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#EdTech: Teacher Tested, Teacher Approved from Graphite

8/31/2014

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Question: What’s the biggest buzz in education?  
Answer: Anything that has to do with technology.  

     I am someone who grew up with computers.  I was one of 
those students who used the internet as a source in high 
school and my teacher had no idea how I should cite it in 
my paper (because it was new).  My Master’s is in 
Curriculum Development and Instructional Technology and I 
have NEVER written my lesson plans or student grades on 
paper planbooks or gradebooks.  Technology has been a given for my teaching for my entire career.
     This is not the case for some of the teachers that I work with.  I know of teachers who struggle with our electronic grading system and are mystified by smart phones.  Using Google Drive is not a time saver for them, it’s a chore.  They do not use technology in their teaching because they aren’t intelligent enough or because they don’t care enough about their students.  The reasons these teachers don’t use technology because it is unfamiliar to them and they don’t know where to begin to find something that will be useful for both them and their students.  
     Enter Graphite.  As I mentioned in my August 28th post, I am in the Graphite Accelerator Program.  The specific program I am in is sponsored by NYSCATE which is the New York State affiliate of ISTE.  
     So what is Graphite?  According to their website: “Graphite™ is a free service from nonprofit Common Sense Education designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers.”

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     What a great service?!? Graphite (a subsidiary of Common Sense Media  and Common Sense Education) employs “professional educators” to review a variety of technology products ranging from websites, apps, and programs.  These educators rate each product in the categories of engagement, pedagogy, and supports.  They discuss the pros and cons as well as how the product works or functions.  The products are categorized and searchable based on content area and skill set such as thinking and reasoning or creativity.  There’s even a “Common Core Explorer” search function.  Then, teachers---like you and me---can also review these products by writing Field Notes.  
     This means that teachers like me who are comfortable with technology can share our knowledge of what works and what doesn’t.  We can also learn about new resources and save some time with new products based on the experiences of other teachers.  Teachers who fall into the category of “don’t know where to start” can actually find a place to start!  Beyond reviews and field notes there are App Flows which are written by teachers as actual lesson plans using educational technology.
     After I finish the Graphite Accelerator Program I am planning on becoming a Graphite Certified Educator.  You can do this too!  As more teachers review products on Graphite, the richer a resource it will become.  You will be helping educators around the world to introduce technology into their instruction that will be meaningful for their students.  Talk about 21st Century Skills!
     I hope that you will check out my Graphite profile and see what I’ve been working on and I hope that you will also consider contributing to Graphite with Field Notes about your own educational technology experiences.  I hope that Graphite will also be a means for you to try some new things in your classroom and to expand your own instructional horizons.  

*One last thought for my New York State friends: participating in a project like Graphite is great for your APPR.  Our district uses the Danielson rubric and contributing and using Graphite could certainly fall under several domains, particularly Domain 4: Professional Development.  Why not get credit for sharing your knowledge?

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Road Trip - USA

8/29/2014

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     I personally believe that to be a social studies teacher, you should try to visit the places you teach about.  I have a thing about visiting presidential libraries and birthplaces.  I like to see how people live in different places, where they go and what they do.  I think that it helps me to paint my students a better picture of the places that I teach about.
     This has been a bit of a struggle for me to implement because up until a few years ago I had a horrible phobia of planes!  It tends to limit your travel potential if you can only drive places!  Now that I can handle flying (with the help of knitting and watching movies in-route) my travel possibilities have really opened up!
     In July, I took a trip that was several years in the making----The American West!  For me, this trip was more of a study in geography than in history but I managed to get some in! The itinerary:
  • Meet up with sisters-in-law in Las Vegas (I’ll admit, this was not the most historical or culturally enriching portion of the trip but we did go to the Beatles Cirque du Soleil which was pretty awesome!)

  • Rent an enormous SUV to carry the 5 of us on our trip.
  • Drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon via Zion National Park.
  • Tour the Grand Canyon.  Here’s the deal- there is a reason why visiting the Grand Canyon is on so many people’s bucket lists---it is amazing.  No photographs or descriptions can convey its enormity and immense beauty.  We chose the North Rim because it is more remote and thus not as congested as the South Rim.  
  • Drive to Yellowstone National Park.
  • Yellowstone is another place that is indescribable.  It is a place that can overwhelm all of your senses (the sulfur is crazy!) and its beauty is undeniable.  The wildlife is amazing, the geothermal features are awe inspiring, and the scenery made me wish I was a painter.

  • Drive to Mount Rushmore via Devil’s Tower and the Black Hills.
  • See Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial.  If you don’t know about the Crazy Horse Memorial, read more about it here and read about sculptors of both monuments here (by the way the two sculptor's stories are fascinating glimpses into America's past).  When it is finished it will be quite a lot larger than Mount Rushmore.  It was interesting to me how much both monuments were constructed as more than just a labor of love, but as a testament to the people who contributed to the story of our nation.
  • Drive back via Colorado through the Rockies.  Can you believe that I didn’t take any pictures?
  • Spend a few more days in Las Vegas before returning home.  While there we toured the Hoover Dam and I learned quite a bit about how irrigation changed the course of history for the South West.

     As I said in my last post, next summer my husband and I are going to Europe!  It will be my first time visiting the continent.  Actually, it will be my first time leaving North America.  Just the thought of what I will get to see and experience gets me so excited that I can hardly breathe!  Seeing how other people live lets us see our similarities as global citizens and appreciate our differences.  I hope that you are able to travel and share with your students the wonders of the world, or even the wonders from places that are closer to home.  For my students, many of whom travel less than 10 miles away from home during their youths, these glimpses into a larger world make the world seem more real and more worthy of their study.


PS- Travel Stats
I posted these stats to my friends on Facebook.  A teacher friend said it gave him the idea to assign his students to write a story in list form!  Enjoy!
Travel Stats:
-Flights from Newark to Las Vegas and back
-78 hours in the car (we named it Pegasus) 
-3,551 miles driven
-190.4 gallons of gas used
-18.9 miles/gallon (Pegasus was a Yukon XL)
-16 days total traveling
-Too many bathroom breaks to count!

States Traveled to:
-Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado
 
License Plates Seen: 
-Over 40 US States and 5ish Canadian Provinces 

Natural Wonders Viewed:
-Grand Canyon- North Rim
-Great Salt Lake
-Zion National Park
-Yellowstone National Park: Old Faithful, geothermal features, mud volcanoes --- they all smell pretty bad
-Devil’s Tower
-Custer State Park
-South Dakota’s Black Hills
-Rocky Mountains

Wildlife Seen:
-Bison (they’re not buffalo!) and baby bison
-A baby bear (I missed it during the bronchitis- see below)
-Longhorn cattle
-Mule deer
-A Prairie Dog Town (that’s what they’re called, everyone knows that)
-Wild burros 

Man-Made Wonders Viewed:
-Las Vegas
-Crazy Horse Memorial
-Mount Rushmore
-Hoover Dam
-Pinball Hall of Fame (I was a pinball wizard!)

Casinos Visited:
-Venetian, Cesar’s Palace, Mirage 
-Ben: ended up about $50
-Dawn: ended down about $50

I got bronchitis on the trip!
-Meds taken before and after diagnosis: DayQuil, NyQuil, Sudafed, 2 types of Mucinex, 2 types of nasal spray, antibiotics 
-A million tissues!
-A ton of coughing!
-Some extra nasty phlegm! 

Miscellaneous:
-I learned all about Buffalo Bill, carving into mountains, the difference between buffalo and bison, and irrigation in the South West
-I saw Cirque du Soleil!!!!
-14 postcards sent by Ben and I 
-2 bags of checked luggage each weighing 50 pounds (we over packed)
-There were several sibling squabbles, the spouses didn’t squabble because we rock!
-A ton of snacks were consumed
-$15 sundaes were consumed! 
-Several souvenirs were purchased
-Las Vegas feels like someone left the oven open.  Dry heat, my foot!
-There are places with no cell service.  I’m talking to you Wyoming!  I survived this quite easily.
-About 1,300 pictures were taken (that’s just Ben and I)
-Arizona (occasionally pronounced Ara-zIna on the trip) is the time warp state.
-Zoe was VERY happy to see us when we got home!
-We had a wonderful time and are already thinking about where we can go on our next road trip!!!!
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Welcome Back!

8/26/2014

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I guess this is a welcome back in two ways:
  1. School (for me) starts one week from today.
  2. Um, I haven’t posted anything since March!!!

     First, I’ll talk a little bit about why I have been MIA.  As I start my fifteenth (!!!!) year teaching I’m only just getting it into my head that life cannot be only about school.  I have basically always given over my existence to education---obviously in the teacher sense, but outside of the classroom as well.  This year (2014-2015) will be my first year not advising anything, not coaching anything, and not being an officer in our local union.  Just me teaching or thinking about teaching or working on things related to teaching.  Ahhh!!!!  My hope is that this will help me to be a better teacher but also to be a better human and hopefully a happier teacher and human! 
     That’s not to say that I don’t already have plans for some extra things.  Currently, I am in a Graphite Accelerator Program which is sponsored by NYSCATE and Common Sense Media.  My plan is to then become a Graphite Certified Educator.  I’ll be talking more about this in a future post but in the mean time you can check out my profile here. 
     I’ve registered for Ed Tech Team Hudson Valley Summit, featuring Google for Education.  This is a two day conference in Warwick, NY on October 23-24.  You can see more about it here. This will help me with one of my goals to become a Google Certified Teacher.
     I’m also planning on going to the NCSS Annual Conference in Boston this November.  It will be my first time going to this conference and I’m extremely excited!
     Inside the classroom I’ll be working on refining my flipped Psychology classes and incorporating more primary source documents and activities into my US History classes.  I’m also teaching AIS again in the spring and my goal is to balance my expectations with the reality of the situation and to not beat myself up over things I do not have control over.
     My husband and I are planning our first ever trip to Europe next summer and I know that although there’s a lot to do, I’m going to love every minute just fanaticizing about the amazing things I’m going to see while I’m there. 
     So here’s to a productive, eventful, fun, and healthy school year!


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