October Is a Great Month for School Leaders to Connect

On By Patrick LarkinIn Connected Educator Month, National Principals Month. #CE15Leave a comment
As we complete the last full week in September and head into October, which is both Connected Educator Month and National Principals’ Month, I want to use my weekly “Three for Thursday” entry to highlight resources school leaders should follow in the upcoming month. These three sites will help school leaders stay up to date on cutting edge ideas in leadership and education technology, and help them keep their school communities informed.
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First is connectededucators.org, the home base for all of your Connected Educator Month activities. The home page has a schedule of events for each day in October and links to countless resources to help you and others in your school community become better connected. If you are a Twitter user then be sure to follow the #CE15 hashtag.
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The second site to check out is principalsmonth.org. This is a collaborative venture by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), and the American Federation of School Administrators (AFSA). The site has some excellent resources to help celebrate the important roles that principals play.
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The final site to keep an eye on heading into October is connectedprincipals.com. This great website contains blog posts from principals from all over the world. During the month of October Connected Principals will team up with NASSP and NAESP and host a weekly Twitter chat on the #cpchat hashtag. Be sure to check the site for an announcement of the chats and the archives of each chat.
So whether you consider yourself a connected educator or not, take advantage of the opportunities in October and make some new connections.  

A Great Way To Connect Parents With Your Google Classroom – BPS Blog Update (Volume 2)

On By Patrick LarkinIn Burlington blog update, Burlington High School Student Help DeskLeave a comment

In an effort to share some great resources for you to keep on your radar, sometimes I miss the obvious ones right under my nose.  With this in mind, I want to make sure that you are keeping up the BHS Help Desk Blog.  This blog provides some of the most useful information that you will find in regards to technology integration. Two recent posts that have been widely viewed are the following:

Now You Can Share & Embed Your Google Classroom Calendars with Parents! and An Important “Wi-fi Assist” Warning for iOS 9 iPhone Users.










160 posts to go…

My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)

On By Patrick LarkinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Some Entry Points for Education Leaders To #GoOpen

On By Patrick LarkinIn #GoOpen, #OERLeave a comment

This post originally appeared on my Edweek Blog

Riding the momentum of last week’s announcement from the United States Department of Education regarding the appointment of my former colleague Andrew Marcinek as its first-ever open education adviser, I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate this week’s Three-for-Thursday blog post to some Open Educational Resources (OER).  After looking at the impressive work done by Williamsfield Community Unified School District (highlighted in the video below), all school leaders should be putting the investigation of OER at the top of their to-do lists and begin preparing to #GoOpen.

    
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For starters, I wanted to share the Illinois OER site which was utilized by the Williamsfield School District. This site is full of great resources for schools looking to begin their OER journey.   
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The second site I am going to share is Creative Commons which really should be the starting point for schools beginning to utilize OER. The site has a special section dedicated to OER including a blog which school leaders should be paying close attention to for all of the latest OER updates.
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My third OER share is OER Commons. OER Commons has a great library of resources with materials for educators from preschool to college. The search page allows users to search by grade level, subject, as well as for materials aligned to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.

All of my OER resources are in My Diigo bookmarks tagged as “OER.”  If you would like to share some of your favorite web-based resources for a future Three-for-Thursday post, you can do that here.

Escape from Central Office – A Fun Visit To Fox Hill

On By Patrick LarkinIn Fox Hill Elementary School, School VisitLeave a comment

There are always things to catch up on in Central Office, but the part of the day where students and staff are doing exciting things in our classrooms across the district is limited. With this in mind, Susan Astone (our District RTI Administrator) and I have made a commitment to get out into our schools more often. Yesterday we had the chance to spend time in classrooms at Pine Glen Elementary and today we spent a portion of our morning at Fox Hill Elementary.

Check out some of what we saw below:

The kindergarten classrooms were bustling with activity as students looked at words associated with apples. We could not believe these students were just kindergartners a few weeks into school!

Ms. Levesque’s kindergartners were enjoying pajama day that they earned due to their great behavior.
We also were thrilled to see so many students enjoying reading from books. Mrs. Nolte’s class was very comfortable cozying up with their books and taking notes based on Mrs. Nolte’s guidelines below on the yellow chart paper.
More students enjoying some quality reading time.
We also got to see some impressive student working on self-portraits. 
Thanks to Mrs. Johnson and her staff for always having an open door for visitors from Central Office. We will back soon!

Blizzard Bag Discussion Begins – Will We Have Alternative Learning Time Assignments This Year?

On By Patrick LarkinIn Alternative Learning Assignments, Blizzard BagsLeave a comment
At last evening’s School Committee Meeting we began discussing the possibility of once again allowing students to complete assignments outside of school and having these assignments count for days missed due to extensive absences due to snow or other unforeseen circumstances. This initiative, which we called Blizzard Bags last year, was piloted across our district after receiving the go-ahead from our School Committee. 
The two slideshows below highlight the survey results of parents and staff members who responded. We had 221 staff members respond and 444 parents. Whether you responded or not, there is still time to provide your comments on this initiative and let us know whether you would like to see something similar in the future. This topic will be on the School Committee Agenda once again at our next School Committee Meeting on October 13. 
Nearly 70-percent of our parents would approve of a similar undertaking if the assignments were given on the day that their students miss school while over 90-percent of teachers also would support alternative learning assignments if they were structured differently from last year.

Due to this feedback on the surveys, we are certain the the following changes would be made if we continue with a similar undertaking this year:

  • The initiative will be called something other than Blizzard Bags since there are no bags involved and we could potentially miss school for something other than snow.
  • The assignments will be given on the day that school is missed (not afterwards as we did last year). In addition, the students would receive a brief window to complete the work and it would not be expected immediately upon return to school.
Please feel free to comment here in the comment section if you have questions or input that you would like to add to this discussion. We look forward to a decision on whether or not we will implement alternative assignments during our October School Committee Meetings.

My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (September 20, 2015)

On By Patrick LarkinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Three for Thursday (Volume 3)

On By Patrick LarkinIn Abbey Dick, Erin Olson, Leslie Pralle Keehn, Monica Evon, Three for ThursdayLeave a comment

Last week I posted Three for Thursday (Volume 2), a weekly series that will highlight three web-based resources that are popular with educators. Before I share this week’s edition, I want to remind you to share your resources for future Three for Thursdays by sharing them with me here. Finally, I am organizing all of these weekly Three for Thursday resources in my Diigo bookmarks by tagging them ThreeforThursday. 
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My first share this week is the Connecting Creativity Series which I became aware of after a tweet from some Iowa educators, Erin Olson and Leslie Pralle Keehn. This monthly series of learning quests is something that was created to assist teachers in the creation of technology-infused lessons in which “students create/design, students write, and students publish.”  This series was first launched last year and it is back with even more creative ideas in 2015/2016.  
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For my second share of the week, I will slide over from Iowa to neighboring Nebraska for Monica Evon’s great blog, iPaddling through Fourth Grade. The post that caught my attention was one Monica’s shared a couple of weeks ago titled Free Apps and Sites that Support Literacy. That post alone was full of resources worth checking out, but I encourage the elementary educators out there to follow Monica’s posts all year long.
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My final share of the week is a shout-out to fellow Massachusetts educator Abbey Dick.  Abbey is a high school English teacher at Malden High School and she shares a weekly post on her blog More Core ELA which highlights her experiences teaching high school English. It is a great blog for English teachers who like to reflect on their practice to follow.  

September Tech Savvy Parenting Night – Elevating Your Child’s Social Media and Digital Presence

On By Patrick LarkinIn Digital Citizenship, Parent Technology Night, Social AssurityLeave a comment

This post originally appeared on the BPSEdTech Blog

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The BPS EdTech Team is thrilled to announce the first Tech Savvy Parenting Night of the 2015-2016 school year. This event is part of our ongoing Digital Bootcamp Series which was launched last year. Our September Parent Tech night, taking place on Monday, September 28th from 6:00-7:30 p.m. at the Marshall Simonds Middle School Library Commons features Alan Katzman. Katzman is the founder of the New York City based Social Assurity and is a nationally recognized digital citizenship expert. Katzman also serves as a member of the #digcit Twitter chat moderation team.
Alan’s presentation, “Elevating Your Child’s Social Media & Digital Presence for Better College & Career Opportunities” will help parents and students understand how to leverage social media tools proactively and purposefully. The new reality is that “social media has completely changed the college application and job recruiting process.” Katzman will help parents and students learn how to showcase their skills and talents in innovative ways and ultimately get noticed by college admissions representatives. He will share how students can take advantage of social media to create an impressive and discoverable digital brand. In today’s digital world, students and their parents MUST understand how they can use various technology tools to gain a competitive advantage and achieve their higher education goals.
Don’t miss your chance to learn from one of the nation’s leading experts on digital citizenship!
“THE PIONEERING WORK OF SOCIAL ASSURITY WILL REVOLUTIONIZE COLLEGE BOUND EDUCATION FOR YOUTH AND THEIR FAMILIES.”
-The News Diva
This event is open to all Burlington Public School parents. The session is ideal for parents who have children in grades 7 through 12. Pre-registration is NOT required, however in order to prepare for the event, the BPS Edtech Team asks attendees to complete this Google Form.
The BPS EdTech Team looks forward to seeing you and your children on Monday, September 28th!