Friday, November 1, 2013
BAD teacher!
This is such a hot topic right now. Somedays I feel that everywhere I turn teachers are being blamed for everything. Check out The Cornerstone's blog post and read Angela's review and opinion on Kevin Kumashiro's book BAD teacher!
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
The Educator & Social Media
Right along with bullying and Common Core, Social media is a hot topic in education right now. I won't go into and rehash much of what has been already written, but I will direct you to some awesome blog posts and articles along the way.
Personally, I've been a Facebook addict for years. I don't often post much, but trust me, if you are my friend, I am stalking you. I've joined and been added to several educational/teacher group pages. Many are deemed private, to protect the members of the group and give them a safe place to communicate with others. I find these pages a blessing and a curse. While many times there are teachers posting questions seeking advise that I find is an excellent use of the page, most are just using it as an open forum to gripe. Now, I fully understand the cathartic values of a well placed gripe session. But sometimes I feel like people take it as a contest to see who has the worst school, colleges, parents, administration, and state government. That being said, if you'd like to collaborate w/ educators on Facebook stick to the open pages (not private) and many companies pages offer great collaboration as well. I'm a big fan of Really Good Stuff's page (and their catalogue and products). Several friends and colleges also created "teacher" accounts. Allowing for their students to connect with them on the site, but not their personal pages.
Over the past year I've become more of a fan of Twitter. Both personally, to stalk celebrities, authors, and athletes, and professionally, to stalk award winning teachers, practitioners, and presenters. Again, I don't post much, and haven't quite grasped all the lingo and how to knowledge that goes into twitter, but I do retweet posts quite often. As you can see here ----->
Also, twitter gives you only gives you 140 characters to get your message across. So, right there the gripe session is reduced.
What I love about twitter is I can be directed to great articles, blog posts, and interactive websites recommended and written by educators. Connect with professionals who have similar job descriptions, and keep on top of educational topics in a more concise and convenient manner. Twitter is also where you need to be to connect with teen students now. Teens are leaving Facebook in droves. Oh they still have an active page. But, when your grandma friends you, it's no longer the cool place to be.
For more info on Twitter and education...Check these sites below!
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb10/vol67/num05/Why-Teachers-Should-Try-Twitter.aspx
http://www.schrockguide.net/twitter-for-teachers.html
http://rossieronline.usc.edu/twitter-for-teachers/
Find teachers to connect with here:
http://twitter4teachers.pbworks.com/w/page/22554534/FrontPage
Personally, I've been a Facebook addict for years. I don't often post much, but trust me, if you are my friend, I am stalking you. I've joined and been added to several educational/teacher group pages. Many are deemed private, to protect the members of the group and give them a safe place to communicate with others. I find these pages a blessing and a curse. While many times there are teachers posting questions seeking advise that I find is an excellent use of the page, most are just using it as an open forum to gripe. Now, I fully understand the cathartic values of a well placed gripe session. But sometimes I feel like people take it as a contest to see who has the worst school, colleges, parents, administration, and state government. That being said, if you'd like to collaborate w/ educators on Facebook stick to the open pages (not private) and many companies pages offer great collaboration as well. I'm a big fan of Really Good Stuff's page (and their catalogue and products). Several friends and colleges also created "teacher" accounts. Allowing for their students to connect with them on the site, but not their personal pages.
Over the past year I've become more of a fan of Twitter. Both personally, to stalk celebrities, authors, and athletes, and professionally, to stalk award winning teachers, practitioners, and presenters. Again, I don't post much, and haven't quite grasped all the lingo and how to knowledge that goes into twitter, but I do retweet posts quite often. As you can see here ----->
Also, twitter gives you only gives you 140 characters to get your message across. So, right there the gripe session is reduced.
What I love about twitter is I can be directed to great articles, blog posts, and interactive websites recommended and written by educators. Connect with professionals who have similar job descriptions, and keep on top of educational topics in a more concise and convenient manner. Twitter is also where you need to be to connect with teen students now. Teens are leaving Facebook in droves. Oh they still have an active page. But, when your grandma friends you, it's no longer the cool place to be.
For more info on Twitter and education...Check these sites below!
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb10/vol67/num05/Why-Teachers-Should-Try-Twitter.aspx
http://www.schrockguide.net/twitter-for-teachers.html
http://rossieronline.usc.edu/twitter-for-teachers/
Find teachers to connect with here:
http://twitter4teachers.pbworks.com/w/page/22554534/FrontPage
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Parent Support Night
Just a reminder that our GCSEC Parent Support Night aka Fun Night is
Thursday, October 17 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, October 17 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Registration is open until October 11th.
Come and join us for a fun evening!
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| Download Flyer Here |
Monday, September 30, 2013
Beans & Cups!
Have you ever struggled teaching regrouping in addition and subtraction? Well, watch Jean Ann as she shows you a neat little trick using beans and cups!
Monday, September 23, 2013
StarWalk Kids Media
***UPDATE*** Check out Liz's comment below!!!!!
It is my goal to update this blog once a week during the school year. Sometimes I feel like Jean Ann and I are overflowing with information. Other weeks...crickets...*chirp chirp chirp*. That is how I felt last week. So, I didn't do an update, and planned on an AWESOME one for this week to make up for it. Then, at a board meeting this weekend for the Illinois Reading Council, author Seymour Simon and his wife Liz Nealon spoke to us about their new project StarWalk Kids Media.
Now, Seymour is a noted non-fiction Children's author. His books are beautiful, filled with outstanding pictures, rich text, and even make me excited about topics I would normally force myself to read or teach. His wife is a former producer of Sesame Street and MTV (back when it was cool). Seymour joked that she was way over qualified to help out with this project so the only way he could get her involved was to marry her! So, when you put them together with other greats in the education world you get a great website.
Now, Seymour is a noted non-fiction Children's author. His books are beautiful, filled with outstanding pictures, rich text, and even make me excited about topics I would normally force myself to read or teach. His wife is a former producer of Sesame Street and MTV (back when it was cool). Seymour joked that she was way over qualified to help out with this project so the only way he could get her involved was to marry her! So, when you put them together with other greats in the education world you get a great website.
StarWalk Kids Media is a website which allows teachers to access to interactive ebooks based on topic and reading level.
For each book the site also offers lesson plans, linked to common core developed by guru's in the field like Linda Hoyt. (If you've done any reading coursework in the last decade you will have a book written by her in your stack)
Liz gave us a demo of how the site works, it seemed simple to navigate and easy to implement into a classroom. She answered questions and continued to take suggestions.
So, check out the website, http://www.starwalkkids.com/index.php, sign up for the free trial, and have some fun with StarWalk Kids!
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Beware...Stephanie is having fun with technology...
Ok. So for those who are really tech savvy...what I have learned is no big deal. BUT for me it is AWESOME! First of all, you can all now SUBSCRIBE to this blog!!!! Just type in your email address, prove that you are a human, and then you will receive an email notice every time I post on the blog. (Yes, I send out notices, but not for every post. "Ain't nobody got time for that!")
Subscribe here---------------------->
Then, I also started a twitter account just for work ya'll! I'll be retweeting some great tweets from some of my favorite educators! If you have any suggestions on who I should follow, just follow me and let me know! If you are not on twitter, and have no desire to be on twitter (I understand, I started only to stalk celebs) you can see the newsfeed right over here! ----------------->
If you can't see it, then most likely your school is Fort Knox internet secured. Just check it out at home. You can see all my tweets and retweets without having to have your own account.
And then finally, in my following of awesome educators I've stumbled up on a blog called The Cornerstone, the author has some great tips, pinterest pages, teacher pay teachers pages ect. ect. ect. You should check her out and subscribe, especially when she has a post about the best teacher freebies!
Subscribe here---------------------->
Then, I also started a twitter account just for work ya'll! I'll be retweeting some great tweets from some of my favorite educators! If you have any suggestions on who I should follow, just follow me and let me know! If you are not on twitter, and have no desire to be on twitter (I understand, I started only to stalk celebs) you can see the newsfeed right over here! ----------------->
If you can't see it, then most likely your school is Fort Knox internet secured. Just check it out at home. You can see all my tweets and retweets without having to have your own account.
And then finally, in my following of awesome educators I've stumbled up on a blog called The Cornerstone, the author has some great tips, pinterest pages, teacher pay teachers pages ect. ect. ect. You should check her out and subscribe, especially when she has a post about the best teacher freebies!
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