Monday, October 24, 2016

Reinventing Learning

Over the summer and last week I had the chance to present about Reinventing Learning. This session is about 21st century skills. Last spring, our district identified 8 high-impact instructional practices. One of the practices we identified was 21st century skills. This practice includes making real-world connections, using multimedia tools, digital citizenship, HOTS questions and flexible grouping.


As a former CTE Counselor and current Ed Tech Trainer, I prefer to focus on real-world connections and multimedia tools. These two areas can engage students, motivate students as well as make learning relevant and visible!

Some of the tools we explored included Skype in the Classroom, Virtual Fieldtrips and digital storytelling.

I changed the presentation from summer to fall to incorporate hyperdocs to promote more engagement, interaction and critical thinking.


Wednesday, October 19, 2016

#IMMOOC - Powerful Learning First, Technology Second


Being an Educational Technology Trainer, we often are bombarded with questions about using technology in the class. Teachers will email and state they are teaching a lesson on nouns and verbs but they want a technology activity to go along with it. I usually start by asking questions about their lesson and how it is framed. I ask more questions about what engages their students and motivates them. I then ask they question, "How can we make this more effective?" Not every lesson activity needs to involve technology as we have many other useful tools to teach with in this day and age. There should be a connection between the learning taking place and the technology being used. The technology tool does not drive instruction. If we are looking to improve instruction and student outcomes, then the technology tools we use should provide support. When I work with teachers, I use good questioning to help evaluate the lesson as well as the tools used framed from a student/learning outcome viewpoint. 

I love the quote in the book, 
Technology should personalize, not standardize.



Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Digital Storytelling in the 21st Century

Last week I had the opportunity to present at my district's Fall Focus. It was a great professional learning conference for our teachers. I decided to present on digital storytelling.

Why Digital Storytelling?
The world is full of stories. Digital storytelling allows us the chance to tell our story in a creative manner. The images in our digital stories are impactful and help the audience remember the story. 

Digital Tools
There are many tools to use and the key is to find the right tool for you and your story. When deciding on a tool to use in your digital story, evaluate the devices you have available to you as well as how you want to convey your message. A few of my favorite tools are Adobe Spark, Powtoon and YouTube. This is also a great time to discuss digital citizenship with your students. 

Here is how we explored digital storytelling at Fall Focus.

Friday, October 14, 2016

#ETCoached Blogging Challenge - Week 5

This challenge has been great. I love reading other's blog to keep up with trends across the nation and/or world. 

I plan to keep blogging by participating in other blogging challenges, sharing presentations as well as bout the awesome things I see our teachers doing in classrooms. 

Sunday, October 9, 2016

#IMMOOC - School vs Learning

When I look at this picture and reflect, I think about Chapter 6 - Engage Vs Empower. I think about school as something you do as opposed to learning which is what happens. Another view might be that school is the motions and learning is the outcome. School is about learning facts whereas learning is about inquiring and asking questions.

Learning is a life long skill. The ability to learn and unlearn is a pressing skill in the 21st century of education. 21st century learning emphasizes in depth understanding built upon interdisciplinary themes. We must integrate these skills to help prepare students for the workforce of the future.

Friday, October 7, 2016

#OKCPS Hour of Code Cohort

“Computer Science is a liberal art: it’s something that everybody should be exposed to and everyone should have a mastery of to some extent.” — Steve Jobs

What is Hour of Code?
The Hour of Code is a movement around the world to help every student have the opportunity to learn about computer science. Code.org provides lesson guidelines for the Hour of Code/Computer Science Education Week.

Computer Science Education Statistics
According to Computer Science Education Week, there are almost 2,000 open computing jobs in Oklahoma, but we only had 411 computer science graduates. 71% of new STEM jobs are in computing and 8% of STEM graduates are in Computer Science.

According to Code.org, there are 1,319 teacher accounts and 54,798 student accounts across Oklahoma. 

Let's start teaching computer science to not only engage students but also allow them to have an employable skill upon graduation.

Hour of Code Cohort
All OKCPS teachers are invited to participate in our cohort which has a culminating activity of create and Hour of Code project in your classroom or on your campus. Check out THIS flyer for more information. The three sessions will be Unplugged CodingCode.org and new this year, Scratch.






Thursday, October 6, 2016

#ETCoaches Blog Challenge - Week 4

BLOGS
I love reading blogs from other educators. I learn so much from bloggers and their ideas trigger other ideas for me. 

I enjoy hearing what others classrooms, districts and organizations are doing to change teaching and learning. Blogs also inspire me and help me create new ideas to change teaching and learning in my district.

My Favorite Blogs...Currently
Shake Up Learning
George Couros
Ditch That Textbook
Free Tech 4 Teachers