Word Work in a Balanced Literacy Jr. High Classroom

This is a first in a series taking a look inside a balanced literacy junior high classroom.















Special thanks to literacy coordinators Jenny McAusland and Rowena Stewart for spearheading this project.!

Math @ Admin Meeting

So much fun to watch our administrators work through a math problem designed by our AISI math team!

The Problem: Using some Peter Liljedahl's ideas, Corry tweeked a math problem for the admin group to tackle.  See the entire problem here.

The Hook: "I have a dilemma that I would like you to help me solve. I LOVE red wine and like to drink a bottle each night."

Random Groupings: Using SMART's random group generators, all admin and central office staff were put into groups and set loose on the windows to work on the problem.

The Answer: I don't think we ever got one answer, but there was lots of discussions, assumptions, arguing and laughter.  Email Corry if you want to know for sure.

Peter Liljedahl is presenting at Mighty Peace Teacher's Convention, you will not want to miss!

Sessions include: all sessions in CP202 in GP Comp High School

• Numeracy Tasks (K-3) Session E - Fri 9-10:15 and Session G 12:10 - 1:25
• Numeracy Tasks (4-6) Session F - 10:35 - 11:50 and Session H - 1:45-3
• Numeracy Tasks (7-9), Session A - Thur 9-10:15
• Numeracy Tasks (10-12), Session B - Thur 10:35 - 11:50
• Assessment for a new Mathematics (7-9), Session C, Thur 12:10 - 1:25
• Assessment for a new Mathematics  (10-12), Session D, Thur 1:45- 3

 

4 ways to create a fake Facebook page

Creating a fake Facebook page for a story character or historical character is an excellent way for students to demonstrate deep understanding.  They have to be able to articulate the connections and relationships this person has, what they would say, who would they say it to, what images would they share or not share.  It becomes an immense critical thinking activity.

There are a number of different ways to do this!

1) A Word Template: I created this last year when I wanted a simple way to create a Facebook page for feudal Japan. I hosted the template in Moodle and students opened it from there to work on.

2) My Fake Wall: This website allow you to create a page that will be saved with a unique URL.  It does require students to create a login with an email address.

3) Google Doc Template: This Presentation template has 4 slides.  Wall, Info, Photos and Video that you can change with your own information.

4) SMART Notebook Template: Another template, this time in Notebook.  I like this one because a lot of the items are locked, so they cannot be moved or deleted.  Also check out the attachments, there is a handy little word document to guide the assignment.

How can you see using this in your classroom?

Tweet, tweet with #pwsd

Wow!  I was blown away with the amount of tweets at our district day on Friday.  We had tweets from every session, from people at home and from central office.  Thanks to all of you for making the day such a success!

@CiscoSystems

Thanks to Cisco systems for donating the 2 Flip cameras and the jacket that were used in the Twitter draw!


Right now I have 74 #pwsd tweeps in my twitter list, please follow and let me know if I missed anyone.



How did I pick the winners?

The first thing I did was create a Tweetdoc of all of the #pwsd tweets for the day.  Once I had the document that had all our tweets I used a random number generator to pick the winners.

Rob S from BHRS @hackerob

Darren R from HRS @drob222

Barb B from TPS @gpwonderwoman

Now my #pwsd tweeps, I have something in the works, maybe another little twitter give away.  So tweet away

• Websites to share?
• What went well in class?
• Need some help?
• Share some resources!

Let's keep #pwsd going!

Cultivating a Digital Classroom (Part 3 of 3)

This group rocks!


Becky, Daniel, Terrina, Lyla, Stacey, Anna, Marion, Shawn, Natalie, Darcy, Sharolyn, Adair & Sarah

 Our three day cohort came to an end on Friday, here you can find Part 1 and Part 2.

Friday started out with a reconnection with our PLN. Revisiting Twitter, update your profile and tweet.  Connect with professionally relevant Facebook pages and look into RSS again.



Anna and Marion's Pecha Kucha

 Our second activity was a Pecha Kucha.  Usually this is 20 slides advancing every 20 seconds presentation.  Since we were pressed for time, we used 10 slides advancing every 10 seconds around the topic "Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century" 

Digital Classroom - Pecha Kucha

View more presentations from jenclevette.

All groups did a fabulous job with the very short amount of time that I allotted them!  We then used a Moodle forum to reflect how we could use this technique in the classroom.



The Savanna Ladies!



Until lunch everyone had time to work on projects.  Some worked in Moodle creating courses, other explored Web 2.0 tools or fought with Word trying to make forms work.  Work was done and laughs were shared.

Adair, Becky, Daniel and Natalie working on their Google Preso!

Before we broke for lunch each person was given some digital scavenger hunt clues.  Such things as old technology, new technology, fun, jump, and the funniest thing you could find.  The assignment was to go out and take pictures with what you had.  Phone, iPod, camera or borrowed camera.  When we got back from lunch we collaborated on this Google Presentation.

This group had the "best" scavenger hunt pictures,
can you find them?

 We experienced first hand the positives (I can add the pictures and you do the captions) and negatives (who deleted my slide!) of working on a collaborative document. 
We also had to figure out how to get images off devices and re size and flip them for the presentation.
A short discussion on blogging and the day was over!

My intention was to end the day with this video



But all groups were far to busy trying to get all their last tweets in to be entered into the draw for the Flip Cameras  :0

Thanks so much to my fabulous group.  They were challenging and engaged, fun and a great colleagues to learn and reflect with.  

We were all a Twitter!

Thanks to the energetic group of teachers and support staff that joined the elluminate session today after school.  I am looking forward to another beginner session and intermediate session in the near future.


Take a look at the presentation and recording link for the 45 minute session.

All a Twitter

View more presentations from jenclevette.

It's been a week since #aisi11

1) It's about relationships

First, as we improve teacher practice and student learning it comes down to the relationships.  Nothing can start or begin to move forward without an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect.  For each session I attended a good portion of this year was moving forward because of the relationships that had been built in the previous years.

Second, there is nothing like meeting people in real life that you have known for years online.  I am a big advocate of Twitter and while I am not the most active tweep, I have established a group of twitter friends that I refer to in real life like I have known them for years.  I had the opportunity to connect and reconnect with a number of them here.  Most of you know I am not a big hugger, but I threw a few down at this conference!

 2) Sharing.   School divisions like Blackgold have a fabulous website and offer up anything and everything they have created during their AISI project.  

At PWSD we do a great job of sharing.  Both our Moodle sites, ecommunity and collaboration, have large sections wide open. We have launched a YouTube Channel and have our Facebook pages   but there is always room for improvement.


3) New Ideas. As with any conference I came away with some new ideas and tools that I had never seen before.

iPhone charger - I never make it through an entire conference day.  Between tweeting, email and surfing my phones dies.  This is a life saver, special thanks to Lynn for pointing it out. 

Diigo and Firefox - I got schooled in the ways of the interweb by @gcouros, don't tell him but they are actually pretty good. 

The Important Book, Audacity & Movie Maker - I want to do this project that Calgary Catholic School Division showed us.  Special needs students recording  what is important, overlaying images to create their own movie.  Pretty powerful stuff.


This was my first AISI conference and I was so glad that I went.  It gave our AISI team time to talk, plan and get to know each other a little better.  It gave me a better idea of the bigger AISI picture in Alberta and some great ideas for how to move forward with technology in our district.