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K-12 Online Conference “AfterGlow” Closing Event

Janice Stearns — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:25:58 +0000

This is a cross-post from K-12 Online Conference.

Please mark your calendars and adjust your schedules to join presenters, participants, and organizers of the 2011 K-12 Online Conference in an “AfterGlow” Closing Live Event on Monday, December 12th at 6:00pm PT / 7:00pm MT / 8:00pm CT / 9:00pm ET. If you’re located outside North American timezones, please use this timeanddate.com link (2:00 AM Tuesday, December 13 GMT) to determine the event time in your local area. “The Afterglow” is a fun, celebratory event held in Blackboard Collaborate. It will provide opportunities for presenters to share the stories behind their presentations as well as give participants a chance to ask questions of the presenters. The Blackboard Collaborate session link is: http://tinyurl.com/cr20live. This link may be shared with others on Twitter, Plurk, blogs, etc.

The MC for the event will be Susan van Gelder, who will ask the questions of the panel members and facilitate the conversations among presenters and participants. The panel will consist of all of the keynote presenters for the conference, but all presenters are encouraged to join us and come prepared to “raise your hand to take the mic” during the session if desired. Everyone can contribute actively in the chat conversation. The webinar will be an hour long and not every presenter may have an opportunity to share. There is a possibility the conversation may continue after the ‘formal’ closing of the webinar into a post-show. Participation of the presenters is optional during post show as we know everyone’s time is limited.

In addition to joining our upcoming live event, we invite you to check out and comment on a special “backstories of the 2011 K-12 Online Conference” Voicethread. Several of our presenters have already chimed in. Please add your voice and commentary!

Organizers of the 2011 K-12 Online Conference wish to express appreciation to Steve Hargadon and the Classroom 2.0 Live community for providing the “virtual meeting room” for our Afterglow live event. We hope to “see you” virtually in Blackboard Collaborate Monday night! (Use this link for times if you’re outside North America) Please invite other educators you know to join us too!

Shared Items – October 29, 2011

Janice Stearns — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:56:25 +0000

Learning About Blogs FOR Your Students- Part I: Reading

October 29, 2011 – Another great post by Sylvia Tolisan. Sylvia will be writing a series of posts about classroom blogging. I look forward to her insight as I figure out the best ways to maximize learning through blogging in my classroom.

New Ideas from My PLN This Weekend

Janice Stearns — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:40:40 +0000

Teaching for the first time in many years is so very exhausting. I’m teaching 5th grade at an urban school in Los Angeles.

I study the curriculum each night, make lesson plans according to the guides in the teacher’s editions, and then I curse myself every day because the lessons are uninviting and boring. Students are turned off and so am I. I need to make everything more student centered and engaging. I use the SMARTBoard, make presentations of vocabulary and lessons, but it is still too teacher directed. I have enough technology for almost 2:1, but I’m not leveraging the potential yet in ways I know can engage students. We’ve started blogs, and students know how to log in to their vendor math site and a few other didactic sites, but we haven’t begun to really create in innovate ways yet.

Like I said, it’s just so exhausting trying to follow the curriculum to make sure students score well on the CST’s. How do I turn this roadblock on it’s ear and make sure students need to know what is required, yet make it engaging?

I’m so fortunate to be connected in my PLN with so many amazing educators who know how to think outside the box. Each weekend, through Twitter, my RSS Reader, my Google Certified Teacher group, and Google Plus, I find new ways to engage students. I fill myself with enthusiasm and hope that I can make the curriculum more engaging, student centered, and creative.

This week, I revisited Voki, as a discussion about it had sprouted in my Google Certified Teachers group. I hadn’t used it in ages, since I had very little use for it except for showing it to teachers in my former job as an EdTech Facilitator. Now, in the classroom, the possibilities and potential for it in the classroom are exploding in my mind! Have students create their “focus” writing (a writing strategy that we are exploring right now in the curriculum) in digital form and have a voki read it. Each week, the writing could change so that the Voki would have updated text to read. For EL students, have them publish the writing they are working on using the voices of Julie, Kate, Steven, or Paul to model correct pronunciation. Better yet, have students record their own voice for their writing. I wasn’t aware of the Voki Classroom opportunity (for $29.95 a year) that allows you to create student accounts, even without email, and create assignments right inside the Voki environment. I could teach them how to embed these on their blogs, and voila, one step closer to more creativity.

In math, we’re just beginning our adventure into multiplying, 5th grade style (multiplying whole numbers, fractions, decimals, etc). Most of my students have scored in the lower levels of the CST, which is our annual state assessment. Most don’t have their times tables memorized and many don’t understand the concept of multiplication. I had thought of having them take pictures of arrays around the school. What would be the best (and most effecient) way to publish them, however? Should students use Animoto or VoiceThread? There are so many choices! I haven’t bought VoiceThread EDU, but maybe I will. I could have students publish their photos on a Google presentation and add the captions, but that sounds so traditional – and kind of boring. I’ll work this one out and share what we did.

I also revisited Sumo Paint this morning, having read about it on the Google Certified Teachers group (that group of teachers is amazing!). Sumo Paint is a powerful image editing site, online and free. What fascinated me this morning were the Kaliedescope and Triangle filters in Sumo Paint. How about students creating a design that could also be converted into multiplication equations? We could use Jing to capture and publish the creation. I’m thinking of something like this:

I hope to keep sharing the ideas that inspire me, but I’m not promising I’ll be consistent. I’m too inundated with the day to day pull of trying to do my best.

Posted via email from Janice Stearns’s Posterous

Shared Items – October 10, 2011

Janice Stearns — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:04:21 +0000

Serendipitous Discoveries

October 2, 2011

Podcast381: Reach for the Stars Using Media in Your Classroom

October 3, 2011 – I need to listen to this. I always get inspired by Wes Fryer. So great that he shares his learning with the world.

Drinking from a fire hose

October 3, 2011 – What a beautiful way to describe the firehose! Today, I dipped in after a long time away and was delighted to find this in my feed. My return to classroom teaching after many years has given me more than my share of catching up to do! I miss the firehose, but I know it will be there when I can dip in again.

Shared Items – October 3, 2011

Janice Stearns — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 01:15:38 +0000

Not Just the Facts, Ma'am

October 3, 2011 – That’s what it needs to look like.

Shared Items – September 17, 2011

Janice Stearns — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 02:55:06 +0000

The Students Share Why the Internet is Like the Mall

September 17, 2011 – Love this blog. Now that I’m in the classroom, this teacher really resonates with goals I have this year. Great classroom blog, Mrs. Ripp!

The Students Share Why the Internet is Like the Mall

September 7, 2011

Shared Items – August 8, 2011

Janice Stearns — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:18:15 +0000

On keeping up with search

August 8, 2011 – Great post on the state of (Google) “search” by Dr. Joyce Valenza on her blog. It’s amazing how many ways you can search on just Google, let alone other tools.

AAEEBL Conference

August 8, 2011 – A reflection from Helen Barrett on her presentation on e-portfolios, using Google Sites. Love this message:

…Adopt student-centered tools that can be maintained across the lifespan, not tools that require a lot of technical support or fees to maintain beyond graduation.

Shared Items – July 3, 2011

Janice Stearns — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:05:16 +0000

When I Become a Teacher – Sinnea Douglas

July 3, 2011 – Awesome poem by Chris Lehman’s students at the ISTE closing keynote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zBKZtqnmcM

Check out my office

Janice Stearns — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:41:52 +0000

I just downloaded the Photosynth app to take panoramic photos on my iPad. It’s really an iPhone/iPodTouch app, but it works fine on the iPad. Here’s my office:

http://photosynth.net/view/12e590d8-1d3c-4d10-8608-02fac0438cde

Imagine what students could do with this app. They could make a virtual museum of art or any type of object. They could make virtual tours that could be attached to Google Earth or Google Maps. The possibilities are endless!

Posted via email from Janice Stearns’s Posterous

iPad picture post

Janice Stearns — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:10:22 +0000

It’s amazing how easy it is to share media with new tools like tablets or mobile devices. I snapped this picture on my iPad, emailed it to post@posterous.com. I’ve set up Posterous to post on this blog whenever I email in posts to Posterous. In less than half of a minute, I’ve published a photo with text, all from a mobile device. Awesome.

If I could just figure out how to pre-crop the picture. My tomato ties are not that attractive.

Posted via email from Janice Stearns’s Posterous