Back to work?

I survived the 5 days of classes and sessions that revolved around the WVSTC last week.  I think my wife was a bit concerned about my abiltiy to function on a few of those days.  Now, however, I'm back to work at SHS this week and am finding that we still have lots to do. 

I got the chance to spend this morning and afternoon with about 10 AWESOME teachers who are excited about learning.  I so look forward to that enthusiasm rubbing off on their students.  MS Word was not so much of a challenge for them once they realized that I'd get them where they wanted to go.  And, the airliners/slates were more of a problem for me than it was for them.  Once they all got connected, they went to town playing around with them and figuring out how to use them or what they could do with them.

One unexpected event today was when I got to introduce Google Docs.  Since I was showing how to use Word as a collaborative and a teaching tool (not just a productivity tool) and we finished a bit early, I helped the teachers set up Gmail accounts and we played around in the Google Docs.  I think I had at least one that was figuring out how to use the site in his classroom!  What an accomplishment. 

And, in case the "mayor" reads this - Thank you for the kind words!!

TIS pre-WVSTC work day

Spent today at a "TIS" conference in Charleston. This is the prelude to the real WVSTC that begins in the morning. It was an exciting day. I just want to share some of the information that I learned today (some of it was re-learned.. LOL).

Digital camera workshop and how to 'frame' the picture - You're not supposed to center the picture in the middle of the viewfinder. Instead, you should look at what you see and place the focus of your photo in on of the "thirds" areas. Imagine your viewfinder having a tic tac toe board on it. Those magical spots is where the lines would cross. Next, make sure you have some sort of line that an eye can follow in the back of the photograph. Both of these are basic to good photographs.

Thinkfinity - The website has been redesigned to be more user friendly. They've also added a Thinkfinity Community where you can have a Facebook-like interface to get to build your PLN (professional learning network).

ePortfolios - I learned more about my personal ePortfolio that is available through the WVLearns website. You can have one too.. You just have to log in and it's there. If you've never been there, visit this link and you can self-register: http://wvlearns.k12.wv.us/ . This is an awesome way to store important artifacts and work examples.

WVWrites - This is the new version of Writing Roadmap. It has a new user-friendlier interface and has been re-programmed to score student work based on the WV Writing Rubric instead of their standard rubric. I also learned that it has been tweaked to lower the scores of students who use too few sentences and don't meet the compound/complex sentence requirements. We also learned that students who are creative in their writing may not do so well in the scoring because they are not writing for the audience - the artificial intelligence that scores the document. These creative students need to be sure that they are meeting the requirements of the scoring rubric first and foremost.

SMARTBoards - Nice review of what I've been teaching this week. I did learn during this activity of the Acuity Unwired website that will directly interface with certain brands of student responders. I'm still looking into the Acuity site (I'd never heard of this part of Acuity) and whether or not they work with Qwizdom and SMART responders.

Podcasting - I've learned it before, tried it before, but until today, I wasn't really seeing how I can use it. I want to do more of a video podcast instead of just audio and plan on using Jing for that.

Looking forward to a great day tomorrow.