After meeting today with our Superintendent, Dr. Jim McCormick, concerning our desire to become a successful School of Technology, I came back to my room only to notice several interesting headlines, both on line and on paper. Someone (thank you!) had tucked today’s issue of The News and Observer into my mailbox earlier. The headline? “After landing PC maker Lenovo, N.C. chases more China deals“. And below the crease? “NCSU pulls plug on pay-per-lecture” The world is filled with new challenges and new decisions concerning technology use and understanding! So how do the kids feel about it? As I caught up on some of my favorite blogs, I read a recent post by David Warlick (2 cents worth) concerning a study addressing just that! We know what teachers desire (tools and support to integrate technology successfully!), we know what politicians want (test scores that prove technology works!), and we know what the corporate world wants (tech savvy employees who can make crucial, data-driven decisions quickly!). But what about the kids? What is their interest in technology? The crucial ingredient, find out here!

Thanks to our gracious PTO, unitedstreaming, a wonderful tool for integrating video into your lessons, will be available to our staff for the coming year! As we think about using this service Al Doyle’s tips in his recent “No Fuss Video” article in techLearning provide some food for thought!

“1. Always preview the video prior to using in class. Download the video segments prior to screening if possible to obviate any possible bandwidth issues.
2. Allow students to ask questions during whole-class screenings; pause the video at any point to highlight certain aspects and check for comprehension.
3. Provide vocabulary lists, worksheets, and previewing and post-viewing activities (Discovery Education’s unitedstreaming provides blackline masters specifically for this purpose).
4. Keep in mind that a projector or interactive whiteboard can add value to VOD. Project directly on a chalkboard or a whiteboard. Pause the video and let students pick out salient details, label parts, or trace vectors of moving objects.”

Happy Streaming!

One of my favorite blogs to read when I want the big picture of how education is changing is David Warlick’s 2 Cents Worth blog. Although first blogged by Wesley Fryer (another of my must read blogs!), David reiterates 4 important school needs if we are to be moving to meet the requirements of our 21st century learners! Here they are:

• Administrative leaders who have instructional vision for teaching and learning that includes INTERACTIVITY and STUDENT CREATION OF AUTHENTIC KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTS.
• Administrators and teachers who insist on not only differentiating learning opportunities for students, but also differentiating the assessment methods they use to measure student learning.
• An understanding by all educational stakeholders that learning is messy. The standardized tests can’t and won’t come close to revealing the complete picture of whether or not authentic engagement is happening in the classroom on a regular basis– and therefore learning experiences that are NOT FAKED are common, rather than rare.
• A “just in time” professional development program that supports continuing learning by teachers in the classroom. “One shot” professional development has a place, but the most significant gains in teacher proficiency with digital tools for teaching and learning come from their peers and from instructional support provided at the time and point of need. This means schools paying CERTIFIED teachers (not just technicans) to be available to hold hands and work with teachers as they take instructional risks– trying new digital teaching and learning strategies with students.

I think Deep River is floating in the right direction!

After sitting in on a training session at Tramway Elementary to watch the students first log in and learn about their Gaggle accounts, I can’t wait to take off with it at DR! Gaggle will not only allow the kids to have safe email accounts, they’ll have virtual lockers to save work into as they complete it between home and school! Even better, they will be able to blog! If you are not already a blogger, I encourage you to at least begin reading a few that are out there! You can Google educational blogs, or in a coming post I’ll link some of my favorites! In many blogs that I subscribe to, the recent buzz is about a virtual conference, the first of its kind that will take place this fall! The K12 Online Conference will take place in October! Bud the Teacher, one of the keynote speakers puts it this way:

“Announcing the first annual “K12 Online 2006″ convention for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year’s conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, Oct. 23-27 and Oct. 30- Nov. 3 with the theme “Unleashing the Potential.” There will be four “conference strands”– two each week. Two presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday – Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the course of the two-weeks. Each presentation will be given in podcast or screencast format and released via the conference blog (URL: TBA) and archived for posterity.”

I hope many of us will take advantage of checking it out! Especially since our funding for other conferences may be difficult to find this year. More to come…