"How Much More Real Do You Want?!"

Today was a great day. The only class I went to was PE in the morning and then served food at our Student Council Senior Picnic and after that had the pleasure to be able to visit one of our middle schools and one of our elementary schools today in my district. Observing students that were ecstatic to have graduated yesterday all the way to kindergarteners that can't wait to come to school the next morning within such a short time span presented the opportunity for some sociology.

Our last stop of the day was Walnut Hills Elementary to view students Passion Fair Projects. This building has such a close knit family connection between teachers, students, and administrators. Heck, the principal was the one that gave us visitor badges when we walked in instead of being back in her office. We stopped in and talked with Ali Locker who was in a 1st grade room today and upon even the door handle opening they all turned, stared, and waved. The 5th graders eagerly shared with us their philanthropy-based Passion Projects they've been working on. The idea was designed along Angela Maiers' Genius Hour concept. 5th Graders presented to us and never hesitated on any of the questions we threw out at them. When I was in 5th grade I don't even think we knew what trifold stands were!

"I like to go on vacation but I don't like to see the people without homes. It takes a long time for that to get out of my mind and I just want to fix it." -Student

Topics for these ranged from recycling to littering to animal abuse to
homelessness to special needs students and many more! 

Before that we visited the middle school and talked with Mrs. Reinhold, who was helping kids in the library as they came in from study halls and various classes. Mr. Goerend's students were creating business plans of their own choice to argue that one bakery is needed more than a Javascript coding app that all gets trumped by the necessity for a new sports store on the block. And, the best part, they were all able to answer why they were doing this and how it related to English, and that we got different answers from every group. These students were working in their own spaces, corners, desks, groups, and with the technology that they needed to work. There wasn't an "Okay kids, let's all go to the computer lab and sit in rows and work as individuals on this project that you have to present" feel about it at all.

Walking into 7th grade math students recognized me from Instagram and said hi before they went back to their test. Let me remind you that there is a difference in age of 4 years, 3 grade levels, and 2 school buildings between these students and myself. Wouldn't you have cringed if a high schooler walked into your class in middle school?

Throughout the building the Speech and Drama class was writing plays in groups taking over their room and the hallway while 8th graders were practicing their job interview skills with our district Superintendent, the Executive Director of the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners, and the Director of the Department of Education in the lunchroom. It was hard to think that that morning they had a BMX bike show come as a prize from the Fall fundraiser.

Now, we come to the post-seniors, the one that are so thankful that over 12 years of school are over and they get to enter the "real world" now. Even as a sophomore I'm guilty of this as I opened the post with "what a great day of skipping school". :)

But I question...

• Will these same students in elementary and middle school think the same thing when they become high schoolers?
• Is all the work I just described not a part of the "real world"?
• Where does this gap between love and hate of school happen?
• Where did the fun in learning go?
• Why did learning become separated from the real world as students got closer to entering into it? 

Education has changed so much in the past four years I've followed it from when I entered middle school to today. Not only has it changed within my district but in the state, country, and world; no matter what people may say. The real world is only a stones throw away and our students are already yearning and reaching for it if we haven't already opened up the classroom door and told them to go find it.

Not In School These Days

I'm not here to bash common core, demand different forms of assessments, redefine the instructional strategies of teachers, or nag about the lack of technology use, or anything else one can find argued about on Twitter. I'm just sharing some food for thought today on how I see students view their own learning everyday.

Teacher: "You need the sheet back in order to get any points back."

Student: "Yeah, the most important part."

Teacher: "No, learning is the most important part."

Student: "Not in school these days."

The real question is, is learning the most important thing happening in your classroom? Your school? Your district?

School Shouldn't Suck - Support #SBAR

You learned to read. To write. To speak. To stick up for yourself. But, when you entered high school you had to start waking up at 6:30 five days a week. Going to school after relentless studying, cramming, and assignments from the night before. Having to take standardized tests to prove that you are competent of basic skills.

Where did the learning end up at in this evolving school scene? Where did you end up?

Standards Based Grading is a compilation of “I can…” statements that give students a guide to the expectations of their teachers and their courses. Standards Based Grading should be incorporated throughout all of our education system because students know what they have learned, successful motivation does not come from a grade, and students are prepared for a life full of learning outside of their primary educational institute.

Students know where they stand on what they have learned and what’s ahead of them to learn. Each standard is a different skill that should be understood and, at a point in time, be able to be demonstrated. Students knowing the skills they are being taught by doing work in critical thinking problems, reading, and writing to get rid of the “I don’t do anything in that class” phrase students often use. Oh, and the infamous dinner question when your parents ask “What’d you learn today” and you reply “Nothing…” Standards Based Grading allows you to know exactly what you know, accurately, not just based off of one test score.

Along with enabling students to see their own learning, Standards Based Grading allows for more learning to occur. A teacher giving a student a zero on an assignment is not going to motivate that student to try harder. It’s going to show them that a number matters more than their learning does. It won’t make them try to re-do and relearn the content, it will make them give up. If the teacher doesn’t believe in the student, why should the student believe in themselves? It is not the numbers that matter but the people and ideas that associate them. Therefore, grades being used as an ineffective motivator would be eliminated in a Standards Based environment.

Chiefly, Standards Based Grading is the most opportune system in preparing students for life. A student will very rarely ever be given a grade with an A, B, C, D, F in the working world. They will be given a task, points, or standards, to cover in a project, presentation, or paper. Upon completion, they won’t be given a score. They will get all kinds of feedback: constructive, negative, positive all based upon whether it met the original outlined standards. The performance of that employee is not only clear to the teacher, but the employee and other supervisors.

Because Standards Based Grading enables students to know their position in what they have learned, motivation does not exist in letter grades, and it prepares students for a life enriched with constant learning it should be implemented throughout our entire education system. It is based on people, not in numbers. Don’t become a letter or a number. We are not a world of synonymous robots performing laborious tasks in uniform. Standards Based Grading is the future of our nation and workforce. The numbers don’t matter; it’s you that matters.

Student Voice Opportunity - Iowa Student Learning Institute

School is changing. With No Child Left Behind and Common Core combining with new types of standardized testing and the integration of technology, straight row school is no longer a viable option. With all this change shouldn't we be listening to the voices that are affected most by change?

We are proud to announce the Iowa Student Learning Institute. Designed to give a stage to the voice of our students with the support of our educators. ISLI will be a combination of a variety of sessions. A keynote from Duane Magee and Scott Mcleod along with breakout sessions in the morning with a time for face to face collaboration carried out by students throughout the afternoon. We welcome students of all ages across Iowa to come and make your voice heard in this 1st annual student education conference.*

Register to attend with your students on Eventbrite.

View more details on our Smore website.

*Composed for the ISLI campaign by Dane Barner.

That Excuse is Invalid

I went on a tour of the John Deere ISG facilities this past Thursday and noticed a drastic difference in the way we think of jobs and the reality there. The office buildings were filled with programmers, developers and testers. These are the jobs of the future we try to prepare students for today.

Collaboration stations: These individuals don't work in square cubicles with high walls in rows with no windows. This is a thing of the past. They work in no wall environments with desks and tables pushed to the edges so that collaborative tables can be in the middle.

So, why do our students sit in separated rows?

Brain vomit walls*: Every interior wall they had was covered in Wink Wall Whiteboard paint. It's a product that allows you to paint a wall whatever color you choose then use the Wink clear coat over top to make it a whiteboard surface. They also utilize the outer sides of cubicles to stick all kinds of post-its on progress through various stages.

So, why do our students use lined paper?

Minimal Mass-Audiences: There were little to no conference rooms or large meeting rooms. I counted 3-4 projectors in total on our tour. They collaborate personally not in mass consumption PowerPoints.

So, why do our students "learn" from lectures?

Comfortable: There were all kinds of chairs and conversation areas throughout the building. The tables lifted from sitting height to standing ability which you could change in a matter of seconds based on your preference. They had a break room with ping pong tables and a cafe style food area, not a lunchroom.

So, why do our students function in factories?

The excuse of preparation for "the working world" is no longer valid.

Let Them Learn... For Pete's Sake!

This picture speaks a thousand words but here are five key points I got from it.

1. Physical Space: It's not a rectangle room* with tan walls and 30 desks oriented in rows facing a whiteboard. There is overwhelming space to create, craft, discovery and work with their hands. The room is comfortable, green** and personalized. How we work as educators and life long learners not in factory schools.

2. Eager Smiles: Do you see the excitement and focus in their face? It's not compliance driven. Enough said.

3. Use of technology: It doesn't overwhelm and take over their life. The importance of crafting and creating is stressed just as much online as in "the real world". The Chromebook was used when she felt it necessary and let go of when it wasn't important. It doesn't consume her. May I also point out that she found it on the desk on her own, turned it on and found the website all by herself. And she's in 1st grade. Can this be stressed enough? These kids will out learn all of us and that's awesome!

4. Information Consumption: The books are open. Being read, analyzed and then used. Drawing cats from them and planning their future art projects. Where does this dreaming get lost in our system?

5. Let them create: A majority of the desk is covered in paper and markers and fun stuff. This is HUGE metaphorically. Nowhere is there lined paper and #2 testing pencils. These girls come down to this desk all the time and create***. They work towards their future career goals, not towards their future high school and college. They are architects when drawing houses, fashionistas making American Girl Doll outfits online and CEO's when they run Target and various other companies. But, most importantly, they are teachers sharing their passions with pretend students because the opportunity to share isn't present in school.

Presentation from Jeff Utecht.
Photo reused with permission
from Kristina Peters.

The divide between school and life is too big. A student said today****, "I don't learn in school. I memorize stuff. And then I forget it all after the test because there's more to learn after this." This isn't life and it shouldn't be school. Not even close.


*Okay, it really is physically, but not mentally.
**The color of learning.
***I don't do anything but monitor the use of glue and glitter.
****Perfectly quoted because I wrote it down today.

Technology: Help or Hindrance to Communication

This is an essay I wrote two months ago in my speech class, now publicly publishing* it.

Communication is extremely different than even a decade ago (Frenkel). The integration of email and social networking sites has benefited and prohibited effective communication by providing instantaneous feedback, disallowing one to study their kinesics, and taking time to reflect and ponder what they just received. Habitual reevaluation is necessary to see the benefits and downfalls of each channel of communication we use (Frenkel).

Some wonder why this is a dilemma now. Before the deep integration of email the use of letter writing was much larger. Humans are used to the joyous feeling of getting mail. Standing by the mailbox on a summer afternoon opening cards from your friends and family. When you run inside and are enthused to respond right away to their letter, you get in the right mood and reflect a little before you start writing (Rosen). Unlike this rare event of the past “we are living in an age of electronic intimacy” and for most people “this is new emotional terrain” (Rosen). Very seldom do people take time to write letters. Their replacement has been the introduction of email. The encoding process of typing an email differs greatly from that of the emotional rush before writing a letter. “I do notice that emails are often fired off without any real consideration” and have been subject to great variance in the receiver's decoding because of their purpose (Rees-Mogg).

Contrary to the popular belief of most, emails and communication using new channels of technology do have benefits. The acquaintances formed using pen and paper can now be accessed by your fingertips in real time online (Rosen). Using email allows for time to think and reflect before responding (Cellan-Jones). One also gets a dopamine, stimulant that makes one happy, high when you get new emails, texts and interactions. (Rosen). Much of the communication we now do is non-verbal and carries into every part of our lives. A day of work consists of using many channels, which can be but are not limited to calling, texting, emailing, instant messaging, blogging, tweeting, and participating in webinars (Frenkel). The ease of sharing and resharing emails is a much simpler way of communicating without needing to re-encode a message each time. An AT&T commercial portrays effective communication as businessmen sit in a coffee shop emailing into a meeting (Rosen). An account from an English writer, Roy Cellan-Jones, sums up that “I can’t imagine how I would do my job without tools like Twitter” (Cellan-Jones). Various technologies available to us benefit, not hinder our communication. We have become smarter because of technology. It has improved some’s self perception by allowing them to be social without face-to-face impromptu conversations. Some types of people need time to think before relaying their feedback and technology grants that to them. “Technology is a massive aid to communication” by gaining the opportunity of instantaneous feedback and the constant development of new forms that grant us the use of paralanguage and kinesics. The ever changing “communication technologies provide an addition, not a replacement, for traditional means” of communicating (Cellan-Jones).

New communication also has many downsides (Frenkel). The use of email has a defined purpose of efficiency, not human feelings (Rosen). It was not intended for the purpose of entertaining but to exert control and inform. Email as it was designed, could have devastating impacts on our businesses and society. The enhancements to technology is driving us to be lazier about talking with one another. Administrators writing emails that are encoded with frustration could be decoded as anger and rejection which could lead to contracts or business being missed out on. That business decision will be regretted in the future because of a moment not taken to check for an encoding error (Cellan-Jones). Your words permanently stay in writing and attached to your name so the take the time to make sure they are beneficial for you (Frenkel).

Old, one-way communication.

If not used with a formal purpose, email could become an addictive habit (Cellan-Jones). It has evolved into the lazy way of communicating (Price). Executives have viewed it as the ruder form of communicating with someone because very little effort is involved. Getting hooked online is dangerous to the art of talking face to face but the large amounts of tweets, facebook messages, and phone calls every day are overwhelming. Overwhelming, but appreciated because you are able to use photos and voice to encode and decode a message allowing for more effective feedback that email does not provide (Cellan-Jones). One advancement in our society that has caused this revolution of ditching email is our smart phones giving us the happiness of being connected and receiving feedback much faster than an email provides it (Rosen).

Email has come under fire because of it’s ancient years in technology time. The foundation it laid for online communication has transformed us into data hungry creatures. It has turned private friendships into a mass spectator sport where everyone watches and participates while companies like Facebook collect from our profits. Our society demands us to publicize our feelings and relationships frequently. It has caused our self perception to change dramatically by creating more self conscious human beings. Many people suffer from society anxiety when they do not receive any new messages. The more friends one tends to have on Facebook increased their chance of saying others lived happier lives than them (Rosen). Ones online presence and digital footprint “often lays the foundation for your reputation long before you can shape it yourself” (Frenkel). A majority of people perceive “themselves rather than their appliances as being ‘plugged in’” (Rosen).

Using technology as a channel extremely limits your ability to send and receive information effectively. Sarcasm cannot be interpreted through “words on a screen” and leads to ineffective communication and possibly a communication breakdown. There are many numerous ways you can understand one simple sentence. As human communicators, one should be able to recognize where the error occurred and know how to go about fixing it with feedback and clarification. It is normal for one to make assumptions when encoding because “the fact that you know how you intend for your message to be received biases you even more to believe that’s the way your message will be read” (Frenkel). Many times when reading someones post or email it can be misinterpreted because of a lack of background and purpose. The feedback that follows is the most important piece in being an effective communicator (Frenkel).

Crucial steps in avoiding ineffective communication are not difficult at all. The first item to check for is your purpose. Use the channel appropriate to the event and purpose of your communication. Are you entertaining, exerting control, informing, sharing feelings, entertaining or simply being a conformist of following social rules because everyone else uses that channel of communication? If you have received an email in all caps with an encoding of excitement, you probably decoded it as being yelled at. If the sender would have sent you a text, the informality would have suggested something more fun (Frenkel). Email is best for relaying information to one person, not many who have no meaning behind why they were included in your email chain. Some companies, such as Atos, have banned email as a form of communicating within the company. Volkswagen has also prohibited its Blackberry servers from sending email to an employee 30 minutes after their shift is over. These companies are “not rejecting modern communication but recognizing that a new generation already thinks email is old hat” (Cellan-Jones). The second piece to check for is if you are assuming and taking the shortcut. This can greatly hinder effective communication as well. It is okay to assume as long as you are aware of when you are doing it and ready to defend yourself from the receiver. Train yourself to make the assumption that many people will be reading your words. Consider the many possibilities that next message has in their decoding process (Frenkel). If “you can do the count to ten rule and think a bit before you respond” all should be fine (Bulger). Adding into the equation everything happening around you, do not let the distractions affect the cognitive load in your mind (Cellan-Jones).

Talking is important (Cellan-Jones). As more people realize this there will tend to be more migratory friendships, connections that started online that form into face-to-face, real world relationships. By having access and constant feedback will humans become unable to demonstrate the feeling of longing for one another? (Rosen). “We used to simply drop in on people or bump into them in the street”. We were “able to visualize the ‘whites of their eyes’ when making direct contact (Cellan-Jones). The use of kinesics has been forgotten in many forms of communication besides personal confrontation. This is a very important part of communication because we miss 75% of what we hear each day. If we are able to watch and connect ones actions over their words we receive a verbal and nonverbal message to decode correctly. This is a big improvement in having effective communication without interference. As a group of college students summarized best, “you use social networking and modern technology to arrange meeting face to face” (Cellan-Jones).

It has come time to “Rethink Possible” and reexamine our world and how we communicate between cultures, species and even ideas (AT&T). Before, “ a closed door usually stayed closed forever. No longer” is this the case (Rosen). Integrating email and social networking into our lives has benefited and prohibited effective communication over forms of talking and letter writing by providing constant feedback, blocking one from studying their kinesics and taking time to reflect and think before sending our feedback. We live in a constantly changing world but humans adapt. We have previously and we can again. The question though is will it be for the better? (Rosen).

Works Cited

Cellan-Jones, Rory. "We Don't Talk Any More - Is Technology Harming Communication?" BBC News Technology. BBC, 29 Dec. 2011. Web. 12 Feb. 2013. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16313832>.

Frenkel, Stephen. "Communication 2.0: The Perils of Communicating Through Technology." Harvard Negotiation Law Review. Harvard Negotiation Law Review, 5 Apr. 2009. Web. 12 Feb. 2013. <http://www.hnlr.org/2009/04/communication-20-the-perils-of-communicating-through-technology/>.

Rosen, Christine. "Electronic Intimacy." Wilson Quarterly 36.2 (2012): 48-51. Literary Reference Center. Web. 11 Feb. 2013.

*While creating reduntant alliterated introduction phrases.

Say no to the Syllabus

The first week of school are filled with them. Colored sheets of paper, wasted ink, overstated content, obvious self composure rules and precious time thrown down the drain. All this comes in the form of a syllabus which is completely unneeded in a learning environment. I may have just shattered your world into little tiny pieces but bare with me on this idea. It’s not the entire syllabus I hate, just a majority of the content and the way that it is presented.

In a rapidly growing district that is striving to go green and cut down their paper consumption, there isn’t room to print thousands of unneeded restatements. By my rough calculations, I received six syllabuses and I’m sure 600 other kids in the building did too. Just in the 9th grade that is 3,600 pieces of paper and ink plus, don’t forget those inevitable multipage syllabuses. There is still unaccounted for syllabuses in the middle and high school which has a lot larger student body population.

What is being printed on these wasted pieces of paper but standardized content. They all mention the teachers name, phone, email, and blog address. That is great that these are mentioned but the point of those DIGITAL ways of communication is that it doesn’t have to printed on a piece of PAPER. They are all located in one spot on our school website. We went green and invested in online resources, and now they are just duplicates of what we’ve been doing for years? That isn’t real change at all.

The district wide Positive Behavior Intervention System and letter grading scale is always noted somewhere too. Did I mention district wide? Enough said. Retake policies are different for every class making everyone’s tasks more complicated. Which, is not how I believe it should be in any school but that’s another topic.


The worst part is that most of them had spots for parents to sign and initial, a syllabus that was intended to notify the students of what they are to expect in a class, not forced parent interaction. When you want your students to interact with their parents, it shouldn’t be a simple signature. There should be meaning and depth behind it. Something to discuss or create. It should be something enjoyable and authentic I’m sure John Spencer has my back on that.

I’m not bashing any teacher, school, or district because I know these horrid syllabuses are found in many schools. The overarching stereotype and push that this is the material we NEED to cover to be successful is just plain wrong. The real definition of a syllabus is the subject content of a class, not overstated rules. Instead, change your first day plans to an engaging activity. Ditch the syllabus because the website and handbook has already got you covered. If there really is new content your students need to know do you think a piece of signed paper is going to do the job? Hold an assembly, create a skit(s), use a video and discuss afterwards quickly during advisory. Teach them how you would want them to teach you. Because, letting a piece of paper run the room isn’t what anyone wants.

What does your first day of school consist of?
How do you introduce your classroom expectations and subject content?

Classroom of the Future or of Today?

Walking into the classroom door students would do a warm-up pre-assessment for the teacher to base stations and help for the day. The class period would be dynamic to the sense that stations would be chosen by the student on where they think they need help and a combination of where the teacher sees a fit. I picture a room with 3-4 stations happening either on different topics and students rotating between them, or where the stations are differentiated to different levels of the same topic, or a little of both. The teacher would float back and forth between stations while being ubiquitous and still monitoring the whole room. Having the station function gives students the freedom to move to a different leveled station if they need more than their current station is offering. It would be a mini version of a "vote with your feet" conference, if a session isn't working for you then find a better one. All of the stations would coincide with a theme for the day or relate to a project based learning activity later on. At the end of the class time students would do a formative assessment of what they learned that day to show what they retained and to let the teacher know where some clarification and instruction may be needed.

Does this look like your room? What do you do differently that works for you? I'm interested to hear how the style of your room works.

Can We Become A Community?

Last Friday the Ambassador group hosted the "Waukee Carnival".  There was dancing, games, food, and fun.

Towards the end of the event @CoreyStJohn (who was co-DJing) said, "This is great, we should do this more often!"
I said, "There's only 50 people here out of the 750 in the school, we can't afford to do this often."
"The people that are here are having fun, that's a good thing"
"True"
"We should have these for all sporting events; basketball, football, baseball.  Then we could come up with a school chant that everyone would learn on orientation night, then we could all walk to the gym or field chanting.  Wouldn't that be cool to get 400 middle school students chanting at one football game?"

That would be cool, but how do we turn an attendance of 50 to 400+ students?  How do we become a community?

Introducing........TWITTER

     Today I spent the day at the Iowa 1:1 Institute in Des Moines.  This is first in a series of posts about my day at the convention.

     If you're reading this, you probably found it from Twitter, right?
     That means that Twitter is a great education tool, right?
     If you said "Yes" to either one of those questions, you're right.
     So if Twitter is that great, how do we get new Tweeters on board with it too?

     This was an interesting topic that we discussed at the Tweet Up in the afternoon.  @AngelaMaiers made a metaphor that works beautifully with the topic!

     Twitter is your Neighborhood BBQ.  When you're NEW to the neighborhood (Twitter) you're kind of nervous and reluctant about jumping in and talking to people unless you've all ready met them.  You also aren't obligated to bring anything to the potluck for the first time, just eat what everyone else brought (Not tweeting, just lurking & getting info).  Unless you absolutely hate your neighborhood you'll come back to the next BBQ and have some familiar faces, bring a dessert, converse with a few people here and there. (Tweet a little, get some followers)  IF you never bring anything to the BBQ then you're neighbors might start despising you. BUT, eventually you'll be hosting your own BBQ and having people bring, desserts, and their own NEW friends (Expert tweeter, established followers, PLN). So within a year you're no longer the neighborhood newbie but the party host with your own friends and connections.  SO, how'd you get to be the party host?

It's just a few simple steps...

• Be on Twitter; add a bio, picture, location.
• Tweet often; even if it's only five a day.
• Find followers that tweet about your passion.
• Start tweeting about your passion and involving yourself in conversations

How did you become the tweeter you are today?  How can you help a friend that needs to get started?  What else is essential in being a part of the Twitter Culture?

#DYF Should Students Be Allowed To Bring Computers To School?

@Russgoerend and @Amyquam 's kids are writing #DYF Posts about the same topic and I was inspired by them to write my own.

Student's should be able to bring a laptop, mobile device, iPad, or any other technological thing.  I think this because it would be a great benefit to their learning.  At this point at Waukee we would not be able to go 1:1 like this but it would be a nice start. 

The people that didn't have a laptop or mobile device could "borrow" one from the school for the day (not being able to take it home, it's not officially their property).

People also think that maybe it will get lost or stolen. My opinion is that they won't be stolen because everyone else will have one too so why would they want yours?  Plus I keep at least $400 (retail price) of items in my locker most of the day.  If nobody steals it now, they wont in the future.

Visit www.kidblog.org/2017purple to read others #DYF Posts.

21st Century Teaching

We had a substitute teacher in math class on Friday. We took a quiz that took about 30 minutes to finish.  12 minutes isn't enough time to start and finish a new lesson so we had "free work time" to read, draw, or do homework.

I was waiting for the infamous question of
     "Can we use our iPods?"
And sure enough it was asked before we even started the quiz.
This sub was an older lady and her answer was
    "Yes, but if I was your teacher there wouldn't be any of those things in this building.  All they do is distract people and cause interruptions to learning"

I realize in this case they were for entertainment purposes but my question is this
     "Does she know they are educational tools too?"

I use my iPod everyday for school purposes.  In fact, I couldn't imagine a day without it.  At the end of the day it's dead and ready to be charged again.

• I take notes
• look up information
• Take pictures of directions to reference back to later
• Access the wiki for assignments
• Make movies
• And it's been used as props many times

I have one last question, Does that sound distracting?

Evernote

I have recently started using Evernote in Language-Arts to take notes.  It is easier because I can access them anywhere, it saves paper, and it makes me look smarter than I am. :)

As we read we take Cornell notes (format) on our books.

Evernote is nice because of it's great organizational methods.  I've made an "English Notes" section and tagged it notes, and Devils Arithmetic so I can find it later on.

I make each chapter a different note with the same tags.

It's also easy to edit them anywhere you need to.  In Language-Arts I type them on my iPod Touch that is brought along where ever I go.  And then later on when I need to type an essay, reflection, or paper on the book it's all at my fingertips.

Tech Tools Implementation

I've made some great technological advances lately that I'd like to share with everyone.

#1.  For Christmas I got a 4th generation iPod Touch for Christmas.  I use it for everything, except calling. (The one thing it doesn't do well)

#2. Evernote:  I've had the app on my iPod for since November and have been using Evernote web until last week when I installed the desktop program.

#3. Sony Bloggie:  I bought one thinking I would use it more often than I do.  I have used my iPod Touch for most videos & photography.  I've had this for 2 months and the first time I will have used it productively is tomorrow.

#4. Tweetdeck: It doesn't do too much that Hootsuite didn't but it's easier to use since it is a Chrome app.

#5. Chrome:  It's SOOO much easier to use than FireFox was.  It has basic options (like anything google) without all the confusion or ugliness of other browsers.  The best part though is the Web Store where you can get free apps or plug-ins, such as Tweetdeck.

These were in no specific order of greatness, just thought it was worth sharing!

PBL Prezi Reflection

Today was a remarkable day.  I made my 1st Prezi ever for a Project Based Learning Unit focused around "What Computer Should I Buy."  I've never been a fan of the PBL stuff but this was quite fun to make and is alot more beneficial and meaningful than looking up the history of computers, or how a mouse works.

Sorry for the brief post, It was just a tad too long for a tweet.  My Prezi is posted below if anyone is interested in looking at amateur work.

Monitors on Prezi

#PassionDriven Conversations: Passion Is Contagious!

Passion is contagious!

Compare passion to a virus. When you are by people that have passion for something, their passion is spread to you.  Thinking on, There are also thousands of different viruses to catch just like everyone has passion for something different.

Let's use me as an example: Why am I constantly in the library, shelving books, cleaning, organizing, Tweeting about libraries, blogging about libraries & librarians?  Because I am PASSIONATE about libraries!   Because the librarian SHARED her passion with me and I have shared my passion with tons of others that would've never come across this role. Between the last 1 ½ years I have helped at our school library I have had 5 extremely different people come and help me do all the above.   Why? Why are they there?  Are they that good of friends?  OR do they truly love helping at the library?  YOU tell me.

Now if you would apply the role that passion plays in everyday life do you think it truly matters?   OF COURSE!!!

If a passionate teacher who took extra time at the beginning and end of their workday to have students come in or meet with students during their planning or study hall time Do you think that student would learn more than if their teacher worked from 8-3 and doesn't allot time to individually meet with students?

Now let's think big corporate world.  Take Walmart for example, Do you ever see them passionate about saving people money?  Or donating to charity?  NO! It's all about the money.  You could argue they are passionate about making money but is that necessarily a good trait or passion to have?   Now look at Verizon Wireless.  They have stores across the country & world but each store is involved in the community. They are passionate about being a positive influence in the community. They sponsor the public library's summer reading program, the schools, & public events.

After reading this you may ask "Why do I care?" 

Because what if everyone was a Walmart company? No personal responsibility, community involvement, passion in their work positions? Do we really want to find out what that world would look like? I hope not!

My Edublog Nominations

Best individual blog: John Spencer's Spencers Scratch Pad.  I like this because there is always something new to read about on various topics of teaching & life.

Best individual Tweeter:  Meredith.  If there is one thing that I love hearing about it's what teachers & students do in their classrooms everyday!

Best librarian / library blog:  I absolutely love  Shannon Miller's Van Meter Voice blog.

Best teacher blog:  Angela Maiers' Educational Services inc.  Always challenges my thinking & is one of the 1st places I turn to to find some great thoughts!

Edublog Awards Home Page

What Struck Me...

As I was making my daily rounds in Google Reader I came across a post from one of Mrs. Quam's students.

It struck me because if you can recall from last month I talked about virtually the same thing at #ITEC10.  What I really, truthfully loved about it though was that Meredith was not afraid or hesitant to post this.  She had a twist of reflection with some pointers for her fellow classmates.  A reflection & help to others in the same post, amazing!

If you'd like to read the full article click HERE.  If you'd like to check out some of her other great writing click HERE.

Here is my presentation again from #ITEC10 if you'd like to see it.

Fellow Followers

here is a mosaic that shows everyone I am following on Twitter.  It doesn't look accurate but it's still cool!

Get your twitter mosaic here.