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Theresa Allen ( @ tdallen5 )  is an amazing IT Integrator from Illinois. In the last three years, she's helped her school connect on a global basis from kindergarten through middle school. She inspires me with how she works with teachers at her school and her ability to facilitate change in such a short amount of time. "You can do this, I can help you, let's go." says Theresa.  She shares her philosophy of IT integration at the end of the show. As I look at what I'm trying to do in IT Integration, I've got to be more like Theresa. Theresa is a Flat Classroom certified teacher and will be with Julie Lindsay, me, Frank Guttler  in the Flat Classroom Live Event in Hawaii. She is an inspiring example of how much one good IT integrator matters in the life of thousands of students. IT Integrators can help teachers so much. Please follow Theresa, she's amazing Listen to the show Show Notes and Links: Hello Little World Skypers (mentoring group fo...

Greatness (Photo credit: Sonel-SA ) Sometimes in order to be great, you've got to leave some good things behind. You must choose How you spend your time . If you're at the swimming pool, you can't go to Disney. You can't inhabit two spaces at the same time. You choose. How you spend your money. If you spend $1,000 a month at Wal-mart buying tupperware and coffee cups, you can't save that money for a cruise. You have to choose. Sometimes you have lots of good choices. If you're one of those gutsy talented people out there - your problem isn't going to be "what do I do?" but "which do I do?" You'll have to choose between good and great.  Why be good if you can be great? Why do good things if you can do great things? Good just isn't good enough. You have a life to live. You can do stuff or you can do something really important and meaningful. Will your legacy be heirlooms or "stuff"? Thinking of the end ...

Digested Sucks Notes And Highlights From iBooks And Spits Them Out In Evernote or PDF | Cult of Mac If you use iBooks and have a mac, this program called Digested will pull your notes and highlights from iBooks into evernote. tags: education news Google Keep Here's the link to Google's new notetaking service. Honestly, I used to depend on Google notebook. Because I've lost so much with Google lately, I don't want to go back and depend on something else I'll lose. You can't tag the note but you can add a color to it. This is definitely something missing in the Google suite of services as schools are having to pick between Evernote and One Note, the two most prominent and ubiquitous services out currently. tags: google notebook ...

Today is the last day of my 11th year of teaching. Today my oldest son graduates. Sometimes the struggles of teaching just have to come out. Hope you finish the school year well even though you're exhausted. Here's how. YOU ROCK! -- Vicki Last night at 9 pm or so I had my head down on my desk in my classroom, upset because my computer kept crashing when I tried to render the graduation movie. Usually, I'm done far before now but the workload at school this year has been tough. If I had one wish for myself, I'm guessing it would be that I could enjoy all of this more. But then again, it would be kind of like e njoying a car wreck because that is what the end of school is like for me. Things come at you. You try to respond quickly. You try to adjust. You start skidding and spinning, and suddenly it all stops and you see you're OK. I do love teaching. I do love being a Mom - my first calling. But it is so very evident to me why we are finite creatures, e...

Wissahickon School District: WHS Graduation Project I'll be spending time to AJ Juliani, Steve Mogg and Rosie Esposito from Wissahikon school district. Here's a copy of their Graduation project required to graduate from their school. I think all schools should have graduation projects. There is information and manuals if you want to look into this for yourself. I saw this in Evansvlle High school as well. This can be part of your genius work. "As part of graduation from Wissahickon High School, every senior is required to complete a graduation project.  The projects include research, writing and an oral presentation to assure that students are able to apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluation information and communicate significant knowledge and understanding.  This is culminating project in one or more areas of concentrated study under the guidance and direction of the high school faculty. " tags: ...

guest post by Johnna Weller, Ed D. guest post by Johnna Weller, Ed D.   Note from Vicki: Johnna from Discovery Education, wrote the recent post 15 Wrong Ways to implement Common Core. Discovery is offering Common Core Academies this summer. I've done work with Discovery and am a Den Star Educator and Love their work, so I asked her to share about their Academies this summer and what to expect. Having been part of one of their STEM institutes, I know first hand what an excellent job they do. I can personally attest to the fact that their training is exciting, engaging, and hands on. As always please review the disclosures at the bottom of this post. Two weeks ago, I wrote about 15 Wrong Ways to Implement the Common Core .  Since then, I’ve been asked to list the “right” ways.    Is there a Common Core "checklist?" Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a list of things that, if completed, would ensure that your classroom/school/district was “Common Core-ized”? ...

Moving at the Speed of Creativity | Redeeming the Family: Blessing Children of Incarcerated Parents Wesley Fryer is not only a great educator but a great man. Here he shares how he and other men went into the Cushing Oklahooma correction facility and helped dads record messages to their children for Father's day. What a great thing to do. Part of my own faith is the forgiveness that we can receive and as people we must forgive and encourage those who have made mistakes. If you don't make a mistake ignore this post, if you do, then consider bringing something like this to your area. Great work, Wes. I hope our PLN's share this message far and wide. "This is a 14 minute video reflection by Wesley Fryer, who volunteered with Redeeming the Family on May 15, 2013, at the Cimarron Correctional Facility (prison) in Cushing, Oklahoma. Oklahoma currently has 17 prisons, and Cimarron is one of three which is privately operated. Correction...

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad Four Questions for End of Year Focus Groups with Students Yesterday was focus groups in my class. I have the students answer four questions: What was your favorite thing we did this year? What was your least favorite thing we did? What was the most important thing you learned? What was something you wish we'd spent more time doing? Voting for the Lesson for the Last Day of Class Out of that conversation, I had all four classes echo that they wanted to know "how to get more followers on social media like you've done, 'Miss' Vicki." I let them vote on what I'd share the last day of school and that was it... a lesson they asked for but will not be graded. And while there is time for questions built in, it is largely a lecture - something I don't do much but sometimes should. How to get More Followers  (a 20 minute presentation) So, I spent yesterday drafting up my notes w/ a ...

Why the mantis shrimp is my new favorite animal - The Oatmeal This great cartoon can be used to talk about eyes and color but is also funny. You might want to share this with students if your class talks about these topics. Wow, the Mantis Shrimp has the ability to see this many colors? tags: cartoon news education science color eyes biology 15 Incredible Cat Photobombs (PHOTOS) If you need a laugh for the end of the year, the 15 incredible cat photobombs are great for a laugh. tags: education news humor Anchornote - iPhone - English - Evernote Trunk Another award winner - this is a cool app to plan your ...

Eva Brown  @ ebrownorama is a highered teacherpreneur who helps her classroom matter by connecting teachers to others throughout the world. ( Listen to the interview .) Eva Brown  @ ebrownorama  is a teacher educator from Canada. We recently sat down to record another episode of Every Classroom Matters and she gave me 5 very clear ingredients for excellent preservice teacher education. For those of you not familiar with the term "preservice" (it is called different things in different countries) - this means, Eva teachers people how to be teachers before they enter the classroom. 1. Create Flat Learning Experiences (also called Tandem Learning ) +Eva Brown   worked with +Barbara Morganfield   @ blmteach  to create a powerful learning experience for their students. They each had an expertise and a topic they were teaching. (Eva - ICT and Barbara - Discipline issues) Eva's students presented tools that would fit what Barbara's students we...

Bikes & Bullets - YouTube This YouTube channel is an example of how parents MUST sign off on genius project. The final video "go Pro hero" is the only "officially submiited" video for this student's genius project. But he runs a youtube channel that has a bit of a cult following. I don't approve of the stunts, etc. but the child's mother does. He also did all the work at home except for the final. This is one of those challenging ones and is something to be aware that you can deal with when you have genius projects. I have parent sign off on anything students do. tags: education news passion_project Wix.com AwesomeMadi created by Tucker2015 based on my-gallery | Wix.com This efolio is by far one of the best. I love on the homepage. She says "Hello my name is ...