We're all Failures!

Since today's topic included various ways to assess students, we also wanted to bring to light the idea of failure. Nothing creates failure more quickly than expecting little more. If you have taken care of the environment in your classroom and focused on student learning and nothing else, you have no reason to expect less than the world of the,. Failure only exists because we expect students to hit a random mark during a set period of time on a specific day without knowing specifically how to prepare for it, being able to ask for help, talking and taking randomly scheduled 3 minute silent stretch breaks. We should expect nothing but the best out of every kid, colleague and certainly of ourselves. Aiming any lower is just patronizing and wasting away an opportunity to be special. Why not aim for special? I you "fail,' then the worst you have done is attempt to do something you haven't before.

I have a 6 year old when I go home that frequently expects us to Google whatever his heart desires as he wonders about the makeup of this invisible thing called "air" and who first knew the word "follower" as an idea on Twitter. The argument(s) over whether or not that it suits us- the adults- that the information age is changing the way our kids learn and behave is moot to those of us in the teaching profession. Instead of concerning ourselves with the place in which we find our students, we need to move on preparing them for the world that exists which requires us to prepare for it as well. They have some pretty high expectations of us.

Below, you will find two more Twitter finds. What do you think you will be able to do to increase the opportunity for failure in your classroom and how can you help your students with the idea?

Anne Collier posted her commentary on failure on a post on Mindshift called, "Fun Failure: How to Make Learning Irresistible."

Liz Dwyer of Good.is posted similar insight titled, "Want Student to Succeed? Let them Fail."

Revised Bloom's Taxonomy

In our Pinnacle experience today, we dealt with LoTi and Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. We really value the addition of the "create" as the top of the heirarchy. As we saw in our study of 21st century skills, providing students the opportunity to problem solve and create a product collaboratively is important to elicit those skills.

Shelley Wright, posting on the PLP Network, writes about a completely different approach to Bloom's in light of that very fact. She suggests that inverting the entire taxonomy would provide a much better experience for students. Read her post "Flipping Bloom's Taxonomy."

After reading her post, please leave a comment here. What is your reaction to her suggestion? She suggests a fairly specific project in which inverting Bloom's applies, can you think of any you might implement in your classroom? or perhaps situations in which in often would not work?

Also, please check out another interesting Twitter find for Edutechalogy. This flash app makes suggestions based on the level of Bloom's in the Cognitive and Knowledge domains.

How strong is your PLN?

During Pinnacle training today, we focused on the concept of the PLN and the various forms that it might take for individuals from social networks to social bookmarking. We would like to continue to put that into practice with today's homework and reflection.

Below, you will find 8 articles concerning PLN's and often specifically Twitter. All of these posts were found surfing Twitter and bookmarking them for reading later. Pick at least three of the blog posts and tweet a very brief summary or comment. Make sure to add the #gcsk12 hashtag so it is easy for the rest of us to find for ourselves. Over the next few days, keep the conversation going and please use this hashtag whenever you would like to call the attention of GCS teachers (and your peers) to a tweet.

The 3 C's of Social Networking: Consumption, Creation, Creation - Brian Solis, posting to Social Media Today, shares how and why social networking is developing and the various roles people play within them.

The Power of Twitter - Matt Britland, posting to the Guardian's Teacher Blog, concerning his early skepticism of Twitter and how it won him over in the end.

Why Twitter is a Teacher's Best Tool- Liz Dwyer at Good.is writes about her own fascination with Twitter for education and its benefits compared to collaborating only with teammates.

What does your PLN Look Like? - A brief post of Thoughtful Learning with the basics of PLN.

Why PLN? Building Knowledge Networks and Learning Communities- Miss Cheska on her own blog discusses the basics of PLN.

100 Ways to Use Twitter in Education, By Degree of Difficulty - Jeff Dunn of Edudemic posts a great, comprehensive lists of tip and tricks for folks joining Twitter.

Twitter and Educational Chats - Kyle Pace discusses his own tips for new Twitter users specifically getting involved with hastag conversations and communities.

What I Wish I Knew Before I Started Twitter- Stephen Anderson on his blog, Web 2.0 Classroom, details as part of his Twitter series, all the suggestions he would make to a new twitterer.

21st Century Education

On our first day of Pinnacle, we have done a lot in an effort to lay the foundation for the rest. We happen to feel that education relies the mastery of 21st Century Skills as they exist beyond the catchphrase of the last decade. So the questions begs itself, if we know that children today are different we were while in school (nearly regardless of your age), why hasn't the educational machine changed to meet them?

 Through twitter, we collect blog posts, websites and resources as we read them. Eric Sheninger, a prominent principal in NJ wrote this blog post about his own observations after attending a session held by Gary Stager. He shares what he feels has slowed education's transition to the new century along with Father Time.

The blog CTEduonline ennumerates the characteristics they feel are needed of the 21st century teacher to meet the needs of students. What do you think? What skills do we need to develop and foster in our peers that are fundamental to reaching students "nowadays?" What has prevented us from automatically transitioning our practice as we find our audience differs from the past? Please leave a comment with your opinion.

 It isn't all doom and gloom either. There are pockets of teaching occuring all over the country be it in isolated classrooms or progressive districts. Lisa Dabbs shared this post on her blog encouraging teachers to decide to "be remarkable" starting now rather than examining the increments to reach mastery of the new world.

Day 6: Twitter?

This teacher posted her blog post on the power of her PLN last summer. It explains what a PLN- whether you determine it is through, Google Reader, Diigo and/or Twitter- does in her case.

Ms. Cheska's Blog Post

Day 5: To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

Today, Jason showed us Google Reader as a premier means of harnessing a stream of educational content from blogs and other websites. Tomorrow, I will show you Twitter as a means of accomplishing much the same thing. Typically, people confront Twitter either with open arms and a good deal of caution and disbelief in its powers as a PLN tool. In an effort to sway any doubter a little :), I wanted to launch a preemptive strike on your caution and disbelief with these two artifacts found....on Twitter.

Below, you will find a presentation that I thought was great at dealing with Twitter frivolous uses and with its useful ones in an entertaining and informing way.

Why is the Fail Whale Smiling?

View more presentations from Rodd Lucier

Also, please reference this blog post we discovered on Twitter that shares some enlightening examples of how many resources flood Twitter in any given day. Scott McLeod's blog post shares one day only a month and a half ago. http://bigthink.com/ideas/38698

Day 4 Story

In planning activities for Pinnacle, we have tried to make them as self-guided as possible while still squeezing in experiences with the typical technologies we would like you to take from the experience. In the classroom, we hope that as students become aware of various technologies, you will allow them to direct their own learning and the ways in which they express their learning. In our case, the assignment on student-centered instruction does not quite fit the bill simply because we needed to teach you the technology of Audacity as well. In the classroom, once students have used something like Audacity once before, it should become invisible within the instruction and ultimately a tool that they might choose to use.

In what ways would you suggest making an activity like this more student-centered? For example, how might you allow students to choose their topic, their means of learning about that topic, and their method of assessment? In this case, you were given a topic and simply told to research it with some guiding links. Then you were provided a specific tool to use to generate some kind of response demonstrating what you learned about the topic. (Design)

In what ways are you considering changing your classroom? a given period or day's agenda? and lesson plans in general? What are your feelings on relinquishing the control of so many facets to your students?



Please listen to the other two podcasts and respond as well.

Remember to bring your Wireless Slates on Monday and Tuesday so that we can pair them for you.

Day 3: Design and Symphony

Since we were able to play with Google Apps, specially Docs, today, we thought it might be fun to contribute to a collaborative presentation asynchronously. This one, delivered to us in our own Google training, shows 32 ways of using Google Apps in the classroom. While it is embedded here, since it has also been shared to you, you will still be able to add slides to it just as if it was yours.

Your mission is simple, just add at least 2 slides with your own ideas for using Google Apps in Education. The embedded presentation here should change to display the most current, saved documents. Now, please realize that many of you may find yourselves in the document at exactly the same time. Be polite. :) Everything works just fine, but will be easier if you add a slide and work on it while someone else works on another. Let's see what happens!

Day 2 Play

"Play will be to the 21st century what work was to the last 300 years of industrial society- our dominant way of knowing, doing and creating value."- Pat Kane, author of The Play Ethic

Having explored a number of sites and shared them with your peers, hopefully you see the value of discovering new tools for yourself and within your network. In the spirit of collaboration, what ideas would you propose for replacing the technology in our centers from this morning? What activities might you change altogether to better meet a level of blooms?

5 Things You Hate

In order to establish the norms that will carry with us through the Pinnacle experience, we will use Blogger to weed out suggestions. First, leave a comment to this post listing 5 things you to see occur in a PLC setting. Afterwards, we will get in groups of 4 or 5 to combine those into categories we will use to make norms.

Day 1 Empathy

"Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate and to connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives."

Today, you met your cohort of fellow Pinnacle Leaders and we did a lot in the way of setting the stage for the next several days of tasks, including this blog, Base Camp, and our collective vision. It is no mistake that we chose to lead off Pinnacle with the sense of Empathy. While in the danger of sounding corny, how do you feel the sense of Empathy fits inside your concept of being a Pinnacle Leader? How does it affect your role as an educator?

Check out this recent blog post about a presentation at June's ISTE 2011 conference in Philadelphia on the "Yeah But's"

Discover Blogger...er, Google Blog

Blogger is scheduled to change (as of last week) to Google Blog in the near future. In order to learn our way around Blogger, we ask that you search for yourself using these 5 questions to guide you. Don't worry! You will not stranded. As you have questions of your own, just leave a comment to this post OR use any of your peers to help.

1. How do you make a new post?
2. How can you modify some of the settings to make the blog more safe?
3. How can you add widgets/gadgets to your blog's sidebars?
4. How do you change the template of your blog?
5. What are labels and what is the benefit of using them?