Monday, April 16, 2007

A helpful read

Not to pat anyone on the back, but an article by Dr. Morehead and myself has recently been published, and it deals directly with the topic of conversation for Friday's meeting. The article can be found at http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20499.

You might like to read this before Friday's meeting, and help the discussion along.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Wondering how the lesson design is going?

In the ending minutes of the last mtg. here are my notes as to what lesson/units Tech Focus Group members will be working on for their inquiry learning.

Sharon - Weather
Judy - Intro to the the Middle School
Stacey - U.S. Constitution
John - An inquiry based model
Angela - The Art Show
Keith - American Revolution
Joe - Why travel to the moon, or should we have zoos?

Wondering if anyone needed help or needed some resources?

Interesting reading

In reading my listserv from ASCD Smartbrief ran across a couple of interesting articles. You may have to log into the newspapers that these came from - to read the entire article - but it is just a simple registration.

A New Kind of Literacy Today's students face a different world and will need a different kind of literacy and skill set. An ASCD blog post highlights of an annual conference session which explained that literacy encompasses document, technological and quantitative skills, and that when these skills are taught within real-world, meaningful contexts, students become motivated and invested in their learning. Read more.

Teachers turn to Web to connect with studentsEducators are beginning to incorporate the Internet into their lesson plans, as a growing number are finding the Web an indispensable means of connecting with the younger generation. Google recently launched "Google Teacher Academy", a free one-day program for educators who want to gain experience with Google's technology. The Sacramento Bee (Calif.) (free registration)

California school to offer podcasting classAtascadero High School near San Luis Obispo will next fall teach students to produce audio and video podcasts and publish them for the world to download. "We used to offer basic classes in keyboarding and that sort of thing," said computer science teacher Gary Bissell. "We don't offer those anymore because the basics aren't necessary. They've been using computers all their lives." The Tribune (San Luis Obispo, Calif.) (4/1)