Photo Credit: David Blackwell. via Compfight cc




Dear all,

I hope you have had a good first week back after the winter break. I’m very much looking forward to being back in school on Monday and working with you all again, being away in both Australia and now Thailand I have to admit I have missed ISHCMC.

Hence as I got up early this morning, completed all my recruitment tasks and still had some spare time before our first interview I thought I would send you a couple of things that I read over the winter break. The first about being the best you can adds to one of our pillars of an Achievement Culture and is useful for us as individuals and for the advice and direction we give to our students. The conclusion about looking for a combination of factors certainly links strongly with us as a Professional Learning Community and our need for developing meaningful collaboration and teamwork throughout the school. We have so much talent at ISHCMC it is important to share and learn from each other.

The Five Paths To Being The Best At Anything

I’ve posted a lot about becoming the best in your field. Looking back, what are the most successful methods for getting there?

10,000 Hours

Let’s get the most famous one out of the way first: Hard work pays off.

Malcolm Gladwell popularized the theory in Outliers: approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice at something can turn you into an expert.

Via Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined:

…the most elite violinists accumulated about the same number of hours of deliberate practice (about 7,410 hours) by the age of 18 as professional middle-aged violinists belonging to international-level orchestras (about 7,336 hours)! By the age of 20, the most accomplished musicians estimated they spent over 10,000 hours in deliberate practice, which is 2,500 and 5,000 hours more than two less accomplished groups of expert musicians or 8,000 hours more than amateur pianists of the same age.

That said, 10,000 hours is an average. And deliberate practice is not just going through the motions.

You’ve spent more than 10,000 hours driving but that doesn’t make you ready for NASCAR or Formula One.

Deliberate practice means getting feedback and always pushing to improve. It’s not flow and it’s not fun.

But it is what molds champions.

(More on how you can become an expert here.)

Have Great Genetics

I won’t lie to you: being a member of the lucky sperm club certainly has its advantages.

Via The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance:

Even in this age of hyperspecialization in sports, some rare individuals become world-class athletes, and even world champions, in sports from running to rowing with less than a year or two of training. As with Gobet’s chess players, in all sports and skills, the only real rule is that there is a tremendous natural range.

There are also genetic advantages in the area of music, math and writing.

Via The Complexity of Greatness: Beyond Talent or Practice:

Heritability coefficients were strongest in music (.92), math (.87), sports (.85), and writing (.83) of the explained variance.

This is usually cause for many to throw up their arms and surrender. (These people do not have much grit, mind you.)

But the existence of genetic advantages doesn’t mean you should give up. I’d ask you two questions:

1.       Have you tried a wide variety of things to see if you possess genetic advantages at any of them?

2.       Have you tried aligning your efforts with the areas where you show a level of natural talent?

As David Epstein explains, the model is no longer “good at sports” or “not good at sports” — it’s “which sport was your body designed for?”

Via The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance:

But, as Norton and Olds saw, as winner-take-all markets emerged, the early-twentieth-century paradigm of the singular, perfect athletic body faded in favor of more rare and highly specialized bodies that fit like finches’ beaks into their athletic niches. When Norton and Olds plotted the heights and weights of modern world-class high jumpers and shot putters, they saw that the athletes had become stunningly dissimilar. The average elite shot putter is now 2.5 inches taller and 130 pounds heavier than the average international high jumper… Just as the galaxies are hurtling apart, so are the body types required for success in a given sport speeding away from one another toward their respective highly specialized and lonely corners of the athletic physique universe. 

Tall and thin? Try basketball. Short and thick? Weightlifting. Mom and dad are successful engineers? Give math a whirl.

Taking advantage of genetic gifts is a matter of finding what your body and mind might have been designed to excel at and aligning your efforts appropriately.

(More on genetic advantages — and how I had my own DNA analyzed – here.)

Be Part Of A Great Team

Working 10K hours and having naturally steady hands can be a great advantage to a doctor but surgeons only get better at their home hospital.

Why? That’s where they know the team best and develop strong working relationships.

Via Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success:

Overall, the surgeons didn’t get better with practice. They only got better at the specific hospital where they practiced. For every procedure they handled at a given hospital, the risk of patient mortality dropped by 1 percent. But the risk of mortality stayed the same at other hospitals. The surgeons couldn’t take their performance with them. They weren’t getting better at performing coronary artery bypass grafts. They were becoming more familiar with particular nurses and anesthesiologists, learning about their strengths and weaknesses, habits and styles.

Star analysts on Wall Street? Same thing.

Via Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success:

Even though they were supposed to be individual stars, their performance wasn’t portable. When star analysts moved to a different firm, their performance dropped, and it stayed lower for at least five years.

What about for artists? Yeah, baby.

Via Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success:

Frank Lloyd Wright’s drought lasted until he gave up on independence and began to work interdependently again with talented collaborators. It wasn’t his own idea: his wife Olgivanna convinced him to start a fellowship for apprentices to help him with his work. When apprentices joined him in 1932, his productivity soared, and he was soon working on the Fallingwater house, which would be seen by many as the greatest work of architecture in modern history. 

(More on how your friends can make you a better person here.)

Be A Giver

Researchers who hog the credit on scientific papers are less likely to win a Nobel prize.

Those who give younger academics a bit of the spotlight are more likely to have a trip to Stockholm in their future.

Via The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date

One striking finding was the beneficence of Nobel laureates, or as Zuckerman termed it, noblesse oblige. In general, when a scientific paper is published, the author who did the most is listed first.There are exceptions to this, and this can vary from field to field, but Zuckerman took it as a useful rule of thumb. What she found was that Nobel laureates are first authors of numerous publications early in their careers, but quickly begin to give their junior colleagues first authorship. And this happens far before they receive the Nobel Prize… By their forties, Nobel laureates are first authors on only 26 percent of their papers, as compared to their less accomplished contemporaries, who are first authors 56 percent of the time. Nicer people are indeed more creative, more successful, and even more likely to win Nobel prizes.

We think of givers as getting exploited or walked on. And that definitely happens.

Wharton Professor Adam Grant explained in our interview:

What I find across various industries, and various studies is the Givers are most likely to end up at the bottom. That’s primarily because they end up putting other people first in ways that either burn them out, or will allow them to get taken advantage of and exploited by Takers.

But that’s not the end of the story. If givers resist being martyrs, or have a circle of “matchers” who protect them, they end up on top:

Then I looked at the other end of the spectrum and said if Givers are at the bottom, who’s at the top? Actually, I was really surprised to discover, it’s the Givers again. The people who consistently are looking for ways to help others are over-represented not only at the bottom, but also at the top of most success metrics. 

(More on balancing nice with tough here.)

Combine Them

Only got 5000 hours and “pretty good” genetics? Combining these methods can provide powerful results.

You don’t need to work endlessly or be born brilliant. There’s a very simple formula we can all use to get a benefit from this information:

1.       Always work hard to improve.

2.       When choosing tasks and strategies, consider your natural gifts.

3.       Pick a great team and get familiar with them.

4.       Within reason, always help others.

All other things being equal, I can’t imagine how this combination would not lead to an impressive level of success. Can you?

http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/12/being-the-best/?utm_source=%22Barking+Up+The+Wrong+Tree%22+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=76caa686b6-paths_12_28_1312_28_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_78d4c08a64-76caa686b6-56389917

This second is a list of articles from Anne Murphy Paul that you might want to browse through….they are very readable, interesting and ask good questions about education.

Some of these I have already shared with you.

Is The Point of School To Make More Money?
Why Arguing Is The Best Way To Learn
Where The Smart Kids Are
What Would A "Good" Test Look Like?
Why Do So Many of Us Hate Math?
The Epidemic of Media Multitasking While Learning
Music Can Help You Remember
Expert In 10,000 Hours? Maybe Not
The Joy of Making Things
The Truth About MOOCs: Only 10% of Students Actually Finish Them
What Do We Actually Learn from TED Talks?
The Right Way To Talk To Yourself
Follow Your Passion, Or Follow Your Ability?
The Key To Smarter Kids: Talking to Them the Right Way
The Power of Interest
The Difference Between Reading On Paper and Reading On a Screen
Eight Ways of Looking at Intelligence
Classroom Laptop Users Distract Others As Well As Themselves
Dreams That Make You Smarter
Forget About Learning Styles. Here's Something Better.
Are Student Evaluations of Instructors Worthless?
During Lectures, Students' Physiological Arousal Flatlines
Has Kindergarten Become Too Academic?

Looking forward to working with you all in 2014 and building our culture of achievement where everyone is the best they can be.

Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy 2014,

Yours

Adrian

 

Dear all,
 

p_c_w via Compfight cc

As you know Nelson Mandela died on Friday. A great statesmen of our time, who achieved so much in his life time, and hence as an admin we have decided that at homeroom on Monday we would like you to spend 10-15 minutes recognizing the importance of his life, and discussing his achievements with your homeroom class. I have provided this link to a simple 5 minute video that covers his life and some of his achievements as an international statesman. I would advise downloading to your computer before homeroom so you don’t have any streaming issues. Of course, there are other videos that you can use and may be better for different age groups.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNSxCMIU09g

 

Here are a few inspirational quotes from Nelson Mandela that you might want to use to frame discussions:

“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination”

”Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising when we fail."

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
 Food for Thought.

This week I have returned to focusing on a welcoming and positive environment in our classrooms. I do feel that around the classrooms and corridors there is a very positive buzz from our students and do not see this as an area of weakness. However, as Dylan William pointed out that as teachers we always want to do better. So as we reach the end of Semester One it is an ideal opportunity to reflect on ourselves and the environment that we create as teachers. Hence this short checklist style article provides a framework for you to read each point and think about how you approach it whilst creating that welcoming and positive environment in which students can flourish and feel safe in their learning.


 Wavy1 via Compfight cc

How to Create A Non-Threatening, Welcome Classroom Environment

By Sue Watson 

Non-Threatening Welcoming Classroom Environment Checklist.

1. Do you greet your students each day with enthusiasm and find something positive to say as much as possible or as much as time will allow for?
2. Do you provide students with time to share happenings, events or items with you? Even if you set a certain time frame aside each day for 3-5 students to share, it will help to create a friendly warm, and welcome environment. It shows them you care and it provides you with opportunities to learn about what is important about each of your students.
3. Do you take the time on occasion to share something that is important to you? Even if it's the fact that your own child took their first steps or if you saw a wonderful play that you would like to share with your students. Your students will see you as a real and caring person. This type of sharing shouldn't be done every day but from time to time.
4. Do you take time to talk about differences within the classroom? Diversity is everywhere and children can benefit from learning about diversity at a very early age. Talk about varying cultural backgrounds, body image and types, talents, strengths and weaknesses. Provide opportunities for your learners to share their strengths and weaknesses. The child who may not be able to run fast may be able to draw very well. These conversations always need to be held in a positive light. Understanding diversity is a lifelong skill children will always benefit from. It builds trust and acceptance in the classroom.
5. Do you say no to all forms of bullying? There is no such thing as a welcoming, nurturing environment when there is tolerance for bullying. Stop it early and make sure all students know that they should report bullying. Remind them that telling on a bully is not tattling, it is reporting. Have a set of routines and rules that prevent bullying.
6. Do you build activities into your day that support students working together and building rapport with one another? Small group work and team work with well-established routines and rules will help in developing a very cohesive environment.
7. Do you focus on the strengths when calling upon a student? Never put down a child for not being able to do something, take someone to one time to support the child. When asking a child to demonstrate or respond to something, be sure that the child is in the comfort zone, always capitalize on the strengths. Showing sensitivity to each of your students is extremely important in protecting their confidence and self-esteem.
8. Do you promote two way respect? I can't say enough about two way respect. Adhere to the golden rule, always show respect and you will get it back in return.
9. Do you take time to educate the class about specific disorders and disabilities? Role play helps to develop empathy and support among classmates and peers.
10. Do you make a conscientious effort to promote confidence and self-esteem among every student in the classroom? Give praise and positive reinforcement that is real and deserved often. The more that students feel good about themselves, the better they will be toward themselves and others.

Many of the strategies listed above come from seasoned educators who have shared what they believe it takes to create a warm and welcome environment that is conducive to learning and maximizing student social and academic growth. If you have answered yes to the items listed here, you already know you have a great environment for your students.

http://specialed.about.com/od/teacherchecklists/a/classroom.htm

Leah Tihia™ via Compfight cc "> 

Transforming our Classrooms #4

Remix

• The "Imbecile" and "Moron" Responds: On the Freedoms of Remix Creators
• Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix
• Remix Defined
• Everything is a Remix: Learning 2.0 Edition (Rebekah Madrid's resources)
• Everything is a Remix

Project Examples:

• They Made it Their Own: Classroom Remix Examples from Chicago Middle School Students
• Classroom Remix Examples from Rebekah Madrid's Learning 2.0 resources

Thank you for all your patience and hard work this first semester. I know a lot of you smiled inwardly at the start of the year when I announced our goal, as part of a Culture of Achievement, is to be the “Best in the Universe,” and whispered, he has to be joking. Having worked with you all, and watched you work with each other for nearly 5 months and witnessed the growth of a learning buzz around the school, I am more convinced than ever that we can achieve this goal and be the best.

Hope to see you this evening,

Yours

Adrian

Reading and writing

Dear all,

 I know that these Food for Thoughts are getting a bit longer but have so much to share and to make get you to think about. The winter break is coming and perhaps you can save and read then. This week I am focusing on reading and writing which is important for all of us no matter what  grade or subject we teach in the School. As IB teachers we are expected to all act as teachers of English regardless of our subjects, it is part of the standards and practices for all three IB programmes.

So here are two articles that raise valid points for us all to think about.

 

 DarrelBirkett via Compfight cc

The Most Important Lesson Schools Can Teach Kids About Reading: It's Fun

“We’ve come away from our study thinking that teachers of reading and literature need to make pleasure more central to our practice.  We think that the implications of this resolution are enormous. For example, instructors should be mindful of the variety of pleasures that readers experience and not privilege intellectual pleasures, the characteristic province of school.  Our participants enjoyed making thematic generalizations, figuring out metaphors, and analyzing the aesthetic choices an author makes—intellectual pleasures all.  But more frequently, these young people experienced the deep pleasure of entering a story world, living through the character’s actions, considering the character’s perspectives, and pondering what it might mean for their own lives.

 

We’re not the only ones who think pleasure reading is essential. An extraordinary new analysis done as part of the British Cohort Study—which is following the lives of more than 17,000 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1970—makes a compelling case for why pleasure should be more central to policy discussions about reading.  This analysis establishes that reading for pleasure outside school had a significant impact on young people’s educational attainment and social mobility because it actually “increased cognitive progress over time.”  The impact of pleasure reading on live outcomes was more than three times greater than the level of parents’ educational attainment.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/the-most-important-lesson-schools-can-teach-kids-about-reading-its-fun/281295/

 

World Bank Photo Collection via Compfight cc

The Writing Revolution

“And so the school’s principal, Deirdre DeAngelis, began a detailed investigation into why, ultimately, New Dorp’s students were failing. By 2008, she and her faculty had come to a singular answer: bad writing. Students’ inability to translate thoughts into coherent, well-argued sentences, paragraphs, and essays was severely impeding intellectual growth in many subjects. Consistently, one of the largest differences between failing and successful students was that only the latter could express their thoughts on the page. If nothing else, DeAngelis and her teachers decided, beginning in the fall of 2009, New Dorp students would learn to write well. “When they told me about the writing program,” Monica says, “well, I was skeptical.” With disarming candor, sharp-edged humor, and a shy smile, Monica occupies the middle ground between child and adult—she can be both naive and knowing. “On the other hand, it wasn’t like I had a choice. I go to high school. I figured I’d give it a try.”

New Dorp’s Writing Revolution, which placed an intense focus, across nearly every academic subject, on teaching the skills that underlie good analytical writing, was a dramatic departure from what most American students—especially low performers—are taught in high school. The program challenged long-held assumptions about the students and bitterly divided the staff. It also yielded extraordinary results. By the time they were sophomores, the students who had begun receiving the writing instruction as freshmen were already scoring higher on exams than any previous New Dorp class. Pass rates for the English Regents, for example, bounced from 67 percent in June 2009 to 89 percent in 2011; for the global-­history exam, pass rates rose from 64 to 75 percent. The school reduced its Regents-repeater classes—cram courses designed to help struggling students collect a graduation requirement—from five classes of 35 students to two classes of 20 students.”

Transforming our Classrooms #3

Game Based Learning

• How Games Can Help Learning


• How to Plan Instruction Using the Video Game Model


• Minecraft.edu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0BN5AWOe8

Project Examples:

• 7th Graders (And One Teacher) Learning With Minecraft (Rebekah Madrid)


• Minecraft Mania (Alex Guenther)

Last week someone asked me about my blog that I use to share articles with parents so just in case anyone is interested here is the link http://4u2nomore.blogspot.com/ So far this year I have posted 35 articles for parents to read about education or other matter that might affect their children.

Have a great weekend,

Yours

Adrian

Do you have the personality for inquiry? And Flipping the classroom.

Dear all,

Thank you for all your hard work yesterday. In Primary it was good to see you sharing practice and ideas an important aspect or our Professional Learning Community and something that we will build upon more in the next few years. Another aspect of functioning Professional Learning communities is collaboration and yesterday that was very apparent in the secondary school sessions as departments worked together building curriculum, unit questions, fundamental concepts, benchmark assessment tasks and embedding AERO standards. We are moving forward as a school and our students will benefit in their learning.

 This week’s Food for Thought applies to all IB teachers, as inquiry is an aspect of teaching pedagogy that we all need to be applying in our classrooms. The article below asks important questions about who teachers need to be to successfully implement inquiry techniques in their classrooms. This again links well to the achievement culture we are hoping to embed at ISHCMC, with a positive approach to our students. Following our visioning exercise in October and the number of presentations that were linked to the concept of well being, we are investigating Positive Psychology as something that in the future PD and embedding as an essential aspect for the ISHCMC community. One of the leaders in creating Positive communities that flourish is Martin Seligman. Here is a short introduction to the ideas involved in Positive Psychology http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qJvS8v0TTI

 

Do You have the Personality To Be an Inquiry-Based Teacher?

The takeaway is humbling, but inescapable: If an inquiry-based system is to succeed, we’ll need human beings in the classroom who know their field, but who also radiate the kind of positive, non-judgmental love that helps students open their minds and hearts. That’s a tall order for most of us, and where it originates, we don’t know. But the foundation of sincere care will be essential, and it will manifest through the deep personality attributes of the teacher in a variety of ways in the classroom. Every teacher, for example, might reflect on the following:

Are you optimistic? Viewing the world as damaged or the future as bleak shuts down the brain by transmitting fear. Maintaining an optimistic attitude is an expression of love, inspiring curiosity and hope, and fostering emotional and physical health. Optimism is essential to teaching: Without hope, the reason to learn disappears.

Are you open? The world is being refreshed and powered by divergent thinking. Outcomes are unclear, even dangerous. But faith in the flexible thinking of the human mind can support young people as they sort out their new world and have the freedom to discover solutions not yet visible. An open attitude activates the frontal lobes, the place of flow and creativity.

Are you appreciative? Deep appreciation gives permission for failure, rather than penalizing for the “wrong” answer. It honors the stops and starts of human development. It conveys the ultimate message of a communal world: We are in this together.

Are you flexible? In inquiry, the journey matters as much as the destination. Constant reflection is a necessity to improving thinking and doing. Metacognition encourages wisdom, the ultimate goal of any worthy education system. Flexibility tells the brain and heart to keep working, keep going—you’re getting there.

Are you purposeful? Purpose binds teacher and student into the high-minded pursuit of solutions that matter. It is the reason that “authentic” education works and inauthentic education struggles. It tightens the connection between the learner and the teacher in ways that spur the natural creative impulse to change and improve the world.

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/11/do-you-have-the-personality-to-be-an-inquiry-based-teacher/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29

As promised each week I will continue to share information that can be used in  Transforming our Classrooms

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a7NbUIr_iQ

# 2 Flipped Classroom

• Infographic: The Flipped Classroom Defined


• The Flipped Classroom: A Full Picture


• Flipping the Classroom (The Economist)


• Should You Flip Your Classroom (Edutopia)


• Jeff Utecht's Flipped Classroom Resources
  

Project Examples:

• HS: Wayne Hodgkins: The Unit I Never Taught (& blog post)


• Grade 8 Science (Lori Uemera)


• Flipped Classroom Adventure Begins


• COETAIL Course 5 Project: Flipped Classroom in History (video presentation)

Have a good weekend,

 

Yours

Adrian

Transforming student learning

Dear all,

Hope you have had a good week. This week’s food for thought will be a bit longer than usual because I would like to share a little bit of the learning from last week’s Kim Cofino workshop whilst also sharing with you a good article that includes two ideas for developing inquiry on the iPad for Math and Science.  Also as I will miss Monday briefing this week because I am doing a combined IB/ CIS and NEASC visit in Singapore I have added a couple of PD opportunities for after winter break.

Sharing the Kim Cofino workshop:  What I have decided to do is share each week for the next 12 weeks somewhere in my Food for Thought email/ blog post, one of 12 areas we looked at during the weekend on transforming learning in our classrooms. What this will entail will be a few articles about the main focus and examples of how it has been applied for you to look at and possibly try out in your classrooms.

 1: Globally Collaborative Projects

• Collaborative Learning for the Digital Age
• A Step-by-Step Guide to Global Collaboration
• About the Flat Classroom Model
• How to Connect Your Students Globally
• Connecting Classrooms Across Continents (resources from Kim's presentation)

Project Examples:

• Kindergarten: Ben Sheridan
• MS: Brent Fullerton: Collaboration for Conservation
• QuakeStories + backstory (Kim Cofino & Mary Fish)
• 1001 Flat World Tales (Clay Burrell, Kim Cofino, & many others)
• Flat Classroom Projects (Digital Bridges) (Julie Lindsay, Vicki Davis, & many others)
• Kiva Loans (Rebekah Madrid)
• Moving on Up! (Kim Cofino, Diane Mongno, & many others)
• Influence (Kim Cofino, Teresa Belilse, grade 4 team at ISB)
• @manyvoices (George Mayo)
• COETAIL Course 5 Final Project (Jamie Richard)
• Global Read Aloud
• International Dot Day

In addition during a “speed geeking” session ( this is where a person shares a tech application/ piece of software etc that they have used in their classroom and liked, with the rest of the group) we learned 6 really interesting ideas that you might find useful. I know that some of you who attended have already shared some of these but just wanted to let you know about one I tried this week that worked wonderfully. I used something called “Todaysmeet” https://todaysmeet.com/ which is a back room chat. It is very simple to use and engaged the class. I used it in a situation where students were doing a jigsaw reading exercise and I asked them to share any thoughts that they had about what they had read as they were reading. I was very surprised by the level of thinking by several students who are usually quiet and do not contribute much to class because of their level of English. It also created a few humourous moments as well which showed another side of my class that furthered added to our relationship. All in all it was a good thing to introduce to my class and one that we will be using again in the future.

       buistbunch via Compfight cc

 

Inquiry Learning Ideas for Math and Science With iPads

”Granting students the freedom to inquire and explore makes them the investigators of life’s mysteries. In the process, they are sharpening their all-important critical and creative thinking skills. Technology offers fantastic opportunities for the application of critical thinking skills toward an understanding of real-world questions and answers. It can be used to gather information about the world around us so that we can investigate real-world questions and test their answers. That’s the focus of this chapter. You find numerous apps that deliver content about botany or algebra, but I want to focus on how you can use technology to have students experience that knowledge from the inside out.”

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/11/inquiry-learning-ideas-for-math-and-science-with-ipads/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29

The article contains extracts from a book that I have seen referenced in a couple of articles recently that might be worth investing in for your own professional teaching library

iPad in Education For Dummies by Sam Gliksman, Wiley, Copyright © 2013. So here is a link to a short but useful “Cheat Sheet” by the author about the book, http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/ipad-in-education-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html

 

2 PD Opportunities that are coming in January and February.

This is the PD opportunity that I mentioned in last Mondays morning briefing. I believe it will be a great opportunity to learn more about technological for your classroom from practitioners.

·         VIETNAM TECH CONFERENCE

Learning, Community, Responsibility
Please consider presenting a workshop and/or leading a Speed Geeking session!  

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW:

VTC is an initiative sponsored by Saigon South International School and the United Nations International School in Hanoi. It is an annual educational technology conference targeting international schools in Vietnam. This conference is designed for teachers, administrators and support staff to network, share effective practices and continue to move the use of technology forward. VTC 2014 builds on the successful initial conference held at SSIS in 2013.

Vietnam Tech Conference will:

 

·         Provide a venue for educators to inquire and explore how they can effectively integrate technology within the classroom

·         Create a community of educators pushing the boundaries of educational technology

·         Promote Digital citizenship and awareness throughout our learning community

Events:

Saturday: Learning and Technology workshops, including Speed Geeking sessions

   Cocktail Social and Dinner hosted by UNIS Hanoi

Sunday: “Unconference” sessions based on participants’ interests, Job Alike and workshops

If you are keen to present a workshop and/or lead a Speed Geeking session, click on this link to enter your session proposals.

Saturday, February 15, 2014 (8:30 – 3:30)

Sunday, February 16, 2014 (8:30 – 1:30)

United Nations International School Hanoi

Ciputra, Lac Long Quan Road, Tay Ho District

·         EARCOS SPONSORED WEEKEND WORKSHOP at Saigon South on Common Assessments January 11^th and 12th

As a result of this workshop, participants will deepen understanding of how to:

• use Common Assessments to integrate unit planning, balanced assessment approaches, quality rubrics, using data results to inform instructional decisions, and professional learning communities;

• develop quality assessment tasks and associated rubrics/scoring guides (or refine ones that already exist);

• explore protocols for calibrating scoring of common assessments;

• become familiar with a data-driven decision-making protocol that can be used to inform instructional decisions; and

• support common assessments through Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).

Here are more details:

http://www.ssis.edu.vn/uploads/pdf/SSIS_Flyer-Common_Assessments%20(Jan_2014)-JSparrow.pdf 

Have a good weekend,

See you on Friday.

Yours,

Adrian

Steve Jobs, Lesson for Life

Dear All,

This week’s Food for Thought adds to last weeks and is from a young Steve Jobs, 1996, and is a lesson for life. There is something in these words for all of us and they can easily be shared with all our students in homeroom.

“When you grow up you, tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

Most people never pick up the phone, most people never ask. And that’s what separates, sometimes, the people that do things from the people that just dream about them. You gotta act. And you gotta be willing to fail… if you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”

Steve Jobs.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw#t=30

Article: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/02/steve-jobs-1995-life-failure/

Have a good Sunday.

Yours,

Adrian