Reflecting on EdcampKC

Educators Never Cease to Amaze me....

I recently got back from #EdcampKC and I am refresher, recharged, and excited about education as whole.

EdcampKC was held November 10th at Lee Summit North High School.  The entire event was led and organized by Kyle Pace, Steve J. Moore, and Laura Gilchrist.

The event is an "unconference" and is designed to be entirely led by the people in attendance.  The sessions presented are decided the day of and people are charged to collaborate and share their passions, ideas, questions and conversations.

Here are some resources I found from the day:

• If this then that: http://ifttt.com/ Make the web work for you!  Already set this up to tweet for me every time I post a blog item.  AWESOME!  Endless possibilities.
• @stevejmoore- "PD is a place to come together to solve problems, not a talent show."
• @ideaguy42: Education for Sustainability must be a part of our success definition. http://t.co/VIHoVOXM 
• Google DOC archive of #edcampkc https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B34Q47bMc_4WODJ5NHBfNUlrSFE/edit
• Make pictures interactive: http://www.thinglink.com
• @jmarkeyAP Heard about the http://t.co/x2L49Z0s project at #edcampkc today. Love what the Leyden learning community is doing
• @stevejmoore: Finally figured out the perfect metaphor for the #edcamp, it's "potluck PD"
• Don't miss out on http://www.lessonlogs.com/ - A digital lesson organizer for music teachers
• @sjunkins: Interested in Flipped Learning? watch this video! https://www.fi.ncsu.edu/project/fizz/pd/lecture
• #aurorahuskies @phillipshuskies video Math Fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cd9tr6ogJ0&feature=youtu.be
• @sjunkins: StudyBlue - Study from Anywhere. http://www.studyblue.com/
• @ideaguy42 I think we are conditioned to be successful, not to innovate. PD needs to address that
• TLC at the Beach: an Oceanfront Edtech Experience. Now accepting proposals! http://sjunkins.wix.com/tlc13#!home/mainPage
• @cybraryman1: Posted #edcampbmore #edcampmsp Smackdowns http://cybraryman.com/smackdown.html
• ME!  on a cow!
• @kylepace: Talking Google Apps and iPad and how they work together. #edcampKC
•  Ted Talk: The Power of Introverts. http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html
• FlippedPD: Applying the Principles of Flipped Learning to Professional Development. http://www.flippedpd.org/
• I'm still updating my mural.ly http://beta.mural.ly/!/#/mrspedtechtalk/1352566551359
• @sjunkins: Capture Video Interviews with InterVue. http://intervue.me/
• @Mrskmpeters http://educlipper.net/ is the BEST alternative for Pinterest for educators
• @SNewco: Everything QR Codes http://www.themobilenative.org/2011/12/qr-what.html
• @ELanghorst: Blog Post on students creating common craft type videos http://speakingofhistory.blogspot.com/2009/03/podcast-184-creating-common-craft-type.html
• @SNewco: iPad Apps Separated by Subject Area http://www.themobilenative.org/2012/07/recent-mobile-learning-findings.html
• @cybraryman1: My Twitter page (Join passionate global educators) http://cybraryman.com/twitter.html
• @stevejmoore: In my #edcampkc session, we are playing with http://gamestarmechanic.com/ after a quick chat about #systemsthinking #21stcenturyliteracy
• Wanted to share our high school standards-based grading FAQ. #edcampkc https://www.dropbox.com/s/q55uza8p9m5wwbd/SBG%20Frequently%20Asked%20Questions.pdf
• Google Apps story builder: http://docsstorybuilder.appspot.com/
• @catlett1: Google Session Learning DOC
• PhraseBOMB app like Catchphrase where you can make your own items
• Best app I've found lately is Aurasma.
• @mickie_mueller: We do Geek Gatherings in our district. Talk about technology in a relaxed casual environment
• Awesome website - "email the superintendant" 
• my Scoop.it resources on all things #edtech and #ipaded
• Create Online Media Clouds with SyncroCloud! http://www.syncrocloud.com/
• @russeltarr: My Top Tools for student projects / presentations!
• @techiefeldie Another #eduawesome app site: http://www.appeducation.com/
•  Apps in Education http://appsineducation.blogspot.com/p/maths-ipad-apps.html 
• Top Mobile Learning Resources http://www.themobilenative.org/p/top-mobile-learning-sites.html

When I got home I used http://searchhash.com/ to download all the tweets and read through them:

TOP TWEETERS: @Mrskmpeters= 67 @usamimi74 = 53 ME! = 43 @ELanghorst = 40@stevejmoore = 39 J

Capturing the day:

Images from the day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilchristlaura/sets/72157631980875287/

Who Tweeted:

What did they say in their tweet?

No Fooling: Top 10 list for 4/1/11

BONUS - April Fool's resources:

Ning of resources

http://smartboardrevolution.ning.com/forum/topics/april-fools-day-ideas

Top 100 April Fool's jokes of all time
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/index


Spaghetti Harvest
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_swiss_spaghetti_harvest/


Gmail Motion
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

Top 10 Resources of the week! No Fooling here!

10. Pretty overwhelming and pretty amazing at the same time. Links and images organized by topic or theme.  Pretty cool!  You can set up an account, make this your homepage, personalize the “MyFaves” section and get almost anywhere you need to go.

http://www.allmyfaves.com/?utm_source=newsletterdesign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=contentlink&utm_campaign=redesign

  

9.  Great guy, Great resources, Great site, Don’t know what else to say

http://kevinhoneycutt.org/

 

8.  QR codes in education.  More than you every thought was imaginable

http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit/51894

How it’s used in advertising and marketing: http://10.1.23.3/contentfiltering/blocked.aspx?id=461903778432515813

7.  Sick of all the distractions on You tube, give silenttube a try...

http://silentube.com/

6.  Is twitter a two way street?  My PLN would say so, Freakonomics, says NO!

http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/03/10/freakonomics-radio-is-twitter-a-two-way-street/

5.  Good blog post on “why you aren’t as successful as you want to be.”  I like some of the ideas here.  I often get lost in the to do list and miss out on focusing on my goals or personal vision.
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/notsuccessful/

4.  Bounce – seems to be a cool way to annotate over a website and share it with students
http://www.edutechintegration.com/2011/02/bounce-collaborate-on-website.html

3.  8 Quick online word games

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-quick-online-word-games-play-vocabulary/

 

2.  Risk taking in the classroom is always an interesting topic of discussion.  Standardization, data-based and research-based decisions and actions often stifle the creativity and passion of educators.  Every once in a while it’s okay to not be “research based”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/why-schools-should-try-things.html

1.  Math teachers and dorks like me will LOVE this.  Enter a number and it’ll tall you everything you every wanted to know about it but were afraid to ask

http://numbergossip.com/

Top Videos of the week:

Let’s use video to reinvent education.

This video inspired me to FLIP my classroom.  What does it mean to "FLIP" your classroom.  I no longer give notes/lecture/have students write things down during class.  Class is time to investigate, try things out and make mistakes while I'm there to  provide guidance.

Resources on Flip Teaching:

University of Northern Colorado: http://mast.unco.edu/programs/vodcasting/

Blog post on Flipped classroom: http://21k12blog.net/2011/02/13/the-flipped-classroom-advances-developments-in-reverse-learning-and-instruction/

Electric educator blog: http://electriceducator.blogspot.com/2010/09/flip-your-classroom-through-reverse.html

875 TED TALKS in a neat spreadsheet, yum!  I love the short summary!
http://www.openculture.com/2011/02/875_ted_talks_in_a_spreadsheet.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+OpenCulture+(Open+Culture)

I love Seth Godin, I love education, I love this video

Okay seriously,  Dan Meyer is the SICKEST (as in he is very good) educator I know.  I wish I had half the talent and skill he does.  You’ll see why here:

ADE Application Video — Dan Meyer from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

Top 10 list for the week of 3/18/11

The Top 10 list for this week:

10.  Why Formative assessments matter

http://www.21stcenturyfluency.com/blogpost.cfm?blogID=1777

9.  Tying incentives to student performance for teachers.  What’s the evidence say?

http://www.danpink.com/archives/2011/03/does-giving-teachers-bonuses-improve-student-performance

(also watch the movie Freakanomics)

8.  Lyn (@L_Hilt) is an AMAZING principal, I’ve mentioned her here a number of times.  I love her thoughts on where we are in education and the homework section really gives me thoughts to chew on

http://lynhilt.com/crossing-the-finish-line/

7.  Don’t have a Twitter account, but want to "SPY" in on what’s being said.  Check this out...

go here http://www.tvviboard.com/ Type in #edchat or #edtech

watch it load and enjoy the resources...

6.  Free assistive reading tools.  This is pretty cool and a great set of resources for writing, reading, and more

http://carlanderson.blogspot.com/2011/03/free-assistive-reading-tools.html

5.  This looks like an awesome resource from the most gifted tech person down to the person who needs help using word/pages.  Check it out

http://teachertrainingvideos.com/

4.  Wallwisher.com, corkboard.me, spaaze.com, Lino it (http://en.linoit.com/) which one is the best...dunno, I like them all!

3.  Can you flip your classroom.  It’s all the rage now for 21st Cenetury learners

http://cybraryman.com/flipclass.html

2.  THIS IS SOOOOOO COOL!!! Making an interactive lesson using YOUTUBE

http://www.knewton.com/blog/edtech/education-edtech/2010/12/15/how-to-make-an-interactive-lesson-using-youtube

1.  Yep! Google WILL do that.  Great presentation on the google tools

http://web20classroom.blogspot.com/2011/03/yep-google-will-do-that.html

Videos of the week

3 who lead, learn and think – 3 great videos…

http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/thinking-and-learning-3-quick-videos-586.php

Pay attention – our students are changing to digital learners…

5 for Friday (DOUBLE EDITION) 3/11/11

This week was a slow week for me, I really didn't get a chance to interact much online but managed to read a few things that would be helpful to some. Check out the list for this week

Top 5 (times 2!)

The networked educational leader – This is a great presentation from an AWESOME principal in Canada.  Great guy always willing to help, follow him on twitter at @gcouros

http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/1814

100 great TECH talks for educators.  Love, love, love this...

http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2010/05/31/100-great-tech-talks-for-educators/

Cool website to get all the cool characters on your documents just by copying and pasting

http://copypastecharacter.com/

Do you teach Bloom’s taxonomy?  Do you want to?  If so this is a great resource to get kids to understand question types and with it, answer types…

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/03/03/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-thoughts-inquiry-with-blooms-taxonomy/

Top 100 tools for twittering teachers (if you don't tweet, why not!)

http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2009/04/02/top-100-tools-for-the-twittering-teacher/

25 tech tips for not techies - This might not be for you but might be a great resource for someone you know!

http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/25-techy-tips-for-non-techies-581.php

Thank you Google!  Did you know under Google’s advanced search you can now select reading levels of search results.  SWEET!

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

Online plagiarism checker - BUSTED!

http://plagiarisma.net/

Ooh, challenging – 10 things you might need to change.

http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/10-things-you-might-need-to-change/

If I could change my classroom into any classroom it would be this one…

http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2011/02/unfettered-by-stuff-or-why-i-dont-lug.html

Videos of the week:

Anti-creativity checklist – Be careful when you start saying some of this…

My Anti-Creativity Checklist from Youngme Moon on Vimeo.

Awesome educators teaching you about Wordle, Prezi, Voicethread and more (great videos to see before our PD day in April)

http://blog.simplek12.com/2-min-edtech-talk/wordle-prezi-voicethread-more-these-educators-know-it-all/

Sailing Into Uncharted Waters

Okay, So I'm ridiculously excited (and Kristen Davis is beautiful, so perfect image).

I just received my newest rotation of students and we are in week two of figuring out about one another.

I have this sort of PET project of mine that introduces me to them, gives them an overview of our class, and allows them to show off to me.

My Class:
Reading Through Technology - To teach students to be better digital natives by learning tools, resources and tricks to collaborate and create a collective intelligence of reading strategies for the 21st century.

Their task:  
1.  Research a Web 2.0 tool and make a 1-3 minute presentation.
2.  Prepare a handout for students to walk away with something to learn about a topic.

Topics of choice:
Facebook, Twitter, Prezi, Blogs, Google, Web 2.0, Wiki, Voicethread

Some of the things I have seen students creating:
Keynote presentations, Pages documents, ActivInspire flipcharts, Xtranormal videos, Prezis, Google Presentations, Facebook organization pages, Blogs

Why can I do this
1.  This aligns perfectly with my curriculum, through reading strategies I ask students to read webpages and evaluate content.  Perfect for a creative lesson like this.
2.  I have supportive administration and a belief that these (usually blocked) webpages can be used for good and for helping student learn. (I love our tech staff!!!)

Why is this uncharted waters?

I have never done this project before but kids are learning more about presenting, researching, and web 2.0 tools than I think I ever imagined.

I'll edit this post and send it out soon with links to all their resources and more detail so you can do this project or help me make this one better!

By the way, did I tell you these students are in 6th grade.  WOW!


Student Work (SO FAR!)
Web 2.0 - Kids made an Xtranormal video.  Didn't publish it because there was a cost, but we watched their video in class, kids were amazed by the resource (I warned them of the inappropriate videos).

Google - So depressed they thought google was ONLY a search engine.  Lots of teaching opportunities here....

Twitter - Pretty good job here.  Student created a slide show using keynote.

Wiki's - Pretty good, this handout goes with this prezi (Link).  They forgot to create the path, but they took a risk, sailed into uncharted waters, and created a cool product.

Wallwisher - Cool presentation made on keynote and handout made on pages.  I love their creativity and use of the resource.

Web Browsers - His pdf doesn't translate to how cool the presentation was.  Students used ActIvinspire (and our activboard) used layers and interaction of the students to quiz them on their presentation as they went along.  This was a much cooler presentation than the pdf will allow.

Facebook - Students created an organization on facebook and embedded their project through the discussion.  Pretty cool.  They also provided a pretty neat handout.  This was a great classroom discussion, lots of warnings from the adults and some really neat warnings kids were sharing.  I was very proud.

Blogs - A student made a Blog about Blogs.  This one needs some more work.  Give him a comment or Two to motivate him for me :-).

THANKS!
I could not have done ANY of this without the passion and access and creativity of our administration.  They were invited to the student presentations and showed up t ask questions, give comments, pretty cool!

What is professional development?

This question has been asked of me in every interview I have had as I am seeking new employement as an educational leader.  My answer is always short and susinct.  But I have to say my ideas of professional develpment are constantly changing.

When I first started teaching I use to attend professional develpment one special days or half days.  I would be, through this structured activity, encouraged to learn and grow during those times.  The porblem was they were never long enough, they never met everyones individual needs and they were always planned by someone who has been out of the classroom for a while, leaving me often wanting so much more.

In the past few years my image of professional development is no longer something that is done on certain days of the year.  My professional develpment happens every day, mutliple times a day.  I use my google reader and my twitter account to find more resources that I ever would have from a workshop, conference, or half day inservice.  Twitter, when used for this purpsoe (and not just following Shaq and John Mayer) is a powerful tool in interacting with other educators around the world.  I've grown more and helped students more through these interactions and I'm a better teacher and leader for it.

All thanks to Al Gore for inventing this crazy thing called the internet :-).

To find out more develop your PLN through twitter:

How to build a PLN? from Elena Elliniadou on Vimeo.

Personal Learning Networks - the what, why and how from darren elliott on Vimeo.

Social Media

A couple great videos to get you thinking.

Why do we connect?  I know I do this simply to try to help other people grow and develop.  This also challenges me to think of new ways to interact with the world around me.  I want to be a better teacher and leader.  How can I do that without reflecting and conversing about what's best for kids, what's best for education.  I just can't make an impact on the world, thinking and interacting only locally.  We have to as a society be willing to put ourselves out there and take a risk.  RIght now I have two followers, two people that check this blog.  Who knows where this blog may lead, who it may inspire, who it may help.  That's why I connect!

Why Do We Connect? from Shelly Terrell on Vimeo.

Thank you SHELLY!



Need a connection to use Twitter, find out how here!

Connecting in a Globalized World through Social Media

View more presentations from Shelly Terrell.