Making change happen

During a great discussion about flipped classroom models, it became obvious that something like this is very time consuming to change as a teacher. How then do we enable a teacher who truly is willing to do something like this? Or to make any profound shift in teaching pedagogy?

Some possible things to consider are
- establish a personal learning community to support that teacher. Members of the group could help with the research, be sounding boards for discussion, provide feedback.
- give the teacher one less prep, so that she is not overwhelmed with too much planning on a daily basis.
- give her a prep period during the school day to develop the new lessons. That first year would require much more research a and worka and it does no good for her to get overwhelm halfway through a semester.
- have a curriculum support person on the faculty be available to assist whenever needed.
- reward this person with a bonus or incentive pay when successful.

Online Learning discussed at CUE

This year there was a noticeable increase in dialogue about online learning in many forms.... as projects, in flipped-classroom pedagogy, in fully developed online courses and in blended learning designs. Two years ago this was not the focus, but rather the explosion of web 2.0 learning tools that promote project-based learning, creative student work and critical thinking. They are still around and still excellent. It seems to be the teaching strategies and settings that have started to change now that these are all readily available. SO INTERESETING that these things became a catalyst for true educational changes.

Online learning is certainly here to stay, not a fad, and growing exponentially. That's why Haiku, Online School for Girls, K12 inc, and other companies are successfully developing solutions that work.

The keynote speaker did bring out the fact that many districts, private schools and parents are purchasing course content and outsourcing online learning to get it going. There are dangers to this! the individual school does not control the content, and parents can be paying for online courses from a school that are really a for-profit company's classes. K12 Inc is one such company.

Haiku Learning Management System

I met with the reps from Haiku, who are going to be speaking in LA soon.... now I don't have to go to that! :-)

There's three general levels of school services out there competing for our business:

• School Management Systems, or SMS (Whipple Hill, Blackbaud, Etc.) that facilitate school information like schedules, registration, attendance, grades, transcripts, communication.
• Classroom Management Systems, or CMS (Whipple Hill has this, Moodle, EdModo, any web-based tool teachers can use for assignments, downloads, links, drop boxes, etc.
• Learning Management Systems, or LMS (Moogle, Haiku, etc.) where lessons take place, not just class materials and drop-boxes. Teachers organize lessons on there, interaction takes place.

While Whipple Hill's class pages make an attempt at mini-LMS pages too (with images, message boards, embeded video, audio for podcasting) Haiku seems to be really taking a good direction and getting noticed for it.

Haiku lets teachers organize their classes, but really set up lessons that embed any web 2.0 tool you can think of. For example, embed a prezi, voicethread, blog feed, etc. Although setup of the prezi, voicethread etc takes place on that service, the teacher is putting it ALL IN ONE PLACE for the students. That's the great thing about it.

Online School for Girls uses Haiku LMS for their online courses. If you take a professional development course on there, you'll experience it yourself. I have enjoyed my online class so far and it all comes together.

Using Infographics as a form or assessment

This session was great!! I spent most of the time just watching and listening to the presenter. She was outstanding! I did not even know what an infographic was to be totally

honest, but she gave a very precise definition and as a concept it is so simple and they are EVERYWHERE!!!

Basically an infograph is a way to present material in more visual format. The best example being how the newspaper USA Today uses color graphics. I love this idea. Having students generate infographics to demonstrate what they have learned is an idea i would like to implement next year. It does take some background information on both my part as well as they students.

The students must educate themselves on key componets such as layout, research, copyrights, etc. but I think this is so worthwhile. The main website for the presenter was

http://linkyy.com/infographics

No it is not a typo, the link has two "y"s. Overall, a great CUE conference experience!! :)

Digital connections - bridging the gap between content and project based learning

This session was helpful in showing how using student genarated videos can really inspire students to want to learn more about a specific subject. It was interesting to see how excited all levels of students are about learning when you introduce making a video as a project to demonstrate what they have learned.

This presenter is from Santa Cruz and his program is based there, but what he discussed was how he works with a digital video factory/warehouse to work with teachers in Santa Cruz to help them plan and create making a video as a classroom assignment.

He gave us some ideas as to how start a program like this in our areas. I was hoping for more specific classroom uses of video, but I did come away with an appreciation with how much my students will love making a video to illustrate mastery or understanding of a concept.

I know we have a flip cam, now it is time to start using it!!

Eno vs. Smart????

After meeting with reps from both SMART (wonderful rep named Suzanna) and Polyvision/Digital Networks Group, inc. (from whom we purchased our first batch and is a friend of the Hubble family), I really did again find myself gravitating to ENO as the most intelligent board for Louisville's purposes. Our teachers are not interested in all the wonderful software Smart provides, and we have access to that anyway. AND the fact that the enos are at least $500 less a piece makes me love them.

The eno requires a stylus, while Smartboards let you either touch or use a stylus. That does not seem to be a game-changer for my teachers. The Smartboards are not as good to write on with dry-erase, and that's what my teachers love to do when it is not in use. They don't want to have to avoid that middle area of the room when the projector is off, and they don't use the projector all day! Finally, the flat, smooth and solid design of the eno is great. There is nothing to break or wear out because it is not electronic.... Smartboards have sophisticated camera technology and require electricity, etc.

EdTechProfile is still around!

The good ol' EdTechProfile student and teacher technology skills survey is still alive and well, but perhaps not changed much in the last dozen years. They proudly told me they removed references to Claris Works, MS Works, etc. to make it more generic... but I still struggle with finding a NETS-based assessment for my teachers and students. She didn't know of any either, and really didn't get it when I explained to her that I need a higher-level survey than "do my teachers know how to use a word processor to develop a test."

I need to get in and look at it, see if we have old data in there, and perhaps use it once again for comparison to 4 yrs ago. Interesting that would be!