Walking the Walk

This is the video from Day 2 of the #140EDU Conference that was held in New York. There were many amazing speakers, but I want you, the administration of my district, to jump ahead to the 1:14:30 mark and listen to Eric Sheninger. Eric is the principal of New Milford High School in New Jersey. In 2009, he was against all Social Media in his school. Today, he is one of the biggest advocates of Social Media in Education. He has some exciting things to say.

I've met Eric a few times at conferences and he is just as passionate in person as he is on stage. He has given me great advice on how to use Social Media in my class and I think he makes some great points. To be honest, he makes so many great points I cannot go into all of them here. I will point out a few that I think we should be doing and can do ASAP.


Communication

Eric talked about the old way to communicate with the community. Snail mail and websites are not reaching the people they need to reach. Twitter and Facebook are great and free ways to reach parents and students. While we have a district Twitter account and one high school has an account, why not everyone? Why shouldn't every school have a Twitter account that can send out updates on the great things that are happening during the day? Are there sporting event today? Tweet out the information to the community.

Facebook is a place where our families, friends and students spend time. Why not have school Facebook accounts? You can connect Twitter to Facebook so updates are posted directly on the Facebook wall after you send a tweet. If we really want to reach out to the community and share information with them, we should be striving to put the information in places that people can find it instead of burying on a page on a website.

It's free. What are we waiting for?

Public Relations

Right now, everyone else is writing the story on education accept schools. Nobody is going to hear about the great things classroom teachers do every day if the school doesn't support. Why not recognize some of the amazing students, teachers and administrators in the district? Show off the amazing things that happen every day. We want the community to know about the amazing things going on and we shouldn't have to rely on Patch or other news sources to do it for us. Why are schools afraid to spread the good word?

Student Engagement

I want to end on Student Engagement because I think it is one of the most important elements of this speech. Eric says that his students are excited to come to class and use the tools that he has helped bring into the school. He says that math scores have gone up in one group of students. Not because there was technology, but sound pedagogy infused with social media and technology.

Now is the time to stop banning and blocking. We need to move to a more open technology policy and support the teachers and students that are excited to to try and do new things. My Assistant Supt has been pushing to do some different things and that gives me hope, but we need everyone on board. The question everyone would should ask their administration is why not? Why do we not share great things with the community? Why do we want others to control our image? These are the important questions as we move forward.

The time for talk is over.

If we truly want to be a leader in education technology, we need to walk the walk.

My boots are laced up.

Are yours?

- Nicholas Provenzano
English Teacher
Grosse Pointe South High School
@MrProvenzano

The QR Quest - A Prototype

Below you are going to read about a Prototype that started with an idea to engage learners and bring the classroom out of the classroom. This came about after a 2 day boot camp were educators and designers learned about Design Thinking. I will get around to a post on DT, but I wanted to share this idea with everyone because I'm excited about it.

This is all very rough, but I like the direction it is heading. These are two examples I put together on how I might use QR codes in the classroom in conjunction with a local park and a local museum. I would love to hear your comments. I've know about QR Codes for a while but The Daring Librarian is the bomb when it comes to them.

These lessons assume that the students would have access to a class set of iPads. Any tablet would work for these ideas. I use iPads because that is the tablet I'm familiar with. Anyway, here are the lessons. 

The QR Quest in the Language Arts Classroom

Here is an example of what the QR Quest could look like in the Language Arts Classroom. This example is based on the American Literature Class for Sophomores.

Connecting with Museums

Unit: Fantasy, Folklore and Fairy Tales

Students would read American Folk lore and learn the meaning behind these stride and their value in society. 

Students would go to the Henry Ford House to see the Fantasy, Folklore and Fairy Tales exhibit.

Students would look at the art on display and create their own stories based on the art they find.

The students would spend the next few days creating their own stories based on the picture alone. The iPads allow them to create videos, photo collages, songs, poems, etc.

Students would then post their creations to a digital space and create QR codes to share with the Henry Ford House. These QR codes would be placed next to the art to be scanned by visitors.

A display could be set up at the school that has the QR codes along with reproductions of the art for people in the school to see.

The mobility of the tablets allows the students to create on the go. They are no longer tied to the classroom. The classroom is wherever the student goes with the iPad.

A unit like this could be done in 5 class period or longer depending on the depth of the stories and the length of the student created project. 

Here is a project outside of the classroom involving local parks.

Unit: On Walden Pond - Thoreau

After discussing Thoreau's Essay and the concept of Transcendentalism, students would leave the classroom and go to a local park to be inspired by nature the same way Thoreau was when he was at Walden Pond.

Students would bring the class iPads with them to document the sights and sounds of the park.  Like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM1a9V-k62I&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

Or they could take a photo and write a poem,

 

The students can use the apps on their tablets to edit and create whatever they want. Students are now engaged in the material in a way that was not possible. Once students have created their digital inspirations, they will create QR Codes for them. 

Scan me, this code works!

These QR codes can be laminated and posted along the trails of the park where students were inspired. People would scan these and interact by leaving comments and providing meaningful feedback.

Students would no longer be creating content for the teacher alone, but the community as a whole.

These are just a couple of lessons in language arts, but I could see this being used for social studies, science, art and so many other content areas. Allowing the students to be creative is the best thing we can do as teachers. 

I'm working on making this possible in my district for the fall. I have a handful more ideas I could work with using QR codes. Share your ideas so I can share them with my Admins!

Thanks!

@TheNerydTeacher

Adobe Education Exchange - The 2011 Educators' Choice Awards

I'm proud to announce The 2011 Educators' Choice Awards by Adobe Education Exchange.

Here is a breakdown of the contest:

What:

The Adobe Education Exchange is a place where teachers can share lessons using Adobe Products. There are lessons that span across the curriculum for teachers to use in their own classes. It is free to sign up and start looking at some amazing lessons.

The Educators' Choice Awards starts accepting lessons August 1st and are voted on by fellow members of the Education Exchange. So, teachers will be evaluating the lessons submitted by other teachers!

How:

First, you need to be a member of the Adobe Education Exchange.

Next, you need to submit your lesson. You can do that here.

You will be eligible in one of 4 categories.

Higher Education Digital Arts and Media

Higher Education Cross-Curricular

Primary/Secondary Digital Arts and Media

Primary/Secondary Cross Curricular

From there, start to look around and see the great resources that have already been submitted. Start rating their lessons and spread the good word around.

When:

Here is a timeline that Adobe has provided a timeline on their site, but here it is for all of you.

The contest began August 1st and teachers can submit lessons until October 14th.

During the submission period, other teachers can rate the lessons submitted to the contest.

The Finalists will be determined from October 14 - October 17.

Once the finalist are selected, members of the Adobe Education Exchange can vote on the finalists in each of the four categories from October 17 - October 29.

After October 29th, a winner and two runner-ups will be announced November 9th.

Prizes:

There are some awesome prizes for the lucky winners. Computers, Tablets and Software go to the winners of this great contest.

I'm a big fan of winning prizes for being creative. This is exactly what this contest is all about. Letting educators share how they use Adobe products in a creative fashion. What's even better is that the contest encourages sharing those lessons with other teachers.

I intend on following this contest closely and will be providing updates for all of you. I hope you plan on uploading some great lessons to the Adobe Education Exchange and passing this along to others.

Stay tuned here for more updates and surprises.

- @TheNerdyTeacher

Full Disclosure: Adobe is a sponsor of The Nerdy Teacher.

#ProjectPLN has a new home!

Hello everyone! After taking some time this summer to relax and get organized, #ProjectPLN is back!

For those of you who do not know what #ProjectPLN is, it's an online magazine that publishes posts from members of our PLN from all over the country. One of the best parts of the #ProjectPLN is that it is free! Each month, the editors choose a topic for the next issue and we ask our PLN to share their thoughts in the form of a post. We publish every post that we receive. Once all of the posts are collected, we put together the posts in one spot and share it with the world.

We had such a great run last year and traffic was a bit overwhelming at times for Openzine. After looking at our options, we have decided to move to a WordPress. You can find our new site at ProjectPLN.com. We are still tinkering with layout and formatting, so please excuse our virtual dust as we are under construction. :-)

We are now accepting posts for the September 2011 Issue. Our theme for this issue is getting started. We would love to hear from everyone on how they get started for the school year. This could be getting started with your students, staff or even getting yourself ready for the school year. There are so many creative ways to get ready for the school year, we would love to have you share them with the rest of our PLN.

Here a few guidelines for your posts:

Please send the post to ProjectPLN10@gmail.com

Please provide a bio of yourself to be added at the end of the post.

We would like to have pictures accompany each post, so please add one if you can find one.

We would like all submissions by Friday August 26th.

If you have any questions, please feel free to send us an email or contact us on Twitter (@ProjectPLN) or Facebook.

We are looking forward to an exciting new school year with exciting new ideas to share with our PLN. Please pass this around so as many people as possible can join the fun.

Have a great day!

Nick and Kelly
Editors - Project PLN