My Love/Hate Affair with Twitter

     This summer I became addicted to technology.  It all started with Twitter.  As I mentioned in a previous post, it was something I shunned at first.  I did not ever anticipate seeing it become such an integral part of my professional life.  Through Twitter, I began using technology that I had previously used more often and in more effective ways.  My eyes were also opened to a whole new world of technological tools.  But what was most surprising was that I started blogging since I do NOT like to write AT ALL!!!!

     The amount of knowledge and ideas I garnered from Twitter was so overwhelming that I had to write about it.  Blogging allowed me to get out all of those ideas quickly and helped to relieve some stress (very little, but nonetheless, a little).  However, with the daily hustle and bustle of my new role as a Humanities Program Specialist for over 21 schools, I have not been able to blog for quite some time.  

      Tonight after finding another 42 great ideas via Twitter to share with others, I think I went into "cognitive overload."  I first heard this term about a week ago watching a Google Hangout with EduVue.  Cognitive overload occurs when you are taking in too much information that your brain just stops processing the information.  My brain has maxed out on the amount of new ideas it can possibly take in before it either shuts down or explodes into a million tiny pieces. So what did I do, I returned to my blog.  

     Because I am a Type A person and a perfectionist, I wanted to start using and sharing all of the new ideas I read about on Twitter right that instant.  However, with the amount of new ideas, it was and is impossible. But leave it to me, I still tried and still continue to do so.  Right now as I am typing this entry on my laptop, I also have my iPhone and my iPAD next to me as I download new apps, check emails, watch videos, etc.  I know. . . I have a serious problem.  What's even worse is now I am trying to read about 15 books at once as well (sadly, most of these book recommendations came from where?  You guessed it, Twitter!).  

     Although Twitter has caused me lots of stress and heartache, it has also allowed me to share all of these wonderful ideas with my colleagues and the teachers and administrative personnel I support.  What has been most rewarding is the number of teachers and educators using the tools and apps I have shared with them. Every time I see a Twitter post from one of these educators or from one of the school accounts, my heart smiles.  Therefore, I will continue to embrace it, but I must find balance.  Twitter is not the problem, my addictive personality is the problem.  Moving forward, I need to dedicate a certain amount of time each day and night for Twitter and a certain amount of time for reading my new books.  It will be a struggle, but I will work towards finding a balance.  That is my love/hate relationship with Twitter.

Until next time!

For all my Twitter friends and technological gurus, here are some of my latest and greatest discoveries.  I hope at least one sparks a new idea for you.  Let me know if it does!

Tweet of the Week (idea inspired by @KatiSearcy):

Professional Development:  4 Ways to Start Changing the World This Summer
(yes, I know it's not summer anymore!)
 http://www.edutopia.org/blog/4-ways-start-changing-world-adam-bellow

Professional Development Book of the Week:
Texts and Lessons for Teaching Literature
Over 40 different strategies (easy to implement and quick lesson)
Over 10 integrated lessons targeting several ELA standards in the same task

App of the Week:
Snapguide:  (idea from @TechChefU)
Use this app to teach procedural text (how-to writing).  The app already includes sections associated with how-to writing:  materials, steps, etc.  Students can add pictures, videos, etc. right from the app.  

Video of the Week:
The Magic of QR Codes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRgWRXFXLQs

Website of the Week:

Mr. Hinzman's AP World History Website  

http://www.hinzmansapworldhistory.com/skills--features.html

     

The Nerdy Teacher: I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate by @S...

The Nerdy Teacher: I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate by @S...: I'm very happy that I found this on Twitter yesterday. This was a great spoken word poem that I shared with my students. They were very ...

Why We Need Common Core?

Recently, we have been charged with the mission to prepare our Fulton County students to be college and career ready.  The new Common Core standards are a great start on the long road to accomplishing this mission.  Check out this video on You Tube that illustrates the need for Common Core in order to better prepare our students for the workforce. 

What tools and strategies will you provide to your students to help them become college and career ready?

What is 21st Century Education?

What is 21st Century Education?

We live in a digital society where students can access information at their fingertips in an instant.  At Fulton County's Summer Summit, Amy Barger, discussed the progression of our society over time and its impact on our educational framework.  When schools were first developed, their primary purpose was to prepare students for the agricultural society.  When our society became more industrial, schools trained students to be more passive, follow rules, and complete simple tasks.  Today, we must prepare our students for today's digital society.  Our students' role in their own education is changing, thus our role as a teacher is changing. What will you do to prepare your students for the 21st century education? 

The Impact of Technology:

Every 60 seconds:
700,000 Google searches
170 million emails sent
98,000 Tweets

We must prepare our students for today's digital society!DIY Learning: How Teens are Teaching Themselves
How Students Are Using the Internet for Studying
A Snapshot of How Technology is Used in Education

Flipped Classrooms:

What would you describe as your most meaningful learning experience? Was the teacher in the front of the room while you sat and listened to all of his/her infinite wisdom? Were you working alone on a project or with a group of friends? Did you get a choice in the learning experience? What made it so meaningful?

How do you choose to access information today? Are you a self-directed learner who seeks out infomation on the internet? Today our students are using technology to teach themselves. They go to You Tube to watch a video about how to drive a car. They post to Twitter to connect with others. When trying to answer a question for homework, they "Google" it. We are not moving fast enough for our students.

Differentiated instruction has been a buzz word in education over the last decade. What a better way to differentiate than a flipped classroom? Students are given opportunties to discover information on their own and are given time to process that information and reflect on it at their own rate and show what they know through their preferred method of presentation.

Check out these sites and videos for more information on flipped classrooms:
My Flipped Classroom Scoop It
Flipped High School: Clintondale High School
A Realist's Guide to Flipped Classrooms

Flipped Professional Development:

Educators stress the importance of providing differentiated instruction to students based on their individual needs in order to improve student learning. However, we do not provide differentiated instruction to our teachers. We must begin allowing our teachers to engage in self-selected professional development at their own rate and through their own preferred methods of learning. There are a variety of resources that we can share with our teachers to get them on the right track: i Tunes University and PD 360 allow teachers to view videos, watch model lessons, and read research articles about topics that are meaningful to them and at a time that is best for them. However, it is important we provide some structure and support as well as some monitoring and feedback. I will continue to discuss this topic in future blogs. In the meantime, check out the website below for some more ideas about Flipped Professional Development.

Flipped PD
Why Students Should Run Professional Development for Teachers

My Newest Passion: Technology

Unfortunately when I was a teacher in the classroom, I did not have many opportunites to use technology with my students.  We had three computers in the classrooms that I utilized to the best of my ability but it was not enough.  During my last two years of teaching, I was introduced to the Aver Key device which allowed me to connect my laptop to a television in the room so the students and I could visit websites and do some exploring together.  There was only one Smart Board in my whole school and there were not any iPads or iPhones.  Five years ago I left the classroom to become a Curriculum Support Teacher so I have not had the opportunity to utilize all of these new innovative technological devices in my own classroom. 

Today, it is a completely different world where technology is at almost everyone's fingertips.  As a result, information can be found in an instant from a myriad of sources that can lead us in a variety of directions.  When new technologies were coming out including iPADs and iPhones, I always waited a year or so to purchase these items myself.  I liked to wait things out and let the manufacturers work out all the kinks and refine their products before I invested in them myself.  Therefore, I used technology over the last several years but not in the realm of education. 

Within the past year, I have to started to become excited about using technology with teachers I support.  I slowly integrated some of the following into my professional development sessions and in modeled lessons:  Wordle, Tagxedo, Prezi, Linoit, Scoop It, to name a few.  However, most of the training was still very much "sit and get."  I modeled different ways teachers could use technology with their students and asked them to try it in their own classrooms.  I did not provide teachers with time in these sessions to play around with these tools and develop some activities for their students.  I also did not monitor the implementation of these strategies or provide ongoing support.

Three weeks ago I started a new role as a Humanities Program Specialist in which I support reading, language arts, social studies, and world language teachers grades K-12 in 21 different schools in my district.  This new position included several grade levels and content areas I was unfamiliar with so I began doing some professional development on my own to learn about these fields that were new to me.  I found so much information on my own through blogs, Twitter, iPAD apps, videos, even Google.  I also attended several workshops and conferences that illustrated the need for technology integration in the classroom and provided me time to explore some of these tools on my own. 

Within this short amount of time, I have found a new passion:  technology. I am constantly researching new technologies to improve my own professional development, build teacher capacity, and improve student learning.  This has inspired me to write a blog about my journey into the world of educational technology.  This is quite impressive given the fact that I absolutely hate writing!!!!  However, my goal is to write a blog at least 2 times a week to share interesting facts and information about why we need to integrate technology into our classrooms as well as provide teachers with the resources they need to become better teachers. 

I hope you will visit my blog in the future and find some valuable tools and resources you can use for your own learning and to improve your students' learning.

Kelley

Welcome to the Humanities in the CLC Blog!

This blog is created for all Humanities teachers in the Central Learning Community.  This includes teachers who teach reading, language arts, social studies, and world languages in our 22 schools in the CLC.

My name is Kelley Webb and I am the Humanities Program Specialist for the CLC.  I hope to use this blog as a professional development tool for the teachers in my learning community.  I also hope it is used to share information with one another.  I would love for some teachers to be guest bloggers on this blog as well. 

Check out my Porta Portal at http://guest.portaportal.com/humanitiesclc2.
On this Porta Portal, you can find links to websites for a variety of topics.  I have categorized the links by content area such as 6th grade social studies as well as topics such as close reading or primary source documents. 

Let me know if you found this Porta Portal useful.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Kelley Webb
Humanities Program Specialist
Central Learning Community
webbk@fultonschools.org