Continuing to work on the following:

• finish revisions for new HMS science and social studies discussion board http://hms8discussions.wikispaces.com/Homepage
• removing RSS Gadgets on webpage and installing permalinks to Diigo folders 
• Exploring Lucid
• integrating Socrates into lessons for entrance and exit slips
• continuing work with doctopus and goobric
• Inserting doc folders for each unit in science and social studies into webpage that will contain unit handouts
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Curation Tools to use

• I plan to use photostreaming personally to share photos and also professionally to share photos with other teachers in building (ie. 5th/8th grade buddy photos, and classroom photos)
• I plan to use feedly in the classroom with students to follow current events and discussions as well as professional development feeds and personal feeds.  
• pinterest looks fun and I've heard quite a buzz about it- so I plan to explore that some more over the summer.  I can see how it fits with personal interests at this point, but not sure how I might use it in the classroom (some think it may be dangerous to use in the classroom due to the high interest level and lack of focus)
• I may begin to use Twitter professionally to try it out.  Not sure I will post yet....

Project Idea

Megan Rice and I are planning to create a science and social studies discussion board for HMS.  We have tried several programs (wikispaces, google groups, blogger, twitter and pinterest).  After looking at all of them, I think we have decided to use wikispaces as it offers the flexibility that we are looking for.  We intend to use this discussion board with faculty and students (grades 5-8) to post questions about content, current events and resources.  We are also hoping to direct students (and staff) to follow this discussion board using Feedly.  

A goal is to encourage staff to join in the sharing of information on a regular basis, so that we can model appropriate and useful digital citizenship.  

Entrance and Exit slips?

Wondering about using Twitter... or Blog posts as entrance and exit slips.

TED Talk - Geoffrey Cananda - reflection on group discussion

Current model of ed does not work

Why do we keep doing it?

One size fits all-no innovation

Need testing data sooner-not at the end of the year.

Educational cliff- need to do something now

Guiding question- What are we doing that is failing our students?

Education clearly needs to change.  Innovation needs to happen with engagement in mind.  Kids fall through the cracks.  How do we hook all kids? The current model works for some kids but not all. How do we do a better job of personalizing learning throughout the classroom?

Pre-Assignment

Rita Pierson: "Build relationships with your students." TED Talk

• value and importance of human connection
• learning requires relationships
• "kids don't learn from people they don't like"
• +2 says "I ain't all bad" (instead of -18 on quiz out of 20)
• teachers can't give up on kids- make a connection

 Teens Talk:  Think for Yourself  TED Talk

• students measured by numbers- kills creativity
• stories and experiences enrich a subject
• more to education than passing an exam

Four key ideas:

1. Making connections with students is important.
2. Students need to be valued as individuals.
3. Celebrate what students know- not what they don't know.
4. The current model of education needs to change.

Each of these key ideas is important, and it is difficult to select only one.  The first three points are tangible and are extremely important components of education.  Every interaction with another individual provides the opportunity to make a positive connection, which is essential in the classroom to engage students in learning.  The fourth is a bit more abstract since there is no clear path- it is new territory.  Continuing to work on differentiating lessons and allowing for individual choice will help to improve education by making the content more relevant and appropriate to students.