Getting Butts Out of Seats and Kids Out of Ruts

Ready or not - here it comes - Let's work to be with the change!

Common Core and Tech

This is a great link to the use of technology and common core... http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2012/10/17/01competency.h06.html Thanks for all of your hard work and innovation!

Blogging

This will give a little explanation as to the value of blogs. Thank you everyone who attended this mornings "taking on technology"!!!!!

Thank you to all the staff that attended our "Taking on Technology" piece this morning! We had great attendance and hope you got something out of it you can use for your own professional development! Next week we will be adding blogging and twitter - Believe it or not Twitter can be a great professional development tool for you!!!!

Google Reader in Plain English

This is just a video - quick overview of what we discussed this morning. Remember - anything that looks like a

can be placed in your reader. You can also copy and paste the address (URL) into the box after you click on the subscribe button. Let me know if you have questions! Thanks!

Taking on Technology: Twitter

Our next Taking on Technology Meeting will be Tuesday, October 23rd, we will be discussing Twitter and Blogging.  Here is a excerpt or resource about Twitter.  It was great to see some of our staff member this morning in our Professional Technology Meeting.

Please click on the resource below:

Twitter Resource

Please click on the VCR Button in the middle of the page to see the entire document.

Holding Back Our Children

Holding back our children

by dr.scott.mcleod@gmail.com (Scott McLeod)

Digital technologies are magnifiers and amplifiers of our humanity. They extend the reach of our human voice. They increase a millionfold our capacities and inclinations to find, connect, and share with others. They boost exponentially our abilities to collaborate with others, do meaningful work, and contribute to the overall good.
Can you exercise human voice without digital technologies?
Can you find, connect, and share with others without digital technologies?
Can you collaborate with others, do meaningful work, and contribute to the overall good without digital technologies?
Sure. We did so for millennia. But in the digital, global world that we now inhabit, decisions to marginalize technology are intentional relinquishments of potential and power. In the digital, global world that we now inhabit, decisions to ignore technology are willful disconnects from community, society, and the way the world works.
In schools, we are supposed to be empowering children. We are supposed to be preparing our students to be not just competent – but hopefully adept – in today’s and tomorrow’s information environments, work climates, and learning landscapes. But instead of recognizing and seizing the affordances that these new tools provide us for learning, teaching, and schooling, we pretend that our students can be masterful WITHOUT learning how to use digital technologies authentically. Or meaningfully. Or powerfully. And by doing so, we do our students a horrible, sometimes shameful, disservice.
By now it’s clear that digital technologies are here to stay. By now it’s clear that they’re having transformative impacts on everything around us. And yet we hesitate. We dig in. We resist and we rationalize and we make excuses for ourselves and our institutions. And every day that we do so, the gap widens between our practice and our reality. Every day that we do so, our youth lose another opportunity to be better prepared for our present and their future.
Educators, policymakers, professors, and parents: Our lack of vision and our limited understanding of our technology-suffused landscapes are holding back our children. Why don’t we care more?

Meetings this week for HS Staff - Reminder that we will have the following upcoming meetings - Tuesday - October 16 7:15AM Taking on Technology - we will be looking at the Google Reader and how this can SAVE you time! Wednesday - October 17 - 11:50AM - Humanities Common Planning - Chapter 2 - further discussion on pacing, common assessment, etc.

A Special THANK YOU to Cabela's for donating approximately $3,000 in waders and equipment for Kurt Hutter's AP Environmental Science class to do some "in the field" ecology research!

Great Read on Math....

Great Video on Flipped Learning

Article on the Chrome Notebooks

Good article on Chrome Notebooks.....we do have a pilot group with our AP US Gov't class.

Enjoy the reading!!

Top Tech Tools



Check this out...This is the top 100 ratings for technology tools from 2011.  Click on the above...

Notice Google, Twitter, and some of the tools we are using are trending right now!

Keep up the hard work in incorporating technology into your classroom.

 Staff Notes - October 9th 

1. *Reminder we will meet October 9th at 7:30am to revisit Google and to touch base on the following announcements:
   
   
   
   1. 6 Week Progress Reports due Friday, October 12th at 5:00pm 
   2. Parent Teacher Conferences are Thursday, October 18th from 5:00pm - 8:00pm
   3. Teacher Workday - Friday, October 19th
   4. ACT Plan - Pilot Exam - Thursday, October 11th - 8:20-9:20am for all Sophomores.
   5. Mom's Night Out - Monday, October 22nd - 6:30-8:30pm
   6. High School Gym is Closed October 19th-22nd due to resurfacing.
   7. End of the Quarter - November 2nd.
   8. Finals/Midterms - November 1st and 2nd - Periods 1-4 will test November 1st and Periods 5-8 will test November 2nd.
   9. WKCE Testing - November 6, 7, 13, 14 - More information to follow.
   Professional Technology Training will be every Tuesday beginning October 16th at 7:15AM.  This is optional - but come to see some really neat new tools for your classroom.
   
   
   We will begin with Google and Diigo refreshers....
   
   
   During the meeting today we will be reviewing Google Docs and Sharing Documents.
   
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