Helping Your New Students Feel Welcome

This year I had a great idea about how to help my 2 new students feel more welcome in our class and a great way to connect them to the students who were at our school last year.  On the first day of school I brought all of my students to the carpet and we went to Google Earth (be sure to download it first).  We started by looking at the United States map and found California and Indiana.  I had students make observations about the states just from looking at their shape and placement on the map.  I had my new students, that had come from Indiana, describe their state.  Next I asked for volunteers to describe California, the state we live in, to our new students.  Then we visited our new students school in Indiana.  They were so excited to see it.  They gave us a virtual tour showing us where their classroom was last year and the direction they road the bus to and from school.  Finally we visited our school and we made more observations about the differences between the schools.  This was a great lesson to help connect our old and new students together and they ended up feeling like they were a part of the classroom and the learning process.

Career Readiness at Any Age

It's never too early to start thinking about a career!  In fact many children already have an idea of what they want to be when they grow up before they even start kindergarten.  I call it "trying on" a career.  It's important to encourage children to reach for the stars and a part of helping them attain their dreams starts with teaching children how to have conversations, be good listeners, and the ability to work together in a group.  Read a great article by Heather Wolpert-Gawron titled Career Readiness:Starting Early with Young Learners.

      

As summer is starting to wind down and the new school year is about to begin, I am always on the look out for the next best learning technique.  I consider myself a life long learner even in my professional life.  It’s such a great way to keep my job interesting and it’s what is best for the students who enter my classroom as well.  For me the greatest and newest technique out there is the book “Learn Like a Pirate” by Paul Solarz.  PIRATE is an acronym that describes behaviors and expectations for the students in your class that promotes independent behaviors and self lead learning.  So I ordered the book, put an email out to my staff to see who wants to join me (2 others so far) on my new journey, and I started following Paul solarz @paulsolarz and the #learnlap on Twitter.
Last spring I came across the book “Teach Like a Pirate” by Dave Burgess @daveburgess #tlap.  Like LLAP the word PIRATE is an acronym for words that are used to inspire teachers to remember or reconnect with their passion,enthusiasm and creativity for teaching.  I recommend that every teacher should read both books and follow both Dave and Paul.  Each book has its merits and it’s always so exciting to be learning something new or even to be reminded about why you started on this journey in the first place. Both of their books are trending and I have found a huge support group by the authors and their followers.  LLAP has a book study going on right now and they will even help you start your own with questions already in place. Here are some tweets that came across my twitter this week...Excited about the opportunity to freely express my pirate-ness. @jessicourtright.  Apparently I’m a pirate.  It’s nice to feel understood. @annieiniowa. You are going to love LearnLAP. @daveburgess. Thinking about creating a culture where failure is how we learn.@fitech.  Don’t be left out!  Follow these great educators and leaders for for a journey fit for a….well Pirate of course!

Connected Educator Chat with Holly Clark

Getting connected with other educators is an important part of growing your Professional Learning Network (PLN).  Here is an interview I did with with the connected educator Holly Clark!  She was gracious enough to allow me to interview her through Google Hangout; something I have never done before.  If you want to learn more about Holly Clark and why she is a connected educator, please visit her blog at Ed Tech Diva.

Digital Citizenship: Getting Ready to Go Back to School

With the starting of school, just a few short weeks away in my district, I am beginning to get excited about starting our second year of 1:1 tablets in our classrooms.  I have spent some time this summer working on unit mapping and incorporating more technology into the lessons that I am refining or creating.  It's all so exciting for me and I know my students are going to be excited as well! However, it is important to remember that even though digital citizenship was covered last year, that this type of information needs to be an ongoing conversation throughout the year in every grade level.  As our students become more and more independent on their tablets and are digging deeper into the digital world,  I feel we need to help them become more independent in their quest to keep them safe on line, to use digital etiquette, find reliable resources, and learn to be search ninjas.  Here is an article by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher about What Your Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship that I found to be very valuable and a great review for myself and my students.

Along with this article watch this video as a reminder to why our students need digital citizenship.

Common Sense Media is a great site to go to that has a huge source of information for educators, parents, and students of all ages.

For those of you who would like to browse through age appropriate lessons, I found a great blog site that has some that will hopefully meet your needs.

Click here for lesson plans on digital citizenship!

To keep up to date with the latest news and posts on digital citizenship, I recommend following these twitter accounts...

Keep updated on Twitter!

@4safeinternet

@iKeepSafe

@SueScheff

@BeCyberwise

What is and How do I get a PLN?

For those of you who might not know, a PLN is a Professional Learning Plan.  It's a plan to help get teachers and educators around the world connected in a BIG way!  Once you get connected you can glean many different types of resources, support, and promote good pedagogy to the many people around the globe that you are connected to.  It's a whole new look at the meaning of "your circle of friends."

Until recently my PLN consisted of me on the internet google searching lessons and articles for whatever my purpose might be.  Also included in this plan was a small network of friends and peers from my school and district.  At the time I thought I was doing just fine, but honestly what I've learned through the experience of growing a PLN is that what you don't know can hurt you.  Not physically...just professionally, and it can hold you back from growing as an educator. Now I am connected on so many levels with Twitter, Google+, a new blog and Google Site for my parents.  My head is spinning from all of the amazing teachers I have come into contact with lately and as I grow my community network I am also now growing a new appreciation for my profession.  At first it was hard to think that I have anything worth while to share with such an amazing community, but what I have learned over the last month or so is that everybody can't know everything and it's important for everyone to give a little so that they can get a little which then grows into a lot.

Anyone can have a PLN, it doesn't matter who you are or what your title is.  What's most important is that you have one!  Tom Whitby does a great job outlining the mass barriers to those people who are just starting out, how to build one, and what they can do for you.  Here is a link to his article "How Do I Get a Plan" in Edutopia that is a real help when trying to understand and go about beginning a PLN.  I have also included a video for those of you who like the visual learning process as well.

Characteristics of an Effective School Team

I've been on many teams/committees over the last 20 plus years and I can say that most of the teams I have worked on were connected in a way that we were able to step away from the table with an accomplished goal and a deep respect for the other team members.  However, there have been times when the group or committee I was on couldn't find our common ground and our goal became unclear and muddied in the process of trying to connect ourselves as a team. Our valuable time felt wasted and we did not come away from the experience with exhilaration, but with feelings of frustration. Elena Aguilar does a great job detailing the complications of working in a team setting and how these 5 characteristics can make a difference in the success of your team.
5 Characteristics of an Effective School Team