Goals and Objectives.....

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Just something to help ease some of the tension that many of us are going through right now. I know that on a Friday I'm usually out the door as soon as possible. So if anyone is feeling stressed or bit uneasy right now, just relax and take a deep breath. We're almost there.....Hang in there.

Skype for students

This post was inspired by wesley fryer, who wrote about how Tammy is utilizing Skype into her classroom to interview other students in national organizations across the United States. Students are actually able to interact and engage in meaningful projects.

I love this idea, and I think the uses of Skype in the classroom are endless. Working in an elementary setting, you'll just need to be a bit creative in how you find meaningful uses. You could do a class interview with a class across the state/country/world. You could do interviews of people who work in different job sectors or simply interview someone who has done something or seen something significant.

I'm looking forward to getting stated with this and hopefully you are too. Let me know how you're adventures with Skype are going.


Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Apples to the students....

The future of teaching is slowing changing and for this Houston Community College course, it's already here. Lifang Tien, a biology professor, and Roger Boston, who teaches computer science and business technology, received $100,196 from a fund created by HCC Chancellor Mary Spangler to encourage innovation, then used the money to buy phones and pay the monthly bills. The students have to give the phones back by the end of the semester.

I find this to be extremely exciting and I'm very interested to see how it pans out for overall teaching. I always felt that, laptops although as helpful as they are, can be quite a hassle with and a pain to lug around. I love how small and compact the apple iphones are. They have all the features and capabilities of a laptop, without the bulk and hassle. Which just makes one less thing for students to carry around from class to class.

I was just at a conference last weekend, and I became a bit frustrated at how distracting some of the laptops were. Could those distractions be minimized by something smaller? I'm not sure, but I would love to find out. I'm not even going to get into that opening sound that the computer makes when it's turned on for the first time. We all know that sound!!!

Take a moment and just think how you could incorporate the apple iphone into your teaching. Do you think it would be a wise idea to move in this direction for teachers, and for students? I love all versatility of it, and hopefully we'll have more data that will guide us, one way or the other.

Here's the story from the Houston chronicle for more info.

The new style of teaching.....

I'm not sure how I came across the Powerful Learning Practice site but I'm extremely glad that I did. PLP is a professional development model that immerses educators into environments and practices that allow them to learn and own the literacies of 21st Century learning and teaching. Being able to fully understand and utilize this will not only engage and captivate your students but also create a shift in thinking and teaching in you as well.

I can't wait to get cracking on this, and I can already see the benefits from this. How can teachers not get excited about being able to create a format that allows the students to be highly engaged as well as ready for life after school? Being able to not only have our students succeed on assessment but also in their careers, is what we as teachers should all strive for.

In case you are still a little weary of the idea....here's a video of Will Richardson explaining how he has changed his classroom teaching style and how the students and the parents have reacted to it. Very cool stuff.

Please share with me any thoughts or feelings that you have about this post....I love this concept and I hope to find more compelling stuff like this. Enjoy

Is this why teachers make less money????

It's almost that time of year when teachers start to cringe up a little bit more. State testing is never a fun time. Both the students, teachers, administrators and parents all feel the presure. So I thought the best way to help out my fellow teachers would be a good laugh. Granted I don't condone this kind of violence but it is funny nonetheless.

I'll have more posts in the coming days about all the craziness that's going on around here. So in the meantime, enjoy and have a great weekend.