Jamming Junk Email

Are you tired of getting junk email?  Would you like to block emails you don't want to get anymore?

Check out the following Screenjelly tutorial to learn how to set a filter on your email:

http://screenjel.ly/fkEuD9xd9TU

Data Storage.... Did you back-up?

Do you back-up?  Why, of course you do!

There are two kinds of people, according to the ancient geek philosophy: those who have lost data and those who will.  Losing my external hard-drive data was painful!  I thought I had safely tucked that data away.  What I failed to understand is that no back-up plan is 100% fail-safe. 

A hard-drive crash may happen without warning. Other times the disaster will announce itself with strange whining, humming, and other ominous sounds.

Back up your files.  Then if (or when) your drive does crash, you can buy a new one but move on with your data intact.  Just make sure to save your data in more than one “box”.

Where, you ask?  There are many, many options!

            External hard-drive

Thumb Drive

Recordable CD or DVD or

Send your data to a cloud location

About 2 months ago, Darin King’s blog showcased Dropbox.

Dropbox is software that syncs your files online and across your computers.  You can even download Dropbox apps for your smartphone or mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry). Everything in your Dropbox is available from the Dropbox website, too.  Wow!  Talk about access!  Check out:  The Ultimate Dropbox Toolkit & Guide

http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/data-management-roundups/the-ultimate-dropbox-toolkit-guide/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+webappstorm+%28Web+AppStorm%29

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

It is not enough for our students to spit out facts — Today's Learners, Tomorrow’s Leaders need to apply creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration skills to be successful in our global society.

What is Critical Thinking & Problem Solving?

Reason Effectively

• Use various types of reasoning as appropriate to the situation

Use Systems Thinking

• Analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems

Make Judgments and Decisions

• Effectively analyze and evaluate evidence, arguments, claims and beliefs
• Analyze and evaluate major alternative points of view
• Synthesize and make connections between information and arguments
• Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis
• Reflect critically on learning experiences and processes

Solve Problems

• Solve different kinds of non-familiar problems in both conventional and innovative ways
• Identify and ask significant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solutions

Why Let Our Students Blog?

Why Let Our Students Blog?

Why should students blog?

• Worldwide Audience – Students type and then share their writing with a global audience.  Taking word processing to a whole new level.
• Authentic Audience - Parents, other students, teachers, grandparents, relatives and people from all over the world.
• Engagement & Motivation – Authentic writing, providing a purpose, an audience, and real-time feedback.
• Real World Context for Teaching - Ethics, Netiquette & Digital Citizenship, Personal Protection & Internet Safety, Copyright and Academic Property, and Proper Use of Technology.
• Comments  - The ability to comment on writing provides instant feedback and is great motivation.
• Cooperation & Collaboration – Share ideas, problem solve, communicate ideas and think creatively.
• Writing Processes – Students need to develop effective writing, grammar, and spelling skills in order to communicate to their audience.  It becomes a skill they need NOW.

Are you ready to try blogging? 

 Contact your Curriculum Technology Partner today, and we can start to collaborate!   

Let’s take writing into the 21^st Century in your classroom – consider the possibilities!

Media Literacy in the 21st Century

As educators, we are starting to appreciate that we no longer live solely in a print-centered world.  We are surrounded by a culture filled with visual images and messages.  In the 21st century, "texts" and "literacy" are not limited to words on the page.  Text and literacy can apply to still and moving images, such as photographs, television, and film.  Today, in the 21st Century, being literate also means understanding wikis, blogs, nings, digital media, and other new and emerging technologies.
K–12 educators need to start realizing the benefits of teaching students with and about nonprint media, what is today recognized as an important part of "media literacy."

Media Literacy is the ability to access, analyze, valuate and create media in a variety of forms - from print to video to the Internet.  Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as we as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression needed for citizenship in a democracy.

How can you TEAM with your Curriculum Technology Partner to provide 21st Century literacy experiences.
Check out the following link to discover more about what it means to be literate in the 21st Century.

http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/literacy-21st-century-hope-and-promise

Stay tuned for future topics such as:  Searching images on Google and 21st Century Learners (Goal Setting, Inquiry, Critical Thinking) 

21st Century Schools

TEAMS?

What does that mean?  We hear about Professional Learning Communities, Response to Intervention, Differentiation, Formative Assessment, Flexible Grouping, Targeted Growth, the list goes on..... what is this all about?  

Bottom line, working together to help our student learn!

I am inviting you and your TEAM to consider planning with your Curriculum Technology Partner.  Let's consider ways we can enhance learning while strengthening 21st Century Skills.

In the 21st Century:

• The teacher's primary role will no longer be as a dispenser of information.  Teachers will be an orchestrator of learning and help students turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom.
• The 21st century will require students to generate knowledge, not just memorize information.
• Schools will need to create a “culture of inquiry”, where students ask and solve problems.
• Our learners are far more than a young person who is sent to school, spends a specified amount of time in certain courses, receives passing grades and graduates.  

To meet the needs of our learners:

• We must maintain student interest by helping them see how what they are learning prepares them for the real world.
• We must instill curiosity, which is essential to lifelong learning.
• We must be flexible in how we teach and group students.
• We must excite learners so that they will continue to learn outside the formal school day.

So I invite you to imagine a school in which the students – all of them – are so excited about learning that they can hardly wait to get here.  Imagine having fewer “discipline problems” because the students are so engaged in learning that those problems disappear.  Imagine having parents excited to tell you about the dramatic changes they are witnessing in their children.  Imagine students showing enthusiasm and desire to work on projects, research, and write after school and on weekends.  Imagine your students making more than targeted growth in their basic skills of reading, writing, speaking, listening, researching, scientific explorations, math, multimedia skills and more!

It is possible.  It has happened, and is happening, in schools across the country.  It can happen here too.

I invite you...... to consider the possibilities.