Manifestos

While browsing the web I happened upon "Manifesto for 21st Century Teacher Librarians." by Joyce Kasman Valenza. It's a long one but well-thought out. I particularly like how the author mentions promoting student created materials and working to bridge the digital divide. So tell me what you think. What did she leave out? This quote might just be my favorite: "You unpack the good stuff you carried from your 20th century trunk. Rigor, and inquiry, and high expectations, and information and media fluency matter no matter what the medium. So do excitement, engagement, and enthusiasm." Those three e's can certainly lead to rigor, inquiry and high expectations. Tell me, what would your manifesto look like?

Getting by with a little help from my friends, The Justice League

The other day I noticed one of my first graders reading a Justice League graphic novel. I had purchased it for the 3rd grade so I was interested to see what she thought of it. She read me a page and there were quite a few tricky words. After chatting about the book, I gave her a sticky note and asked her to record any words she wondered about so we could talk about them next time. Today her list was full of words but unfortunately my plan took away context. We talked about the words and made a new plan to use tiny arrow notes to point to words so we could use context clues. I was impressed by her grit to keep going and she was able to still understand. The Justice League has motivated her to read a tough book and I'm quite proud.

Privacy in Social Media

Have you posted to Facebook lately? I've become a FB window shopper these days. I don't post much but I continue to be surprised by what other people post. It makes me wonder what my nieces and nephews will post when they have their own account. Just one ill-thought out picture can ruin a person's life. What steps do you take to inform your students about the dangers of social media? How do you keep yourself safe? Do you rely heavily on privacy settings or limit your friends?

What is your favorite subject?

Do you remember your favorite subject in 2nd grade? I would guess that mine was music. My teacher loved to play the piano and his class was more than willing to sing about the headless horseman or one of the many Christmas songs we knew. I know that math was NOT my favorite, by far. Math was boring page after page of math facts. With this in mind, I was surprised when I overheard my class discussing their favorite subject. The majority of the 2nd graders favored math. At first, I attributed this to the class correcting their papers together in small groups. That may be part of it, but I think the game Sumdog has had an effect on their motivation, too. This class has learned their math facts quite quick. Lately, the new material presented is greeted with comments of "oh, yeah I've done this on Sumdog" Have you tried out the free version? Our class is using the subscription version this year. If you have it, how do you use the teacher dashboard?

Thoughts on my Digital Community

Last week I flew to Omaha to meet with my cohorts. During the full day of keynotes I looked around at the other teachers cheering "Good job! Good job! Good Job Good Job! G double o. D, J-O-B, Good Job, Good Job!" and thought, yep these are my people. I prefer the term cohorts to 'tribe.' I remember conjugating the word during Latin 9 in high school. It really resonates with me because we had a group of four of us who supported each other. We worked in a group and each person had their job. We were a latin cohort. My cohorts are the people who get me and together we encourage each other to learn. After reading the articles written by Goins I immediately related to the person who cut their tribe way down. I prefer a few quality contributors to my blog comments or Instagram feed as opposed to a legion of followers. I think the best way to grow your following is to lead by example. If I am an active contributor of meaningful comments I am adding to my community. What about you, do you want a big tribe or a few quality followers?

Twitter PD

Last week I was in Omaha for a teachers' conference. Working in a small school, I miss out on collaboration and I always look forward to hobnobbing with my kindred spirits. But, we only get together once a year. Twitter is a great way to quickly connect. I am most likely to crowd-source ideas with twitter. How would you use twitter?

Kahoot!

Last week I stumbled upon Kahoot! If you haven't heard of it, Kahoot is an web based program for every student response and is device universal. My class tested it with a Social Studies review. I split the class into multi-age groups. I set the timer for two minutes to encourage scholarly peer discussions. Each student participated. Each student discussed with their peers. The class had a great chance to review when they talked to each other. Twitter reminded me of other great uses for Kahoot including flashcards and vocabulary review. Kahoot is a great classroom tool that I hope will stick around.