A FREE 47 Page Guide to Google Sites for Teachers
via Richard Byrne of FreeTech4Teachers.com
Heads-up: There’s currently no way to download this document, which is tremendously obnoxious (I don’t want to have to be connected to the Internet to read this), but it’s not my decision.
Lecture As Content Delivery Is Dead →
An interesting perspective, and definitely worth a read. Here’s an excerpt:
Lectures should be used to inspire, tell stories, and push ideas
Before every keynote or lecture I give I start by giving the audience a page like this that allows them to get involved with what I am talking about or to be off task.
I constantly tell my audience that if they are going to be off task then here are some links, some ways to be off task. If I can’t hold their attention that’s my fault as a teacher not their fault as a learner.
Is that right? We are quick to blame students for not paying attention but to be fair if I’m in a boring lecture I don’t care how old I am I’m not paying attention. Is that my fault as a student or the teacher’s fault? I believe that’s my fault as a teacher. You might disagree but I’ll own it that if my class is boring that’s on me.
How to Make Lectures More Engaging →
Jeff Utecht shares one of his presentation pages he shares with attendees of his lectures (discovered here). It’s a fascinating setup, and I may have to
stealuse this idea.Sidenote: I met an educator at a conference a few years ago who told me she believes that in education you should never feel badly about stealing a good teaching idea. She referred to the practice as R&D, which instead of “Research & Development” stood for “Rip-off and Duplicate.” I always got a kick out of that.
TED talks
I watched a TED talk featuring Roger Doiron titled “My Subversive Plot”. he wasn’t talking about a movement to take over the world, though hopefully this idea is catching on and will shortly take over the food world. He was talking about kitchen gardening and the need for people to start growing their own food. As a Family and Consumer Sciences major, this is not the first time this idea was presented to me, and as an FCS educator, this was already something near and dear to my heart. I have grown a vegetable garden of some scale or variety for most of my adult life. In this country, most of us are so disconnected with our food and its production that we are unaware of how tenuous the system which feeds our world really is. Poverty and hunger are growing issues worldwide. How can gardening help? Roger Doiron mentioned that at the peak of the “Victory Garden” movement- that was a World War Two-era movement- 40% of the produce consumed in this country came from home plots. Gardening on that scale frees up so much of the food supply that could be shared with areas of the world where food production is difficult or impossible. Many people have a vision of perfectly manicured lawns, but what ideal does that vision serve? Grow gardens, not lawns!
http://www.ted.com/talks/roger_doiron_my_subversive_garden_plot.html
What it’s all about out here!
Professional Organizations
As an educator, it is important to stay on top of new developments in our field. What better way to do this than to join a professional organization? These organizations plug you directly into those people whose job it is to explore the latest theories and practices, and inspire those of us in the field.
I currently belong to ACTE- the Association for Career and Technical Education. This organization is specifically for those in the fields of Family and Consumer Sciences, Industrial Technology, and Business. I have enjoyed being connected to this organization, as these disciplines are often not required subjects, and are frequently subject to budget cuts and downsizing. ACTE keeps its members abreast of legislation affecting our fields, and developments in school districts across the country. Frequent e-mails and newsletters provide members with up to the minute information about issues affecting our field. More information can be found at www.acteonline.org . Membership is free.
Other organizations for Family and Consumer Sciences are AAFCS- American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, and NAFCS- Nebraska Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. Membership in these organizations is less expensive for students. For AAFCS, membership is $60. For NAFCS, membership is automatic when you join AAFCS. Check them out at http://www.aafcs.org/.
These organizations also hold conferences for professional development. This is a great way to network with other professionals in your field!
HPC TV →
Now this is a good use of instructional technology. Students create their own show!
Tech Edge Conference
Last week I virtually attended the Technology Edge conference at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. Since I live about eighty miles from Lincoln, attending this conference online was a very convenient option for me.
During the key-note address, the sound was not working for the online feed. I was able to text an instructor at the conference and she was able to communicate to someone and the problem was quickly corrected! Isn’t technology cool? I liked the point the speaker made that teachers who do not avail themselves of technological teaching tools will soon be guilty of educational malpractice. I am entering the teaching profession as a second career, but I am very excited that there are such wonderful tools available to me to make my job easier. It would be easy to stagnate and rely on old ideas, but to do so would be depriving your students of a world of learning opportunities. Besides, at my age, I feel that some techno-savvy increases my “street cred”!
I attended a session on building a class website using Google sites. This was a good preview for me, and has made my current classroom assignment much easier. I have enjoyed using these types of tools as a student, and I plan to use them as a teacher, and also for personal use. My own children are growing up and scattering (one in Kearney, one in Chicago) and a family website would be a great way to keep everyone up to date.
I also attended a session on LiveBinder and found that it lined right up with what I planned on doing to organize my curriculum materials, but I had planned to use ACTUAL binders. This online organizing tool will save me a lot of paper, ink, and time!
I tried to connect to a third session, but the Twitter one I was looking for was not connecting, and another one I tried had horrible sound issues, so I called it a day. I plan to check out more of these sessions as soon as they are available!
LiveBinder
Today I created a LiveBinder to begin compiling curriculum materials. I created a binder for each curriculum area. You may view my binders at http://www.livebinders.com/shelf/my .
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