I just read this post from Richard Byrne http://bit.ly/MKizhz about a free ebook titled Publishing with iBooks Author. I've not had a chance to read it yet, but it looks helpful. Follow his link to the oreilly.com website and set up an account. After I created my account, I received a confirmation email. I opened that email on my iPad because I wanted to download the ePub version on my iPad in iBooks. The process was really slick, and within a matter of minutes the book was on my iBooks shelf, open, and ready for me to read. I'm looking forward to checking out this tool!
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Summer Writing
My goal for the summer is to write a book. Actually, this has been my goal for several years and I've been journeying toward its realization.
Author Kate Messner is hosting a summer writing camp for teachers, Teachers Write! I signed up thinking this will be a great way to focus on writing every day. She has many authors and educators slated to offer encouragement and inspiration along the way. Joanne Levy created a list on Twitter so that participants can connect with fellow Tweeters.
I'm so looking forward to this summer of writing. Check out Teachers Write! at Kate Messner's blog: http://www.katemessner.com/blog/
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Twitter is an amazing and important avenue for professional learning. There. I said it.
I'm going to be honest. Five years ago, if someone had told me I would type the words 'twitter' and 'professional' in the same sentence, I would have scoffed. Couldn't see it happening. Even after Dr. Goodson told me I "should be on Twitter". Even after attending a great session about Twitter, tweeting, and professional development at MACE 2009. I didn't get it; and I didn't want to.
But then one day, a little over a year ago, I started 'following' people. People whom I respected for their insights into kids, education, literacy, and technology. People whom I appreciated for their honesty and their humor. And then I 'followed' some of the people that they 'followed'. Suddenly, with a click or a swipe, I had the knowledge and insights of more than 100 professionals on my computer, iPad, or iPod screen.
One of the things I appreciate most about Twitter is that it's ready availability. If I have a few minutes, I can swipe through my timeline and see what the thinkers are thinking today. I can retweet someone's thoughts or I can share some of my own. With a 140 character limit, there's no pressure to be verbose. I can participate in discussions and search for topics by using hashtags (#). I can look at the timeline of the folks that I'm following to see what they are thinking and talking about.
Some days, Twitter is my professional learning lifeline. This link has information about using Twitter in a K-8 classroom http://www.scribd.com/doc/63331406/Twitter-in-K-8-Classroom-Globally-Connected-Learning. Follow me on Twitter @sherbev and check out the timelines of some of the folks I'm following.
More on-purpose professional learning, just a click away.
Twitter is an amazing and important avenue for professional learning. There. I said it.
I'm going to be honest. Five years ago, if someone had told me I would type the words 'twitter' and 'professional' in the same sentence, I would have scoffed. Couldn't see it happening. Even after Dr. Goodson told me I "should be on Twitter". Even after attending a great session about Twitter, tweeting, and professional development at MACE 2009. I didn't get it; and I didn't want to.
But then one day, a little over a year ago, I started 'following' people. People whom I respected for their insights into kids, education, literacy, and technology. People whom I appreciated for their honesty and their humor. And then I 'followed' some of the people that they 'followed'. Suddenly, with a click or a swipe, I had the knowledge and insights of more than 100 professionals on my computer, iPad, or iPod screen.
One of the things I appreciate most about Twitter is that it's ready availability. If I have a few minutes, I can swipe through my timeline and see what the thinkers are thinking today. I can retweet someone's thoughts or I can share some of my own. With a 140 character limit, there's no pressure to be verbose. I can participate in discussions and search for topics by using hashtags (#). I can look at the timeline of the folks that I'm following to see what they are thinking and talking about.
Some days, Twitter is my professional learning lifeline. This link has information about using Twitter in a K-8 classroom http://www.scribd.com/doc/63331406/Twitter-in-K-8-Classroom-Globally-Connected-Learning. Follow me on Twitter @sherbev and check out the timelines of some of the folks I'm following.
More on-purpose professional learning, just a click away.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Follow These Folks!
When I first started reading blogs created by friendly folks willing to share their discoveries with me, I would bookmark their sites in my browser. (Actually, they willingly shared them with the world, but so very often their posts seemed to be written directly for me!) But then when one of these educators would reference a post from someone else and I would bookmark their site. Soon my list of bookmarks became unmanageable.
Sometime back, my major professor had shown me how to set up an RSS feed in Google Reader. I didn't mess with it much, but once my list of professional bookmarks became as cluttered as my desk, I realized this was the best solution to managing all the blogs that I wanted to "follow". The following video tutorial from Google is helpful in getting started:
Here are links to some of the folks I follow, in alphabetical order, in my On Purpose Professional Learning folder in my Google Reader:
21st Century Collaborative (Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach): http://www.21stcenturycollaborative.com/blog/
An iPad Idea a Day (Joe Dale): http://ipad366.posterous.com/
bit by bit (Bob Sprankle): http://bobsprankle.com/bitbybit_wordpress/
Bud the Teacher (Bud Hunt): http://budtheteacher.com/blog/
Cool Cat Teacher Blog (Vicki Davis): http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/
Digital Writing, Digital Teaching (Troy Hicks): http://hickstro.org/
edgalaxy.com Cool Stuff for Nerdy Teachers (Kevin Cummins): http://www.edgalaxy.com/
Effective Teaching Articles (Lisa Frase): http://effectiveteachingarticles.blogspot.com/
Free Technology for Teachers (Richard Byrne): http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
Guys Lit Wire: http://guyslitwire.blogspot.com/
Kevin's Meandering Mind (Kevin Hodgson): http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/
Langwitches Blog (Silvia Tolisano): http://langwitches.org/blog/
Learning is Messy (Brian Crosby): http://learningismessy.com/blog/
Moving at the Speed of Creativity (Wes Fryer): http://www.speedofcreativity.org/
National Writing Project: http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3791
Social Networking for Schools (Edmodo Blog): http://blog.edmodo.com/
Teaching with Technology in the Middle (Steve Fulton): http://stevefulton.blogspot.com/
Technology Bits Bytes and Nibbles (Cyndi Danner-Kuhn): http://www.technologybitsbytesnibbles.info/
The Book Whisperer (Donalyn Miller): http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/
The Laura Robb Blog (Laura Robb): http://blogs.scholastic.com/laurarobb/
Tips, Tools, and Technology for Educators (Lauren Grossberg): http://blog.learningtoday.com/
Watch. Connect. Read. (Mr. Schu): http://mrschureads.blogspot.com/
Check out some of these sites for great ideas and inspiration. I'd love to hear suggestions from you about other folks to follow!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Snatching Moments
Whew! My Reading and Language Arts students have completed their state assessments. It is a challenge every year to blend rich, meaningful learning opportunities where students create and demonstrate with activites that prepare them for multiple choice assessments. Now that we've cleared that hurdle, we are back to sharing our writing on our blog, Jet Literacy, and recording brief podcasts on our Cinch channel.
During those hectic days of assessment, I was challenged to snatch moments for on purpose professional learning. And though I did manage to read a few posts and skim a tweets, I was dreadfully remiss in posting anything here!
When our principal asked me a few weeks ago to speak with our New Teacher Academy, I knew instantly that I wanted to share about professional development. It's not that I don't enjoy or appreciate the presenters that come to our district to conduct all-day inservices. I do. I have come away inspired and encouraged many times. But the professional development that has sustained me over the long haul (27 years) falls into the "snatched moments" category. When I first started teaching, most of those "snatched moments" happened in the workroom, hallways, or another teacher's classroom after school. We would talk about things we had read/skimmed/copied-to-read-later or trends that were emerging. I confess to having thin folders of articles that I read and highlighted and fat folders of articles I'd begun to read but never finished. Often the deciding factor was the recommendation of a colleague whether to read immediately or wait until later.
As the decades, or more accurately (and much to my astonishment) a quarter of a century have passed, I've found that my "snatched moments" still often originate with recommendations of my peers. But, my circle of peers has greatly broadened to include not only educators who teach in my building, but professionals who teach across the United States. Some I have met in person, some I have only become acquainted with through on-line environments. Their selfless sharing through tweets, blogs, and podcasts offers wide, rich, wonderful and free professional development. All there for the snatching.
In my next post, I will create an evolving list of these folks whose work allows me to grow personally and professionally.
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