Wikis and How they Can Help on our Journey to the Common Core

Do you know the saying, "Work Smarter, Not Harder"? Well, ..... after attending the Learning Forward PA Institute this past Thursday with Grant Wiggins encouraging districts in Pennsylvania to work collaboratively to meet our 2013-2014 goal of fully implementing the Common Core Standards, it only seems like a natural progression to keep the conversations going by creating a wiki!  "Yes, a wiki!"

A wiki is a collaborative space where everyone works together to write or brainstorm ideas, and what better way is there for participants who began capacity building conversations to continue? Talk about "building community"!

Many of the participants were district leaders, whether superintendents, curriculum directors, professional developers, instructional coaches, or teacher leaders, who came together with the same goal -  learning how to move forward on this journey toward implementing the Common Core Standards.  I plan to contact the current president of the organization to highly suggest the creation of such a wiki.  Stay tuned!

Opening up a Whole New World through RSS Feeds!

I have JUST discovered RSS feeds and despite being a little frustrated with my laptop, I am ecstatic over the concept of the feeds bringing my interests to me rather than me searching for them!  What a novel, forward-thinking 21st Century tool!!!! The BEST part of all of this is the TIME it will save.  I cannot thank the creators of this ENOUGH!!!!

One of my favorite blog sites is Education Week and since I am also passionate about professional development, I also link to the Learning Forward blog. One of the blogs recently posted dealt with "Evaluating Technology Tools"

Stephanie Hirsh, Executive Director of Learning Forward, will be interacting with many technology developers over the next few days to discuss "education space." She intends to raise questions and challenge these developers to give the questions posed in her post thoughtful attention. She is hopeful that if they can successfully answer these questions, they will find educators eager to partner and confident in the results they will acquire together. Hopefully many will discover the "game changers" we need to accelerate the process of improvement in schools everywhere.

Personally, I can foresee using this feature (the RSS feed) in my online teaching for my new teachers and having them utilize RSS feeds with their own students!  In an educational era where "time" is so critical, the use of RSS feeds can only maximize teacher planning, teacher and student collaboration, and other 21st Century learning skills.

Tips from the Field

As I was searching for "blogs" about instructional coaching, I came across this AWESOME blogger, named David Ginsberg who specializes in instructional coaching and provides great tips for all educators. His blog site is "Coach G's Teaching Tips" and although he provides great tips throughout his entire blogging history, the one that is piquing my interest currently is his blog about homework. Our teachers are currently exploring the book, "Rethinking Homework" by Alfie Kohn, and it has opened up a dialog beyond what we could ever have hoped for! I look forward to following his blog for cotinued inspiration!

Can We Afford NOT to Have Instructional Coaches?

As school budgets get tighter and we are faced with doing more in education with less, please explore with me how important it is to have job-embedded professional developers (coaches) by our side every day to help make learning meaningful for all students.
My goal for creating this blog is to not only provide my thoughts about instructional coaching but to also get feedback regarding how to continue if we have to teach without them.