leadership in high schools

This is another great site for teachers to investigate.  What I like about it is the variety of ways blogs are used in classrooms. 

http://del.icio.us/abpcjohn

Check out this blog written by a superintendent - Niel Rochelle of Iroquois Central School District.  In his blog written for students, they can respond to his comments and ask questions of him. This works like a Q & A session and also a forum to communicate with the highest officer in the school district. 

http://thesuperlearnerblogs.org

Another blog of interest is:

http://changinghighschools.blogspot .com

Yesterday I ran into Tom Talbot and Pat Trask the at LoGuidice Educational Center, Erie 2 BOCES.  Both Tom and Pat were at the presentation I gave on Blogs last Friday for In-service of Teachers.  Tom shared that he was taken aback by the “volume of words” I write.  He is intimidated by this and it is holding him up in terms of writing his own introduction.  I think the answer to this is to decide who the readership might be of your blog.  My suggestion…….if I were a teacher right now, I would use my blog to seek commentary and force creative writing responses from my students.  I would ask questions of needing use of a critical lens and ask students for a response using my blog.  I would tie this into a homework assignment/classroom work.  In addition, I would use the blog to post my each of my weekly lessons.  This way if one of my students is assigned ISS/OSS or is just absent he/she can access the blog to discover what assignments and lesson topics they have missed.  I would make the blog accessible to parents as well, who might be interested in learning about what I teach and who might want to lend some expertise to my lesson topic. 

Pat Trask has assures me that she will get up and running with her blog.  In the meantime I will be posting sample teacher blogs to this site, in hopes that you can all get started. 

I have heard from everyone except Julie A., Carol N., Rodd and John.  As promised I have emailed you a reminder and will be looking for you to respond to your first assignment posting which was to post a comment on my blog.  The email will point you to the link which you should open.  If you do not find anything of interest, remember the first oral responses you gave to my questions at the start of the presentation?  Write your responses to: What is your name?  What do you teach and where are you located in our BOCES?  What do you hope to learn from this presentation?

This afternoon I am going to venture into a world I have not delved into in a long time.  I will be teaching teachers!  I will be sharing a passion that I have recently acquired in hopes of turning others into eager learners.  I am a presenter at the Superintendent’s Conference Day for Erie 2-Chautauqua-Cattaraugus BOCES.  The title of my presentation is CREATIVITY AND TECHNOLOGY.

This is the outline of the presentation:

Intoduction:  Greetings and Introductions.  Partiscipants answer question verbally:  Why did you sign up for this session and what do you expect to get out of it?

Presentor:  The objective of this presentation is to allow you to expand your virtual vistas and gain access to a global educational community comprised of teachers, students, parents, administrators and citizens.  A glimpse into this world will broaden your professional  horizons, inform your teaching practices and allow you to have meaningful conversations with students about the world they are facing.  This is learning to teach the 21st century learner.  This presentation will completely blur the lines between General and Special Education Teacher challenges.  We are all in this together.  Unless we teachers take on the challenges of teaching in this “Brave New World”  where we will shore up our own technological inadequacies, students will not be exposed to skills and learning that they need in order for them and this nation to be competitive.  It is not only our professional responsibilty to adopt technology in our classrooms but it is our civic responsibily to ensure that America continiues to be a force in the highly competitive and technological world we are living in.  We can only do this if we ourselves are poised in the classroom to teach and learn simultaneously with students. 

At the end of this presentation you will be able to  :

1.  Access the presenters blog.  Post 1 comment to this blog 

2.  Open your own blog. Post an introduction 

 References:

Emerging Technologies - Source:  Michigan Dept of Education

Podcast - Sir Ken Robinson Creativity in Education.  Source:  TED TALKS

Edublogs.com -Free edublogs

A virtual tour of Edublogs

Follow up:  Tapped IN - Another vitual resource for educators.  User Friendly and has a Receptionist.

Conclusion:  Classroom uses of Weblogs.  Forming a class community of bloggers.  Presenter will post to each partiscipants blog and will follow up in the the next three months through posted comments.  A follow up session will be entertained for the next Superintendents Conference Day in 2008. Via blog rolls the presenter will mderate professional commentary/discussions in order to ensure that a community of active bloggers is supported within the instuctional programs division of Erie 2-CC-BOCES.  

 Credits:  High Schools New Face Conf.  Ellicottville, 2007. 
Teachers: Of Alternative and Special Education, Hewes Center, Erie 2-Chautauqua-Cattaraugus BOCES
Supervisors:  Christine Burdick, Tim Lasky, Barb Siemaszko and Dan Pierce

To ALL the teacher partiscipants in the Presentation above who learnt despite the failure of the internet when it went down due to a failure at the WNYRIC.