Blended Bulletin, Issue 15

Blended Brags

On Wednesday, December 16, Education Elements hosted a Launch Academy at the Mark Twain House for a group of teachers and administrators from BHS and JMA, as well as Central Office team members. Throughout the busy day, attendees had the opportunity to develop and refine key plans for the implementation of blended learning. The day started with a little warm up with our favorite yoga instructor, Maximo, at GoNoodle.

After this little bit of silliness, the group continued to work on their Design Workbooks with peer sharing through a gallery walk.

To close out the morning, attendees were able to pick 2 of four sessions to work through: Developing Self-Direct Learners; Teacher Role in the Student-Centered Classroom; Formative Assessment; and, Conferencing, Student Reflection and Feedback. These sessions were all taught through different modalities, and at the end, everyone was asked to state one intention to act on based on their new learning. 

In the afternoon, the group had much-needed work time on a few specific tasks: creating a walk-through tool for blended learning, developing a PD plan for blended learning, and revising design workbooks. Finally, the day ended with a Demo Slam for attendees to share their new learning from the day. This also gave Danielle Knobloch to show off her new selfie stick that she won earlier in the day!

If you are interested in seeing more details from the Launch Academy, please check out the agenda from the day and our very own website that we are building in collaboration with Education Elements. On the website, click "Launch" to view resources from that day!

Cool Tools

CommonLit is a free resource that provides high-quality material for teachers and students. The website hosts a collection of texts tied to certain themes and essential questions. For each theme, there is a range of texts for each grade level and genre. Each text also has embedded footnoting for vocabulary support, text-dependent comprehension questions, and discussion questions. It is not a curriculum, but rather materials that can be used in many different contexts.

Chronas is a tool that will help you and your students answer "How did the world look when...?" While it is still in beta testing, this website seems to have amazing potential. At key events in history, starting with the fatal ambush of Roman Legions in 9 AD, you can view a map of the world highlighting certain regions and cultures. By interacting with the map, you can open up Wikipedia articles tied to place you click at the time of the map. If I didn't have to write this blog, I might still be playing with this site. If you want your mind to be totally blown, check out this video.

If you were excited by Gina Rodriguez's video on Kaizena, you might also consider checking out SnagIt. Either as a desktop tool or Chrome extension, SnagIt allows the teacher to offer feedback on student work through audio or screen-capture recordings. Check out this more detailed tutorial from Alice Keeler.

Professional Learning

Future Ready update adds new resources and PD for leaders discusses the exciting updates to the federal Future Ready initiative that now seeks to develop superintendents, principals, and teachers in digital learning through personalized modules.

21 education technology recommendations for 2016 highlights the new National Education Technology Plan and its focus on ensuring that learning happens anywhere and all the time.

What Does the NCLB Rewrite Mean for Personalized Learning? shares thoughts about how the new federal education bill can potentially help or hinder student-centered learning.

5 Issues Every ‘Future Ready’ School Leader Must Address discusses the critical issues innovative schools must think about to ensure success. Embedded in the article are useful resources for each issue.

Students at the Center is Nick Donahue's TED Talk about why our work, and the work of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation is so important.