Lesson Planning 2.0

Every year I got a blue lesson planning book to start the school year.  As I spent more time working from my computer, it became more challenging to find the time to hand write in that blue book.  Cortney Mere, an English/Language Arts Grade 8 teacher at South Asheboro Middle School, has found a site that can really help you with lesson planning for the 21st Century Teacher.  She has already shared it within her building at their Collaborative Conversations Meeting.  I asked her if she would also share with all of you!  The site is http://planbookedu.com .  Here are some of the advantages of using this service:

• Share lessons with others (administrators, teachers, parents) or even co-write lessons
• Contains Common Core State Standards--just click the ones your want for the day
• Can be embedded into webpages, blogs, wikis
• Easy to color code and make templates

Click here for a tutorial sheet created by Miss Mere.  If you need additional help, she said she will gladly help with any questions.  Just search for Cortney Mere in the ACS email address book.

http://planbookedu.com

~Chandra with Cortney

Using Technology for Feedback

In college, my professors said to never use red ink, but to use something less harsh like green or blue.  I was also encouraged to always find something good to say about a piece.  So as an English teacher I spent hours (and money on green pens) trying to provide feedback that the student author could understand and use to improve his/her writing.  Without fail, many students skimmed through the pages with feedback, only to study the page with the grade.  I recently found this video of a teacher who uses podcasting for feedback.  Check it out:

I could see this working by using OneNote's audio insert option or Vocaroo (a free voice recording service) and uploading in the response file of Moodle.  If you want to give your green pen a rest and try it out, let me know how the students' writing is improved (or not).

~Chandra

Infographics

Several weeks ago Ms. Holland and Ms. Shinn, AHS media specialists, approached me about my Marketing Principles classes helping to promote Teen Read Week. Along with my fourth block we brainstormed ideas and narrowed it down to a few that  I felt we could manage. One of those ideas was my own and it was to produce an Infographic about reading and literacy. It has been a goal of mine to implement a project based around Infographics as I have wanted to learn how to create them myself. After grouping students to work on various Teen Read Week projects I sat down with the Infographic group and I explained that an Infographic is a visual display of statistical information and informational text. In the essence of time I assigned each student a topic and provided them with at least one link pertaining to that topic,  i.e.:

1 . Literacy statistics – economic and social

2. The neuroscience of reading

3. How reading affects memory

4. Why it is important to read to children beginning at a young age

5. How e-readers have affected reading – both positive and negative

The students researched the site I provided and summarized pertinent information for me to use in the collaborative Infographic. They were also asked to search and find at least one additional source for their topic.

Not only did the students work together to research information pertaining directly to the importance of reading and literacy  - they used summarizing strategies to sort through and filter the information.

Here is a small .png version of the Infographic.

Here is a link to the Infrographic:

http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/3972225/

Mrs. Shinn also has resources on Infographics:
Pinterest Board:  http://pinterest.com/cshinn4/infographics/

LiveBinder:  http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=599437&backurl=/shelf/my

~Sarah Beth Robbins, AHS Career and Technical Education Teacher