Panama Central 6th Grade Math teacher, Pam Warner, will be doing a presentation for us about Class Dojo, a behavior management application and website, that she has found is producing great results with her class. Get a sneak peek of her presentation by watching my short video below. Make sure you watch until the end so you can hear Pam's answer to the "Speed Geek" Questions. You might be surprised!
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A few years ago I was asked to do an opening day presentation to get teachers excited about educational technology. I wanted to inspire teachers to believe in the power of technology. At that time wikis and blogs were coming of age in education and so I wanted to encourage teachers to use blogs so that they, and their students could contribute their ideas, knowledge, and talents, not just in their school but around the world using these amazing technologies. As I was developing the presentation, an image started trickling into my thought-stream and my mind traveled back to the movie, The Dead Poets Society. Specifically, I remembered the classic scene where Robin Williams, as Mr. Keating, encourages his students to love art and poetry by paraphrasing from Walt Whitman's classic poem, "O Me! O Life!" The scene is incredibly choreographed with Williams in a huddle with the students, and as he says his lines the camera pans to the excited looks on the students faces. It captures their innocence, excitement, and enthusiasm to take on the world. Watching the movie on my own, often brings tears to my eyes as you see looks on the eager students' faces. Isn't that the look, as teachers, we strive to generate? I think that scene did exactly what I wanted it to do for my presentation, namely to exemplify how we live in such amazing times that allow all of us to share art, beauty, ideas,and love across the world, using 21st century technology. Here is the scene: As I was watching football this past Sunday, Robin William's lines from this scene came from a commercial and I was instantly transfixed. Apple created a wonderful advertisement about exactly what I had in mind for my presentation. Namely technology can transform the world by bringing art, beauty, poetry, and love to people around the world. I hate to say great minds think alike, because I certainly don't consider myself to have a great mind. But I was so happy to think that I made the same connection with this scene as someone else. Teachers.... parents.... be inspired to use technology to let your children, your students, yourself... contribute a verse! Apple's Version This was my interview with Innovative Educator, Lisa Nielson. I met Lisa at ISTE 2012 (San Diego) and attended one of her sessions. She is a very dynamic and thought provoking educator and blogger. She will be at Erie 1 BOCES in April so I will get to see a full day workshop with her. One of the traits I admire about her is her willingness to engage in educationally relevant topics and face civil discourse with logic, courage and conviction. One of my New Year's Goals is to make sure I interview an amazing Ed Tech Innovator at least once a month. To start the year off, I have interviewed friend and colleague Melanie Kitchen. Melanie does much of her work in the Niagara Falls School district. Her recent focus has been helping to implement the Flipped Classroom methodology. She is seeing great success and has some data to prove it! Here is my interview with her to find out about her projects, ideas for the future and her Speed Geek Insights! |
the Geek
My name is Andrew Wheelock- I am a technology integrator who's fascinated with my fellow educators and their powerful uses of tech for learning. Archives
May 2016
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