Interesting article!

Check this out!An article about a teachers and technology sent to us from David St Jean

Period 3 ePort 10/14 Mtg

ePort summary:

• student is responsible for tracking own growth as a learner over time
  
• a collection of student's work (artifacts) that meets ERIC and course standards
• reflections refer to students work as evidence of working toward standards
• use of web 2.0 and other technologies constitute a new genre (ePort)

Year-end Expectations:

• students create at least one artifact
• students reflect on that work and their growth as a learner

Our (meeting) Process:

• develop skills with specific Web 2.0 tools
• develop lessons to incorporate tools (not just add them on)
  
• share lessons and tools for feedback from the group
• create own teacher ePort to learn how to students will create theirs
• share Professional ePorts for feedback from the group

Next meeting: Post blog comments.

Period 3 ePort 10/7 Mtg

Worked with a wiki, beginning to create a web 2.0 artifact. Teachers are thinking about their curricular goals and unit objectives in order to set up a collaborative experience for students to practice and demonstrate those skills and ideas. Everyone has different experience and levels of comfort with wikis, so we are helping each other work our way through this first practicum day.

Period 3 ePort 10/1 Mtg

What are Web 2.0 tools? We talked about the second generation of web sites that allow interactive visits rather than static, one-dimensional information flow. They are not limited to but include:

Wikis
• pbworks.com
• wikispaces
Blogs
• Blogger.com
Bookmarks
• delicious.com
• diigo.com
Gaggle.net
-internet safety zone with email, chat, blogs, etc.
Videoconferencing:
• skype.com
Social Networking:
• diigo.com
• twitter.com

We looked at several examples and discussed their basic functions.

Next meeting is Wed., Oct. 7, when we will create an activity using 2.0 tool. Please bring a curricular objective.

Web 2.0 exploration

Spent the better part of Sunday evening going through the different features provided by Google's Web 2.0. Found TWINE an interesting variation of blogging in that you are responding on issues you and other share in common. Hakia seemed to streamline searching for information, giving the most pertinent sites. Spezify.com was also a refreshing variation to google.com. Navigation around the screen was interesting; like moving through I-phone features. Signed up for Google sites to start a web page.

May 12th Period 1 meeting

Ed Duclos presented a lesson that he uses with his 9th grade English students. The lesson has the students create a self-evaluation of their writing. It was the third and last lesson of the series in which the students posted their writings on their E-Portfolio. The students would evaluate themselves by writing a letter to Ed answering 11 questions that Ed had written for them.
Our group was impressed on how well the lesson was organized and that it tied into the E.R.I.C.K student expectations. Chad Lowd like how clear the objectives of the lesson were and commented that there is an assessment rubric in the eport website that could be a great resource for teachers. Nancy Greco felt that it was a terrific way to reinforce E.R.I.C.K by having it in a handout that the students would be using. Our group also noticed the similarities of student reflections in the different courses offered. Joe Madar thought that included E.R.I.C.K on individual lessons was key to having it be meaningful to our students. We also talked about the importance of reflection on students long term memory and that this type of self evaluation is a great way to achieve it.

E-port Notes 5/4/09-Ed's Group

Mike Bullock presented his project to our group, which was for students to create a pregnancy journal. His female students wrote it as a first person narrative from the wife's perspective and his male students wrote it from the husband's perspective. Each student had to have a minimum of 38 journal entries and had to incorporate class notes into the journal. Our group had several clarifying questions with regard to where the data was saved, if the students were able to interview pregnant parents, in what grade the students in the class were and what the scope and sequence was for this particular unit. In using the Critical Friends Protocol, we expressed three compliments about Mike's project. The project is authentic. We like the descriptive journal entry samples that were given to help students see what a narrative writing sample looks like. The narrative format was also viewed positively. The top three recommendations were: be more specific on the rubric , have students self-evaluate and reflect prior to your evaluation of their work and perhaps create or use a school-wide rubric for narratives. Mike thanked the group for our feedback and realized that he needed a more workable rubric and would like to include self-evaluation and reflection into his project in the near future. As a post discussion we spoke about the need for school-wide rubrics in areas such as narratives, public speaking etc. and the need to continue with this same cohort next year in order to further develop professionally and not go in a different direction. Thank you Mike!

period 8 subgroup April 29

Theresa, Heather and I discussed progress this year and organized our documents and accomplishments. We also planned what needs to be done for the rest of the year.

period 2 subgroup Aril 28

Today we discussed our progress and organized our accomplishments to prepare to present them for the end of the year review.

In attendance:
McClay,
Brand,
Warnock,
Camire,
McKenna

Subgroup meeting period 2 April 8, 2009

Today we spent most of our meeting sharing our experiences and planning artifacts or portfolios for the rest of the year.

Dave White is now having his chemistry students combine their videos with observations and reflections in their eportfolios.

Brenden is using Contribute with his Independent Living classes to create eportfolios which will feature recent power point presentations.

Sharon has already mastered iMovie and is moving on to the creation of enhanced podcasts using Garage Band and iTunes.

Joe will also be using Garage Band for a project he is using with his level 2 classes. They will be sending enhanced podcasts to the troops in Iraq.

Gail is exploring using Wikispaces for collaborative writing projects in French.

We also discussed the pressing need to update technology use policies to meet the needs of today's learners. IPods, ITouches, cellphones could all be used productively in the classroom. It was also proposed that somewhere in the school's curricula there should be instruction for using MySpace and Facebook safely and productively.