2014-2015 School Year... Welcome Back!

Now that most of you have gotten through the first night of sleeplessness (students aren't the only one's nervous for the first day of school) and are beginning to set a normal schedule, I would encourage you to look at some promises of a new school year.

Promise #1
Just as the world turns, school always begins again in the fall.  Hopefully you have had a restful summer and are reenergized to begin a new year with new students and fresh ideas.  While the days at the beach are coming to a close, bring that beach feeling into your room everyday and energize your students.

Promise #2
Your students are excited to see you. Yes, most students lament the end of summer but you have to remember that most of their developmental years are spent in the school environment and there is a level of comfort to that.  Strive to provide your students a welcoming environment where they feel free to explore, invent, and inspire each other.

Promise #3
You are only limited by your own creativity.  While there are many standards that are imposed on schools in order to ensure that students gain specific skills, you have the ability to direct the path that you take for how you get to those standards.  Seek out new ideas and strategies to make your path different this year.  As a wise administrator recently stated as the goal for his staff, "Innovate Wildly!" Your students will thank you for not resting on your laurels, and while it may take more energy from you, the results will far exceed the effort.

I would like to leave you with one of the most invaluable videos that I have stumbled upon. I try to watch this at the beginning of every school year to reinvigorate my creative spirit! Have an amazing school year!

Greetings fellow content gatherers!

In today's technology world it is amazing how much content a single person can curate.  Curation seems to have become the new form for expressing feelings and/or knowledge.  Given new tools that exist (i.e. Educlipper) it's become a challenge of who can gather the best resources and compile them in a one stop shop for people to consume.

For those of you who haven't explored the realm of self-curating, I encourage you to check out a couple of tools that I have found useful.  The first tool would be paper.li. This tool allows you to select the content that you want collected for you, and then auto-generates a virtual paper that compiles what it deems to be the best content from the sources you have selected.  If you wanted to start a curated publication, this one is by far the easiest as the site takes care of the daily curating and will even publish it for you to your favorite social media sites.  (If you are interested in mine, the address is http://paper.li/bcgeek)

Another tool to check out for curating is Scoop.it.  Scoop.it allows you to name sources, have them searched daily, and then you self select the articles that you deem relevant to your Scoop pages.  Curating can be a daunting task if you are trying to find all of the information on your own so adding Scoop.it to your arsenal will make your life easier.  Scoop.it also features a mobile app that you can use to curate on the fly. (My Scoop.it pages can be found at: http://www.scoop.it/u/john-phillips)

Go forth and curate friends! Share your links to your curated creations in the comments so I can learn more from you.

Digital Citizenship Favorites: Stop that Post

Having taught digital citizenship to students for about 3 years now, I find that the resources that I use are usually centered around a few high quality websites.  One of those websites that I have found myself using frequently is NSTeens.org.  The creators of this site have done a great job producing content that is relevant to the needs of students, and have taken the step to gamify their content to convey their message.

Two of the games that my students enjoy greatly is "Stop That Post", and the sequel "Stop That Post...Again."  These games focus on a character trying to stop family members from making embarrassing posts on the internet that they will regret later.  The situations that the games present are humorous and reality at the same time.  When I check in with my students, they are quick to tell me the lessons that they are learning from these games, and how addicting they are.

If you need a different way to approach the idea of a Digital Footprint, these two games are worth a try!

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Awesome Handouts from MACUL 2013

I have to take a moment and share how awesome Mary did on her handouts for the SigEE pre-conference sessions!  They have gone viral on the net, and are far exceeding her expectations for sharing.  Her thoughful presentation of iPads and Aurasma deserve every bit of publication that they are getting. So as not to deprive you all of the amazing content, here they are:

iPad Primer Session

iPad Primer 2013


And the Aurasma handout:

Aurasma Comic Tutorial by bcpickles

AMAZING WORK!

Start Your Engines! #MACUL13 Wrap Up

One conference. 

4000+ educators.

Endless possibilities!

It's amazing to me that one event every year serves as a major boost to the teaching fuel tank of all who attend. The MACUL 2013 conference was highlighted by ideas that we should all be better about telling our own story, connecting with students, and moving past the assessment-based field that we are currently running in.  In other words, get back to teaching the way we know works and don't mind if someone calls your crazy!

Kevin Honeycutt always has an inspirational message to share.  His message of finding a connection to each student is one that we as educators can't hear enough times.  Every time I see him, I have the first three notes of "Smoke on the Water" come into my head.  Thanks to his YouTube video, I can now play the opening frame of that song on GarageBand as well as others. Here it is so you can learn as well:

The other speaker that really struck a chord with me (pun intended) was Steve Dembo.  His message this year was to use the power of social networking to tell your own story, and to not be afraid of being called crazy.  He reminded us that there is a fine line between crazy and innovator and it is our job to push the boundaries to help our students learn! As a conference, we caught onto the latest craze on the net.  With over 13.3 million copycats created, the Harlem Shake has revolutionized the social media world since February.  Steve thought that we ought to jump on the band wagon and the result is below:

MACUL 2013 was amazing, and I can't wait to see the implications of the messages as the school year finishes.  

The Wonderful World of Animation

For the past couple of weeks, my students and I have been working on animation.  Today, I found an awesome tool to easily create an animated .GIF file.  It is on the website, abcya.com.  The tool is called Animation Fun, and is EXTREMELY simple to use.

Here is my example I created today in 3 mins.:

While it isn't the prettiest thing in the world, it allowed me to show 1st graders the process of drawing animations.

Have a great Monday!

A Little Holiday Spirit

December is upon us already!

In the spirit of the season, I thought I would share a couple of resources for fun stuff to keep the fun alive this month.  (Office parties, and school parties can get stressful!)

Message from Santa

Our first offering comes from the folks at Portable North Pole.  They have set up a service that will allow you to send a video message from Santa to anyone that you know.  The message is customized to the person by answering a few questions.  Santa will then incorporate your answers into the message, and surprise the recipient.  And yes, for those who are curious, you can send both naughty and nice messages from Santa.

Create a Snow-Flake


This is a classic for this season!  The website is called Make-A-Flake.  In Make-A-Flake, students can use virtual scissors to cut up a piece of paper into a snow flake.  They are able to cut, check, and then cut some more.  The kids get a HUGE kick out of this site!  Snowflakes are then printable, or you can email them to someone.

What better way to do this activity without all of the mess?!?

To conclude, I found a funny clip that fits the season perfectly!
















Have a happy holiday season!