Blog Neglect
Planning for Intervention and Enrichment
I recently had the amazing experience of working with members of my school's SIP team to create some tools to assist classroom teachers to make instructional decisions for students who are struggling as well as students who are excelling beyond developmental or grade level expectations. Collaborating and sharing with professionals so passionate about student achievement was a blast to say the least. We based our work on Richard Allington's Six T's of exemplary teaching and the Optimal Learning Model (Regie Routman's version). Further, we brought with us a belief that all students can achieve at high levels and all learners need instruction that engages higher level thinking. We visualized groups of teachers coming together monthly to examine their classroom formative and summative data, sharing ideas with peers, and walking away with a tier 1/tier 2 plan of action all in one hour. Yes, it may seem lofty, but why not try? And add to that, we wanted teachers and administrators to be able to access these tools with their iPads. Our pie-in-the-sky plan incorporates Google Docs and LiveBinders. The mind map below is an overview of the planning process.
Blogging with My iPad
Blogging with my iPad . . . seems like a natural next step in my growing app addiction. This post was written and posted using an app called Blogsy. The app is fun to use and not difficult to figure out. Blogsy includes excellent tutorial videos. Embedding images from Picasa, Flicker, or your iPad camera roll is surprisingly easy. Maybe this will be the push I need to clean all my photos and images out of my hard drive and organize them in web albums in Picasa. Many fixes for Wordpress users were included in the most recent update. If you are interested in composing posts from your iPad, the $4.99 price is quite reasonable. So far, Blogsy is an app that actually does what it claims to do.
A Mess in the Cloud
I think I am on iPad app overload.
There. Are. So. Many. Apps. And. So. Little. Time. The whole app thing is quite
the racket. I started off telling myself I would only upload free apps. That
lasted about a day. Even the cost of the less expensive apps adds up quickly. Paying for an app feels a little like gambling. Is the app worth 2.99? Will it
actually work the way it says it will in the iTunes App Store? It sure is easy
to hit “buy” and punch in your apple ID. And one would think that updating ones
apps would be a good thing. Not necessarily. One of my favorite apps was
recently updated and it no longer works in a way that serves my purposes.
Fabulous. Even so, I’m learning from my mistakes and successes and am becoming savvier
at reading reviews on apps and the companies that create them. And I do see a
day when I might be able to work nearly paperless. How cool would that be? So
instead of a mess all over on my desk, I’ll have a mess up in the cloud.
Still Feeling Seasick
I finally had my interview last Friday. I
interviewed for one of the new coaching positions that was created for the upcoming
school year in my district. My previous position as a literacy coach was
eliminated. I was very nervous, almost physically ill. Throughout the weekend
that followed the interview, I hammered myself about what I should have said as
well as all the dorky stuff that came out of my mouth. I was one of a boat load, thirty-ish I think, of candidates that rotated
through three interview stations. We had 15 minutes to impress each group before
moving to the next. Even though I knew most of the interviewers, I still felt
very exposed and vulnerable and nauseous. I probably won’t know if I got the position for
another 2 or 3 weeks.
More on Digital Conferring Notebooks
I've been playing for weeks with the idea of using an iPad as a digital notebook. Last week I posted about using an app called GoDocs together with a form I created in Google docs. I've been using the apps in tandem with some pleasing results. Editing Google docs with an iPad appears to be a common bugaboo among both iPad and Android users. I've spent lots of time researching and reading blog posts and help forums on the topic. And for some bizarre reason, I find that interesting. A lot of what I figured out came from trial and error. I like that I can quickly enter information on a customized form and view all my notes on a spreadsheet on my iPad. I can also sort my notes by name so I can view all my notes on one student at once. As I was making my form, I had to think about how I wanted the information displayed in the spreadsheet. Like I said, lots of trial and error. The following are screen shots of my current form as it appears on my iPad. The last screenshot is the spreadsheet that collects the information gathered by filling out the form as I confer with my students. After using my form, I'm already thinking about revisions. Playing around with Google docs forms and spreadsheets led me to even more questions. What if I wanted to create more of a portfolio for individual students? Well, Jennifer at I hablo espanglish and Linda at Teacherdance were totally right about Evernote. It is quickly becoming the basket for all my student information and has a portfolio feel. More about Evernote later in the week.
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| I added pull-down menus for name and reading level. |
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| I could probably get rid of the box for date since all the information is automatically time-stamped in the spreadsheet. |
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| I created "go to" pages so that I can select an area for improvement as part of a multiple choice question and go right to a page of teaching points for that particular area. |
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| The spreadsheet should be viewed in a list view which allows me to sort the information by name, level, or areas of concern. This is helpful for forming strategy groups. I can also go into the spreadsheet on my iPad and edit any of the information in the cells. |
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