help you be successful as you utilize the SAS Portal. Here you will find system requirements, answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs), directions for uploading videos to your website, and documents that highlight SAS and our tools for teachers."

"Spreadsheet data can tell compelling stories when placed into charts and other visualizations. Today we're excited to announce a new editor for charts, redesigned from the ground up as well as a set of new chart types."

"Instructional strategies determine the approach a teacher may take to achieve learning objectives. Five categories of instructional strategies and explanation of these five categories can be found within this site. Instructional methods are used by teachers to create learning environments and to specify the nature of the activity in which the teacher and learner will be involved during the lesson. While particular methods are often associated with certain strategies, some methods may by found within a variety of strategies. A sampling of instructional methods with accompanying explanations are presented in this website."

"What do you want to use technology for? To help you answer this question, we've outlined some teaching/learning activities below that are used across the disciplines and tried to suggest through examples from the Web how each might utilize a certain kind of technology or a combination of different technologies to accomplish specific learning objectives. Each example represents a different discipline, and there are over 40 disciplines represented in the examples."

"the open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit."

PIIC, a partnership of the Annenberg Foundation and the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), is a statewide resource for developing and supporting consistent, high-quality instructional coaching in Pennsylvania schools. PIIC builds on the work of the Pennsylvania High School Instructional Coaching Initiative (PAHSCI), which established a model for instructional coaching in 26 high schools in 16 high-needs districts. PIIC takes a different approach: creating the position of "instructional mentor" to support coaching in each of the state's 29 Intermediate Units (IUs) and providing resources and professional development for mentors, coaches, teachers, and administrators.

Jay McTighe offers a sound overview of assessment practices that support learning.

Testmoz is a test generator that sports 4 question types, automatic grading, a really simple interface and detailed reports. Testmoz is free, and does not require you (or your students) to register.

"Welcome to whichbook.net - a completely new way of choosing what to read"

A great list of techie type teachers to follow on Twitter. One click follows them all!

"Digital Media Scoring Guides First choose one of the following communication types and then customize your scoring guide by checking ONLY the traits and elements you want to use at this time. Click on each keyword for descriptors. For more detailed information on these scoring guides and further resources, see Overview of Digital Media Scoring Guides. "

"I was pretty careful about how I titled this latest "The Best…" list. These sites are good to "introduce" environmental issues in the classroom, but generally don't provide information on systemic, political, and corporate issues related to environmental damage."

A cool device that allows you to copy and paste or type in words, sentences and paragraphs and then interact with them on the smartboard

The Instructional Coaching Scale is designed to help  instructional coaches and professional developers measure the impact of their coaching on the teachers with whom they interact.  It is not intended to measure teacher implementation, but rather the effects that an instructional coach or some other person working in a close 1:1 capacity with teachers whose job it is to facilitate change in instructional practice.