Connecticut

With apologies for the late notice and geographical remoteness, the upcoming Discovery EdTechConnect Webinar with Gary Stager on Wednesday November 18, 2009 at 7:00PM has gotten a bit of a buzz in my school district. Most folks will be connecting from home but a few of us will be gathering to watch it together at one of my district school’s computer lab as a LAN party. As a special treat, just before the Discovery event  we will connect to another webinar, the 3rd LAN Party for the K12 Online Conference . This webinar is a teaser session for the K12 Online Conference which takes place the first two weeks in December (watch this space for more info!). We will check out the K12 Online Conference presentation from 6:30-7:00 PM and then gracefully exit to enjoy Gary Stager over on Discovery. And again, both of these events are free and can be enjoyed from the comfort of your home computer but, if you are in the greater Storrs, CT  area you are welcome to join us. You should still register as an individual for the Discovery webinar so you can jump on a lab computer and participate directly in the Webinar, and please drop me an email - Steve Sokoloski (steve.sokoloski@mansfieldct.org) so I know we will have enough juice and cookies on hand.  We are meeting at Dorothy C. Goodwin School, which is just off the UCONN campus in Storrs, CT, starting at 6:15 PM.

Dorothy C. Goodwin School
321 Hunting Lodge Road
Storrs, CT 06268
http://mansfieldct.org/schools/goodwin

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PBS Teachers and Classroom 2.0 , with support from Elluminate, are partnering on a series of free monthly webinars designed to help preK-12 educators learn new ways to integrate online instructional resources in the classroom and engage students in curriculum lessons. Join them on Tuesday, November 17th at 8pm Eastern to share information about a currently airing episode of Sid the Science Kid that helps children better understand the science behind germs, viruses and vaccines, and learn good prevention techniques such as as sneezing into an elbow, effective hand washing, and disinfecting common household surfaces to prevent germs from spreading. During the webinar, health and early childhood education experts will share ideas on how educators can help kids better understand viruses and vaccinations and support healthy habits in school. More information and the recordings HERE.

A very cool thing happens on Twitter on Tuesdays. It is called #edchat which is an outgrowth of #teachertuesdays. The syntax of #edchat and #teachertuesdays is called a hashtag in Twitter. Hashtags are used to mark or label a tweet so that a conversation on a particular topic can be followed. In this case #teachertuesday is a tag that is used on Tuesday Twitter posts when you want to recommend other educators to follow. Because Tuesdays were the day when educators were likely to be scanning Twitter for educational postings, a convention developed to start particular conversations about educational topics with the hashtag #edchat. In particular from at 7PM and at 12PM  in the eastern time zone on Tuesdays, a topic  generated from a poll earlier in the day is introduced with #edchat and great Twitter conversations ensue.  You can find out more about about the concept in Shelly Terrell’s  (ShellTerrell on Twitter) post in the Teacher Reboot Camp Blog - #Edchat Join the Conversation.

This past Tuesday the conversation was about Administrators and Technology. Steven W. Anderson (web20classroom on Twitter) in his blog post today - “How Should Administrators Measure Effective Technology Use?” sums up the #edchat conversation and adds his own thoughts. It was a good read!

Steve Sokoloski (stevesoko on Twitter)

Do you subscribe to Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day? Or follow his generous tweets @Larryferlazzo on Twitter? I have found that Larry is a steady stream of interesting educational links.  Larry is starting to post his annual end of the year round up starting with this recent post - The “Best Articles (and Blog Posts) About Education Policy - 2009. This award winning blogster is definitely worth adding to your feed reader and worth a follow on Twitter. Check him out!

Steve Sokoloski
(follow me on Twitter - stevesoko)

It seems that every time we turn around there are new acronyms that have joined the education jargon.  Maybe I’m wrong, but Connecticut seems to have more than its share.  Here are a few that are popular these days.  They’re arranged in alphabetical order, not by the order of the number of times you’ll hear them on any given day:

• DDDM - Though many educators think of this as a “four letter word”, it actually stands for Data Driven Decision Making, the process that is being used by all priority districts and many other districts in Connecticut. 
• DRG - District Reference Groups are the categories used in Connecticut to compare districts with each other.  As in real life, if you’re in DRG A, you’re at the top of the heap.  This acronym used to be ERG which stood for Education Reference Group but it was changed a couple of years ago.  If you work in a poor district, you know that the E in ERG was usually interpreted as low Economic status (see FRL and SES below).   Since NCLB (see below), Connecticut is using much more than just economic status to group districts for comparison in Connecticut.  
• ESEA - This stands for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and it grew out of the Civil Rights legislation of the early to mid 1960’s.  This was landmark legislation which has led to many reforms in the field of education over the last 50 years.
• FRL - This stands for Free and Reduced Lunch and it’s a new one to me.  I saw it in a PowerPoint about a week ago; it was used to identify students of lower socio-economic status.  I guess it’s a more politically correct term than poor.
• NCLB - This is not a new acronym if you’ve been involved in the field of education for the last decade or so.  It stands for No Child Left Behind and it’s the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that took place in 2001.  It’s title and original intent were good - I don’t know any educator who wants to leave any child behind.  However, NCLB has been viewed as very punitive legislation by many educators and has caused a great deal of angst for students, educators and parents alike.
• SES - This stands for Socio-Economic Status;  See FRL above.

That’s your vocabulary lesson for this week.  If you’d like to read more of Jane Cook’s blogging, check out her personal/professional blog at: http://teachinginthe21stcentury.edublogs.org/

Sunday’s Hartford Courant had a timely story about the Veterans History Project at Central Connecticut State University. The article highlighted how the project provided one man with information that lead to a meeting with his late father’s shipmate. Check out the full article. The Veteran’s History Project has videos of interviews with veterans and other resources that you might wish to share with students.

Perhaps this article struck me since just last week the Railway Museum in Willimantic was vandalized. Seeing the swastika on the engine was very painful especially since many of the museum’s volunteers lived during World War II.

For more, see my DEN blog post.

Joe Fromme- Chair

Joe currently serves as an education technology specialist for the Capitol Region Education Council (CREC) in Hartford, CT.  CREC is one of six regional education service centers in the state, which serves thirty-five public school districts in and around Hartford.  Joe works extensively with school teachers and administrators, assisting them in the integration of technology tools into all aspects of education.  Joe’s passion is helping teachers learn how to use technology to increase student achievement.  Joe has been a DEN Star Educator since 2006.  He has conducted numerous workshops on the benefits of using Discovery Streaming and Discovery Education Science to enhance classroom instruction.  He recently attended the Discovery Education Network National Science Institute, where he learned new strategies for using DE Science and had the opportunity to collaborate with other educators from around the country.

Jane Cook- Blog Coordinator

Jane Cook is a Staff Development/Literacy and Educational Technology Specialist at EASTCONN, a Regional Educational Service Center in Willimantic, Connecticut.  EASTCONN is one of the six Regional Educational Service Centers in the state and serves the 36 school districts in northeastern Connecticut, “The Quiet Corner”.  Jane has over 30 years of experience working in the field of education.  She specializes in working with teachers and students in grades K through 12 integrating technology across the curriculum and developing literacy skills and strategies.   Jane also works as the Technology Program Leader at the Connecticut Writing Project at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.  She maintains their Web site at http://www.cwp.uconn.edu/ and presents workshops and seminars that to help educators integrate technology and literacy to support teaching and learning.  Jane maintains a personal blog at http://teachinginthe21stcentury.edublogs.org/. 

Pam Skelly- Events Coordinator

Pamela Skelly has been a teacher for 31 years, working with grades preK-12 teachers and students. During the last 14 years, Pam has worked as a Technology Education and Curriculum Development Specialist at EASTCONN, a Regional Education Service Center in northeastern Connecticut. As a STAR educator, she has been presenting Discovery Education Streaming and Discovery Education Science throughout the region during the last year. Pam appreciates that her job involves a variety of content areas and grade levels.

Ann Barney- Blog Team

Barbara Haeffner- Blog Team

Barbara Haeffner has been in the field of education for the past 20 years. Her experiences in the classroom have provided a foundation to her current position as an Educational Technology Specialist. Barbara has provided districts throughout the state professional development in all areas of educational technology. She has coordinated numerous interdistrict grants which have provided students and teachers from various districts the opportunity to become virtual partners and work collaboratively to develop an authentic task that extends their classroom curriculum. Barbara’s efforts have enabled students to work towards developing proficiency and confidence to meet the demands of the 21st century. Barbara has been privileged to share her work with other educators at state and national technology conferences. Her educational experiences have included advance graduate studies in the fields of elementary education, educational technology and educational leadership. Recently she has completed the SMART Master’s Training program and is a STAR Discovery Educator.

Lynn Reedy- Blog Team

Lynn Reedy has over 15 years of experience in education. She began her educational career as a language arts and math teacher. During the past five years, she has been working as an Educational Technology Specialist assisting various schools both in Connecticut and Mississippi with technology integration in all subject areas. While in Mississippi, Lynn received over $65,000 worth of technology equipment through various grants she was awarded. Two of the schools Lynn worked with have become SMART Technologies Showcase Schools, recognized for the innovative usage of SMARTboards in the classroom. In 2006, Lynn was awarded the Mississippi Technology Educator of the Year from the Mississippi Technology Educators Association. In April of 2009, Lynn was the featured educator for Mimio.  Lynn is a SMART Exemplary Educator, a Mimio Master Trainer, a Mimio Certified Trainer, and a Discovery Star Educator.  Lynn currently works in Connecticut as an Educational Technology Specialist for Stafford Public Schools and a consultant for the EASTCONN Regional Educational Service Center. Lynn maintains an educational website at  http://www.lynnreedy.com

Howard Gunther- Event Team

Howard Gunther has been an educator for over 34 years. His fascination with using emerging technologies in the classroom led to him to his current position as an Educational Technology Specialist at ACES. His position focused on technology planning, staff development and working with teachers and students to promote the integration of technology into the K-12 curriculum. He holds a Bachelor in Elementary Education from Mt. Senario College and degree in History from Wesleyan University
Steve Sokoloski – Blog Team

Upcoming Webinars for the month of November:
Becoming a Storm Ready School Webinar
Monday, November 16 at 4 PM ET

Learn how your school or district can easily become certified as StormReady. Guest speaker Angelia Enyedi from NOAA’s National Weather Service will walk educators and district administrators through the simple process as well as the benefits of becoming Storm Ready. We’ll also hear from guest speaker Sharyl Wood of Nassau County, Florida’s school board on her district’s Storm Ready certification process and the improvements they’ve made to their overall plan for severe weather. Register today.

Elmer’s Glue Crew Recycling Program Webinar
Tuesday, November 17 at 7 PM ET

Save the bottles. Save the sticks. Save the planet! The Elmer’s Glue Crew Recycling Program is back with more fun and interactive ways to engage your students in recycling Elmer’s glue sticks from their classroom or even throughout their school. Join this webinar to learn how to easily get your own classroom involved, and hear from guest speaker Shannon Dominick, whose classroom won last year’s grand prize in the Glue Crew Recycling Program. Register today!

On Wednesday, November 18th at 7pm EST, we’re thrilled to feature Gary Stager as our EdTechConnect speaker!

There are few speakers that are more passionate, dedicated and devoted to bringing about change in education. If you’ve never had a chance to see him present before, you won’t want to miss this opportunity. If you HAVE seen him, perhaps on the Keynote panel from this year’s NECC conference, then I’m sure I don’t even need to say anything more to convince you to register. As David Thornburg has stated, “Some people think ‘outside of the box.’ Gary is unaware of the box’s existence!”

Creative Computing and the Case for Project-based Learning

Veteran computer-using educator, speaker and journalist Dr. Gary Stager will explore how project-based learning fuels creativity and amplifies the power of computing. This webinar will explore questions of “What is a project?” and “What are the essential elements of a good project?” The theory underlying such practice will be discussed and imaginative applications challenging each learner to maximize their potential will be shared.
Click here to register!

One of the things Discovery’s Kathy Schrock talked about in her recent presentation Score! Winning Strategies to Conquer Information Overload at the CECA /CASL 09 Conference was the concept of of gaining control and organizing your electronic life.  In a cross between Schrock inspiration and a “this is just ridculous” moment last weekend I started implementing her first strategy, a two week assessment of what is hitting the inbox.

Truth be told this is not entirely new ground for me.  A couple of summers ago I ran across several blog posts for educational leadership where practitioners were talking about ways to sift and sort and manage the flow of information that seems to hit us like water from a fire hose at times. Effective leaders it seemed had uncanny skill or developed systems to manage information that came to them, take an action, and move that information onto the next step in the chain.  Now if that makes our jobs as teachers (and really aren’t we just middle management knowledge workers in an information economy?)  sound too cold and Code Monkey-ish, consider the opposite. Have you ever had an idea or problem or information that you pushed along the chain (either up or down) and seen it pass into the great void of the waters of oblivion because of the crush of information overload? Makes you feel special doesn’t it?

My summer reading led me to the work of David Allen and Getting Things Done (GTD) which I listened to as an audio book.  I found that the GTD stuff really resonated with me and seemed to speak to where I was in my personal and professional life.  The two concepts that stuck were,  you will fall off the wagon and return back to the material to rethink your information strategies and the difference between the mental energy needed to keep all the balls in the air when things are chaotic and the tranquility of what Allen calls “a mind like water” when you feel you have a handle on things. I come back to these ideas because I tend to fall off the wagon quickly and I enjoy tranquility. I think that is why Kathy Schrock’s message hit home in her presentation. She presented her journey to electronic sanity which followed many of the GTD principles. It was time for me to get back on the wagon.

An hour or two of hacking and chopping a way at the home email box (thankfully the Patriots were on a bye week) and I found that what Kathy said was correct. I could see patterns in my email life and it was easy to use filters and rules to chunk things together and move things around.  I still have a bunch of things I need to sort out (Will 2010 be the year that I go completely Google? Jott versus Remember the Milk?) but getting to Inbox Zero everyday is now no more that a five minute task, and I am doing very well in phase one.

One of the things that I ran across in cleaning was a link to Merlin Mann and his 43 Folders website.  What Merlin said about email helped me in rethinking my email. 43 Folders is a GTD concept that I will let you discover on your own.  Merlin is devotee but has gone above and beyond in his own wonderful way.  His web site  tag line says - “43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work”. Below is an embedded video that is Merlin’s initial presentation about Inbox Zero in July of 2007 (as a Tech Talk at Google no less).  The video  can be found several places on the Internet but I found this version on Vcasmo - which looks like it allows a video in one frame and your slides on the other. Merlin’s techniques for becoming an Inbox Ninja are great!

Steve Sokoloski (follow me on Twitter - stevesoko)

Many thanks to Lance for an informative DEN LC conference call last night.  With CT being a new state with an LC, I feel that we need as much input from others in the state on the types of events you would like to see this LC plan.

Some of the nation wide upcoming events are going to include:

• DEN Science Fest (some time in January)
• Spring Virtual Conference
• Geocaching Day

Please post ideas of events you would like to see take place in Connecticut.