~ Naomi ~ Innovative Educator Consulting

Keith Schroeder Winner of ASCD Suite & 20 Ways HS Are Using Twitter

2012-01-31T08:50:00.003-06:00

Good Morning Everyone!

I want to make a NEW announcement today that we have a winner for the ASCD suite. Keith Schroeder from the Bay Port School District in Green Bay, Wisconsin is the lucky winner of the Adobe Digital School Suite. Keith is a dynamic High School Library Media Specialist providing his staff professional development training incorporating information & technology literacy standards into their curriculum, team teaches lessons with his staff, oversee the operation of the Library Media Center, maintains the Bay Port High School website, and assist High School students in the LMC.

I am hoping I can have Keith provide a guest blog post to share his new learning experiences with Adobe Digital School Collection with our readers. Congratulations Keith!!! I also know that Keith is an avid Twitter user and utilizes Twitter in his High School library Media position to enhance his own professional development, but also shares a multitude of critical insights with others, and thought this next lead in- would tie in quite nicely.

“20 Innovative Ways High Schools Are Using Twitter” (http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2012/01/30/20-innovative-ways-high-schools-are-using-twitter/)

According to the provided article of “20 Innovative Ways High Schools Are Using Twitter” many colleges are utilizing Twitter to provide students with new and interesting ways to learning, but unfortunately, we still have many high schools - even in the Midwest- that are restricted from using a social media resource such as Twitter due to acceptable use policies. Those that are allowed to in k12 environment are taking great advantage of Twitter, and are already doing amazing things. "Chatting with students in Pakistan, reporting high school football on the fly, and supplementing classroom discussion are just a few of the great ways high schools have made use of Twitter."

How are you integrating Twitter into your High School classroom instruction to support and extend learning for each and everyone of your students? Or are you tapping into the stream to enhance your own professional development?

Please share with me by February 6th ways or innovative ideas of how you are utilizing Twitter, and I would like to create an infographic to visually display our learning results form the collection of responses with your name as a contributor to this new curated innovative ideas collection. You may add your thoughts to this blog post or tweet out your shared responses with noting the following hashtag #nharm in your tweet for easy retrieval of your innovative ideas.

Thanks for your contributions!!!

Infographics Are Intriguing

2012-01-28T14:06:00.001-06:00

I am finding infographics quite intriguing. The visual display of data really draws me in and makes an instant and meaningful connection with the world around me. It is relevant, inspiring, and visually appealing- and yes it will be your next essential hook to draw in and capture your students attention while showcasing the wonderful world of understanding data all around them. So why not create your own infographics on February 1st in support of Digital Learning Day? Don't know where to start- well I have a few creative resources you.

13 Free Online Tools to Create Your Own Infographics

1. Wordle - Create beautiful and fully customizable word clouds with this free tool. Simply paste in your text and click “Go”, or specify your own color scheme, layout, and fonts.

2. Visual.ly is a brand new online application which allows you to create detailed data visualizations and infographics such as the one below. They are still in private beta-testing, however you can sign up for an invite now. And in the meantime, you can browse the Showcase of over 3,500 of the best infographics on the Web.

3. Twitter Visualizer – This fun tool quickly creates a personalized infographic of your Twitter persona based on what you tweet. You can create a solo infographic such as the one created for me below or compare yourself to tweeting celebrities.

4. Creately let’s you build organized concept maps, flowcharts, and diagrams for free. Although they do have subscription packages, users can create 5 public diagrams with the free account. They offer an easy-to-use interface with drag and drop shapes that will have you mind mapping in seconds.

5. Tagxedo - Create a beautifully shaped word cloud from your blog, tweets, delicious tags, news topic, or any RSS feed. Tagxedo lets you customize words into stunning images.

6. Visualize.me syncs with your LinkedIn account to create a stunning infographic of your experience, education, and skills. You can customize how much or how little is displayed within the easy editing interface. Fonts, colors, and backgrounds are all editable as well. Each position and educational entry can be moused-over to view the full job/school description that is found on LinkedIn.

7. Stat Planet allows you to create some amazing interactive visualizations, which you can then use as is or create a static image. It can be used within your browser or downloaded for free.

8. Hohli is an intuitive, simple online chart maker. It’s incredibly easy to pick your chart type, add some data, vary the sizes and colours and see the finished chart. The finished charts are also very well designed and look great!

9. Many Eyes lets you upload your own data or use data already stored on the site. The visualisations themselves are well-designed and very professional-looking. This is definitely the easiest way to use your own data for online visualizations.

10. Google Public Data lets you easily take public data and transform it into an infographic of your choice. These beautiful, colourful graphics simplify and communicate the data perfectly.

11. Tableau is a free Windows-only software for creating visualisations. As you can see, these impressive graphs are colourful and quite unique.

12. GapMinder is a free Adobe Air (cross-platform by nature) application to ensure you have current data on major world issues and can create visualizations for your purposes. Data is updated yearly and released with new versions of the application.

13. Inkscape is a free vector graphic software available for many platforms. This is the ideal free option for the creation of your overall infographic. Simple and intuitive, you should have no problems importing your visualizations and combining them with other visuals to create your masterpiece.

Here are more great resources to refer as visualization tools to extend your learning.

A Media Specialist Guide to the Internet

Ed Tech Tool Box

Free Technology For Teachers

Make Use Of

Web Advantage

Today is the Day- Here is the Lucky Winner of ADSC!

2012-01-16T08:00:00.002-06:00

We have a winner! Please view the following video clip to see who our luck winner if of the Adobe Digital School Collection Suite!

Congratulations to all of our entries through their thoughtful blog reflections of how they are or are planning to use ADSC. More contests will be around the corner with our other members of the Adobe Influencer team members, and I will keep you posted on those contests too.I hope you continue to look to Adobe products to enhance your student digital projects and creation in your classrooms, school libraries or workplace environments.

The winner of the ADSC suite is Kristel- she has noted in her blog post reflection on January 13th that she is just starting her student teaching practice on Tuesday. She plans plan to use ADSC suite to create digital lessons and digital projects within her classroom with students. I hope to have Kristel provide a guest blog post to keep us updated on her new discoveries and provide examples of how she is infusing the suite into her teaching practices and impacting student learning.

Congratulations Kristel!

Monday Afternoon Blend- Last Chance To Enter Adobe Digital School Collection Contest

2012-01-09T16:13:00.000-06:00

This week we are wrapping up the last blog post of the six week series from the Adobe Digital School Collection (ADSC). You can enter to win this creative suite by replying to the blog post below and share with us how you are currently using Adobe tools and resources in your classroom, or share a creative idea of how you would use the ADSC suite in your classroom if you won these digital resources.

Teacher Resources Available on the Adobe Education Exchange

Adobe also provides a number of free lesson plans, assessment tips and digital portfolios to help educators incorporate technology through the use of Adobe Digital School Collection software – when teaching about math and science, language arts, history/social studies, and visual and performing arts. Resources can be found on the Adobe Education Exchange

So what are you waiting for? Take an educational risk this year that is sure to pay off in true educational value, limitless creativity and aid in your own personal and professional technology skill sets! ***Be sure to also add a reflection to the bottom of this post to enter to win the exclusive ADSC suite. Your blog reflection is your contest entry and your chances are very, very good! Drawing will take place on January 15th and the winner will be noted on my blog and tweeted out to the world!

New Year Blend- One of Your Last Chances to Enter

2012-01-03T09:20:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year Greeting to Each and Everyone One YOU!

With the New Year brings many new opportunities to start fresh or dig even deeper into your goals that you have for your self. If you are still looking at targeting an edtech learning goal for yourself or your classroom, now is the perfect time to try Adobe's Digital School Collection (ADSC) suite! I want to emphasize this week some great success stories in the form of video clips to showcase first-hand how ADSC is making an educational impact with improving visual literacy and multimedia skills sets, 21st century skills, and making learning fun, engaging and motivating for each and every student in your classroom!

Also look and see what other educators are saying about this blog post around the country from Nancy Sharoff:
http://just-in-time-tech.blogspot.com/2012/01/holiday-season-may-be-over-but-giving.html

ADSC Customer Showcases & Success Stories:

Johann Zimmern shares a case study with you from Samsula Elementary School and how Adobe Photoshop Elements helps instructors address multiple learning styles & make subjects more accessible for students (View the Video or Success Stories). Another Customer Showcase involves the Lincoln Public Schools. This Nebraska school system blends Adobe technology into K-12 classroom to provide extraordinary learning opportunities for students and families.

ADSC Overview in Video Form

Learn how educators are engaging students in teaching & learning 21^st century skills using ADSC tools and resources. Hear the opinions & experiences of K-12 educators and their students on using the software (View the video on Adobe TV)

Teacher Resources Available on the Adobe Education Exchange

Adobe provides a number of free lesson plans, assessment tips and digital portfolios to help educators incorporate technology through the use of Adobe Digital School Collection software – when teaching about math and science, language arts, history/social studies, and visual and performing arts. Resources can be found on the Adobe Education Exchange

Twitter is My Life Line- What Happens When It Goes Down?

2011-12-31T10:48:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope the coming year brings you much joy, relaxation, and fundamental enjoyment around the most important events in your life in the coming new year. One major event I am looking forward to is our oldest son's wedding in the Caribbean in late Spring. I am so proud of him and his beautiful finance Krissy, they are truly meant to be together- and are so very happy. I am also pleased to say that I am very happy in my life- with my family, work and active lifestyle- and can't wait for the new year to bring much inspired new learning to my everyday adventures.

Much of my inspired educational learning comes from my PLN of Twitter. Today as I launched my browser then Tweetdeck to welcome the morning with familiar Twitter friends- I was faced with the big blue whale- as this is the symbol that Twitter is over capacity. I thought- no worries- refreshed my browser- and relaunched Tweetdeck once again- but it happened again. I think I cried a little inside at this point. How would I make it through my day without Twitter and without even making one post, reading from my PLN to learn from others, and responding to others to share resources or assist them with finding possible solutions to their posed questions. After many thoughts rushed through my head, I ached a little more inside and thought what now?

I did move on, - reluctantly- due to I have many other things to due on my checklist to make progress throughout my day, even on holiday break. I continued to dig deeper into my online course I am facilitating on Intel Elements: Collaboration in the Digital Classroom with 23 state leaders. I focused my questions and summary responses around the importance of collaboration- as this is the central focus for Module 2 of the course- how ironic- although wondering why Twitter was still down.

I continued to go back and refresh my browser but with no luck and now getting an error message besides the over capacity message. I thought- get over it and move one- just think how much time your will have for other avenues this morning. So I did- reluctantly again. This is why I am now crafting this blog post on my blog to share story with all of you this AM.

I continued to work through my next hour with digging into my Intel Teachers Engage Community and SimpleK12 Community. Both of these learning communities are just as important as my Twitter community. I read through quite few new discussions, responded to questions posed and shared some ideas, upload some support resources to extend the learning of others, and embedded this blog reflection into a new discussion thread as well to pose the following learning scenario below.

Everyone always needs a great backup plan in life and especially as an educator when the technology goes down, is not working, down for maintenance (see picture to the left- as my last view from Twitter as I refreshed the browser in-between writing) or is blocked in your school. What is your plan of action or best work around when this occurs? How do you handle the stress of a classroom full of students when the technology fails and they are becoming restless?

For now my outlet is reflection, learning from the experience and finding possible solutions to find the positive in the not so pleasant experiences through other online learning communities. I do not get rid of the tools that are not working- I find a work around for the moment or time being- I know they will come back up sooner or later. If does not come back to working order after a week or two or the site is disabled permanently there are a lot of choices on the Internet - that is the beauty of Web 2.0 . Here are some other possible solutions for you to assist you with those "Technology Hiccups" when they come your way.

Backup Plan

Backup Plans- Tips for Teachers

How to be Proactive in Your Classroom

Technology Tips for Teachers: It Can Make Your Life Easier

The Profession of Teaching- Backup Plans

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas Blend- What Makes You Perk?

2011-12-27T08:12:00.000-06:00

Did you know that Starbucks makes a great cup of coffee around the holidays known as their annual Christmas Blend? It is smooth, robust with a rich bold flavor- with a hint of reindeer they proclaim. You actually feel special to drink this holiday cheer and are willing to spread the good news. What is it that certain things in life motivate us to want to share our good fortune, share a new learned skill or dabble in to a risk and try something new or just plain makes us perk?

I ponder these questions often and I know it is different for each of us. What are you going to try new this year to excite your inner passions, to make change and learn a new skill? Why not try jumping into the wonderful world of the Adobe Digital School Tools known as ADSC?

It is so easy to try, just download a 30 day trial of the version of your choice between Adobe Elements, Adobe Premier, Adobe Acrobat X. Watch a preview of what the Adobe tool can do for you through Adobe TV and see how the creation suite can transform and enhance classroom productivity and student digital project creation. Also, check out the great resources for using the ADSC in your classrooms in the Adobe Education Exchange.There are 23 lesson plans, tech guides, user guides, teacher guides, and completed examples to view. There are over 36,000 members in the community and that number continues to grow.

Or if you are interested in the mobile app side of things, test drive these tools with Adobe's new Android apps. Also check out the large collection of FREE and low cost Adobe iPad apps through iTunes- you are going to love what you see here!

So what are you waiting for? Take an educational risk this year that is sure to pay off in true educational value, limitless creativity and aid in your own personal and professional technology skill sets! ***Be sure to also add a reflection to this post to enter to win the exclusive ADSC suite. Your blog reflection is your contest entry and your chances are very, very good! Drawing will take place on January 15th and the winner will be noted on my blog and tweeted out to the world!

What Have You Done Today To Inspire a Monday Morning Impact?

2011-12-19T15:40:00.002-06:00

Happy Monday Everyone!

Just finished an Adobe Connect webinar with Western Wisconsin educational lealders, and as a collective group we made a Monday Morning Impact with sharing best practices of recent conferences we all have attended. Some topics that came to discussion points were addressing technology integration training and how have districts addressed this topic of a mandatory event or should it be included in PLC's. Other hot topics we addressed included student's perspectives of the teaching and learning environments and the importance of their voice in the learning environment. When was the last time you posed a question to your students of "How do you learn best?" - or "If you could change three physical attributes in your learning space- what would you include/change and why?"

These questions always leave me pondering and I wonder "What would students say?" One thing I know for sure is that the new teaching and learning environments need to include spaces where students can think,can dream, can explore and can curate new knowledge sets and apply their ideas to document student growth- does your space include this?

I have been dabbling in more and more of the Adobe Digital School Collection products and these tools greatly interest me from an educators stand point to be highly creative and fit into "my learning space". I find myself getting creatively lost in the element of design and I like this! I can apply my ideas and can create new visual displays that represent who I am as an educator and can easily contribute to my own professional ePortfolio.

Have you dabbled in Adobe Acrobat lately? Did you know you can create an interactive ePortfolio for yourself as a professional but to also extend this learning and highly creative opportunity for your students? It is amazing- and this can and will empower your students to take ownership into their learning, but to also allow them to be curators of their new knowledge and showcasing it through a digital product.

Are you interested in ePortfolios, assessment, and administrative productivity? Check out theePortfolio resources available on the Adobe Education Exchange to see what the possibilities area. Use these guides to learn how to:

Creating Electronic Portfolios w/ Adobe Acrobat – help students create personalized media-rich electronic portfolios of their coursework
Digital Assessment w/ Adobe Acrobat – make use of commenting & reviewing tools to digitally assess coursework
Generating Lesson Plans with Adobe Acrobat – streamline lesson planning using PDF forms
Streamline Administrative Tasks with Adobe Acrobat – use security, accessibility, data collection, and batch processing tools to take paper-based document processes electronic.

Did you also know that Atomic Learning offersfree workshops on Adobe Acrobat X Pro that help you understand the nature & use of ePortfolios while demonstrating how easy it is to personalize them and add media-rich content using Adobe software? I just found this out and am enjoying the interactive learning environment. Dig in, join me and share with me through a blogpost reflection your insights and how Adobe Acrobat X can empower student ePortfolios in your classroom or with other fellow educators- would love to hear your thoughts! You will automatically be added into the contest to win the new ADSC tool collection- spread the word- your chances are good!

Here are some other great Adobe Influencers that are "chattin" about the experiences of ADSC as well:

Influencer	Site Name	URL	Twitter
Jeff Dunn	Edudemic.com	http://edudemic.com/	edudemic
Naomi Harm	Innovative Educator Consulting	http://blog.innovativeeducator.us/	nharm
David Andrade	Educational Technology Guy	http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/	daveandcori
Nick Provenzano	The Nerdy Teacher	http://www.thenerdyteacher.com/	thenerdyteacher
Vicki Davis	Cool Cat Teacher	http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/	coolcatteacher
Wes Kriesel	Ed Tech Central	http://edtechcentral.org/	edtechcentral

Adobe ADSC Continued with Monday Morning Impact Contest

2011-12-12T19:57:00.001-06:00

Many of you are aware that I am running an Adobe ADSC (Adobe Digital School Collection) contest on my blog and this is one of many chances to get on this innovating event. This blog post will introduce you to the collection suite and the value added of how it can entice your students with being curators of their own digital designs. For contest rules see below for a chance to win an ADSC suite for your classroom. *Just add your blog reflection following this post to automatically be entered into the contest!

The ADSC is comprised of Adobe Photoshop Elements, a tool to edit and enhance your photos. Adobe Premier, a tool to edit and enhance your videos. Adobe Acrobat X, a tool to create PDF communications, eportfolios, collaborate more easily, and streamline reviews. All of these tools make up a great suite of digital resources to empower your students and you as an educator to create high quality digital products. The tool we will focus on today is Adobe Photoshop Elements and the rich teacher resources to utilize with netbooks in your classroom and quick essential assessment tips.

Let's take a deeper look into Adobe Photoshop Elements through an overview video segment, and all it has to offer. If you are interested in taking it to the next level, tap into the Adobe TV series to advance your skills sets.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Blog Reflection Questions- choose to reflect on- or choose all three. How could you introduce Adobe Photoshop Elements into your classroom practice to make the greatest impact? How can it support visual literacy of all content areas in your classroom? What do you find most rewarding and most challenging with utilizing Adobe Photoshop Elements?

*** The contest rules are as follows ***

1. Take a moment to read my updated blog post each week on Monday's - noted as "Adobe Monday Morning Impact Series" found at http://www.naomiharm.org and investigate and dabble in the provided Adobe educational links.

2. Reflect on your learning takeaways through a replied blog post to my Monday morning postings. Your name will be automatically entered each week for each response in our grand finale drawing on January 15th. The winning blogger will be posted on my blog and tweeted out.

3. Respond to other blog readers through my blog to extend their learning, ask thought provoking questions, pose learning scenarios, and provided guided insight to how you would use the ADSC suite in your classroom or workplace environment.That's it, no strings attached- to share your collective intelligence with others and possibly winning an Adobe multimedia collection to impact your teaching and learning environment with students and/or adult learners.

4. Enjoy the learning opportunity!

Morning Blend: Edublog Awards

2011-12-11T10:11:00.001-06:00

I am extremely honored to be nominated this year for an Edublogs lifetime achievement award from several outstanding educators. It is a humbling experience to note that my professional and personal character influences so many while making a positive learning impact with educational leaders around the nation. Please take a moment to view all the outstanding and wonderful nominees that Edublogs has listed this year and cast your vote in support of their efforts. Your vote will make a difference to celebrate the new and upcoming curators- and collaborators stepping into this educational journey for the first time of for several years. This also provides a virtual thank you to this amazing individuals and noting their accomplishments to continue their gallant efforts to make a positive change in education and their sharing of knowledge.

Thanks to all of you for your commitment to education and contributing to the positive change our world and our students needs to see every day! Thanks for keeping it real!

Naomi

Evening Blend- Adobe Digital School Collection Contest

2011-12-06T17:19:00.001-06:00

Adobe Digital School Collection

Greetings Everyone- Tis' the season to celebrate and enjoy the holidays in the months of December and January. The holidays can bring much holiday cheer for many and some unsuspected surprises as well. I would like to add to that list of unsuspected but pleasant holiday surprises with sharing some unique and new learning opportunities for all of you that will take place over the next 6-8 weeks.

I have been asked to be part of the Adobe Influencer community with many unique educators this past year. Adobe Influencers include innovative thinkers and designers consisting of administrators, educators and teacher leaders. I must say this is a privilege and honor to learn from a team of forward thinking individuals from around the nation. As part of being an Adobe Influencer, we do have the opportunity to test drive some creative Adobe design tools and share our critical feedback of how we would us these resources to enrich the classroom experience and assist our presentation and marketing strategies.Because of this, I am one of several over the next few months that will be running a holiday educator classroom transformation design contest, and- YES- will be giving away an Adobe Digital School Collection suite to one lucky reader with an associated blog reflection on my blog.

The contest rules are as follows:

Take a test drive this week through the following embedded Adobe TV video clips to see first hand how this suite of software can transform your classroom engagement and your student's digital production outcomes. Here is all the associated Adobe blog with more detail about the suite, and a wealth of teacher lessons and resources to inspire your new designs and digital projects with your students. ENJOY!!!

Happy blogging and reflecting and I look forward to your thought provoking conversations and reflections around classroom design transformation, eportfolio development, digital storytelling, and possibly flip teaching production video segments, which all can be developed and implemented with the ADSC suite.

The Morning Blend- K12 Online Conference

2011-11-22T10:21:00.001-06:00

Greetings Everyone,

Have been traveling and presenting quite a bit these past two weeks, and I am finally back home for the Thanksgiving holidays. I especially enjoy this time to be home with my family and enjoy great conversations, delicious food and taking time to relax and reflect on being thankful for all the good things occurring in my life.

I am very thankful for my immediate family, but I also have a greater technology family that is an extension to my personal family. And this technology family is growing by leaps and bounds. I want to share the latest news with all of you about a great "Morning Blend" segment to tap into during the holidays over the next three weeks. It is the annual K12 Online Conference. This online conference is a FREE professional development opportunity to tap into- and best of all- it meets your busy schedule- yes this true- you have 24/7 access to view any of the uploaded prerecorded sessions from educational technology experts from around the world.

This year's session topic areas include: Storytime, Team Captains, Sandbox Play and Level Up!

I tapped into Angela Maires K12 Online Conference Precon session last night and was truly inspired from her thoughtful words focused on "Purposeful Play," (the theme of this year's conference) and the importance of connecting, communicating and networking with individuals around educational topics that truly make a difference to inspire life learning for all.

Please take a glimpse of the K12 Online Conference of amazing topics and lineup of presenters that will be sharing their collective knowledge and expertise over the course of the next 3 weeks. You may also follow the Twitter hashtag of #k12online or @k12online to follow the virtual conversations as well. Feel free to enjoy a 20 minute video session over your favorite blend of morning or afternoon coffee, to inspire, motivate and engage you as a life long reflective learner!

The Morning Blend ~ Math Focus

2011-11-08T07:47:00.000-06:00

Enjoying that first cup of coffee this morning and wanted to share a few tips and strategies with infusing blended learning into your day, but with a Math focus. A question was posed yesterday from my good friend Jennifer Malphy aka @jmalphy on Twitter and on the WI listserv on how she can support her math teachers instruction with infusing the right type of technology tools and resources into the math classroom. First of all, I commend the Math teacher with collaborating with Jen on this topic, second I like the way the Math teacher is thinking to add "richness" to his class to active new learning in his classroom and thinking outside of the box. This particular rural WI school has had training with Google apps and really dug into the forms and surveys and found great success. Other readers responded and shared the resource of "Google Sketchup" to support this teachers resource collection. Yes, this is a perfect fit as well.

I guess I was thinking differently when this question was originally posed- I thought about a variety of tools to blend instruction instead of just one application. I was thinking of a variety of creative ways of how this math teacher could incorporate more digital content, visuals/audio and reflection to extend the learning and engagement in and out of the math classroom. The first resource that came to mind is a collection of resources and tools from Open Ed found here: http://openedsolutions.com/how-to-blend-math.html

Open Ed Solutions provides great FREE online content and resources to provide immediate solutions and ideas to transform classroom practice, and to think differently about instruction while impacting student learning. Open Education Solutions is a blended learning service provider. They help states, districts and school networks design schools and solutions that are innovative, personalized and deliver better results at the same or lower cost.

To extend your learning for the day- here are 10 steps to blend your math instruction from the Open Ed Solutions website:

1. Pick a core curriculum aligned with state standards. An online math curriculum is simplestspine for the blended math program (more advanced systems will link learningobjects to an assessment framework). Proprietary vendors (e.g., Connections, Carnegie,Compass) will have the advantage of integrated assessments and data reportingcapabilities. Hippocampus from National Repositoryof Open Content is a good free option.

2. Supplement learning options. Locate supplemental content that provides alternative ways tolearn including games, simulations, tutorials, and videos. KhanAcademy (now on Edmodo and Hippocampus)is a great library of video tutorials. MangaHigh is a great collectionof pre-algebra math games. Smallgroup instruction and online tutoring are also great additions to an onlinecore curriculum.

3. Develop an assessment framework linked to standards. The core and supplemental curriculummay have embedded assessment. Determine if you’ll need to add additional assessments to facilitateindividualized progress. Anadaptive assessment will help place new students at the appropriate level. Your state may require end of course exams (they should beavailable on demand).

4. Competency-based progress. To facilitate individualprogress you may need to get a seat time waiver from your state. Make clear to students how they willdemonstrate learning and progress from unit to unit and course to course.

5. Differentiated and distributed staffing. A typical middle school thattraditionally had four math teachers could run a blended program with threewith help from paraprofessionals and volunteers. Larger staffing ratios may require a contract waiver. A remote teacher or partnercould provide extended day helpdesk services. Online speech therapists and other specialists can bescheduled on demand.

6. Student access. A computer lab setting works well for core curriculum access. It’s ideal for supervisionand support to have a double classroom with room for small groupinstruction. Tablets arebecoming a viable primary access device with the advantage of being highlyportable and great for an at-home learning playlist. Increasingly, districts will allow students to bring theirown technology to school.

7. Scheduling. Studentsthat are more than a semester behind should get a double block of math. In middle school, a double with science could leverage amaster teacher and facilitate project-based learning. Active monitoring of student progress allows dynamicscheduling of small group instruction and application and integration projects. Online curriculum and mobile computing canextend the learning day and year, it eliminates the need for snow days, and caneven facilitate a three or four day week in a rural setting.

8. Leadership. A blended learning program takes effective schoolleadership. Designing andimplementing a program requires plans covering academic, technology, financial,policy, and communications. Amaster teacher, department chair, or assistant principal should act as programmanager with responsibility for budget, scheduling, curriculum, andstaffing. As just one example,program leaders will need to overcome local and state barriers to seat timerequirements in order to grant competency-based credit.

9. Professional development and program management. Online instructional experiencesgenerate lots of data. Teachersneed time to analyze achievement analytics, consider program enhancements,modify scheduled lessons, and plan small group instruction. A blended environment requiresteam-based staffing and active collaboration.

10. Get some advice and share. There are lots of interesting experiments combiningonline and onsite learning. Getsome help comparing options for technology, curriculum, scheduling and staffingyour blended learning program.

Thanks OpenEd!

The Morning Blend

2011-11-06T10:12:00.005-06:00

November is now upon us and the Fall season is in full swing in SE Minnesota. With the changing of the seasons, comes the setting of the clocks back one hour, finalizing last minute Fall cleaning in the Harm household, picking up and making it through a seasonal head-cold, and looking into new innovative and creative ideas to engage my PLN followers of Twitter, the Intel Engage Community and Simplek12.

My focus for the last two remaining months of 2011 will target the theme of "The Morning Blend." I, like many others, enjoy a good cup of freshly ground and brewed coffee to start my day, read through my RSS feeds, Twitter posts and Intel Engage Community updates and global shares of many resources. This is when I am at the top of my game and most refreshed to jump-start my learning for the day.

So my thought was...... why not start a morning ritual of "The Morning Blend" to share out a unique resource for the day beyond my Twitter PLN, and note how it contributes to educator and student blended learning. Perhaps a few instructional coaching strategies will be added to extend the learning for all, and a possible assessment component to focus on the student and educator learning outcomes. My goal would be to also integrate a video based component of "The Morning Blend" and bring in a few experts to share their expertise with all of you as well. The theme focus may also encompass a few shares and shout-outs for "An Afternoon Blend" due to my training schedule can be quite busy in the AM, and the ability to gain Internet access to update my shares and resources with all of you in a timely manner. A quick pick-me-up as "An Afternoon Blend" is a unique way to add energy and inspiration to your unmotivated or lagging afternoons.

So with that said, here is to all of you drinking that first, second of third cup of coffee or tea by now- my first episode of "The Morning Blend."

Specialty Blend of the Day: Screencasting

My specialty blend of the day I would like to share with you is the topic of screen-casting to blend your instruction. So many times students and adult learners need to see and hear the content of the lecture or instruction more than one time- in order to process and thoroughly understand the content that is being presented. There are so many free tools and resources at our fingertips to produce high-quality screencast to empower student and teacher learning, but sometimes educators just do not know where to start.

My recommendation is to start small but with a content focus aligned with ISTE NETS and a specific student learning outcome that you will feel comfortable with, and are passionate about to share your expertise with others. You are starting with the end in mind and this type of focus will help you stay on task when crafting a short script to compliment your visual and audio display with photos and or video clips as an overview to create your screencast. Here are some sample Screencast rubrics to get you thinking about the end product and quality of production. Sample #1 Sample #2 Sample #3.

Some educators create a script with bullet points to get at the big picture items, others choose graphic organizers to contain text and visuals to tell their story or share their message, where others craft a meaningful message from start to finish. What ever your strategy is- go with what is most comfortable for you and your writing style. Here is a collection of graph organizers to support your efforts from my good friend Shelly Terrell and here wiki site.

Now after you feel you have crafted an engaging and comprehensive script or message for your viewers, it is important to find the right visual images or displays to help your viewers make instant connections with their lives to the words you are expressing. Again, at this point less is more- meaning finding an intriguing visual with little or no text works best. Yes, this means throwing out those Powerpoint slides with heavy text containing each detail about your presentation, and instead choosing an image or photo that can tell the story for itself accompanied by your words of wisdom. Here is a Flipped Teaching resource folder I have created with a large collection of copyright free/friendly/left photos to find the right image to display your content message.

Now the choice of finding the right tool to get the job done.......

There are so many- where do you start? My recommendation of the simplest tools to get started with include Jing and Screen-Cast-O-Matic. Jing is a free download from TechSmith. You can record up to five minutes of audio and your screen display and it saves it as a Flash file. There is also a low cost paid for version with more options of saving it as a variety of different video file formats, and you have the option of a longer recording time.

Screen-Cast-O-Matic on the other hand records right in your web browser, has the ability to record picture-in-picture mode so your viewers can see you as the presenter with the main focus on the content display being showcased. Screen-Cast-O-Matic also records in HD, also has a longer recoding length of 15 minutes and also provides a yellow halo icon so you can point out key elements in your screencast and your viewers can follow along more easily. I really like the final video files it can be saved in as .MP4, Flash, ready to upload by one click to YouTube or Screen-Cast-O-Matic server. For a cost effective upgrade you once again have more choices for a longer recording length and more video output file formats to save as.

Give it a whirl today and try out the above options to create your first of many screencasts to empower your students learning in and out of classroom. This blended approach to instruction will guarantee many positive results amongst your students, and improve your instructional delivery and technology literacy skill sets. And for those of you that would like to take it one step further- here is a great Scoop.it resource from Peggy George with several articles and blogposts on ways to integrate screencasting into your daily practice, and a Scoop.it I have created focused on blended learning and integration of screencasting tools and resources.

Enjoy your day and your next cup of Java Jo of choice.

Naomi

Fall is a Time For Giving Back

2011-10-01T09:15:00.001-05:00

Fall is a time for giving back

Today is October 1st. The Fall season is upon us in the Midwest of the USA and this is my favorite time of year. I enjoy the beautiful Fall colors of the crimson rose, burnt orange and honeycrisp yellows from the changing colors of the leaves that surround us.

With the changing of the seasons comes a changing of professional gears for me- as this is my time of year to give back in another fashion. Each Fall I put together a large collection of grant listings for educators to dig into to see if they can unveil or write for some technology gems for their classroom- which you will find attached to this post. Some of the grants are just a one page proposal where others will take much more time and dedication to write a grant narrative of many pages. Either way- it can be a wonderful technology Fall challenge and a reward at the same time time to find some hidden treasures to supplement your classroom with technology resources and tools.

Good luck everyone!

Naomi

Open publication - Free publishing - More grants

Innovative Educator Technology Academy Final Reflections

2011-09-10T12:00:00.004-05:00

The Innovative Educator has been a whirlwind of an event! Great collaborative conversations about educational technology, administrative leadership, QR Code scavenger hunts, technology tools and gadgets, and planning of next steps of implementation within the K12 teaching and learning environment.

To add to all of this excitement. Kyle Pace was our midweek afternoon keynote virtual presenter through Skype. Kyle shared a robust and positive message on the importance of PLN's social networks and being 21st century curators of knowledge and resources. He truly inspired our technology academy attendees! Here is a quote from one of our attendees reflections to showcase the immediate connections made and putting the "walk the talk" into practice----

"What was your greatest learning takeaway during the Innovative Educator Technology Academy and why?"

"I discovered and learned many new things from this academy, from practical technology shortcuts to best practices to implement technology as a tool for learning. One thing that caused me to have an "aha" moment was when Kyle Pace urged us to "share.... and to keep on sharing to the point of being annoying." I decided that this is going to be my goal for 2011-2012 school year, to be educationally annoying! I have a lot of 2.0 tools, apps, shortcuts, tools/devices and best practices that I want to share with others. The great thing is that I do not have to do it alone. By developing my PLN, I can receive ideas and support along the way all year long!" M. Hundt, West Salem School District, West Salem, WI.

To build upon and support this great reflection that Mary has shared with us, Simplek12 also supported our academy with providing a year long subscription for each our our attendees. What a perfect tie into to support and build our community of learners all year long. This $300 value per attendee brought a huge round of applause, when Kyle Pace made the formal announcement at the conclusion of his keynote presentation. It felt like we had an 'Oprah" day all around and it kept just getting better!

So by the time the afternoon rolled around, we had another great opportunity for our administrators and 21st century educators, Tim Falberg, WI K12 Livescribe came in and introduced and gifted the technology tool of a smart pen to each attendee. Tim provided a bried 30 minute overview of how and why the Livescribe pen can be utilized as an assessment and creation tool for educators and students. It was truly an amazing event and left the educators in attendance awe struck and inspired.

That was the ultimate goal of the Innovative Educator Technology Academy to leave each educator and administrator awe-struck, inspired and empowered to make immediate and positive change in each of their school districts to impact student learning. I feel we have done a truly innovative job this year with our team of presenters offering high quality professional development during every single session of our technology academy, and can't wait for next summer to roll out a new round of offerings to meet the immediate needs of our western WI superstar educators and administrators!

"Sharing and collaborating with others is the "connectivity" to making technology work for me!" M. Hundt, West Salem School District, West Salem, WI.

Innovative Educator Technology Academy Day 1

2011-08-14T22:54:00.002-05:00

Greetings Ed Tech Campers,

Our Day 1 of activities will begin by tomorrow at the Onalaska Middle School in Onalaska, WI. The Innovative Educator technology training team is pumped to share their expertise with their technology attendees, but also look forward to the networked collaboration and share session they will participate in as well. Day 1 activities will encompass a warm and friendly welcome from the new Onalaska superintendent, Dr. Fran Finco followed by an inspirational keynote from Shelly Terrell about the power of social networks.

Shelly Sanchez Terrell is an education activist, thought-provoker, and international speaker. She is also the VP of Educator Outreach for Parentella and Social Media Community Manager for The Consultants-E. She is also the co-organizer and co-creator of the acclaimed educational projects, Edchat, The Reform Symposium E-Conference and the Virtual Round Table conference. The New York Times learning blog has included her on its list of the top 78 educators to follow on Twitter and recently she has been listed as one of the Top 20 most influential tweeters in eLearning, training and HR. Visit her education blog, Teacher Reboot Camp, for resources for effective technology integration. In 2012 find her book, The 30 Goals Challenge for Educators published by Eye on Education. Participate with over 6000 educators worldwide in the online completion of inspiring goals. Find her on Twitter, @ShellTerrell.

Educators will make their way to their educational hands-on/minds-on sessions after the keynote and will participate in the following:

*21st Skills for the 21st Century Educator

*Technology Administrative Leadership Camp

*Transforming Classroom Practice with Social Networking and Web 2.0

*Kick It Up A Notch: Season Your SMART Notebook Lessons with Technology Integration

*Promoting Research, Information and Media Fluency with eReaders.

We will have continuous virtual chats through the twitter hashtag of #InnovateEdu11, Skype expertise sessions piping into our academy all week long, and utilizing Todays Meet as a way to connect our educators through a consistent virtual portal between class sessions. Lunch time will bring about several fun energizer activities of "Name That Tune" and "Web 2.0 Smackdowns" and "QR Codes Scavengers Hunts" throughout the week.

Check back to take a sneak a peek at our progress of our technology academy adventures!

Global Literacy Awareness with The World Guy

2011-07-28T13:17:00.003-05:00

Finally catching my breath once again, after being gone for many days once again traveling and training with iPad technologies with districts around the beautiful state of Wisconsin. As many of you know, after being gone from one's home for days at a time, there is much catch up work to be done from a personal and professional perspective.

I feel I had much success today with connecting with Stephanie from Iowa-Grant school district this morning to add closure of our planning for my upcoming keynote in their school district the end of August, and then going through a video, content connection test for my upcoming global webinars for the Global Literacy RSCO3 Conference this weekend http://goo.gl/nF9PU at 9:30AM Central Time on Saturday, July 30th. So much to do so little time, but I am finding positive balance in the meantime and am happy!

After my testing session was concluded this morning, I had to run a few errands to pick up technology academy goodies for our August Innovative Educator Technology Academy. I made the trek to LaCrescent, MN to pick up our screen-printed drypack tech bags to get one more item checked off my list. As I traveled to town on Hwy 26 I came across a man, his dog and a large rolling globe- yes this is correct a large rolling globe. Naturally, I slowed down and was curious of what this was all about. Ah- ha- I know- this is the gentleman "Erik" that is walking across our beautiful 48 states to raise awareness and funding for diabetes through a nonprofit organization known as "The World Guy".(I knew about Erik's adventures from an earlier news broadcast from a few months past). I pulled off to the side and stopped to talk to him for a quick moment, and could tell he was tired and wet from the recent rain fall, even from the day before.

I let him continue on his journey and as cars were approaching, I too needed to get going and wanted him to be safe as well. I continued on my route to pick up our technology dry pack bags at Thorson's Graphics in LaCrescent, MN and continued to have the "globe conversation" with Summer the owner of the graphic design company. I was excited to share with her my encounter with Erik and his cause to raise awareness and funding for diabetes. Just our brief conversation caused her to have instant goosebumps about the positive impact Erik is making.

As I left with my box of goods, and by the way they turned our fabulous! it came to me....I have a few extra drypacks of technology bags I can spare and I am sure it may help Erik in his travels. So I continued back home knowing that most likely he would still be en-route on Hwy 26, since it had only been 30 minutes from the last time I saw him. Sure enough, I came upon EriK just prior to the Root River bridge. I stopped and pulled over and stole a few more minutes of his time to thank him for his efforts and asked if I could provide him a drypack tech bag to use in his travels. He was gracious enough to accept my gift and willing to use it in his travels and let me take a photo, but my cell phone was not cooperating very well (photo from Once a Chef: diabetes awareness month blogpost.) I know the drypack tech bag it was not much, but thought this may assist his efforts in some small way.

On the bag was also listed my blog site and I told him I would blog and tweet about his journey, so as to share this educational story with others. He noted to me that he is also blogging his journey and shared is website with me at The World Guy I found it so fascinating that he is sharing his personal reflections and traveling experiences with the entire world to raise awareness about diabetes!

The final message I shared with him was personally thanking him for sharing his educational journey with all of us. What he is doing for all of us is promoting a positive global and healthy literacy awareness for all of children and community members even within our small rural community in South East Minnesota. It is so important for our children of today to understand their "real-world" in a "real-world context" and this is exactly what Erik is showcasing.

Thank you Erik for changing my health and global literacy perspective awareness on life today. You made a positive impression upon me to share and spread your wealth of your knowledge and passion for living with others! I appreciate you and your positive ways to make change with global diabetes awareness!

Best of luck and safe travels to you and "Nice" your dog!

School Net ICT South Africa Conference Reflections

2011-07-10T12:21:00.005-05:00

Life has been quite crazy for me over the last three weeks delivering 21st Century Skills Institute in northern WI, to attending and presenting at ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia, and this past week presenting a keynote and five hands-on technology workshops at the School Net South Africa ICT Conference. So here is a recap of the exciting events over the past three weeks........

21^st Century Skills Institute in northern Wisconsin for administrators and K-12 educators.

What a fun packed week focusing on integrating 21^st century skills, web 2.0 literacy tools and resources into teacher created digital projects. It was great to see how this week inspired educators to take risks, improve their technology literacy skills, and transform their instructional delivery with the integration of technology infused lesson. I at times had more fun than the participants I believe watching and listening to the energy in the room and through their product presentations.

ISTE 2011 in Philedelphia, PA

The last week of June brought me to the national conference of ISTE in Philadelphia, PA. As I landed and headed towards my hotel, I could smell the cheese sizzling in the distance from a Philly cheesesteak sandwich. This was on my to-do list as a must for this week and I captured a few pictures of my “walk-about” to the local Reading Terminal Market where I purchased my sandwich from a local dinner, purchased homemade chocolate from the candy counter and scoured over the fresh fish market all with this market terminal- it was amazing!

ISTE was a huge success for professional development opportunities and networking for many, where others were overwhelmed by the amount of session opportunities that were made available to them. One must come with a dedicated game plan when attending ISTE to maximize the learning potential at this huge venue. Due to I interviewed many educators in the Intel Education booth during the conference, I had little chance to attend sessions this time, but made sure to tap into the “twitter noise” of the #ISTE2011 twitter back channel to stay abreast of the virtual shares. I did get to run into some great teacher friends of Scott Floyd from Texas, David Jakes, Scott Meech, Dan Merryman and Steve Dembo from Illinois in passing, Chad Lehman from Wisconsin in passing, Annette Smith, Kathy and Steve Sanders, and Sandra Heiden from WI volunteering at the ISTE event and countless others. It is always great to see such friendly faces and especially at these events to share new learning adventures.

School Net ICT South Africa Conference

On to week three of nonstop travel and training takes me back to South Africa and the city of Johannesburg. I had the opportunity to be the keynote presenter and present five hands-on workshop sessions at the School Net ICT conference. We also had the great opportunity to go on a safari at the beginning of our stay, and many adventures to follow.

Day 1- Arrival to Johannesberg, South Africa after a 21 hour flight with a few connections. Ok enough said- this wears anyone out with being on a plane for this long, and with a seven hour time change I and my husband were now lacking sleep and needed to acclimate to the time zone difference. We arrived in the evening to Johannesburg by 5PM, which was 10AM central time in Minnesota and greeted by Omashina, School Net representative who picked us up at the airport to take us to the Sunnyside Park Hotel. The historic hotel was absolutely beautiful and very stately.

We had a few minutes to freshen up and met up with the School Net conference committee by 6:30PM for a meet and greet at dinner, and had the wonderful opportunity to meet “finally” Jane Hart in person. Jane Hart Twitter: @clpt has been my social media networking mentor for over five years, even though she did not realize what an impression she has made upon me. She is just as kind and genuine in person as she is online. It was also great having face-to-face conversations with the rest of the School Net representatives and especially with Gerald and Janet who put the technology conference together, the Microsoft Innovative Teacher award recipients.

As we journeyed on to Day 2- my husband and I ventured out for an African safari by 7:30AM to get a head start on our day. We were fortunate to have a private driver for the day to take us on this adventure. We arrive two and half hours later to the game park where we began our journey. We were so hoping to see the big 5, but we did not- but were still pleased with our results of seeing giraffes, zebras, wilderbeast, crocodiles, kudu, warthogs( Pumba), impalas, jackos, and a variety of beautiful birds.

Midway through our African journey we stopped at for lunch, an African safari lodge where you can stay amongst the wildlife in a luxury tent and view continuous wildlife throughout your stay. This lodge was absolutely beautiful with such authentic and contemporary décor. The patio setting provided an outdoor area for dining and an exquisite view to look out onto the natural terrain landscape.

To add this great day of travel and sight seeing, we met up with Gerald, Janet, Jane Hart, and John Davitt for dinner at Moais a traditional South African restaurant. Jane, John and myself each provided the daily keynotes for the three day conference and several breakout sessions. This was my first time I have met John Davitt as well face to face, boy with this face-to-face encounter a learning adventure all in itself. John is a character with lots of energy, great conversation, a well-traveled individual with substantial geography sense, and a standup comedian by trade I would say. He kept all of us laughing with his quick witted off the cuff jokes and comments. He reminds me so much of my middle son with his sense of humor and quick wittedness.

Day 3- The conference begins and is hosted at the beautiful St. John's College - what a stunning and stately college with breathtaking architecture to add to the visual ascetics of the conference venue. Jane hart started off the conference with a wonderful keynote of the importance of social media and how we learn differently within this new digital teaching and learning landscape. Jane engaged us through many interactive videos of the Social Media Revolution, a Minnesota Twitter study of social media, a UK virtual web cam of baby pigs being born, and several other clips to keep us actively involved while channeling our thoughts through the twitter backchannel chat hashtag of #schoolnetsa11. Her presentation was brilliant and set the positive conference tone for the next three days.

I presented a two hour "Building and Growing Your Professional Learning Network" session in the Jeffrey Auditorium in the afternoon, and Jane's keynote set the stage for a perfect segway for my presentation. We talked about the importance and differences of collaborative personal and professional learning networks, and how to get to started to grow your network. A variety of samples were shown and demonstrated to add meaningful connections for all educators to start small but make a positive and lasting impact. Here is the slide-share presentation of the PLN and the Box.net shared resources.

Day 3 Late Afternoon: John Davitt set the stage for learning in the afternoon focused on a keynote of "Learning in a World of Difference." His quick witted sense of humor and visual media displays throughout his presentation had all of us laughing with delight. John also shared many media tools he has been developing with his company that truly focus on student differentiation, hands-on minds-on learning for students to think critically and solve problems, and variety of active learning strategies to engage all students through a multi-language tool called learning score. This was simply brilliant as well and I found the tools of his "Learning Score" he shared so fascinating!

Our evening concluded with a many appetizers and great South African wines and beers from the local area, and of course a live band providing wonderful music of jazz, African rhythm and vibes for all of us to enjoy and dance to. The conversations with many conference attendees during this time was so interesting and to learn from others about their culture- this was priceless.

Day 4- I had the opportunity to present the morning keynote focused on 21st century skills and ICT literacy. My key goal was to share with the audience members the importance of making an educational impact on student learning and starting with the end in mind when incorporating 21st century skills and ICT literacy in the classroom. In order to gain results we need to focus on what we hope to have students achieve and by designing the lesson around essential questions, authentic assessment throughout the lesson, collaborative and communicative thought provoking and problem solving discussions. I too shared a variety of videos to engage my audience members but to also make the keynote personalized for every attendee. Videos utilized at key moments included: I Gotta Share from TED, We Are The People, Where do Good Ideas Come From, 21st Century Learning Classroom, and When I Was Ten. Please tap into the TodaysMeet backchannel chat, Slide-share here and once again the Box.net files.

The day continued on with myself and others presenting many hands-on workshops for the afternoon. The focus of my Web 2.0 literacy back to back two hour sessions really complimented and segwayed quite nicely once again from my morning keynote I delivered I must say. I demonstrated the importance of web 2.0 literacy of what it is and what it is not, and provided many examples once again to find the right tool to do the right job for students and teachers. I also included and noted the Intel Elements new Collaboration in the Digital Classroom e-course and resources, while referencing their online collaboration tools list. Here is once again the Slideshare of my presentation, and shared Box.net files for you to access.

To conclude and celebrate our very active day, School Net and Intel Education sponsored a gala dinner. The evening dinner was a marvelous buffet of authentic and traditional African dishes and paired with South African blends of red and white wines- it was exquisite! Following our lovely dinner and throughout was a live band- this was an essential must to hear the many local vibes of music and the dance floor was quickly filled with dancing throughout the evening. A great time was had by all- and perhaps to good of time by others- as I too was a little tired the next morning- but it was good kind of tired.

Day 5- Was the last day of our conference with morning hands-on technology sessions. On this day I presented two back to back sessions on "Google My Way." Once again I provided many examples of how educators and administrators are utilizing Google Apps in the classroom as a productive online multimedia suite of resources. Attendees in these sessions were immersed in creating Google forms and surveys and maximizing the potential of Google docs, spreadsheets and presentations. I shared with the attendees my training Google Site located here. We could have spent 5 days on Google Tools but only had two hours dedicated for each session, so I strategized to find the best collaboration tools to promote communication and collaboration in the classroom.

This came to the conclusion of three day conference and the ending our South Africa visit. We returned to the airport right after the closing presentations to the conference and headed back to America on an evening flight.

South Africa Experience Closure

WOW is all I can say about the immediate and lasting impact this South Africa visit and conference has made upon me as an educator. As I sit here now and write my concluding thoughts in my home in Brownsville, MN, I am overcome but such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and thankfulness of the positive learning experiences the South African people have shared with me. The individual and group conversations meant so much to me, to learn from all of them about the many technology barriers and successes they face everyday, and many of them without complaining, but finding immediate solutions or alternative solutions to impact student learning. The focus of learning is on the whole child, and to prepare their students to be well educated learners. The educators are enriching the classroom environments with a variety of resources that are cultivated into their hands-on learning experiences for all students through global literacy, project based learning and many communicative and collaborative learning tools. Even though some educators may have very little resources, they focus on the whole child to mold a 21st century literate and productive learner to make positive change in their communities, their South Africa country and throughout the continent of Africa!

Transforming Classroom Practice with iPad Content Integration

2011-05-31T09:38:00.004-05:00

I would like to share and ask a few questions from all of you. As many of you know, I am a technology integration specialist and provide numerous trainings on varied educational technologies. My latest adventure with my colleague Dan King, includes the iPad for content integration in the k-12 classroom environment. Here is a link to resources that we have put together and other documents/resources others have shared with me. http://www.box.net/naomiharm/1/88170086 We are trying find the best possible apps to engage, motivate and enrich a student's and an educator's content/instructional experience in the classroom. By getting your valued input, we thought we could streamline this process in a more efficient and collaborative manner to find the best of the best apps for k12 education.

We are working on putting together the next session of e-handouts for grades 1-3, 4-8, 9-12, STEM and productivity for educators and administrators. I would like suggestions from all of you to share the best-of the best apps for each category through the following Google form. I in return will share out our findings and master iPad collection lists as we have from above. Here is the iPad survey http://goo.gl/Esguy

Lastly, how are using the iPad as a content integration tool in your workplace environment, classroom instruction or daily activities? Would love to hear your stories of how the iPad is transforming your lives and any innovative iPad lessons or units of study.

Cheers!

Naomi Harm

21st Century Projects Turned Up a Notch Webinar

2011-04-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

Intel Teach LIVE - April 2011 - 21st Century Projects Turned Up a Notch

April 2011's webinar asks you to take your edtech projects up another notch. Are you creating and implementing 21st Century projects? Do you have a teaching and learning style that promotes higher level thinking in your students? We would love to hear about it. Joining Vanessa and Dyane are two special guests Juan Orozco of Buda, TX, and Cindi May of Wichita, KS. They will be sharing some wonderful ideas of how they create and implement 21st Century projects with both students and teachers. Come be inspired!

Contribute how you have implemented projects in your school or district. We are especially interested in links to your published projects along with a short description of the project itself and/or any tips you may have for others exploring PBL for the first time.

Share your resources between March 19th and May 17th to be entered into a drawing for a Camtasia Pen/Notebook. The drawing will end on May 17th, but this thread will remain active after the incentive period. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, we can only ship prizes within the U.S.,but the contents of this discussion are applicable to every Intel Teach educator worldwide, so please help build a solid set of tips and resources for everyone. We look forward to your contributions.

21st Century Skills Addressed in this Webinar -
Depending on how the project was directed any or all of these 21st Century Skills would be addressed
Communication and Collaboration
Creativity and Innovation
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Flexibility and Adaptability
Information, Media and Technology Skills
Initiative and Self-Direction
Leadership and Responsibility
Learning and Innovation Skills
Productivity and Accountability
Social and Cross-Cultural Skills

ISTE Standards Addressed in this Webinar:

All of the NETS T would be implemented in an exemplary 21st Century Project
1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

The Right Tools To Do The Right Job for Anytime and Anywhere Learning

2011-04-10T09:46:00.002-05:00

Greetings Blog Readers:

I am thrilled to share with you that Blackboard Learn 9.1 has just come out with a free portal for k12 educators and others to create up to 5 online/blended learning courses per educator. (Thanks to Jan Wee, Holmen Technology Director for updating me on the latest release date.) The professional learning environment is the perfect segway for middle school or high school teachers to offer to their students online coursework to immerse themselves into an instructional based course led by an online facilitator. This opportunity will allow students to navigate and become comfortable with an online learning environment, and be successful with taking the next steps to take ownership into their learning outcomes. You really need to check this out- I spent over two hours yesterday creating an online course about blended learning course for k-12 educators yesterday and am happy with my results. Each course can only hold 500MGs, so it is wise to embed or link to cloud based handouts/articles or support resources so you do not max out your space. There is also a live learning lab portal and interactive whiteboard and chat feature that you have access to through Elluminate and up to 50 students can participate that is included - this rocks!

https://www.coursesites.com/webapps/Bb-sites-course-creation-BBLEARN/pages/index.html

I still plan to use Adobe Connect for video webinar portions with my educators I work with and students for the face-to-face online facilitation and meeting piece. (Negotiated pricing for Adobe Connect for a school district in WI/MN/IA is very cost effective for a year license- even for 5 educators to have their own room to present to 100 attendees at one time in each room- pretty cost effective! I will fill you in more if you need more detail on pricing with an Adobe rep.- please note I am NOT a vendor.) Adobe allows me to record and archive my sessions in the cloud, so students and educators can view the content-based presentation at a later time if they missed out on the conversation, or need to hear the lecture or presentation more that one time. Adobe Connect also allows for real-time- online collaboration through creating collaborative groups, interactive whiteboards, polling and multiple video representations of all of your attendees and much more.

Or perhaps you as an educator would like to create a "Flip Teaching" video clip- this too can be easily done in Adobe Connect, and then students can watch the content based instruction anytime /anywhere before your next face-to-face classroom session to build the needed background knowledge and active prior knowledge. There is also a mobile component that webinars can be accessed through cell phone and mobile devices for anytime and anywhere learning too. I am so excited to utilize these robust instructional tools to meet the needs of my diverse learners, and prepare my students and educators with a online learning environment.

Other great tools of the trade that are extremely cost effective and free and visually intuitive LMS's to use that I and others have found great success with include:Class.io, Edmodo, EDU 2.0, Google Sites, Schoology, and Twiducate. It really depends what your student learning outcomes are and how much time and effort you want to put into the development of the actual course, but to also reflect and portray your newly enhanced online teaching presence to make an educational impact with student learning.

Here are a few guidelines to consider when creating and implementing a new online/blended course for your teaching and learning environment below and a support document to review of what the best model meets your instructional style and your student learning needs. I am also including the newly published research from Colorado title "Blended Learning: Best of Both Worlds" a must read for anyone implementing and designing an online learning environment for your students!

The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning report identifies six models of blended learning occurring across the country today. (Horn and Staker, 2011 http://www.innosightinstitute.org)

Hope you find this 21st century teaching and learning solutions and resources as intuitive and rewarding as I have!

Naomi

Innovative Educator Technology Academy

2011-03-06T08:33:00.005-06:00

It's finally here the annual Innovative Educator Summer Technology Academy! Please review the embedded Technology Academy web brochure below, and then sign-up your "PD Cadre" as a team of three or more, or use the "Individual Sign-in" to register yourself through the provided links. If you have questions, please contact Naomi at innovativeeducator@gmail.com

We greatly look forward to offering this innovative and inspiring technology academy in western WI, hosted at Onalaska Middle School in Onalaska, WI August 15 - 19, 2011!

Dan, Jeff, Jena, Jennifer, Kim and Naomi

Innovative Educator Technology Consulting Team

PD Cadre (team of 3 or more) Individual Sign-in

Open publication - Free publishing - More ereaders

Innovative Educator Technology Academy publication designed and created by Naomi Harm & Kim Berg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at blog.innovativeeducator.us.

A Lesson Learned and A Lesson Taught

2011-01-22T12:08:00.008-06:00

I just returned home from the WASB 2011 School Board Convention. It was great to meet up and network with colleagues, superintendents and school board members from Wisconsin. I had an opportunity to present on the focused topic of 21st century educators and blended learning environments. My session was very well attended, and I provided an environment with many facets of learning through a TodaysMeet back channel chat http://todaysmeet.com/wasb2011, Twitter stream http://twitter.com/#!/search/wasb2011 , think-pair-share activities with attendees, Q and A, and a presentation with strong visual and video literacy to engage the participants to make immediate connections to the content presented.

It is always interesting to present at School Board conventions because there are literally many variations of learning styles and mindsets between the generations of learners in the room at a given time. My audience ranged from 75 year old school board members to 35+ year old superintendent and administrative attendees. Some tech savvy individuals really appreciated the interactive hands-on presentation, where others were looking for that stagnate sit-and-get lecture type presentation. It was very interesting observing the attendees as they sat in their chairs, some squirming with uncomfortableness, while others were actively engaged through their cell phones, laptops or iPads through their 3G connections to interact with the back channel chat and discussing possibilities of use with their colleagues.

This convention posed a few hurdles for us "techno-user" presenters as well. The session presentation areas were not equipped with any Wi-Fi or hard-wired connection Ethernet to gain access to the Internet or audio. Apparently it was too costly per each session and the conference center would not allow for free Wi-Fi connectivity or audio, but they more than willing to charge $9.95 for each individual to purchase Internet access and $20 for a pair of conference room projection speakers. I instead launched my Wi-Fi modem hotspot on my android cell phone and connected my laptop with ease, to ensure my presentation went on without a hitch to access my online content. I did have to use the podium mic to extend the audio projection for my presentation, and it was a little clunky- but we made it work for the time being.

During my presentation and throughout the the convention- I found it amazing the apparent disconnect between some school boards members and k-12 administration when we discuss preparing our students for a 21st century teaching and learning environment. I questioned at times- do these school boards really feel they are in the position to make sound and quality decisions for our k-12 educational system and our students, when they themselves are lacking the technology skill sets and proficiencies to understand how our students learn today's world? It made me squirm now, knowing that at the heart of the matter- some school boards and administrations are too far out to lunch to understand what IS the best interest and learning possibilities of our today's 21st century learners and 21st century educators.

It impressed me though- that individuals that attended my session- were okay with not knowing. They were there to find out the best practices, strategies, tips and solutions to support their K-12 environments, and point them in the right direction with quality blended learning opportunities as I showcased to them in my presentation. I was impressed with their inquisitive posed questions, individuals sharing amongst the group their accomplishments and strategies of their blended learning models, and hurdles they are currently facing in online learning deployments in their districts.

I stressed throughout my presentation the importance of training and preparing educators to be skilled with offering a quality content-based online and blended learning environment through a user-friendly CMS/LMS with in their school districts. Without the foundation of educators knowing what the "art of facilitation" looks like or feels like to build their content around- an online learning program will ultimately fail for educators, their students and and will reflect poorly on the school district as a whole.

While adding closure to my presentation, a veteran school board member came up to the front of the room to ensure she had my business card in hand. My business card provided my contact information, links to my online handouts http://box.net/naomiharm and my QR Code to scan to provide my personal contact information in a digital format. As she approached the presentation table, she stated to me quietly as I was still adding verbal closure to my seated attendees- "You are one sharp cookie girly- I enjoyed your presentation and will let my district know." And just as she said that statement, she quickly took my card and exited the room. It left a huge smile on my face as I tried to compose myself to showcase the closing uplifting video "Ten Years of Tech."

The WASB convention provided me the opportunity to share my expertise and learn from others. The many opportunities to network with individuals in the trenches of k-12 educational environments is priceless! We as a whole- will only continue to improve our professional practices to impact student achievement as long as we collectively share our successes, our failures and our cultivated vision amongst one another. Thank you WASB, school board members and administrators for sharing your learning stories with me to extend my professional growth and development efforts this past week!

2011 New Year Updates: Change is Good!

2010-12-26T19:12:00.005-06:00

Taking a Break! I have taken a break from mid December until now to focus on my immediate family and set the tech aside to take a break from work. We all need a break and to make sure we find the appropriate balance between family life and work to maintain a healthy lifestyle. As the new year is fast approaching, I always look for ways to make positive changes in my life professionally and personally. I am excited to share with you some of these changes that will make a lasting impact with my ed tech consulting company this year.

My Business is Growing! I have had so many wonderful opportunities this year to offer face-to-face, blended and online professional development, that at times I could not keep up with the demands and had to turn away many job offerings. Because of this demand, I am now hiring 4 part-time ed tech consultants to assist my efforts with replicating my already created tech infused trainings throughout the MidWest. The individuals I am hiring are educators who have all been in the education world for over 15+ years, most have master degrees and beyond, and these unique individuals really "get-it" when it comes to supporting a 21st century teaching and learning environment infused with ISTE NETS and solid technology integration presence to enhance student learning.

New 2011 Coursework! My "Innovative Educator 2.0" team of consultants will replicate trainings I have already created and deliver them as face-to-face and blended learning coursework opportunities with graduate credit options. They will also build their own workshops within a specialty content area that they are already experts in or certification area, and based on the immediate training needs within the region they are covering. Here is a sneak peak of some of our upcoming 2011 workshops and professional development services that will be in addition to my existing workshop and keynote services.

21st Century Skills and Assessment for Today's 21st Century Educator
Capture the Moment with Free Online Audio and Video Tools to Tell Your Story, Enhance Your Instruction and Motivate Your Students
Let the Journey Begin: Utilizing iPads in your Inquiry-Based Classroom
Teaching and Learning with eReaders to Promote Research and information Fluency
Maximizing Your 1:1 Learning Environment with Netbooks and Tablet Computing
Hit The Ground Running with Computers 101
Social Media to the Rescue in a Web 2.0 World
Android My World: Yes, I Can Build an Educational App For That!
Breaking the QRCode with Cell Phone Technologies
The Art of Online Facilitation Supported with Hyflex and Blended Learning Portals
Kaleidoscope of Learning: K-12 Global Collaboration and Virtual Video Field Trips
Up, Up and Away- Cloud Computing and Beyond
Google My Way
Windows Live Will Rock Your World
STEM Digital Toolbox to Inspire Student Learning and Optimize Career Choices
And much, much more supporting admin leadership, 21st century skills, reading, writing, math, science, social studies, ELL and special needs!

All workshops will be supported with current research and we will also be incorporating the "7 Things You Should Know About" articles found on the Educause website to support our training initiatives, along with a working action plan graphic organizer. The action plan will ensure participants will apply and implement their new learned skill sets into their immediate teaching practice to make a "Monday Morning Impact.

I believe my business model has been so successful because my vision has always been to create meaningful and collaborative learning opportunities to make immediate and positive change within a district or school. From the first point of face-to-face contact of negotiating a service contract to the closing and culminating activity of a workshop training- every learning opportunity is collaborative in nature by welcoming everyone to the table to have equal ownership and a voice in the professional development experience. Sustainability, total cost of ownership (TOC), and student and teacher tech literacy outcomes are the essential action planning indicators that I target and address to meet the PD planning needs of PreK-16 schools and universities.

In closing- this recent TED video has inspired me to continue to grow my Innovative Educator 2.0 ed tech company to the next level, and reinforces my foreword thinking vision of why women are so important to transform technology leadership in the 21st century.

2010 Edublog Nominations

2010-11-28T14:58:00.010-06:00

Yes, it is that time of year again when Edubloggers from around the world make their ultimate selections for the Annual Edublog Awards. The awards are a great way to find new educational blogs to follow and post to, and unique Twitterers to follow who share the best Tweets- and a multitude of innovative resources to discover.

Every day is an educational journey in the day and life of an Educational Blogger or an avid Twitterer. It is always difficult to nominate one particular individual for each specific category. There are so many creative people and insightful educators to choose from now, since we are so connected through our PLN's. I am going to give it my best shot to share my award nominations of the individuals that most influence my life, my professional development opportunities, my technical support and my educational leadership shared-vision. (Please note: more individual comments for each nomination will be posted by tomorrow).

Best individual blog: Jane Hart "Jane's Pick of the Day" http://janeknight.typepad.com

Best individual tweeter: Steven Anderson Web 2.0 Classroom http://twitter.com/#!/web20classroom

Best resource sharing blog: David Kapuler Tidbits of a Cyber Hero http://cyber-kap.blogspot.com

Most influential blog post: Shelly Sanchez Terrell "Teacher Boot Camp" http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org

Most influential tweet / series of tweets & discussion Kyle Pace http://twitter.com/#!/kylepace @kylepace

Best teacher blog: Ozge Karaoglu http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org

Best librarian / library blog: Shannon Miller http://vanmeterlibraryvoice.blogspot.com

Best school administrator blog: Chris Lindholm "Principal Thoughts" http://chrislindholm.typepad.com/principal-thoughts

Best educational tech support blog: Tech Soup Blog http://blog.techsoup.org/?cg=lnav

Best elearning / corporate education blog: Tom Kuhlmann "Rapid eLearning" http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning

Best educational use of video / visual: Dr. Tae http://drtae.org/building-a-new-culture-of-teaching-and-learning/

Best educational wiki: Andrew Churches http://edorigami.wikispaces.com

Best webinar series: ISTE http://www.iste.org/store/webinars.aspx

Best educational use of a social network: EDU PLN http://edupln.ning.com/group/edchat

Best use of a PLN: Intel Education Teachers Engage Community http://engage.intel.com/index.jspa

Lifetime achievement: Doug Johnson "The Blue Skunk Blog" http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/

Fall is a Time for Giving Back to the Online Community of Educators

2010-11-17T07:49:00.003-06:00

Fall is my favorite time of year and it is a time for giving back to the online community. Every Spring and Fall I try to create a comprehensive list of grant opportunities for educators. This grant list is my way to give back to the online community of educators who help me everyday, but to also assist your efforts to make it through the school year with a few more golden opportunities and resources for your students. Here is once again the golden ticket of grant resources to share with all of you. Please share and distribute with your educational staff and good luck with writing and applying for some of the unique educational grant opportunities!

Open publication - Free publishing - More grants

Changing of the Seasons Brings Changes for the Professional Journey

2010-11-12T07:56:00.009-06:00

The beautiful Fall season is upon us and November has brought some of the most beautiful sights and scenes of the year in Brownsville, MN. This is the time of year that over 30,000 tundra swans, snow geese, wood ducks and mallards are enroute on their migration journey to the south. We are very fortunate that our home location is right on the path of their dedicated migration route. These beautiful creatures stop over to "rest and refuel" in the newly created protective habitat area- before they take off to endure another 1500 miles of their journey.

Here are some photos and video clips of these magnificent birds.

With the changing of the seasons brings changes for my professional Innovative Educator Consulting business. The past year I have hired a administrative assistant, the one and only Miss Kim Berg. I was so fortunate to hire her, and the best part is- I have known Kim for over 8 years, because she was my program assistant I originally hired at my past technology director job. Kim does a tremendous and thorough job keeping all the ed tech grant work organized, communication for setups for training events, creation of marketing flyers and promotional materials. She is a huge asset to my company and my branding presence.

Another positive change that has occurred this month, is that I have hired a network administrator specializing in PC infrastructure technical support and security, 1:1 PC tablet deployment with Google apps and Windows Skydrive, and background knowledge in videography and webinar development. I am thrilled to have Jeff Harm join my educational technology consulting company to be "my network specialist and technical trainer" while supporting my 1:1 training initiatives, technology integration workshops and global webinar events.

Change is good- it needs to occur often just as the seasons change, to keep an individuals learning platform and presence vibrant, creative and filled with new innovative ideas to share the collective intelligence while continuing to build and grow the collaborative partnerships!

The Power of Collective Intelligence Part 2

2010-10-06T12:51:00.007-05:00

On Friday I will be presenting and facilitating at Arrowhead Union High School District in Hartland, Wisconsin. Many 21st century assessment topics and web 2.0 literacy tools will be introduced to engage and motivate educators and students, while identifying key student outcomes matched with the right learning tools to document student and educator technology proficiency. One of the tools that I will introduce to this school district is Wiffitti: http://wiffiti.com/ a unique and powerful mobile backchannel chat to capture the learning essence of the day's events and hands-on technology sessions throughout the school building in multiple sessions at one time. This backchannel chat will provide the opportunity to showcase the "the power of collective intelligence" within a school district environment, but also note how- and when others are invited in from outside the "bricks and sticks" of the school walls, the global literacy perspective of the virtual world professionals can also contribute to the collective intelligence as a larger community.

Please feel free to join in on the educational backchannel chat to share your expertise from a global community perspective and to be part of our teaching and learning day virtually! Access the weblink at http://wiffiti.com/screens/39752 or feel free to text @wif39752 + your message to 87884 See flash image preview below for real-time updates as well. Thanks or sharing your global voice with us and your expertise!

Another backchannel chat we will tap into to document the educator's progression of learning will be the tool of TodaysMeet. Our live chat will take place at http://todaysmeet.com/ArrowheadUnion with a Twitter hashtag of #ArrowheadUnion

The Power of Collective Intelligence

2010-09-26T11:18:00.011-05:00

Greetings Educator Friends!

It has been a while since my last post due to all of the exciting educational technology trainings, technology keynotes, thousands of miles of travel over the last few months. By the end of my training days, I am up at night designing, revamping and preparing for the next week’s presentation and trying to get at least 5 hours of sleep in there somewhere. I make sure to make the most of my down time- when there is in the evenings- connecting with husband and children and plan for meaningful family outings with a "mental break" from the technology.

I realize some of you have stated “Naomi, where are you? I have not seen an updated post from you since early summer and miss reading your new technology findings and current practices of implementation.” I am sorry for falling behind on my blog post to my followers, but needed to find a balance over this past summer to make the most of my downtime with family when possible when I was on the road so much- thanks for understanding! I tried my best to incorporate my micro-blogging with Twitter to throw out as many educational technology “golden nuggets” or “technology gems” as I could as I too learned from thousands of educators and administrators this past summer. Because of this I have now embedded a Twitter widget on my “refreshed” blog page to keep all of you up to speed so you will not miss a beat of where I am presenting at, what I am teaching and the new technology finds I come across during my new educational journeys around the nation.

As noted early, I presented at twenty-six educational technology academies this summer and eight technology keynotes. Many of my keynote presentations covered social networking and learning, and as many of you know- I do not present in a traditional way. I try to make the experience as social and collaborative as possible extending a meaningful learning experience for all audience members. This type of dynamic presentation allows everyone to have a “voice” during my presentations to build the collective intelligence of the audience members.

Planning my latest keynote
Just like most keynotes, it was to be delivered using a visual presentation format, so as I planned the WBEA WI Business Educators Association “slideology” PowerPoint presentation, I needed to consider how to make it as collaborative as possible. I decided to use Todays Meet http://todaysmeet.com/ , as I knew there was already a backchannel tag for the conference #WBEA and #WBEA10 - and that meant many of the participants would already be using that. I would have preferred to use Twitter as the main backchannel, but polled the WBEA members in earlier weeks and there was only a handful of individuals using Twitter, since it is blocked in a majority of K-12 schools in Wisconsin at this time.

However, I also needed to bear in mind that the audience would (probably) want to listen to as much of the presentation as possible, so I didn't want them to feel they were being distracted from it by backchannel chatting too much. I therefore wanted to build in some essential questions that (a) could be answered in one hundred and forty characters or less, and (b) give them time to reflect on their learning, as well as (c) time for me to review the backchannel chat stream .

Preparing for the keynote
As I was hoping for participation in the event from others outside of the WBEA convention, I needed to advertise the fact that it was taking place, and invite others to participate and contribute if they wished. As my presentation wasn't taking place until Friday, September 24th at 8:15AM (Central) I tweeted about it the day before- Thursday morning, mid-day and evening to build the excitement. “Backchannel chat of #WBEA10 keynotes and Drop.io Virtual jumpdrive resources: http://drop.io/WBEA come and join the virtual conversation with WI educational business leaders.”

Just before the presentation began, I posted the following message within the back channel chat: “Welcome WBEA members! Great to see all of you today! I'm inviting you to participate in the back channel chat. Please introduce yourself.”

Delivering the keynote
As I went through the presentation, the backchannel chats began to flow in, http://todaysmeet.com/WBEA and there was a good amount of participation, and many tweets went into the #WBEA10 Twitter stream of the audience members with Twitter accounts, which we reviewed throughout the convention. http://twitter.com/home#search?q=WBEA10 I also supported the relevance of the back channel chat and virtual jumpdrive of Drop.i http://drop.io through the latest research and best practices articles published in ASCD: http://bit.ly/ASCD-Dropio and http://bit.ly/ASCD-VirtualCircle In order to get any buy-in from educators, I always showcase the meaningful relationships of current research and how it supports classroom practice to enhance student achievement.

I also built in teacher energizers of “dynamic duos” and “one minute wonders.” This allowed participants time to reflect on their own learning from a posed essential question I prepared, and to process the information that was just presented. Teacher teams could then share their new findings of how they would apply this new knowledge back to their personal or professional learning environments with a teacher friend in a collaborative group setting through a “think-pair-share” activity. To get the hundreds of educators back on target after the team sharing, I built in a digital music timer called “Cool Timer” from Harmony Hollow- http://www.harmonyhollow.net/cool_timer.shtml a free download, to almost seamlessly transition the crowd back from large audio conversation to the keynote presentation of a quiet room again, to segway onto the next topic in the presentation. The timer allowed for me to upload my own personal music selection or choose to use the built in bugle or foghorn to get my audience back on task quickly. Thanks to Shellee King George, my Microsoft Peer Coach trainer and personal friend who introduced me to this new tool which I have added to my “virtual digital toolbox” of tips and tricks.

After the keynote
I took a reflective look at all the back channel posts and tweets that had come in during the event and answered some of the questions I hadn't been able to address during the event itself. I wanted to make sure I had address all questions on Todays Meet and on Twitter, and then transcribed the chat and saved it as a PDF with the embedded links to share with the convention committee to share with its members for future references.

Reviewing the keynote
A number of people have asked me how I managed to co-ordinate so much at one time during my keynote address, since my presentation style and delivery is dynamic compared to “traditonal keynote presenters”. Well, I believe in very careful and purposeful planning, and rehearsal are vital to any presentation, but I also know that there may be “technology hiccups or bumps” that come with any presentation- and flexibility is key with a fundamental backup plan is always “packed and loaded” to plan for the inevitable. However, I found these dynamic “audience immersed- collective intelligence” presentations an adrenaline-charged experience for me as a presenter - it kept me on my toes – and truly hope that others enjoyed the event as I much as I did presenting the interactive keynote.

What will I do differently next time?
• Blog about the event ahead of time while inviting educators to the micro-blogging platform of Twitter and use Twitter as the backchannel chat.
• Review more of the Todays Meet and Twitter stream during the session and answer any questions or comments arising - which means reducing the presentation down quite considerably if I think there will be a lot of participation.
• Model and introduce a few more digital transitional “teacher energizer” pieces to showcase how the classroom management piece is a best practice in any type of venue.

Thank you everyone!
I would just like to take this opportunity of thanking everyone that contributed to the presentation to make it a valuable and collaborative learning experience to demonstrate the power of a Back Channel Chat for a large keynote event. There was and may still be few back channel chat and Twitter-sceptics out there- but I believe now the “collective intelligence” of the group may have converted them into seeing the bigger picture- how the power of a collaborative group voice can empower a meaning and personal and/or professional learning experience to last a lifetime!

Special thank you to Jane Hart from the UK!
A special thank you to Jane Hart from the UK who empowered me to write this post to be a more "reflective thinker" on my own learning and delivery of my keynote presentations. It has provided me the opportunity to improve upon my instructional delivery and teaching style to make my presentations more learner focused with achieveable technology enhanced outcomes while meeting the diverse needs of all learners.

Thank you Jane!

Naomi Harm

Inspired and Transformed

2010-07-02T11:38:00.016-05:00

I recently attended and presented at the the ISTE 2010 national educational technology conference in Denver, CO where great global minds come together to communicate, network and share collaborative best best practices and teaching strategies. It has been one of the most powerful and positive conferences I have been to where I am inspired and transformed personally and professionally. It is a conference that promotes active listening, self-directed learning, critical thinking and problem solving. It challenges my mind-set to think outside, around and to leap over the box to strategically craft new solutions addressing our educational system and instruction delivery approaches with students, educators and administrators.

I was introduced to the following "We are the people we’ve been waiting for" video from Andrew Churches from New Zealand http://edorigami.edublogs.org/ showcasing the significance and importance that we do need to NOW address the immediate diverse learning styles and needs of our students as an utmost priority to support a robust 21st century skills education. Please view and see if this video will make an impact and a new change with your teaching style and delivery to find a solution of engaging and motivating ALL your students and their learning needs and challenges this next year.

I am also very proud to announce that I won an "Inspiring Educator" award this year. A fabulous reception was held in my honor along with 19 other national educators on Monday evening of the ISTE 2010 Conference. It was a huge celebration for all of us and it was a thrill of a lifetime to be honored for doing what I love to do every day! I contribute my success to the positive and inspiring individuals and educators I surround myself on a daily basis with, and of course my online PLN's (Professional Learning Network).

My PLN of Twitter has been my greatest online professional development venue of a lifetime! It is a robust virtual "brain candy" store where I can pick and choose my "flavor" of instructional content knowledge, inquisitive question techniques, and digital repositories of showcasing of best practices from inspiring videos, engaging podcasts, unique websites, and personal and professional immediate interactions with educators from around the world to address my immediate learning needs. I am truly blessed and thankful to have received this award and am honored to be associated with all of you to have made this possible. Thanks to all of you and for all you do to make me the innovative educator of who I am today!

I also had the opportunity to share my expertise with educational podcasting and vodcasting in the Intel Education podcasting booth this year. I met many phenomenal educators and students who wanted to share their stories about the highlights and scenes from ISTE 2010 and the Intel Teach program. I have added a collection of Ustream live and unaltered video clips for your review through the Ustream link below to get a flavor of what it was like to be on the ground floor in the exhibit area interviewing this noteworthy individuals.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/intel-education-live-at-iste-2010

*Please note: Vodcasts from ISTE 2010 and Intel Teach will be published and showcased when the video editing is finished to have a polished digital product of these exemplary interviews on my blog and within the Intel Engage Community at http://engage.intel.com/

Thanks everyone for inspiring me to make a positive difference in this magnificent educational world we live in today, tomorrow and in future!

Where Are All The Craftsmen?

2010-06-12T12:24:00.005-05:00

I would like to share with you some personal and professional insight on a deeper look on 21st century student career outlooks on life. My 15 year old son Jacob has been actively involved in a year long study of careers at his Houston High High. This past month he had an opportunity to participate in a job shadow opportunity of his choice, and to experience first hand a career interest or skill set he would like to further pursue or investigate. Now to understand this background history of where I am going with this blog post- is I need to introduce you to our youngest son first. I call him "my unique" son- unique meaning how Jacob verbally expresses himself to share his knowledge with others, has a unique sense of humor and how he does not want to conform, follow or fit in with the "in crowd." He wants to make his own individual claim in life, think for himself and learn from others and at time lead others, make sound decisions based on his past and present critical observational experiences that others have not thought of or have experienced- and just be different. Being different at times can lead others viewpoints or perceptions of an individual as being a nonconformist- OMG he is totally like his Mom- that is Me.

Jacob is our world traveler. Since he has been 5 years old he has traveled to many countries with his family, traveled with the People to People Student Ambassador program to the United Kingdom at the age of 12 and traveled through 7 countries immersing himself in the culture and traditions of each country. (Jake is pictured on the right in the picture). In his life time already he views many obstacles as opportunities with a different lens, and finds solutions to difficult situations I would never think of through his unique linguistic responses. So when he asked his father and myself if he could job shadow a glass maker/blower for his 9th grade job shadow day we first thought (with our thinking voices) how could this job shadow turn into an actual career path. We discarded those thoughts immediately and thought if this is his interest at this time- then lets let him pursue it because it will ultimately impact his life in a positive way.

So by now you can imagine- Jake's favorite TV channels are the Discovery and History channels. He has viewed glass making/blowing through these educational programs to spark his interest. Jake is also a normal typical 15 year old where girls are on his radar screen, his loves his rock music and is an avid percussionist, and loves to play those Play Station video games with his friends while chatting online with other gamers around the world. Yep- he is still a kid at heart, but a true entrepreneur and a very intellectual young man.

As a team and with Jake's career teacher we guided Jacob's search in the tri-state area for a glass blower and found Chad in Sparta, WI about 40 miles from our hometown. We came across the Southern Fried Glass business through our local TV station's blog on WKBT,
which they aired a video segment just 6 weeks earlier- what luck! Here is the video below.

Jacob had the opportunity to experience first hand a 2 hour glass making session at Chad's Sparta, WI art studio. Jake was in awe..... he very much is a visual and auditory learner. He was totally engrossed in the learning experience, but for most of the time he quietly and actively observed the glass making techniques of the instructor and students around him. Please note on the way home during the car ride he talked non-stop. The excitement he shared through his words was enlightening to us as parents to see how excited he was to learn a new skill and art technique. Here is an Animoto video clip of Jake's experience.

Because of this positive and educational learning experience that we as a family have now been exposed to as well, Jacob has opened our eyes and has taught us as parents the appreciation of the art and skill of the original craftsman and trade-smith. Doesn't it make you wonder how creativity and innovation of the arts and technical skills aid in our childrens' life long experiences to choose unique and futuristic career paths that they are truly interested in and passionate about, instead of following and settling for the standard realm and expectations of job that does not make us truly happy in life. These are exactly the kind of positive exposures to real-world experiences that our children need to be immersed in to understand the life long career opportunities that can possibly await for them.

By Jacob's request, we now have Jake signed up for some summer classes in the art of glass blowing. Some parents spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on competitive sporting activities and other events for their children, but are chosen and driven by their parents expectations, we on the other hand are letting Jake pursue his interest in the art of glass blowing without the constant pressure of a parent pressured success and failure rate. The effort, innovation and creativity that Jake puts into and gets out of his classwork with glass making will ultimately be his success and means of accomplishments of his own "unique" and final product to contribute back to his self-worth and well being as productive 21st century global learner. The art and history of the craftsmen and trade-smiths will not be forgotten in our or our son's lifetime, and the work ethic and attention to detail that compliments this type of future career path will flow over into many more opportunities that await for our son to pursue.

Making Glass Online

Diablo Glass School in Boston, glass-blowing is an exercise in teamwork

Glass Making ABC's Firing Up Students

Glasswork Artists Inspire Students

Please inspire and support your son or daughter's appreciation and career paths of the arts today!

Naomi Harm

Emerging Tech for Students

2010-05-06T20:41:00.010-05:00

This week I am preparing for another Future Technology Conference presentation at the Monona Terrace in Madison, WI on May 10th. This year's presentation will focus on "Emerging Technologies for Students to Transform Teaching and Learning." This new presentation idea originated from the inspiring 2010 Horizon Report findings and working with k-12 students this past year. I have been actively listening and observing how students and teachers are consuming and producing information as self-directed learners, and my bystander and facilitation insights have left me in awe this past year. A few of the tools below and many others will be showcased in my spotlight session at FTC.

Now- Cloud Computing and Collaborative Environments

The Horizon Report is accurate in stating that the k-12 sector is actively tapping into and utilizing "cloud computing" environments. As outlined in the report, cloud computing “can offer significant cost savings in terms of IT support, software, and hardware expenses. It has become common for schools to use cloud-based applications to manage calendars, rosters, grade books, and communication between school and home.” Google Apps and integration for the k-12 classroom is evident in the Midwest. With the high cost of renewing Microsoft software, alternative solutions have now been on the budgetary forefront to assist districts with cost effective measures to leverage their dollars with getting the same results. Districts are "working smarter rather than harder" and collaborating between multiple districts to share knowledge, resources and PD trainers to benefit everyone's working knowledge-base and to ease the pain on the school districts' already tapped pocket books.

The second technology, also likely to be adopted in 12 months or less is collaborative environments, online spaces where people can work in groups and they’re typically used for collaborative creation of content and as social networking spaces. Teachers are finding they can connect their classrooms with classrooms across town or in another part of the country or world, and their students can actually work with these local, regional, or global classrooms. Students can compare, contrast and analyze the differences between cultures or environments, and the students can work together to create digital products with individuals they may never meet in person. The choice in the Midwest is a large creation of blogs, wikis and nings as a collaboration tool, but as a learning management system we are seeing a surge in the Moodle environment.

Other alternatives that I have recently investigated more in detail are the LMS' or Edmodo and EDU20. Both of these tools offer the best of both worlds of a LMS and collaborative networking environment. These LMS' include the components of blogs and wikis, but offer the choice for online collaboration of dynamic groups and a full blown LMS of online and blending learning options for coursework. The "cloud" makes the online learning environment very attractive to network admins for little or minimal network maintenance, but attractive to k-12 educators to create a dynamic online portals to offer blended learning opportunities to their students for FREE. Yes, I said it- for FREE.

Game-Based Learning and Mobile: 2-3 Years The time-to-adoption horizon is two to three years for a specific category of game-based learning is open-ended, challenge-based, truly collaborative games — but they have tremendous potential to transform education, according to the report. “Games like these, can draw on skills for research, writing, collaboration, problem-solving, public speaking, leadership, digital literacy, and media-making,” the report states. “When embedded in the curriculum, they offer a path into the material that allows the student to learn how to learn along with mastering, and truly owning, the subject matter.”

Urgent Evoke is a game occurring right now and has the tagline “A crash course in saving the world.” It has over 15,000 players right now, and every week there’s a new theme for the quest. The quests are all related to major global problems such as hunger, poverty, women’s rights, water, sustainability, electricity, the future of money. Each week there’s a lesson where you have to learn about, teach and take action on the topic, and you have to imagine what the world would be like 10 years from now if these actions were carried out. This week, Urgent Evoke is helping to evoke change in the lives of women.

When I have asked students at target grade levels of freshman through seniors in high school what interests them in a future career, 78% have responded to a career in gaming, creating strategy techniques/guides and game simulation software. They then respond- I wish this was a "real job" and I respond "It is!" and point them in the right direction to local and regional tech schools and universities with these career options. They are then pumped and excited noting these career opportunities even exists. I beleive by many of their responses- that a career in gaming is frowned upon by many of their parents and guardians, and they turn to other career outs due to their "parents" do not see this an "acceptable career option." Oh boy, I think we need to educate the adult parents all over again!!!

The fourth technology on the second horizon is mobiles, and an enormous number and wide variety of mobile devices are available globally. In fact, Smith said, “the cell network is bigger than the electricity grid globally.” And the range and number of educational applications for mobiles are growing at a rapid pace, according to the report, “yet their use in schools is limited — more often constrained by policy than by the capabilities of the devices they run on.”

When I presented in South Africa this past year, cell phone use in schools was an accepted practice to create student digital projects, and a tool to promote and extend learning in and out of the classroom. "What a novel idea!" Since in Africa they are limited to computer labs, they use the tools that are prevalent with their students, and focus their energy on the available resources- all the while instilling, modeling and promoting effective digital citizenship practices and skill sets.

Five Years: Augmented Reality and Flexible Displays Augmented reality is a term for a view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are enlarged or increased by computer-generated imagery, and according to the report, it “has strong potential to provide both powerful, contextual, in situ learning experiences and serendipitous exploration and discovery of the connected nature of information in the real world.” It does this by opening the door to discovery-based learning, and Missouri’s Flynn Park Elementary School is giving it a try: Working with the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center near St. Louis the elementary school participated in a National Science Foundation-funded grant program called Local Investigations of Natural Science ( LIONS) to build and play augmented reality games in science and history.

Innovative Think Tank: Tech Forum

2010-04-23T12:17:00.003-05:00

This week I am attending the Midwest Tech Forum in Itasca, IL and the best three word "memoir" I can provide for this conference is "Innovative Think Tank." The beginning keynote offered insight and provided background knowledge on how to "identify what leaders at all levels can and must do to assure colleagues and communities have the necessary resources, sustained support, and lasting motivation to provide students with the knowledge and skills to compete and collaborate in the coming decades." This keynote preso challenged me to think and reflect how can Midwest schools and educational leaders take the next step in being proactive, instead of reactive of how to leverage the digital landscape as a dynamic learning space, instead of digital threat of how the tools and resources are used as a negative social networking playground. As a closing to the keynote presenter, we were all challenged by this question to allow us to be more reflective in our past, current and future practices, "As @techlearning turns 30): What has been the most important moment in edtech in the past 30 years?" How would you answer this???

The Tech Forum is also running a back channel chat through a Twitter hash tag of #TLTechforum. Much contribution and collaboration is being shared to extend the participants learning experiences and sharing of expertise with key content areas, tools and resources. http://twitter.com/TLTechforum Please join in on the conversation virtual with us to share your reflections with us.

A Flikr photostream of digital photos will posted throughout the conference noting the hashtag of TLTechfoum. Here are just a few that I have taken from this mornings sessions through the provided hyperlink. TLTechforum photos. Here are also PDF's of presenters handouts and presentation notes. Flip video clips from volunteers will also be merged together and be available after the conference as well. *This digital photo is of Liz a CDW-G representative engaged in David Jakes @djakes social networking session.

Web 2.0 and 1:1 Implementation

2010-03-25T08:45:00.009-05:00

I had the privilege and opportunity to present at WEMTA 2010 this year as a spotlight presenter. The 2 1/2 hour hands-on session was of course one of my favorites which was titled: Transforming Your Classroom Instruction with Web 2.0 Literacy Tools." David Kapuler co-facilitated with me- so it was wonderful to have another instructor as a "dynamic duo" to share our best of the best resources and showcase how to introduce these tools to students to create a final product meeting the ISTE NETS in the k-12 classroom. Lots of conversation with participants and WEMTA attendees have taken place before, during and after this conference, which has kept this topic on the forefront of education in Wisconsin.

I am really impressed with the motivation and dedication that some Wisconsin educators showcase to stay current with technology integration, and to change and enhance their teaching and learning environments. Ultimately it is a win-win situation for the school district and especially their students!

Below is a collection of resources shared at the conference, but also resources that have been now shared to address web 2.0 AUP's and 1:1 initiatives to support this movement.

AUPS and Supportive Websites
CTAP- AUPS in a web 2.0 World
http://www.myctap.org/index.php/cybersafety-home/68-acceptable-use-policy-articles

Naomi Harm's Technology Planning Resources and Tools
http://sites.google.com/site/techplanningsurveytools

Policy Leadership and Web 2.0
http://itls.saisd.net/blog/?p=370

SEDTA
http://www.setda.org/

The Journal
http://thejournal.com/Home.aspx

Web 2.0 Resources for k-16 Education
Cool Tools For School
http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com

Cutting Edge Technology Tools to Support 21sy Century Skills

(by the well known David Kapuler)

http://web20-21stcentury-tools.wikispaces.com

http://cutting-edge-technology.wikispaces.com

http://cyber-kap.blogspot.com

Go2Web20 (business and education)
http://www.go2web20.net

Innovative Educator 2.0
http://blog.innovativeeducator.us

IT Stuff for You
http://itstuff4u.wordpress.com/category/web-2-0/

Kathy Schrock
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/edtools.html

Online Degree (100 Essential Web 2.0 Tools for Educators)
http://www.onlinedegree.net/100-essential-2-0-tools-for-teachers/

The Journal (op 10 Web 2.0 Tools for Young Learners)
http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/02/02/top-10-web-20-tools-for-young-learners.aspx

Shambles (Asia- outstanding resources)
http://www.shambles.net/Web2/

Solution Watch (Back to School with Web 2.0 Part 1)
http://www.solutionwatch.com/512/back-to-school-with-the-class-of-web-20-part-1/

Web 2.0 For You
http://www.mindomo.com/view.htm?m=bd27a95a430dd9821e9544b0fc99bc25

Web 2.0 Tools 4 Your to Use
http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com
http://embedr.com/playlist/web-2-0-free-tools-4-u-2-use-fame-2009-workshop

Tami Brass 1:1 Support Resources from WEMTA 2010 (Tami was also another Spotlight Presenter at WEMTA 2010 and provided these phenomenal resources)

Ning

http://isenet.ning.com/profile/TamiBrass?xg_source=activity

Twitter

http://twitter.com/brasst

Blog

http://tech4teaching.org/wpblog/

http://tech4teaching.org/wpblog/?p=824

Classroom Management

https://sites.google.com/site/teachingone2one/Home/classroom-management

Diigo Links

http://www.diigo.com/list/Brasst

Edutopia Project Learning 1:1

http://www.edutopia.org/maine-project-learning-technology-integration

Word Cloud Makers Are Here

2010-03-17T10:13:00.001-05:00

After hearing about the news that Wordle is currently in limbo of being relaunched for live creation purposes again, I took it upon myself to "Tweet" about the alternative tools I use for creating and designing word clouds in the K-16 classroom setting. I too, was very happy with Wordle, but it is amazing how many choices we have to tap into with other web 2.0 literacy tools that can accomplish the same job, and even sometimes better!

Here is my essential "Word Cloud" free list to support your instructional technology efforts to promote and flourish literacy in your classroom to generate unique student and educator projects.

ABC Word Clouds: http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm

Image Chef: http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic

Lexipedia: http://www.lexipedia.com

Photo Widget Cloud Maker: http://www.roytanck.com/2009/04/09/introducing-photo-widget-floating-thumbnails-for-your-website

Quintura http://www.quintura.com

Tag Crowd: http://tagcrowd.com

Tag Galaxy: http://taggalaxy.de
Tagxedo.com: http://www.tagxedo.com

Tagul: http://tagul.com

To Cloud: http://www.tocloud.com

Twitter Sheep: http://twittersheep.com

Visual Thesaurus Vocab Grabber: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/vocabgrabber

Word Hearts: http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/WordHearts/index.html

Word It Out: http://worditout.com

Word Sift: http://wordsift.com

Be Remarkable ~ Be A Leader

2010-02-14T11:15:00.005-06:00

Isn't it amazing how time flies? It has almost been one year since I have started my new educational journey as an ed tech consultant and national/international keynote presenter. All I can say is that it has been the best year of my life! I have had the opportunity to "be remarkable" as an inspirational technology leader in my field of study this past year, but this success is due to all the wonderful and admirable individuals I work with on a daily basis- these individuals are YOU! By your contributions to education and by your uplifting stories from the trenches in the classroom or withn your administrative role, you have motivated me to challenge myself this year to be an extraordinary leader.

All of YOU have assisted in the transformation of my individual self-worth and dedication to the positive impacts on our 21st century world of education. With this educational empowerment has come the positive change within me to create, to innovate and to deliver renewed and inspiring technology integration workshop offerings, unique online and blended graduate and master coursework opportunities, and motivational technology keynote presentations to inspire life long learning in our K-16 teaching and learning environments.

Thank you for inspiring me to challenge myself every day to keep my "eye on the prize" that is... our 21st digital native learners and our 21st century dynamic educators. Here is a thank you to all of you with an inspiration video to keep you all inspired through these long winter months ahead, and to welcome Spring with open arms.

Professional Learning Networks

2010-01-14T12:37:00.014-06:00

I just finished presenting an online webinar with ISTE on the topic of PLN's titled "Building and Growing Your Own Professional Learning Network" These types of presentations empower me always to give back to our community of learners. I always find it amazing how educators ask why do you want to use a Blog, Wiki, Ning or Twitter to share your knowledge and expertise- isn't that so impersonal they ask? I beg to differ- it is all about building relationships and connecting with others that have the same passions and love for learning as you and I do. It is also about collaborating and sharing new knowledge with others, asking questions in a safe environment and receiving quality responses and solutions, where you might not find otherwise.

As stated from my last Twitter online help request of: "How would you define your PLN in a quote" According to @anncarnevale "It is the largest teachers lounge around, filled with the best educational professionals, which you get to select and interact with on a 24/7 basis" and according to David Kapuler @dkapuler "It's the fuel that drives my passion for technology...after all it led me to people like you" These individuals here clearly reflect on the importance of community and collaboration, and wanting to do their very best in education to make a difference! Thanks to my PLN Twitter community for supporting my educational endeavors everyday. Without them, I would not be where I am today in my career!

Giving back to the community is huge for me, so today I am promoting a new educational literacy site to promote the love for reading. Nick Glass is the Founder & Principal of Teaching Books. This marvelous site provides a time-saving portal to thousands of online resources you can use to explore children's and young adult books and their authors.It also provides immediate access to useful materials and exciting programs (short movies, audio book readings, book discussion guides, and more) that add a multimedia dimension to reading in the classroom, library, and home.

The latest addition includes Coretta Scott King Book Award Online Curriculum Resource Center—a free, multimedia, online database for educators and families featuring more than 250 original recordings with award-winning authors and illustrators and hundreds of lesson plans. It is a great reading resource as teachers, librarians, and families plan for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Black History Month.

The resource center includes more than nine hours of originally produced audio with Coretta Scott King Book Award (CSK) authors and illustrators talking about their books in two- to three-minute clips. Searches can be executed by author, illustrator, title, grade level, and curriculum area, as well as by the year or specific Coretta Scott King Book Award citation.

In addition to free, online primary source materials (audio recordings and book readings), the collection features hundreds of lesson plans and original movies filmed in the studios of some of the award-winning authors and illustrators.

Thanks to Teaching Books for "giving back" to our PLN community and providing quality FREE resources for our students and educators!

Naomi Harm

21st Century Skills Reflections

2009-12-20T09:31:00.005-06:00

These past two weeks I have been traveling around the beautiful state of Wisconsin and presenting on the topic of 21st Century skills, 21st century teaching and learning environments, and project-based learning. It amazes me how school districts are still struggling with moving forward into the 21st century when we are actual already here in the 21st century. The discussion on the table is "How do we prepare our educators and teaching and learning environments to be infused with 21st century curriculum, instruction and assessment practices, while being supported with the appropriate 21st century digital literacy tools?"

The school districts I am working with are asking the right questions to move forward and to make these changes while involving key stakeholders and constituents. They are also extensively researching and reviewing best practice content documents first before investing or spending dollars foolishly in a vast array of "new tools." They are on the right track, but just need the continued guidance, facilitation and know how to make the needed change in their districts.

Resources I have shared to assist district leaders with building a culture around 21st century skills and themes, 21st century literacy and 21st century fluency include:

Access, Equity and Resources

2009-11-30T21:06:00.016-06:00

I just finished reviewing and summarizing technology planning data results collected from k-12 students from a rural school district in the MidWest. It is amazing how honest students are with sharing their insights on school needs and what is lacking in their teaching and learning environments. There were some glaring results that all students identified, which included the lack of Internet access, equity and quality of technology resources in their school. They were clearly frustrated with what their school was NOT providing them, and how within their home environments that have much better technology tools and Internet access.

I feel for these impoverished school districts. Many times the appointed team of administrators are overwhelmed themselves and they all wearing multiple hats to keep their schools afloat, and they are truly doing the best they can. The Superintendent in this case is just an interim stepping foot into the building maybe twice or three times a month to sign papers, collect his/her pay check- but does little to make a positive and effective change for a district in such need of help and repair. How does one go about making a significant change or difference with very limited community, school board, or business support- I keep asking myself?

The EETT and ARRA grants I write for these districts are stretched so far between all the rural districts who are in the same boat financially. How can these districts make a positive difference with very little dollars flowing from our federal and state government for supporting educational initiatives? By these large inequities of funding and lacking of teaching and learning tools between the haves and have not school districts in the Mid West, I see a greater setback in the quality of education, instruction and technology literacy skill set opportunities that are delivered to our 21st century digital native students. Our educators are clearly burned out, they are lacking the passion and motivation to inspire student learning in some cases. I feel their pain and so want to make change for them and assist them with moving forward.

During these economic and educational budget setbacks and hardships, we need to look outside of the box for answers and leadership initiatives. We need to be very creative in our thinking and strategic planning processes to succeed. The path I have chosen and have shared with others is a path to "ignite a passion of teaching and learning" with every educator I meet. I have recently put together an educator grant list, to assist educators in finding simplified grants to write, fund and support their passion for teaching and learning once again. As we know, the schools do not have the government funding and endowments they once had, so educators need to be part of this proactive process of supporting and searching out funding and technology resources. It truly is amazing all of the grant dollars and funding opportunities that are out there to support educational and technology initiatives, and how they can be obtained with very little effort on the educators or school districts behalf.

Yes, the effort lies in the "time" and the "time issue" seems to be the greatest factor of individuals holding back or for others to say "no," and not take the risk to make a positive and life changing difference with their teaching practice and/or make a impact with their 21st century students. My only request to all of you- please say "yes" over this holiday season. Give back to your students through a special technology integration global project to open their eyes to a world of opportunity and fulfillment. Enhance and enrich your teaching collection and learning resources to once again "ignite your passion for teaching" and to continue to inspire life long learners amongst ALL of your students!

My gift to all of you to make a difference in your classroom and with your students- is access to my grant collection list of "Educator Grant Opportunities To Pursue" found in my shared files widget on the left sidebar of this blog. Enjoy and have fun with the many possibilities that await you.

And....Thanks to all of you for inspiring me to "ignite my passion" everyday!

~ Naomi ~

Fall Awakening in Brownsville, MN

2009-11-10T11:08:00.008-06:00

What a beautiful time of year to enjoy the sights, scenes and smells of the great outdoors before we hit the harsh coldness of winter. In our Brownsville, MN area we have been enjoying the beautiful Fall panoramic views and sounds of the season with the arrival of the snow geese, tundra swans, white pelicans, and a variety of ducks on the Mississippi River. Just 3 miles south of our home is a newly developed overlook to view and watch the beautiful birds that have arrived to take a break from their migration route during the months of late October through December. It is a spectacular site and "a must scenic drive" for Fall travelers.

There has been a lot of activity in our area for avid photographers to take that picture perfect photo of these birds, or to capture a video clip to showcase the beauty of this secluded area. Take a look at this latest clip from "Mory" from Wisconsin of his early morning video capture from last weekend- well done Mory!

Lastly, here is an Animoto video I have put together to share with all of you to experience the "Fall Awakening"' in our area, even if you do not get a chance to travel to this part of the country. Enjoy!

Reflecting on October

2009-10-29T20:25:00.011-05:00

Isn't it amazing how time flies? I have been rather quiet over these past two weeks due to a crazy work schedule, but also to reflect on my father's one year of passing. It is amazing to look back to where I was one year ago and trying to understand and handle the difficult passing of my father. Only 8 months earlier was he diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and who knew how fast it would take his life.

I owe so very much to my father. Those last few weeks in the hospital, when I could get away from work - which seemed so daunting at the time, I had the opportunity to spend some quality time with him. We had brief but powerful conversations encompassing stories of his past, the family farm, fishing with Grandpa John, and special stories when my father had those special moments of giving each one of us 5 kids some special one-on one time. My special time was when my dad would sneak me outside of the house at night with him when the sows were having their baby piglets, and he would let me watch the piglets being born, and make sure to comfort the hogs and new born piglets with fresh straw. I know it may sound strange to all of you but this was "my special time with my dad." He knew how much I loved animals and cared for them, that is also why he chose me as the middle daughter to also milk his dairy cows starting at age 9 until I left home for college. These stories and memories are priceless.

My life has changed significantly since my father has passed. I have not told a lot of individuals, but I will tell you here today. My father could tell I was not myself when I would visit him in the hospital or visit him on the farm in NE Iowa this past year, and he knew I was unhappy with my work situation, and he too noted it that there must me some "vision collision" going on. He knew how strong willed I was and he understand and appreciated my dedicated work ethic, well because- I learned from the best- my father- the Iowa dairy and hog farmer of 70 years. We discussed at quite length my situation and he actively listened the best he could, and grew tired very easily. He never wanted to see any of his children unhappy, but always offered the best advise, even if we thought it was not at the present time.

My father offered his "risk-taking advice" as he always would. He told me I am in control of my own career and work situation, and that I should leave the company I was currently with and start my own ed tech consulting business or start my own restaurant/bakery- because many of you know how I love to cook and bake. I could not believe he was telling me do this and to direct me in this manner, to leave a well paying job with benefits. He wanted me to be happy, because he could see that I was not.

Time passed and by October 22, 2008 by dad passed at 3AM in his home on his dairy farm as he had requested, and I am glad to say I was with him with my brothers and sisters to grant him this last request. The next few months were extremely difficult and my day to day work meant very little to me, due to the unappreciative and 20th century leadership I was dealing with, but I must say the educators and ed tech leaders I worked with on a daily basis kept me going. As all good things must end- it eventually came to a head where the "vision collision" took place, my strong will and voice were present, and my departure occurred the end of February 2009.

I was FREE- finally FREE and could move on- why could I not do this a year earlier- I just do not know why- but finally FREE. I immediately started my own consulting company "Innovative Educator Consulting Corporation," and 16 out of the 26 school districts immediately contacted me for services. Then four universities contacted me within a month to design and deliver online content for new graduate and master course work. Next, Intel Education came knocking within one month and I accepted a part-time position as a National Intel Senior Trainer. Next thing I know- ISTE is following me on Twitter for over 6 months and now asking me to offer online PD webinars for them.

The work for my consulting company continues to pour in, and I am now in a position to say "yes" or "no" to job opportunities extending out two years from now. My latest adventures have kept me very busy with offering national and international keynote presentations. These speaking opportunities have assisted me to launch my company even further with many educational affiliate organizations. These new affiliations have also partnered with the many EETT and ARRA grants that I have wrote and continue to write for rural and high need schools in WI.

Looking back- my dad was right! I wish I could have taken the leap or the risk in the Fall of 2008 so he could have seen how well my company is doing. I really think I needed to hit a low point, before I could move on to make this change- and I see now why it had to occur this way. I am one to make and strive for change- positive change- and in order for me to be fully passionate about a situation I have to own part of it- and be fully entrenched with it to understand the direction it will take me.

I really miss my father. I look back to the times we could have had, and now think of all of those times I told him I could not see him or my family because I had work to do- what a waste that was when I think back. I am so glad I have my priorities straight now- and that I can choose my own adventure and that I can sore in this new 21st century career and teaching and learning environment, and never be held back by an ill-fated 20th century factory leadership model.

My best advice to all of you is by the most recent quote that was shared with me:

“Love life, engage in it, give it all you've got. Love it with a passion, because life truly does
give back, many times over, what you put into it” ~Maya Angelou

I choose life and I choose true happiness!

Naomi

Final Reflections on South Africa Educational Journey

2009-10-12T10:29:00.007-05:00

Greeting Everyone,

I am writing my final reflection on my South African educational journey, as a peer out my deck window overlooking the Mississippi River, while it is now snowing in southwestern Minnesota. This Minnesota weather makes it seem like it was years ago when I traveled to South Africa, yet it has only been two weeks ago. I have just received some more conference pictures from Gerald and others of our final days in South Africa. Due to my dedication to present and attend the many events it was hard to capture the remaining days of photos to showcase the daily activities. Luckily many others did and shared their digital photos with us on the School net conference site, and I have now reproduced a collection of my photos and the conference attendees, conference planning team and the Intel affiliates.

At this time I want to reflect and share with each of you my thankfulness and sincere gratitude to all of my new South African friends and new colleagues. These individuals made my African experience a positive and life changing event for me and my husband. I have never been so welcomed into one's country and cultural society, and respected as a true professional. I was the minority coming into their country, yet there were no cultural barriers or stereotypes placed upon me as a visitor. I was treated as an immediate family member as I arrived into their country, throughout out our entire stay, and even upon our final departure.

Thank you South Africa for your kind, compassionate and caring ways and positive attitude to accept me, as an American educator, into your educational family!

National ICT Conference

2009-09-28T07:20:00.026-05:00

September 24, 25 and 26 encompassed the time I presented at the National ICT Conference in Durban, South Africa. All of the International presenters stayed at a lovely quest house where each morning we were served a cooked breakfast. From our balcony view we could see the city of Durban and the oceanfront. We also had an opportunity to be welcomed each day from the guesthouse surrounding treetops with monkeys. It was a quite a site to see as they swung from branch to branch and eventually landed on top of the guest house roof.

The conference was a joyous event to attend and present at. This countries culture was truly represented throughout, but especially the opening day and closing day ceremonies with a childrens choir singing the native songs and greeting all attendees, and closing of the attendees singing in true celebration of thankfulness. Bruce Dixon, was the opening keynote presenter, delivering a powerful message addressing reform initiatives that significantly improve the opportunities for learning through the use of technology. His keynote focus set the stage for many meaningful technology integration connections and extended collaborative opportunities throughout the next two days of workshop sessions for all.

The evening events included dining opportunities to experience the African cuisine which included kingclip, mussels, Kudu (antelope), oscterage, and crockidile. Many chocolate and cream decadent desserts were also served to complete the dinner courses. We also attended a dinner conference event where all attendees were invited and we experienced many global and Africa finger foods. To enhance the evenings dinner event we had African dancers that preformed us, and we too with the native clothing for the night, and danced as a large group with everyone to their cultural and ritual dance beat- it was marvelous. Music is the the universal language we can all understand and come together to celebrate as a nation.

I tried my best during my leadership sessions to video stream my presentations, and run a back channel chat back to the states but….. as you can imagine- the limited bandwidth and restrictive Internet access throughout Africa and conference arena were too limited to successfully stream the sessions. But on a positive note… the back channel chat worked very successfully, and immediately pulled in all conference attendees into a live online portal to instantly communicate and collaborate as a community. I used the tool Todays Meet tool, which the archived session can be found at http://todaysmeet.com/SouthAfrica

The workshop conversations and in-depth discussions with my attendees opened up my eyes to an all-new technology world. Did you know Africa was the last continent to gain access to television? This took place in 1974- wow this blew me away. Most of the school attendees that attended my workshop have one computer classrooms or a small lab environment, with extremely limited bandwidth- think of it as a computer lab where you recently trained in and each computer had to “dial up” to gain the connection. There were some exceptions though- some schools that attended now have 3G networks- equivalent to cell phones and multiple labs for technology integration to support their whiteboard initiatives.(The picture posted in the lab where I presented in- Not A Typical Lab though- this was computer lab was brought in by the Mustek Technology vendor to assist me for presentation purposes).

I also found it very- very interesting where most of the children in South Africa that attend a public school have cell phones. Cell phone plans in South Africa are relatively inexpensive- $70 Ran = $10 a month. And when you sign up for a cell phone plan the cell phones are free. Many teachers in this area are using the cell phone technology to their advantage and allowing them into the classroom as a teaching tool to enhance the teaching and learning environment. (Isn’t this a novel idea America educators and administrators!) Also, the teachers are listening to the student’s needs and innovative ideas of cell phone and developing projects and specific lessons with these tools. This is truly amazing! (Gerald Roos is noted in the photo, this was Gerald's profile view throughout the conference. He made sure everything was running smoothly and the cell phone technology was the quickest communication tool to find the right people to do the job).

I must say, I was truly blessed to have an opportunity to present in South Africa with the other international presenters and to meet the many unique and dynamic educators and administrators! The network opportunities were limitless and I learned so much from all of my attendees- especially to be more skilled with the native language, the history and culture of the country, and a new educational perspective of ICT literacy in South Africa.

I also want to thank at this time my gracious host, Gerald Roos, (see picture above) who also was the coordinator of the National ICT Conference. His extensive background technology knowledge, conference planning skills and organization contributed greatly to the conference’s overall success.

South Africa Day #2

2009-09-22T15:22:00.020-05:00

Today we ventured to the town of Hermanus in South Africa to go watch whales. It is their mating season right now and the whales are more incline to come into the shallow and coastal waters for breeding purposes. We had an opportunity to view the whales as they would breech- lunge up out of water and come crashing down. We also saw a few tail fins and their large mammoth heads and parts of their bodies covered in barnacles. The best part was hearing them reach the surface through their blowhole spurt out a spray of water before submerging back into the ocean again- it was truly breathtaking.

We continued onward with our journey back towards Capetown area and had a wonderful lunch at the Bodega Vineyard. The setting of this winery and restaurant was nestled backed within a lush floral valley and cascading mountainside- it was just breath taking and so relaxing. The Spanish decor of wrought iron accents, Tuscany rich rust and peach colors- accompanied with the cultural Spanish music took us back in time and almost to another place. Simply lovely. For lunch I tried something new- a seafood entree of a Kingclip- a white fish- complimented with a side and garnish of asparagus and sun dried tomatoes. The rich flavor and zesty seasonings of the food melted in my mouth. It was so simply wonderful!

After lunch we ventured on to two other winery's where we enjoyed wine and chocolate tasting- now I was surely in heaven. One of the winery's was owned by Ernie Elle's, famous PGA golf pro. This winery estate welcomed us with a hand laid bricked driveway and manicured lawn and landscapes. It was set back also into the rolling hillside- almost as if it was meant to be hidden from passerby's. Inside the winery the decor reflected the golf pro's many accomplishments with shiny large trophies, professional photos, and world champion golf scenes. My husband truly enjoyed this visit and was in his element.

We ended our lovely day with a home cooked curry mincemeat meal with Gerald, Elaine and Elaine's mother. This was a dish neither I nor my husband have had before. To compliment our main meal we had a side dish of rice, fresh green peppers/tomatoes, and sliced ripe bananas. We also added a tablespoon of chutney to the curry mince meat as a condiment- it truly enhanced the overall experience of the homemade entree- which was just marvelous. My husband and I feel so welcome in their home and they have accommodated so graciously- we are so very thankful to have this new family as part of our lives this week and year's to come.

Tomorrow we are going to have a quiet morning and perhaps venture out in the early afternoon to the botanical gardens, before we need to catch our evening flight to Durban to prepare for the conference.

South Africa Day #1

2009-09-21T16:46:00.001-05:00

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to share with all of you Day 1 of our adventures in South Africa. Gerald Roos so kindly guided our adventures to the southern points of interest in South Africa where we had the opportunity to experience the most beautiful views and scenery in the world. Our day long vehicle and cable car journey took us down the coastline to view both the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, penguins, a few whales, seals, baboons and beautiful plants and flowers. Oh yes, and by the way, we had lovely midpoint stops for tea and decadent desserts- as a must! The slideshow below tells our story more than my words can say ~ enjoy.

Tomorrow we are off to go on a whale watching excursion :-) So tune in for more stories photos to showcase our adventures in South Africa!

Preparing for the Journey to Africa

2009-09-13T16:45:00.008-05:00

I am excited to share with you that in exactly one week that I will be traveling to South Africa to present at the National ICT Classroom Conference. I am thrilled and honored to be one of six International speakers and workshop leaders at this conference. I would like to personal thank Gerald Roos for inviting me to this conference and for providing me the opportunity to share my technology integration expertise, and my passion for facilitating and supporting 21st century teaching and learning environments. Gerald has also done a fabulous job organizing this technology conference with his fellow ICT team members and the Durban Girls College facility and hosting representatives.

21st Century ICT literacy topics I will be presenting on include the following:

Each sectional presentation will be video streamed, embedded with a live back channel chat for immediate global reflection and guest interaction, and archived for future retrieval of content information. I will also be posting my electronic handouts through my Box.Net shared widget on my blog, so please feel to download the content I am presenting to share with your district or university staff members.

I will try my best to blog daily about the events, presentations and sights and scenes I will come in contact with to share with all of you as well. So check back often- as there will be many updates in the next two weeks.

Naomi Harm

Fall Online Graduate Courses

2009-08-23T16:00:00.023-05:00

Are you interested in taking a Fall online educational technology graduate course? If you are- this is the opportunity for you! Marian University has added three brand new- cutting edge online graduate courses for Fall 2009. Naomi Harm, National Intel Senior Trainer and Marian University adjunct instructor, is the designer of these new courses and will be the online facilitator for each two credit graduate course. Tuition is set for $470 for two graduate credits. (Scroll to bottom of this post for online registration and tuition payment information.)

EDT604 T9 September 15 - October 13

How to Become a Transformed Twitter Teacher (T3) in a Flash

Twitter is becoming an integral part of many digital lives and personal and professional learning networks. This introductory course of "How to Become a Transformed Twitter Teacher (T3) in a Flash" explains how to use Twitter; an online microblogging service that offers a way to share short bites of information instantly with others. This course will explain what Twitter is and how its service is used by individuals, by businesses, and within k-16 education and the classroom environment. Demonstration of how to sign up, send and read Twitter updates (also called "tweets"), and build your own PLN (Personal/Professional Learning Network) of friends. The training will also explore and describe how to get the most out of Twitter by customizing an individual profile, setting options, and tapping into third-party resources that make it easier to follow and send updates. Upon completion of this online course- each participant will receive a cool new "flash" drive.

EDT604 T9 October 15 - November 12

Teaching and Learning in the "Flat Classroom"

What does a flat classroom mean? How do you recognize one and how can you create your own embedded with 21st Century Skills? We invite educators who want to transform their learning spaces to include global collaboration in their curriculum to join us for this unique graduate course. We emphasize a hands-on approach with examples highlighting inquiry-based and research oriented technology applications. Featured projects include the Flat Classroom Project, Global School House Network, ePals, Eduscapes, CIESE, TechnoSpud, and Global Education Collaborative. This two credit graduate course showcases innovative ideas for building community and collaboration with wikis, blogs, online social networks, back channel chats, online video collaborations, and other web 2.0 tools.

EDT604 T9 November 15 – December 13

Building & Growing Your Professional Learning Network

Collaborative social networks allow educators to create online communities that support their personal and professional learning. Whether your personal learning network is overflowing or just starting to grow, this graduate course will help you to refine your PLN to best suit your learning needs. We'll lead you to interesting people who advocate for the effective use of technology to improve teaching and learning. We will discuss tips and tricks to leverage the potential of these networks and provide resources to help participants set up their own networks. Participants will gain hands-on experience using social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Ning, and Delicious to build professional learning networks.

* Please contact Sherry Caves, Marian University Support Specialist at scaves@marianuniversity.edu to register for an online course. For more Marian University contact information please tap into the following information:
Marian University - School of Education
920-923-8100

scaves@marianuniversity.edu

Website: http://soe.marianuniversity.edu

___________

Naomi Harm

Naomi's Smartboard Flip Book

2009-08-23T12:31:00.013-05:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More tutorial

Social Media Revolution

2009-08-16T21:26:00.002-05:00

The following video is so powerful- your thoughts?????

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

2009-08-04T16:59:00.012-05:00

I am pleased to share with all of you that for the next three days I am participating in a national training encompassing 21st Century Skills, and for once I am not providing the training. I have not been in this professional seat in awhile and I am enjoying being a "sponge" for a change! At this training I have met many educators from around the United States who wear similar professional and leadership hats that I do. Their primary focus is high quality, standards aligned and sustained quality professional development delivery. I welcome this opportunity to network and share best practices in a face to face setting, and to actively listen to and share best practices of what is working and what is not working in our US K-16 classrooms.

Key strands of NEED I keep hearing within our group's round table discussions:

1. Administration leadership "awareness" of identifying what "21st Century Skills" are, what does a 21st century teaching and environment look like, and how to implement and sustain such a program.

2. High quality and sustained PD for teachers supported with technology integration literacy coaches.

3. Students need to be the central and are utmost educational focus, yet they are missing from the big picture of the PD spectrum to identify essential student outcomes- why are they not brought to the table on the front end, and their voices heard about their 21st learning needs?

4. Lacking the substantial resources to support a 21st century teaching and learning environment- whether it is technology, organized online repositories of quality content, physical content of literacy resources, time, collaboration, and funding.

AGENTS OF CHANGE TO LIGHT THE FIRE
I feel our goal as "agents of change" in this Partnership for 21st Century Skills affiliate program include the following target areas:

*CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING glean knowledge from each other's conversations

*CONTEXTUAL LEARNING SKILLS
document our findings and key learning strategies that are working and improve or make change for strategies that are not

*COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATION
maintain a "community of learners" through a PLN on the online 21st Century Partnership Ning

*CRITICAL THINKING
develop a state/agency action plan of how to successfully "build a 21st Century Skills awareness" supported with common terminology and common assessments

*LEADERSHIP & INFORMATION & MEDIA LITERACY SKILLS
design and implement a 21st Century Skills professional development program with all stakeholders to cultivate a sustained program of student outcomes and support systems Just my thoughts after reflecting after our first day of training. Naomi Harm

Here is a video I will leave you with of how we can start the implementation of a successful 21st Century Skills initiative with the support of EVERY administrator and teacher!

Staying "Fresh & Rejuvenated"

2009-07-22T08:28:00.011-05:00

I have been around the beautiful state of Wisconsin for most of July presenting a variety of keynote presentations and hands-on technology integrations workshops- and it has been fabulous and quite an educational journey. Yes it takes a lot of work, a lot of patience at times, and a high energy level- but I truly enjoy what I do! I always learn so much from the educators and administrators I interact with- and am so thankful to be involved with these positive and engaging learning exchanges to gain more knowledge from each other!

At times some of my attendees ask how do I stay current and on the cutting edge with all the latest and greatest technology and within my profession. Well.... it takes a lot of effort, dedicated time and commitment to reading and reflecting on my own learning experiences, and asking a multitude of questions to facilitate discussions with my PLN's to gain insight and background knowledge on key areas.

To support my ongoing efforts "to stay fresh and rejuvenated" I would like to share a wonderful resource on current trends in technology and informational resources through the Learn-gasm portal. The latest topic includes 25 Incredible Ted Talks for Educators- this is EXCITING!- all of the best professional development video resources of keynote presenters in one area. I refer often to the Learn-gasm site for up-to-date resources, a vast listing of web 2.0 blogs, leadership strands, and video segments to assist my research efforts to create a collection of best practices. I am also very thankful for Amber Johnson's efforts ( http://www.bachelorsdegreeonline.com/blog) for notifying me when the Learn-gasm site has been updated with the brand new resources to assist and guide me in my professional development efforts! Thanks Amber!

When time allows check out the "25 Incredible Ted Talks for Educators" to stay "fresh and rejuvenated" all summer long!

Naomi

My Favorite Web 2.0 Repository List

2009-07-14T10:17:00.005-05:00

Here is a Web 2.0 Repository list to find some of the best of the best Web 2.0 tools for educational technology.

Open publication - Free publishing - More web2.0

Transforming Instruction with "i" Mobile Technology

2009-07-05T10:17:00.012-05:00

Happy July 5th Everyone!

Still enjoying the wonderful weekend of the 4th, and catching up with new friends I met in DC at NECC '09 and virtually through Twitter. My latest meet-up includes a great MidWesterner named Scott Smeech from Plano, IL. Scott was part of the Birds of Feather Leadership Forum at NECC and has been sharing and showcasing the power of mobile technology and how it is transforming instruction. Scott has developed an interactive web presence through the portal of Ning located at iear.org. IEAR is all about taking a closer look at the educational value of ITouch / IPhone / IPods in the classroom. I highly recommend becoming a member of this PLN!

Through Scott's multiple web presences- you can feel and see his passion for integrating intuitive educational technology tools with administrators, educators and students to support their 21st teaching and learning environments. I especially like Scott's blog www.smeech.net where Scott is always pushing the envelop with educational leaders like ISTE to improve the organizational setup to further promote collaboration and communication in a large venue. I whole heartily agree with him that the Blogger's Cafe needs to be front and center at NECC, because these learning opportunities to finally meet face to face with educational technology leaders in a highly visible area is priceless. The expanded PLN's conversations, sharing of best practices and strategic planning strategies taken away from the Bloggers Cafe' meet-up are the exact key components all educators and leaders thrive for and need. This new knowledge and expertise will only strengthen K-16 teaching and learning environments, and prepare and INSPIRE our educators and students to be productive 21st century digital citizens!

Thanks Scott for sharing your expertise with me and inspiring me to push the envelop as well!

Visit IEAR - I Education Apps Review for the IPhone and ITouch

"Aromas From the Edubloggers' Kitchens"

2009-06-25T17:16:00.000-05:00

REPOST: "Aromas From The Edubloggers' Kitchens"

Our dynamic cooking trio of Deb White, Ernie Easter(from Maine) and myself - Naomi Harm(from MN) have started an exciting new project and we would like you to participate with us. It’s called "Aromas from the Edubloggers' Kitchens" and its goal is to help our extended Twitter community preserve and enjoy the wonderful food we have all come to enjoy as a family. *If you would like to PARTICIPATE please email or leave a comment for me below with the following info to include: your first name, last name and email address- thank you!

When families gather together, you seem to find most of the people in the kitchen – because that is where the food is! Most of us have favorite foods from our childhood or others that seem to be served only when someone special is visiting or when visiting grandma’s house. Although all too often a family food treasure is lost forever with each passing of a family member.

The "Aromas From The Edubloggers' Kitchens" cookbook project is a Web site that is designed to help us collect and even publish our favorite family recipes so that we can share and preserve the special food that our family enjoys. The Web site is easy to use and will take just a little effort to enter your family’s favorite foods for all of us to enjoy. We can use these recipes online or even publish a cookbook that we can share and treasure. But first, we need your help.

Please collect all of the wonderful recipes that you would like to contribute. We are looking not only for the dishes served on special occasions, but also the every day meals your family enjoys. Log on to the "Aromas From the Edubloggers' Kitchens" cookbook project Web site using the information below and enter your recipe information into the database. We are trying to have all of the recipes entered by August 15, 2009.

The Web site lists all of the Twitter community members who have been asked to contribute. If you know of anyone who should be added, please send me their name and email address and I will have them invited.

Thanks for participating in the "Aromas From The Edubloggers' Kitchens" Cookbook Project!

Deb, Ernie and Naomi

Smartboard Training in the Elementary

2009-06-20T11:11:00.004-05:00

I have the wonderful opportunity this week to work with a dynamic group of Holmen school district teachers of integrating Smart Board resources and tools within their k-5 curriculum. I have found that a lot of our elementary teachers struggle to find specific lessons and resources to support their instruction. This introduction of infusing smart technologies into instruction will be focused on the basics of Smartboard in education, utilizing existing resources and thematic units teachers feel comfortable with, "greening up" their lesson with the visual literacy component of the Smartboard, and how to have students be responsible for their own learning by instilling the opportunities of "student Smartboard coaches" to assist with student driven lessons as collaborative teams.

Some key sites I will share for this afternoon inservice include:
-BBC Schools
-Educational World
-Elementary Interactive Whiteboard Websites
-Elementary Smarboard Lessons
-Engaging Learners the Smarboard Way
-Get Net Wise
-Interactive Whiteboard Resources
-Internet4Classroom Teachers
-Johnny's Math Page
-K-5 Technology Activities
-Learning Planet
-Lee Summit's Smartboard Resources
-Smartboards in Elementary Classrooms
-Smartboard Delicious Bookmarks
-Smartboard Delicious Elementary Bookmarks
-Smartboard Educator Resources
-Smartboard Revolution Ning
-Smart Notebook Lesson Activities
-Smart Online Classroom Resources
-Smart Printable Training Tutorials
-Smartboard Resources PB Wiki
-Smart Two Minute Video Tutorials
-StarFall
-Teachers Love Smartboards
-Topmarks
-Utah Education Network
-Voki
-Whiteboard Rosources