Twitter for the WIN: Snow Day Collaboration

Each year about this time, I am working on a project around promoting & supporting Digital Learning Day.  Sometimes I struggle with this because I am steeped in working with schools who have excellent digital learning.  They are 1:1,  they know tech is a tool, not the end all be all.  They lobby often for more bandwidth, unblocking, and employ technology purposefully to extend learning and to connect with others.

Because this is my "normal" for digital learning, I was reflecting on what part of digital learning was most important or urgent for me.  Just as a was coming to a conclusion around the fact that the best part for me was connecting…I was distracted from my very deep thoughts around this by this Twitter stream…

Then I was totally sucked in!  The tweets flew back and forth with project ideas from these teachers.  The significance for me was, it began with a teacher listening to a podcast, snowed in on his farm, reaching out to his colleagues via Twitter.

You could feel the sense of urgency to get busy on in leaping from the page.  The more they went back and forth, the more the ideas grew, one of the final tweets was this…

 Later that night I see this Facebook post from one of the snowed in teachers….

Connectivity is the win for me.  Teachers connecting with each other as needed not from 8-3, connecting with broadcasters, journalists all to connect students to resources, history and possibilities.

I know these teachers, I know they had this passion for teaching and learning long before we had real-time collaboration via Twitter, but without Rex, sending out that tweet and his colleagues jumping in and responding, the idea might never have been fed, nurtured and now growing into a project.

C'mon Get Happy (Yep It's a Partridge Family Tribute) #NTNHappy

Hello, world, here's a song that we're singin', c'mon get happy...

Easier said than done, eh?

Just what does it take to have a happy life? A happy community? A happy school?

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know I am unabashedly an admirer of the New Tech Network people I work with, both on our staff and in our schools!  

One of my fav colleagues , Sarah Field, and I Vidyo-ed a couple of weeks ago when she was inspired by this post from Upworthy….

AND A PROJECT WAS BORN!

I am very intrigued by this project for so many reasons, some personal….I feel like I was sort of "born happy" blessed with a happy nature. I tend to be an optimist, a pollyanna, an "everyone thing will be okay" kind of girl. …..nature or nurture? Which makes me wonder...

Can we…

 CHOOSE happy? 

CREATE happy?

I do know what makes me happy…the fact that this project is open to everyone, everywhere, every grade, every age!

Connecting people, projects, places, resources, ideas…that makes me happy!

I am so excited to watch how this will unfold, what our students will discover, who they will connect with , what they will teach us and what we will learn!

Now if you haven't watched the Partridge Family video at the top of the page yet, you should….(full disclosure: I did get a David Cassidy guitar sometime during the early 70's for Christmas and have had this song as well as "I Think I Love You" on my iTunes playlist forever!)

Join the Global Happiness Project!  

#PBLChat and #INeLearn team up to talk Common Core & PBL

By now blog readers know I work with New Tech Network (and that I LOVE it).  Sometimes in the network we laugh and wonder if we "over collaborate"…..but we keep going because two (or more) heads are better than one!

In the spirit of collaboration we are teaming up with the folks at #INeLearn (Indiana E-Learning) to talk about Common Core.  You often hear from the people at BIE that "Common Core is the what & PBL is the how".

Is PBL the "how" that can help you as we find our way with the Common Core?
Do you have some resources to share that may help others?
Just need to vent & discuss how you feel about it?
Join us (whether you are from Indiana or any other state!)
We typically have students present & engaged at this chat so it is a great time to hear their voices!
Have questions you want use to pose during the chat? Add them to the comments!
We are using the #PBLChat hashtag, but feel free to add #INeLearn, too!
See you Tuesday 8pm ET!


To prepare for the chat….check out this Ignite Talk
Common Core Will NOT Bring About Armageddon 

Let's Ask Students About Homework!

I have been pretty opinionated about the value of homework in the past.  Especially where elementary age students are concerned.
(See this blog post…STOP with the Homework Already, They Are Kids! )

This past week for #PBLChat our topic was HW and project based learning.  We have always been fortunate in this chat that we always have students jump in and chat with us.  As usual they shared some very insightful thoughts during the chat.  Here are a few of them:

Of course not all of their thoughts around homework were negative!  Many students jumped in with advice on how to make homework more meaningful and valuable to them. 

What do YOUR students think about homework? Have you asked them? 

BlurryLines : If I Can Find It, It's Okay to Use it & Other Copyright Myths

If I can download it, it's okay.
If they don't want me to use it, they should make it so I can't.
It's for "educational purposes".
If I can just right click and save, it isn't copyrighted.
It's not like I'm hurting anyone.
If I can find it, I can use it.

All of the above are things I've heard teachers and students say.  I'm certain I've said something like "It's for educational purposes" without even being sure what that meant.  I was someone who was okay with what I thought were the blurry lines of copyright. it was easy to  rationalize my behavior, I just told myself  that it was something a student needed and that made it okay.  Then I had an experience that led me to think more deeply about copyright.

Read the full post that includes resources on New Tech Network's blog where it was originally posted.