At last evening's Board of Education Meeting Alan gave an update on yesterday's Teacher Professional Development day's activities and reported that it was a very successful event. These were all teacher driven, collaborative activities and all of them involved self-improvement activities having to do with enriching the technology fitness of the teaching pedagogy or curriculum offerings.
Kudos to the entire staff!
Additionally, in response to a question from Willington Board member Bob Jellen, Alan reported that Moodle had been successfully installed at E.O. Smith and that all the existing Moodle implementations that had been migrated wholly and without incident. Woohoo!
Jan Poland, her staff, Bill Green, Jon Swanson, and all their collaborators deserve congratulations.
Moodle is an upgrade to a teaching framework that involves some front-loaded effort on the part of our teaching staff that will pay big dividends with every following semester freeing the staff from numerous redundant and eye-watering administrative tasks. This is a big step forward for those who put the effort into it. And this opens up a universe of learning opportunities for our students.
Finally, the progress on upgrading our school website and its platform is launching soon! Details to follow.
What Professional Development looks like when our teaching staff drives the content:
November 13, 2012 PD Afternoon Options:
Below are the PD options available for the afternoon of November 13th. Each workshop has a description below. The workshop leader(s) are listed below, as are the meeting places.
**Each faculty member should sign up for either one 2 HOUR WORKSHOP or two different 1 HOUR WORKSHOPS. The 1 hour workshops will be offered twice, so you can mix and match the 1 hour workshops as you wish.
Be sure to read the requirements of each workshop to ensure that you bring the appropriate materials, and/or create accounts if needed.
I-Pads- Bochicchio – Rm 113 (1 hr)
SmartBoard- Palmberg – Rm 100 (2 hrs)
ELL training- Bissonnette – Rm 155 (1 hr)
Moodle- Green – Rm 110 (2 hr)
Eboards- Magner – Rm 212 (1 hr)
Cooperative Groups- Bent - Rm?
Google docs- Wilson-Holton/Meshanic – Rm 151 (Language Lab) (2 hr)
Microsoft- Trotochaud—136
Rubicon/Curriculum Writing- Hannon – LMC Lab (1 hr)
A) (1 Hour workshop)
“Improving Teacher Productivity Through the iPad”This is a beginner iPad workshop.
If you have an iPad, please bring it to the workshop.
If you attended the first iPad User Group, this workshop will be a direct repeat of that meeting.
This meeting will cover the following topics:
- how to connect to the wireless network at EOS
- how to connect your school email directly to your device
- how to find free textbooks through iBooks
- how to use PowerTeacher to enter grades through your device
- how to take attendance on your device
- how to find free college assignments through iTunesU
- how to grade student work through your device and email them back their results
- how to upload PDF files and "write" all over them
- how to create notebooks for all your meetings
Plus much more...
B) (2 Hour workshop)
“Formative Assessment using the SMARTBOARD”
| Objectives of the Activity (this will appear on evaluation form): |
1.Use the SMART Response System to assess students
2.Use the Lesson Activity Toolkit to check for student understanding
3.Create an activity using the Activity Builder to check for student understanding
|
C) (1 hour workshop)
“ELL Taking a Deeper Look into ELL Strategies”
The participant will be able to utilize strategies and modifications relevant to the student’s level of language acquisition.
The participant will be able to differentiate instruction to easily include the ability of the ELL students.
D) (1 hour workshop)
“Moodle workshop”
Get started with E. O. Smith’s new Moodle virtual learning environment in this 2 hour workshop! The first 21 people to sign up will get a spot. Moodle is a flexible, powerful, open source online course management system through which you can create a course webpage, post and receive assignments, grade online with customized rubrics, communicate with students, create forums and wikis, deliver online quizzes, and more. To see a demo, click here or check out Bill’s site here with the guest password -snip-
E) (1 hour workshop)
“Introduction to Eboards”
| Objectives of the Activity (this will appear on evaluation form): |
1. Familiarize teachers with the capabilities of an eBoard
2. Demonstrate how to use functions of an eBoard
3. Assist teachers with setting up and managing an eBoard
|
F) (1 hour workshop)
“Learning in Formal, Cooperative Groups”
This workshop will demonstrate the inquiry-based learning methods used in group activities. The learning method I have used for my 10 years is to give only short lectures and use most of the period for group activities. I have used formal, cooperative groups in which students are assigned to groups; each person in the group has assigned roles. These groups are changed every two to four weeks, so students should get a chance to work with everyone in the class.
The use of formal, cooperative groups has allowed me to “flip the classroom” and differentiate my lessons without a huge increase in workload. Group exercises to learn how to work effectively in a group will be demonstrated. A variety of group activities will be explained. Most of these can be used in any classroom. Methods for dealing with hitch-hikers will be explained.
G) (2 hour workshop)
“Google Docs”
"This workshop will introduce you to Google Docs. Google Docs enables teachers and students to easily create and share documents, Powerpoint presentations, surveys, and more. Everyone can work on documents together at the same time and from different locations. The workshop will be interactive in nature, so please make sure you have a Gmail account before you attend the workshop. Also, make a list of your students’ Gmail addresses (if they have them already) and bring that list with you. In order to get started it is not essential that you have a complete list of Gmail accounts. The more you have, the less work it will be for you late on. You will be able to work on setting up Google Docs within your classroom during the second half of the workshop."
H) (1 hour workshop)
“A Differentiated, Cooperative, Collaborative Workshop on Microsoft Office 2010”
Just when you thought you had Microsoft Office 2003-07 figured out what do they do? They “upgrade” it of course. Unlike most “upgrades” and version updates that computer programs go through where the changes are subtle and many times unseen by the user, Microsoft Office 2010 is a major rethinking of many aspects of the user interphase. This workshop is designed to be an opportunity for you to receive an overview of these changes but most importantly, give you the participant the opportunity to get specific support and answers to your questions on how to utilize the following Office 2010 programs:
· Word
· Power point
· Excel
Individuals who sign up for this workshop should take a few moments to fill out the following Pre-PD survey in order for the presentation team to best prepare for the workshop:
(1 hour workshop)
“Rubicon- Curriculum Writing and Adding Assessments”
| Objectives of the Activity (this will appear on evaluation form): |
Participants will learn how to align assessments with CCSS as well as other state standards.
Participants will be allotted time to work on their curriculum.
|
| Brief Description of Activity |
Participants will be provided with the instructions for aligning assessments with the Common Core Standards and other state standards. A brief review of adding the standards into the curriculum will also be included in the presentation. Participants will also have time to work on their curriculum and update it. Participants can sign up for both workshops and work on curriculum for 2 hours.
|
I-Pads- Bochicchio – Rm 113 (1 hr)
SmartBoard- Palmberg – Rm 100 (2 hrs)
ELL training- Bissonnette – Rm 155 (1 hr)
Moodle- Green – Rm 110 (2 hr)
Eboards- Magner – Rm 212 (1 hr)
Cooperative Groups- Bent - Rm?
Google docs- Wilson-Holton/Meshanic – Rm 151 (Language Lab) (2 hr)
Microsoft- Trotochaud—136
Rubicon/Curriculum Writing- Hannon – LMC Lab (1 hr)
