source: www.pearltrees.com

Alan November and his November Learning Team have created an amazing series based on the First Five Days of School. I have had the pleasure of attending several of Alan’s keynotes and workshops. He is an inspiration. I have learned a great deal from him.

This is the fourth post in the series of what I learned from the November Learning Team regarding the First Five Days.

Day 4…. Equipped with the previous 3 days of posts, what are some specific activities you will do to build relationships with students in your class or your school? Here are some tips:

• Establish your student’s learning preferences – How do they like to learn? Maybe you just ask them, or maybe you can set up a few stations in your class (hands-on, reading/information, creative, and an organizing station). Have the students reflect on the ones that they liked, and the ones they didn’t
• Establish collaboration in the classroom – Set up learning groups, mix and match the students and have them eventually work with everybody. Afterwards, ask them to reflect and tell you who they want to work with (could be a good start to building teams)
• Establish the learning environment – Earlier, it was suggested to find each student’s passion. Have the students share out what their passion for learning is this year. Make connections with the various passion-based interests.

Be sure to check out the November Learning website for additional resources! Connect with other educators on twitter using the hashtag #first5days

source: www.pearltrees.com

Alan November and his November Learning Team have created an amazing series based on the First Five Days of School. I have had the pleasure of attending several of Alan’s keynotes and workshops. He is an inspiration. I have learned a great deal from him.

This is the third post in the series of what I learned from the November Learning Team regarding the First Five Days.

In the third video, educators are interviewed about some of the activities and ideas for the first days of school. Check out the video.

First Five Days: Day 3 from ALAS Media on Vimeo.

This video highlights the continued relationship building that is necessary during the first 5 days. As an educator, handshakes, hugs, high 5’s can go a long way. So can learning names of other students (if you are a teacher) or the continued dedication to learn everyone’s names if you are the building leader.

Be sure to check out the November Learning website for additional resources! Connect with other educators on twitter using the hashtag #first5days

source: www.pearltrees.com

Alan November and his November Learning Team have created an amazing series based on the First Five Days of School. I have had the pleasure of attending several of Alan’s keynotes and workshops. He is an inspiration. I have learned a great deal from him.

This is the second post in the series of what I learned from the November Learning Team regarding the first Five Days.

In this second video, educators build off of the first day, and begin to talk about specific strategies to “knowing” about their students. There are many great takeaways. Check out the video and see what I learned.

First 5 Days: Day 2 from ALAS Media on Vimeo.

This video begins with a teacher discussing a theme or groups of themes to help students connect their learning. It is during the second day where you begin to provide choices for the students to express themselves. There are also times that you can build the collaboration needed for an enhanced learning environment.

Be sure to check out the November Learning website for additional resources! Connect with other educators on twitter using the hashtag #first5days

source: www.pearltrees.com

Alan November and his November Learning Team have created an amazing series based on the First Five Days of School. I have had the pleasure of attending several of Alan’s keynotes and workshops. He is an inspiration. I have learned a great deal from him.

For the next five days, I will be posting something I learned from the November Learning Team regarding the first Five Days.

In this first video, educators are interviewed about some of the activities and ideas for the first day of school. Many of these educators, as you will see, do not even mention technology. It is important to get to know and learn about your students first.

First 5 Days: Day 1 from ALAS Media on Vimeo.

As I watched this video, I felt that the educators featured have the desired growth mindset needed to work with children. They want to spend quality time learning about their learners, in order to provide the most effective environment. What will you do on the first day (or what did you do of you have already started) ?

Be sure to check out the November Learning website for additional resources! Connect with other educators on twitter using the hashtag #first5days

source: found on twitter thanks to Robert Zywicki!

I was looking for inspiration on twitter (a common occurrence) about back to school and I came across this comic shared by Robert Zywicki. Many teachers either already have (school has started for countless districts) or plan to ask the children this age old question….

What did you do this summer?

This assignment, usually written, has been a staple for teachers since, well, probably the dawn of “school.” Now things have changed, a curve ball of sorts. Ask a ‘connected’ child and you may very well get “If you followed me on twitter, instagram, google+, etc you would know.”

How would you respond? How would you alter the assignment? How would you use that interaction to take the assignment in a whole new way?

What did you do this summer?

source: www.lumunos.org

Each year we welcome a unique group of students into our buildings. For some schools, the complexity of the students doesn’t change much at all. For others, it could be 40%, 50% or 60% new students, not to mention there is always a new grade level entering.

With all this newness, I feel it is our job as educators to challenge ourselves to try something new, different. Why? Not just change for the sake of change, but more so because we have a blank slate, an opportunity not afforded to most industries, we can start over.

So what will you do differently? It is easy to ask that question two weeks before the school year starts, but the answer lies in knowing who your new learners are, and what they will need. It might cause you to do something different.

Guest post by Mark Barnes

via: Corwin.com/connectededucators

Ask any of the thousands of teachers who regularly use Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook about connected education, and you may get an earful about using digital tools as a means to connect with educators and students worldwide.

But if you ask teachers who have never used a social network, blog, or mobile device for learning in their classrooms to discuss connected education, you are likely to be met with blank stares, furrowed eyebrows and shrugged shoulders.

Enter Corwin Press and the Connected Educators Series.

In an effort to connect all teachers, EdWeek author and Corwin editor Peter DeWitt enlisted the help of his professional learning network (PLN) in order to launch a series of books on digital learning, digital leadership, mobile learning, digital citizenship, and everything else that is connected education.

It is our hope and intent to meet you where you are in your digital journey, and elevate you as educators to the next level. Peter DeWitt, Connected Educators Series Editor

Corwin’s Connected Educators Series features short books, about 70 pages, in both paperback and electronic formats, aimed at helping educators improve classroom practice and educational leadership in the digital world, something that has been sorely missing in the education book world.

The first books in the series will be published in August and September.

Corwin Connected Educators Series

The Relevant Educator: How Connectedness Empowers Learning, by Tom Whitby and Steven Anderson: Two of the profession’s most connected educators explain how to effectively use social media to build a professional learning network.

Flipped Leadership Doesn’t Mean Reinventing the Wheel, by Peter DeWitt: If we can flip the classroom, why can’t we flip faculty meetings and other kinds of communication with parents and teachers? According to DeWitt, we can.

Connected Educators Series

The Edcamp Model: Powering Up Professional Learning, by The Edcamp Foundation: Professional development has never been so simple than when teachers create it. The Edcamp model connects educators to PD like never before.

Teaching the iStudent: A Quick Guide to Using Mobile Devices and Social Media in the K-12 Classroom, by Mark Barnes: Knowledge is in the palm of learners’ hands, making them iStudents. This book helps teachers understand how to maximize this incredible power.

The Corwin Connected Educators series is your key to unlocking the greatest resource available to all educators: other educators.

Connected Leadership: It’s Just a Click Away, by Spike Cook: In the 21st-century, it’s critical that principals create a transparent school for all stakeholders. Principal Cook shows school leaders how to author blogs, PLNs and more, in order to open up a digital window to your school for parents and community.

All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities, by Brad Currie: The connected educator doesn’t just connect with students and colleagues. She connects with parents and community, using 21st-century tools. Currie shows readers how this is done.

Empowered Schools, Empowered Students: Creating Connected and Invested Learners, by Pernille Ripp: Connecting also means empowering. Ripp shares a variety of methods for teachers and school leaders to empower colleagues and students to help each other build a strong learning community.

The Power of Branding: Telling Your School’s Story, by Tony Sinanis and Joseph Sanfelippo: Connected educators must teach students about digital citizenship, and what better way to teach this lesson, according to administrators Sinanis and Sanfelippo, than by showing students how to brand their own schools?

These eight books are the first in Corwin’s ongoing Connected Educators Series. Several more are currently in production and scheduled for publication in early 2015.

For updates, author biographies and other valuable information, visit the Corwin Connected Educators Series website here.

You can order Any books in the Connected Educators Series here. Let us know what you think and what you’d like to see next.

source: mastersprogramnews.blogspot.com

In August I have been able to attend a few conferences. During these sessions, I have witnessed so many awesome teachers (and admins) presenting about things they are doing in their class for their students.

Whether they are sharing apps, websites, or various techniques to increase learning opportunities for students, these teachers (and admins) are focused, united and dedicated! It is so refreshing.

Here are a few takeaways from today’s Teachmeet, coordinated by Kyle Calderwood and his wife, Liz Calderwood:

• The world of Augmented Reality is changing, and improving – I recommend to connect with Drew Minock
• Alicia Mackall did fantastic job of supplying technology applications connected to the Common Core
• Did you Geddit? Robynn Hecht showed a new tool to collect data and check for understanding in the class
• Will King presented 20 tools in 20 minutes, and each tool could be easily implemented in the classroom tomorrow!
• The overall format of Teachmeet lent itself to fast paced learning, in 20 minute segments designed for the learner.

Teachmeet was an overall excellent experience and one I would highly recommend!

source: urbananomie.com

Ever play Whack a Mole? Invented in 1976, Whack a Mole is a machine with 5 to 7 holes, and played with a rubber mallet. Once the game begins, moles pop up out of the holes and it is your job to whack them as quickly as they appear. As you progress the moles pop up faster and faster. Since its original adoption, the game has been changed and modified over the years…. But the concept has always been the same: Whack the mole! 

As leaders, you can sometimes feel like you are literally playing Whack a Mole. Problems arise, you solve them, and then another pops up, and another and another. It is easy to get stuck in this mindset. Yet, it is not effective. How do you avoid playing Whack a Mole leadership?

Here are three suggestions:

1. If you carry a mallet, you will see everything as a mole…. Perhaps these “moles” that pop up are opportunities, not problems.
2. When someone gives you a mole (problem), as Todd Whittaker would say, “Don’t make the mole your problem!” Todd wrote about this concept extensively in Shifting the Monkey, and What Great Principals Do Differently.
3. Not all moles are your problem! It is extremely important to empower staff to make decisions and solve problems.

The next time you are playing Whack a Mole (not at the boardwalk or arcade, or iPad) be sure to remain process-centered, and think twice before whacking….

Yesterday the Principalpln got together for our first podcast of the second season. Other than some technical difficulties, we were able to do what we enjoy most… learn from each other, laugh, and share our stories.

This season we are going to try a few new things. Our shows will be pre-recorded and distributed each week. We will be focusing on the specific needs of the school leader, and the aspiring school leader. Want more information? Check out our new blog.

Enjoy our first episode of season 2