My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (October 12, 2014)

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

Mrs. Fortunato Presents At Best Practices Conference In North Carolina

I had the good fortune of attending the RTI Best Practices Institute in Wrightsville Beach, NC with a team from Burlington.  It was great to hear some well-known RTI comsultants discuss Best Practice, but the highlight was listening to Burlington Math Coach Carrie Fortunato discuss all of the things happening in our Burlington Elementary Schools to make sure students are making progress developing their math skills. 
While the entire slideshow is above, I want to highlight a few of the key things that I took away from Mrs. Fortunato’s presentation. 
BPS Math Coach Carrie Fortunato
There is a lot more in the presentation that is work checking out, the key thing is that the work that Mrs. Fortunato has done along with our dedicated staff of classroom teachers and tutors has allowed us to ensure the development of strong foundational skills for all students.  This is due to the time an effort that has been given to make sure we all agree on the following three things:
  1. What we teach all students
  2. How we monitor the progress of all students
  3. What interventions we put in place when students are struggling
It is clear that people were impressed with the work that has been done in Burlington in the area of elementary math instruction!  We look forward to sharing more about this work in the future. Thanks also go to Dr. Scott Methe and his graduate students from UMass Boston for their consultation work that has supported our efforts.

It’s Connected Educator Month! – Weekly BPS Blog Update (Edition 5)

The post below is actually a copy of an e-mail that I sent our teachers today to continue to promote our Burlington Public Schools Blog which shares the great work going on across our school district. It is the fifth post in a series that I will continue throughout the school year.



As we hit the first full week of October, I am wondering how many people are aware that it is Connected Educators Month.  For the third year in a row, the United States Department of Education and a number of partner organizations have deemed October Connected Educator Month. You can learn more at theConnected Educator Month website. The home page lists a daily schedule of events that teachers can take part in to connect with colleagues from around the world, including a number of Twitter Chats on different topics.

If you would like to bundle an hour from a Connected Educator Month Twitter Chat with other technology PD options (i.e. How Do I Do That Sessions or our Burlington 1:1 Conference) to earn inservice credits then we would welcome that. If you need support on getting started with Twitter please connect with one of our district IT Staff. Our two Mobile Learning Coaches, Jenn Scheffer and Diana Marcus, each have online schedules so that you can book them at your convenience. Please let me know if you have any questions

Burlington Blogs Update

The number of Burlington Public Schools blogs and websites that have been shared with me has jumped to 110!  Maybe I set the bar to low at hoping to see just 100? Do I hear 125? You can check out the entire list here if you are interested. If you haven’t had a chance to share yours, then please enter it here on this Google form when you have a chance. If you have been thinking about starting a classroom blog or website and feel intimidated then please reach out to me or one of the members of our technology team for support. 


The posts below are the ones that have appeared on the blog over the last five school days.  Please feel free to forward any student work that you would like to show off for a post. Even if you don’t have a blog, I am happy to turn the work into an original post. 
Only 154 more posts to go… 

My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (October 5, 2014)

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

Do You Have A Cool Photo for our Instagram Photo of the Day?! Weekly BPS Blog Update (Edition 4)

The post below is actually a copy of an e-mail that I sent our teachers today to continue to promote our Burlington Public Schools Blog which shares the great work going on across our school district. It is the fourth post in a series that I will continue throughout the school year.

The number of Burlington Public Schools blogs and websites that have been shared with me has jumped to 92!  I am hoping that we will hit 100. You can check out the entire list here if you are interested. If you haven’t had a chance to share yours, then please enter it here on this Google form when you have a chance. If you have been thinking about starting a classroom blog or website and feel intimidated then please reach out to me or one of the members of our technology team for support. 

The posts below are the ones that have appeared on the blog over the last five school days.  Please feel free to forward any student work that you would like to show off for a post. Even if you don’t have a blog, I am happy to turn the work into an original post. 
Only 159 more posts to go… 
 One More Thing This Week – Submit A Photo for our BPS Instagram Photo of the Day!

Have you had a chance to check out our district Instagram account? Even if you haven’t please consider sharing a picture to show off you and/or your students or colleagues in action. We post one at the end of each day and share it on our district Facebook page.  So far, a couple of pirates (see the picture below) from Francis Wyman have been our most popular photo with over 900 views on Facebook!


My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (September 28, 2014)

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

#CPChats Are Back On Thursday Nights During October #CE14

Screen Shot 2014-09-27 at 9.00.37 AM   


We are excited that for the second straight year Connected Principals will be working in conjunction with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) during the month of October to help promote Connected Educator Month and National Principals Month. With this in mind, we will be participating in a series of weekly Twitter Chats beginning this coming Thursday at 8 p.m. EST. So please mark your calendar now for the following dates:

  • Thursday, October 2 
  • Thursday, October 9
  • Thursday, October 16
  • Thursday, October 23
  • Thursday, October 30

The topic for this week’s chat will be – How Principals Can Best Support Technology Integration In Their Schools. 

Our moderators this week will be Jason Markey and Rosie Vojtek

Jason is the Principal of Easy Leyden High School in Franklin Park, Illinois and a winner of the 2014 Digital Principal’s Award from NASSP.

Rosie is the Principal of Ivy Drive Elementary School in Bristol, CT and the President ISTE’s SIGADMIN group.

Please spread the word so that we can bring more people into the conversation and help educators grow their networks during Connected Educator Month. While Connected Principals is excited to facilitate these chats, we welcome all educational stakeholders to join in! Together we are smarter!Stay tuned for details regarding the remainder of our October Chats! If you would like to help moderate a chat during the month please connect with me on Twitter. For more resources to support your school and colleagues in participating in Connected Educator Month be sure to check out the Connected Educators website.

Join Us Friday As We Support Music Education In All School Communities

The NAMM Foundation and the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus sponsored a video contest that answered the question, “What Makes Music Education Great in My School or District?”  Thanks to the award winning video above by Pranav Menon, Burlington will be hosting a Community Forum fall tour event that you can attend in person or follow live on the web.

You can register here to attend this free program in person or virtually.  The program will feature performances by our talented students and special guests.  For more information click here.

A Great Communication Tool for all Staff and Weekly BPS Blog Update (Edition 3)

The post below is actually a copy of an e-mail that I sent our teachers today to continue to promote our Burlington Public Schools Blog which shares the great work going on across our school district. It is the third post in a series that I will continue throughout the school year.

The number of Burlington Public Schools blogs and websites that have been shared with me is up from 73 to 82!  I am hoping that we will hit 100. You can check out the entire list here if you are interested. If you haven’t had a chance to share yours, then please enter it here on this Google form when you have a chance. If you have been thinking about starting a classroom blog or website and feel intimidated then please reach out to me or one of the members of our technology team for support. 

The posts below are the ones that have appeared on the blog over the last five school days. Today’s post by BHS Senior Cat Hoyt is actually our first student post of the year. Please feel free to forward any student work that you would like to show off for a post. Even if you don’t have a blog, I am happy to turn the work into an original post. 
Only 164 more posts to go… 
This Week’s Blogger Tip of the Week is for Everyone whether you have a blog or not.


The topic of yesterday’s mentoring meeting for new teachers was communication with parents/guardians. Within the discussion someone asked for thoughts on teachers giving out their personal cellphone numbers to parents and/or students. With the availability of Google Voice within our Google apps domain, you can give your parents and/or students a number to reach you without ever giving your personal number. 
The slideshow below will take you step-by-step through the process to set up a Google Voice account. Once you have it set up, you can receive calls and texts to your Google Voice number. If you miss a call, it will end up in your e-mail inbox with a transcription of the message.
Finally, if you do have a Blogger blog, you can click on the gear icon within Google Voice and get a widget to embed the link to your Google Voice account on your blog. This allows people to click on the widget and connect with you right from your blog. If you want to get an idea of how it works feel free to check out my Google Voice widget on the top right corner of my blog.

My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (September 21, 2014)

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