Sign up if interested in being part of the pilot program for 09/10

[Connie Weber]

Whether you'd like to be a mentor or mentee, please indicate interest by placing a response on this forum.

[Connie Weber]

Connie Weber: best as a mentor for elementary through middle school. Interested in creativity in the classroom, "whole child" learning, integration of nature study into class life, strong in working with helping students develop passion for learning and self-discipline. (Ha--writing an ad about myself!) Also strong with use of tech in the classroom, students have a class network; digital learning is pretty constantly woven into everything we do. (Whew, that took courage. But note that I did it quickly, just a broad-brush statement that might help learners find each other.)

[Nathan Lowell]

Nathan Lowell: Not a K-12 teacher, but expert in computers, network technology, and social media.

[Laura Gibbs]

Mentor: I would be glad to be a mentor or coach or whatever we call it to someone with an interest in student web publishing (blogging, webpages, etc., using tools like Blogger.com, Ning.com, PBWorks.com, or TarHeelReader.org) or in developing an online resource library with Delicious tags. I'm guessing those are the main things I could be helpful with - although here is a caveat: as a college teacher, I've got very little experience in navigating the obstacles that K-12 teachers often face in using these tools. I've got some slideshows that provide an overview of my online tool use at this Fireside forum. :-)

[Maria Williams]

Mentee: I'm interning in Grade 4 in a school of around 600, in area classified as "urban fringe." Our classroom technology opportunies are limited, and for that reason I need contact with those who can help me stay current.

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Maria! I teach college, but one of the tools I am using was actually built with a young audience in mind - Tar Heel Reader. Is this something you have seen? I think it is great! It is an easy way to put together simple text (big font, meant to be easy to read) with images from Flickr - either images that are there at Flickr already, or images that you upload to Flickr. You can also upload images from your own computer, although using Flickr is best. You can see the readers and find out more about Tar Heel Reader here: TarHeelReader.org.

I was sure about the limitations you were facing, or what goals you have for using technology, but there might be some good things about Tar Heel that could be helpful. For example, it has easy download options so you can use the readers offline; you can download them as Powerpoints. So if you don't have a live Internet connection in your classroom, that is okay - you can download and then view the readers offline. At the same time, it is an online environment based on sharing. So, you could grab a bunch of readers to use with your students offline, and then create and add your own readers when you have a chance to be online, sharing them with others. You can also take an existing reader, copy it (grabbing all the images at once), and then change the text. Or, you as the teacher can set up a reader with all the images (choosing them from Flickr yourself), and then have your students write the text as a classroom exercise, after which you could publish their book - and it would be online for them to read and to share with others.

Anyway, I've had a great time using this tool to create beginning Latin readers, and I've been so impressed at how much both teachers and students like working with this system. A teacher in England used it to have her students (12-year-olds, I think) create their own books practicing singular and plural noun forms in Latin, writing little books about animals.

If any of that is something of interest to you, I'd be glad to work with you on developing a plan to use Tar Heel with your own students, and then helping you to evaluate how it is going, to see if it is indeed helping you to achieve your goals.

Here are some of the readers I have created - it was one of the most fun things I did this summer! Most are in Latin, but here are the bilingual ones, with the Latin and English interwoven:
Latin-English Fables & Proverbs at Tar Heel

Oh, and since this is a site specifically designed for young children, I do not think there would be any objections at your school to using it. Often the tools I use are considered not appropriate for young children because they are based on the open Internet. Tar Heel, on the other hand, is built for children, and meant to be very safe. Books with even slightly problematic content (like a picture of a cat eating a mouse, as happens in Aesop's fables!) get marked with a little warning exclamation mark as you will see there. :-)

[Maria Williams]

This sounds great! I look forward to doing some exploration with it. As you state, I would have difficulty getting access to open-internet applications - but this "gated learning community" might be something I could promote within my system for use with writers' workshop. Thanks much!

[Ian Carmichael]

Ian Carmichael mentor: um. [probably mentor 1.0!] I've rambled around secondary and adult education a bit (30-odd years) - maths, physics, computer studies, computer science, junior science, religious studies, ethical controversies and ethical theories, science and religion... And I'm on the journey with social media - especially in the latter two senior topics.

[Ken Messersmith]

Ken Messersmith: vagabond, started as a high school vocational agriculture teacher (8 years), 7 years at the 2-year technical school level in agriculture, became interested in computers and retrained in computer science, taught CS at university for 18 years, found I loved to teach teachers, moved to teacher education six years ago. interested in all things related to teaching and how technology tools can support learning.

[Jane Nordli Jessep]

Connie,
I think this posting from yesterday does touch on possibilities of how I could help. Talking about the teaching for understanding model from Harvard would be lots of fun. Here are more thoughts:

As an online coach I am very interested in how any internet networks can really help teachers in nurturing their teaching practices. I started a separate Ning for the study group I just coached through WIDE (harvard's gse professional development for teachers site)and so far there has been a tiny bit of action. I suspect that I will have to encourage conversation, bring up topics in much the same way that Connie et al do here.
Probably because the course I mostly coach has become a tad "product" oriented, my thinking is starting to shift. For a while I felt we were being too concrete with the teachers who participated in the courses. But now I see the value in the experience of creating something using the TfU framework, an effort which is supported by collegial conversation and the encouragement and ongoing feedback from the coach, invitation to think yet again from a different perspective how to deepen the work we create for students.
Now we here are not in a formal setting and our purposes are not those of a course, and yet, I wonder how we might tackle the smaller bore issues, projects in the works, ideas for lessons, the detail stuff of work here? Is that a bad idea? How can all the wonderful idea sharing that goes on here, the philosophizing, the great links to resources, the radical questions and thoughts be put to work for works in progress or in the initial stages of planning? Maybe that's just not what we need to be doing here. But don't you figure new and future teachers might like a place to bounce off ideas for real life needs, right in this moment?
Jane

[Maria Williams]

I began my post five entries ago, but my elderly classroom equipment hiccupped before I finished . . . Let me go on to say that my greatest need in a mentoring relationship is to renew my energy, as well as my courage.

Around me I see and hear about plenty of children being left behind, about substantial resistance to research-supported innovations. I recognize that I'm entering into an uphill pull. I don't want to be a 5-year-washout statistic; therefore, I want to cultivate opportunities to get my head above the tide of entropy.

We have many opportunities for formal professional development - more than we have time to pursue. I think that new teachers can benefit from, as Jane says, "a place to bouce off ideas for real life needs, right in this moment." However, I also know that at this point in my career, although I'm a quick and willing reader, I have trouble finding time to digest even one lengthy post. I appreciate the "theoretical tapas" this site offers . . . it's probably my favorite feature.

[Mary K. Marjerrison]

I love the notion of "theoretical tapas," Maria! Those are the primary reason I check into this site, too, though I also value the site as a place to bounce off ideas for real life needs, as Jane suggests. During Study Groups at PZ for the past two years, participants expressed desire to further understand how to's of implementation; the same has been true in working with teachers in my schools over the past decade.

I would love to be both mentor and mentee. I can offer help with teaching; my experience has been largely with elementary and middle school children, across all subject areas, and includes multi-age classrooms. It would be useful to create a professional development sort of group for leaders--discussing ideas about research, implementation of practices that lead to change, etc; my leading experience has been as Deputy Head and pyp coordinator of a private bilingual school near Milan (now) and as a curriculum coordinator and multiage classroom coordinator (past).

[Ian Carmichael]

Thanks ladies, I've got a new word to roll around in various contexts now. 'Tapas' in its non-Vedic sense?