In Michigan, school does not begin until after Labor Day by state law. Thus, our students return to school tomorrow morning. The idea behind the law is that Michigan would lose like a bajillion dollars in tourism money if we started before Labor Day. People who teach in other states can’t believe that restate after Labor Day. When does your state open school?
For those interested (and some do ask!) here’s a link to my notes from some of the sessions I attended this summer. Topics include: 10 Essential Tech Leadership Components, Virtual Schools, Interactive Digital Curricula, Remix: Blending Creative Content to Demonstrate Mastery of Classroom Content, Shakespeare Set Free – Digital Technology and the Teaching of the Bard, Information Literacy, Classroom 2.0 “Birds of a Feather Session, Distance Learning, Crap Detection, Using Google Apps in Education, Using Social Networking in World History, and Developing a World Class Assessment Piece.
Cover page with following table of contents can be found here: http://web.me.com/mcgirr/Summer_PD_Notes__ISTE__MiJEC____MSC_/index.html
There seems to be a bit of push back regarding the Common Core Standards. Many seem to be disappointed at President Obama’s continuation and extension of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind. Make no mistake, we are headed toward a national test. Interesting when other nations are realizing the strength of the American system.Read Yong Zhao’s “Catching Up…Or Leading the Way” for a different perspective on national testing. Anyway, a letter by Cindy Lutenbacher, Professor at Morehouse is currently making the rounds. If you haven’t read it yet, you can find it here:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/core-standards-more-drill-553702.html
She makes a variety of good points. Among those points:
All in all, it is a thoughtful article that should be debated.
If you’ve got some free time this weekend, head over to Classroom 2.0 and check out EduBloggerCon which precedes ISTE 2010. Someone will be streaming it over Ustream and you should be able to get in with a Twitter Account to participate. Here’s the email that came out:
EduBloggerCon, the all-day Saturday unconference for social media in education, this Saturday, June 26th, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. You do not need to be registered for ISTE conference to come. The session brainstorm page is also up now, as well as the basic agenda.
OpenSourceCon: same day, same idea, just the first time ever for Open Source Software. We know we have a cadre of strong support for this event, and OpenSourceCon is replacing the annual K12 Open Minds conference, but we’re not sure how many will actually be able to attend (some of our Open Source friends just don’t have travel budgets right now). If the group turns out to be smaller, we’ll combine with EduBloggerCon (which several people have hoped we would do anyway).
Our recently announced Global Education Conference will have a “booth” (table?) at the Global Collaboration Session Sunday night from 7:00 – 8:30pm in the Convention Center Lobby A, table #P19.
Bloggers’ Cafe: the physical location is now listed on the ISTE website as “in the main concourse overlooking the Korbel Ballroom.” Stop by for the best conversation of the show, and–since we do have a computer with webcam and microphone that will be keeping a streaming connection open with those watching from afar–be sure to say hello the remote viewers!
About half of the ISTE Unplugged session slots are now filled, and by the end of EduBloggerCon the rest should be taken. If you’re going to be at ISTE and you’ve never presented, or if for some reason your presentation(s) this year wasn’t (weren’t) accepted, come present at ISTE Unplugged! The final location has not been indicated, but it should be very close to the Blogger’s Cafe. The wiki also has and can hold information about other streaming or nighttime activities, so feel free to use it for that purpose.
Speaking of which, two Tuesday activities are on the ISTE Unplugged wiki: the Wikispaces and Edmodo parties. If you plan well, you can attend both! Adam Frey and the gang at Wikispaces have been terrific supporters of Classroom 2.0, and while I don’t have a lot of details on the Edmodo party (and I’m sure it will be great), don’t miss partying it up with Wikispaces–and note that you are asked to sign up in advance so that they can plan!
The Classroom 2.0 Birds-of-a-Feather meeting is Tuesday from 4:45-6:15pm. No new news, but a great place to gather.
The Classroom 2.0 LIVE! ladies will broadcast their show live from the Blogger’s Cafe / ISTE Unplugged area on Wednesday from 1:30pm – 2:30pm. Come participate if you are there, or tune in remotely at http://live.classroom20.com.
Ways to participate remotely if you can’t attend ISTE in person. OK, so you can’t be in Denver this coming week, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about you or that you can’t participate. Here’s your quick list of what to you can do!
Look for us to list the annual “Speed Demo” or “Smackdown” session at Saturday’s EduBloggerCon on the wiki at http://www.edubloggercon.com/EduBloggerCon+2010. While it would be impossible to broadcast the discussion sessions, we will stream and record (via Elluminate) this fast-paced, fun, Web 2.0-filled set of demos that typically fills an hour. Always a blast!
Tune into the Blogger’s Cafe Webstation and say hi to different folks. We’ll be encouraging those that you know, and those that you don’t yet, to come to the station and give you a shout-out–and maybe even answer some questions. Have your webcam ready if you’ve got one, and if you don’t, come anyway! The Elluminate room will sometime after 8:30am (Mountain Time) on Monday and stay live through Wednesday afternoon. The link will be at ISTE Unplugged, or you can log in directly here.
Tune into ISTE Unplugged! ISTE Unplugged both gives presenters a chance to present material that they otherwise would not be able to, and give remote viewers constant content to watch from afar. Check it out!
Listen to the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! show on Wednesday afternoon from 1:30-2:30pm. Tune in directly from ISTE Unplugged or from http://live.classroom20.com.
After taking the iPad to work and using it for just a bit, here are my thoughts.
1. It is early on in the development of the iPad. There will be a lot more applications soon that will make the iPad even more useful.
2. I love the iPad. It is very useful for what I wanted. Just for information, I wanted a “newspaper” replacement and something for the kids to post to Facebook. It does these things well.
3. Taking notes is surprising better than expected. Even without an external keyboard, notes are good.
4. For students to create, it’s not quite there yet. We are not a “cloud” based school at all yet. There doesn’t seem to be a way to let students save documents to their “I” drive. We also use Moodle. Moodle uses a non standard text editor. That renders some things unusable. This should be fixed with Moodle 2.0 in July.
5. The iPad is incredibly fast.
6. Management is another issue. I’m not clear yet how easy these would be to manage for the classroom. Generally, the iPad is associated with one iTunes account. I don’t know how this works with a classroom set.
All in all, I’m hopeful. I won’t be buying a bunch for my school yet, but the future looks bright.
MAMSE 2010 Notes. Now available. The MAMSE 2010 Conference was held at Mill Creek, Dexter, MI on March 4th-5th. Debbie Silver was the Keynote speaker. The Conference was wonderful.
The Michigan Joint Education Conference (MiJEC) has posted some of the information for this year’s conference on their web page. Much of the important stuff is behind the front page. Even though it might say 2009 on it, drill down a little and you’ll see the 2010 information. Applications to present are now open. http://www.mijec.org/speakers/
Thanks to a loyal listener, we have discovered that there was a problem with our feed. If you haven’t had the opportunity to listen to Podcast 101, it is now available. (There is a reason that I’m an administrator and not a professional xml writer.)
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!
Troy & Shawn
Always wanted to be a procrastinator, but never got around to it.
~~~~~
My friend has kleptomania, but when it gets bad, he takes something for it.
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Did you hear about the big fight that Madonna, Cher, Jewel, and Fabio had?
They’re no longer on a first-name basis.
~~~~~
It is hard to understand how a cemetery raised its burial cost and blamed it on the cost of living.
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Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don’t have film.
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I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
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How do you tell when you run out of invisible ink?
Funny Picture of Christmas lights display:
Primary Source: take a look at the editing that Dicken’s did when writing “A Christmas Carol”. (Warning- it’s written in cursive, which may be a strange language to some middle schoolers).
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/30/nyregion/dickens-christmas-carol-pages.html
A neat way to save and share web sites, and parts of web sites, graphically. This can also share bookmarks with Delicious- thus, when you dropped something in a box, it would also put a bookmark in Delicious for you.
Here’s how they say that teachers can use SimplyBox:
I am a teacher, how do I create accounts for my students?
a) You, as the teacher, can create a second account with SimplyBox in the name of the entire class. Then you would need to give the kids the user name and password you created for the account. By the way, the account then is only accessible by people that have the user name and password for the account. The students then will be able to see the content of the boxes in the account and add comments – from any computer. Now, if they need to add content to the account, they would need the SimplyBox toolbar (the one with the “Box It” button) downloaded on whatever computer they are using.
b) You can simply use Public Boxes (you create them under the Sharing menu option). Each Public Box has a URL. So, students can access the URL and see the content of the box and their comments to the different items. And the creator of the Public Box can delete the box at any time. Since this is a Public Box, students will not be able to add content to the Public Box, only comments.
c) Creating accounts for students that do not have an e-mail. Please go to this link.
Session Description: A major roadblock to student learning and development is their feelings and beliefs that they are “stupid”. Based on research from students, participants attending this session will (1) become aware of the five causes of stupid, (2) become aware of how students respond when they feel stupid and (3) consider effective ways of minimizing the negative impact stupid has on learning and development.
Differently when we are being very effectively.
We’re all Top 20′s & We’re all bottom 80′s.
What do we need to get rid of?
• In our schools
• in ourselves
Kids will pretend when they feel stupid.
Why do kids feel stupid when they can’t do something? Stupid doesn’t exist. What does exist is real situations and real experiences.
We must talk about (and teach) the problem solving process and how kids feel about failure. Stupid means not Good Enough or Inadequate
Do with kids: Use Notecards: On the front, situations of when they feel stupid, ON the back what they do.
What do they do:
1. Stop Trying – Withdraw
2. Get aggressive
3. Judge themselves
4. Drink
5. Pretend
Presenter answers:
1. Withdraw: quit + quiet
2. Pretend:
3. Emotional: embarrassed, Angry, sad
4. Judgments: I’m not good enough,
5. Attack: argue, swear, bully, challenge
6. Defensive: This is stupid, you’re stupid
7. Motivate: work harder but maintain inside feeling of “I’m not good enough”.
8. Numb: Numb is better than dumb
5 Causes of Stupid:
1. Called- When I say something and other say it’s stupid or when some says something and I don’t
know what they mean – can include non-verbals as well.
2. Comparison – when I’m taking the test and am one of the last people taking the test…I rush through it and don’t read the questions or answers.
3. Confusion – When guys are talking about stats and football and I have no idea.
4. Can’t – when I strike out in a baseball game, I feel like I’m no good at baseball and will
probably strike out again.
Ooze #1- spreads to the next time
Ooze #2 – spreads to other situations
5. Certain Situations – In any class when I read….I get mad.
Stupid needs to become part of the curriculum.
Need to make Confusion OK – Celebrated – Expected. Don’t ever go into a room where you are not confused.
Every human invention has been made on the back of failure.
Analogy of what happens when Joe Mauer strikes out. The kids would say that he’s probably thinking that he’s stupid. Explain that Joe is thinking that the pitcher threw a curve ball on the outside of the plate in this situation. The difference is that he’s learning.
Schools determine which kids are smart.
School should determine how kids are smart.
Keeping Stupid in the box:
1. Share your personal experience of stupid with kids
2. Share the 5 causes of stupid
3. Have a large = sign in your room and refer to it when the kids might feel stupid
4. Share the importance of confusion
5. Every couple of weeks, ask them if they’ve felt stupid.
6. Practice the script. Give kids a script:
Awareness; www.top20training.com & info@top20training.com
CEU Code: AS6
Todd Johnson
Assertive discipline tried and found not to work.
We’re going to take a walk through his classroom.
CEU Code XK4
Philosophical Guidelines
Treat students as you would like to be treated.
Do only 50% of the work.
You can only influence behavior, not change it.
You can’t make a student behave. You can’t.
Make it uncomfortable for kids to not follow the rules.
Agenda
Discipline Polarities
Tight vs. Flexible
Tight
Advantages:
Consistent
Set Limits
Structured
Non-emotional
Follow through
Concise
Disadvantages
Power struggles
Confrontation
Win/Lose
My way or the highway
Rebellion
Rules more important than people.
Physical confrontations
Loose
Advantages
Individual needs
Responsive
Negotiate
Creative
Adaptable
Caring
Disadvantages
Taken advantage
Used
Inconsistency
Pandemonium
Chaos
Wasted time
Too emotional
No limits
Law of Least of Interventions
“Don’t use a shotgun when a flyswatter will work.”
Most problems arise during transitions.
Start with the least amount of power necessary.
Use the Law of Least Intervention
eye contact
The “look”
gesture
snap fingers
proximity
call student’s name
shake your head
Clear your throat
flick the lights
count
count backwards (elementary)
Use humor
Touch
Ignore
Audience suggested
deep breath
wave
foreign language
stop/quiet
raise one eyebrow
voice level
state behavior
“Keith, you’re talking.” vs. “Keith, quit talking.”
Zen bell
foreign language
whisper
Calendar of Events:
NMSA News:
Other News:
Michigan Association of Middle School Educators
Eastern Michigan University
“The Prince, the Wolf and the Firebird”
By Jackson Lacey
Directed by Pam Cardell
December 4, 5, 10, 11 at 7PM
December 5, 6, 12 at 3PM
School Matinees: December 9 and 10 at 10:00 am. Tickets $4.00 for students and every 15 students gets a chaparone in for free.
Classroom 2.0
Second Life:
Greetings from CMU University Theatre:
You are invited to this year’s terrific Theatre for Young Audiences production: The Chicago Gypsies – written by V. Glasgow Koste.
Synopsis:
The year is 1931 during the height of the Great Depression and the poorest people in the world are actors! The Dover family has traveled from Chicago to perform in Dodge City, Iowa, for the holidays, but the play closes unexpectedly because of a lack of attendance. The Dover’s have no money to return home and so they are forced to remain in Iowa, to find work and their daughter, 10-year old Charley, the youngest actress in the company, has to attend school! This heart warming and funny story is told through Charley’s eyes with humor and insight. “If you’re a gypsy, you carry your home inside you.”
Details:
* Who: Students 4th grade and up
* Where: CMU’s Bush Theatre in Moore Hall, Mount Pleasant, Michigan
* When: 10:00am, Wednesday through Friday, February 24, 25 & 26, 2010
* Play info: Nancy Eddy- Director – (989) 774-2061 or eddy1n@cmich.edu
* Tickets: Advance ticket purchase is required
o Seats are available on a first come, first served basis
o Cost: $3.00 per student – one free escort ticket with every 15 purchased
o Available by phone at: (888) 268-0111 or (989) 774-3000
* Website: CMU – Theatre for Young Audiences Web Site
* Items of interest:
o Maps, driving directions, volunteer greeters and ushers, and an emergency contact number for information while you travel will be provided for your convenience
o Run Time: Approximately 90 minutes with a 10 minute intermission
o Talkback: After each performance there will be a 15-20 minute question and answer session with the director and the cast
o Study Guide: A complimentary study guide will be available on the Theatre for Young Audiences web site
Please feel free to share this information with any teacher who may have interest. We look forward to seeing you here!
–
Jim Hickerson
Coordinator of Marketing and Outreach
Central Michigan University – College of Communications and Dramatic Arts – Theatre, Interpretation & Dance
____________________________________________
Phone: (989) 774-3874 – Fax: (989) 774-2498 – Office: 144 Moore Hall
Mail to: CMU, Moore 333, Mount Pleasant, MI 48859
Note: due to the rising cost of transportation, many schools are becoming very creative in order to continue to participate in off-campus activities. Some schools are asking parents to volunteer to drive groups and others are working with parents to assist in paying for buses. Some have discussed partnering with another nearby school in order to share the expenses. If you anticipate an issue with transportation costs, please contact me at your earliest convenience to see if additional opportunities exist.
Produced by special arrangement with the DRAMATIC PUBLISHING COMPANY of Woodstock, Illinois.
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