Making sense of P.D.

The following message was typed in my e-mail program and intended to be sent via that form of communication, but I need to change my mode of communication. Not for everything, but for some things...

Dear Tech Team,

See you tonight. I'll have salsa and chips!! Arrive anytime for chatting! We do need to focus our discussion from 4 - 5 p.m. on Sunday night's event.

Would everyone take a look at Moodle sometime during the day today? Please explore our content from last year. We know it can't necessarily look the same, knowing what all we've learned over the past 15 months. Or can it?

I would like you to think about the many tools we have used, still use, want to use more of, want to use what's yet to be invented, and on and on. Tools come and go and we have some good ones on the shelf still; Moodle, iWeb, Wikispaces.com, Blogger.com, Classroom 2.0.

What I would really like to do with staff this year is take them in to Classroom 2.0. This is not a new idea, nor is it original but I've been thinking about it ever since I joined back in April. There was valuable learning there for me, my January 2007 Kal-Tech team, and for you guys too? :-) Originally conflicted about Classroom 2.0, only because I thought it might be a stopping point instead of a starting point. It's about learning to unlearn as Will Richardson and many others have said.

Nevertheless, this year it may be a great starting place for teachers who need to understand the "power" of networks. Right now, our staffs, in my opinion, do not understand the "power of networks", and only understand the peripheral version of working in the "wisdom of crowds", aka. Teams. It is assiduous work.

I still believe we need to create a mini Kal-Tech. The book studies, the small group discussions, the intensive learning. http://kaltech-team155.wikispaces.com/Agendas

And...we also want teachers to experience the creative side of content creation. This "side" has been the meat of our Sunday Laptop Initiative program from it's inception thanks to the power of teams. You know who you are. [smile] If we empower teachers in "knowing" how to create content ... in their personal lives, their professional learning, and with their students ... all the while, showing them prime examples of infusion with technology, we will have done well.

What tools are of must worth? For our district, here's my focused list; Blogs, Wikis, iWeb, Moodle. What is our audiences focused list? I'm sure this list must seem blah and life-less in the whole big picture of our teaming experience and our own individualized knowledge.

What's the temperature out there? Are we focused enough? Do we have a shared vision? What external factors do WE see as a negative force field?

Building on the power of team...

Today, I was not working in my zone, my erg, my strengths. I feel like, on a scale of 1 to 5, I preformed at 2.

I have an awesome team of teacher leaders forming within our district. It is so exciting I just can't stand not shouting about it! My lead tech team is awesome! The level of investment in professional staff development they give is passionate. They only survive through the intrinsic motivation that feeds their desire to educate all children who pass through our hands.

Our grass roots teachers are becoming practitioners equipped with 21 century pedagogy and skills. If you haven't been following our posts over at the usd352summerinstitute07 blog, we have had 12 students in class for four six-hours days plus two virtual students working in "Web 2.0 and the Digital Classroom". I know I speak for the entire team when I say we are so proud of you. So many had to have day-care providers for two and more children and the entire team has sacrificed family time to attend. These teachers are not getting paid extra. They come to learn! Bravo! Teacher leaders? Absolutely!

The trick is keeping the momentum going and remaining an active participant in the "social networks" we are creating.

I leave you with a great post by Will Richardson at Weblogg-ed who writes about passionate based learning.

Enjoy!

The meaning of tags..

Why would you think tags are important? Are they important?

Rethinking literacies?

How do we need to rethink our ideas of literacy when we must prepare our students to become not only readers and writers, but editors and collaborators as well?

Changes in teaching?

What changes must we make in our teaching as it becomes easier to bring primary sources to our students?

Changes in curriculum?

What needs to change about our curriculum when our students have the ability to reach audiences far beyond our classroom walls?

Musings about dictionary.com

Dictionary.com is a resource I use on nearly a daily basis. I keep it on my bookmarks tool bar. I'm such a bad speller. To have INSTANT feedback with a list of choices has been very powerful for me. How could I manage a paper dictionary of 500,000 words? I can only anticipate how powerful it will be for our students when they gain access all day to the tools that can empower their own learning. :)

Actually, I have not used Dictionary.com as much lately. Hmmmm, must be getting better at spelling? Sooo......when I wanted to make a note this morning about Intellectual Property Rights, in my "design" notebook, I was stumped. Told you I was a bad speller. hehe When I typed in my misspelled word for intellectual at Dictionary.com and choose the correct spelling, the following page just amazed me. THIS is just another Web 2.0 tool!

There is much to learn and much to do over the horizon!