Our new mission calls for an "elegant synthesis of humanity and technology" as descriptive of our educational technology efforts.  We chose these words because we don't want to just shove information technologies into classrooms and consider that 21st Century learning.  The application of tehcnology must have a certain purpose, the strength of work well done and of course a nice presentation.  All three of these are present at Wilder Elementary's online movie (the Colors of Wilder) and art show.  The purpose is to share the wonderful activities and products with people beyond immediate driving distance to the school.  Parents at work can get a glimpse of students in class; grandparents out of state can enjoy their latest family artwork and other educators can appreciate the activity through the online presentation.  The art itself is very well done and a credit to the school, the teachers, students,...

Although I am not a Language Arts teacher, I get an opportunity to work with quite a few... and my role means I spend all my time engrossed in just what is different when information technology gets into the mix.  So, in light of CDE producing the new draft of Colorado Academic Standards for Reading, Writing and Communicating, these points have come to mind as my input to this work-in-development.

While I really like the layout of this document and the overt intention to make 21st Century skills integral to the new standards, I think the draft is still wholly contained in the 20th Century.  At this point, none of the skills and applications of skills represent anything that was not possible as a teaching philosophy in 1909... and while that universiliality is positive, I do think there are aspects of 21st Century literacy that were science-fiction in 1909.

So I would suggest the following 3-point plan for 21st Century writing skill:

1. Writers must be able to defend the validity of the...

Hi all—please see the following opportunity for you or a staff member(s) at your school to become a “Google Certified Teacher.”  Educators who have gone through this one day session say it is amazing.  To apply, you need to submit a one minute video, described by Google as “on EITHER of the following topics: "Motivation and Learning" OR "Classroom Innovation." Be as creative as you like.”

I know that we have plenty of experts in our buildings in both motivation and innovation, so please share this opportunity with staff.  Full details and application here:  http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html

 

Please know that ITS will offer to help with the video capture side of the application as we can. 

 

Best of luck—

 

Mike

 

What are your summer plans?  A little reading, perhaps some exploring... even some writing?  That's what I have in mind and maybe some of you will join me!  I am signed up to run the Pikes Peak Ascent with my father and brother.  Training to run 13 miles up to the top of a 14,110' mountain is no small task and will take a considerable amount of training during the summer.  I hope to make it up to or near 14,000 feet at least six times in preparation for the race.  We will head into the mountains of Colorado to train by camping at high altitudes and taking as many runs up the big peaks as we can.

How can you come along?  Visit my personal blog: http://summitseeking.blogspot.com/ where I will keep tabs on the runs. We will carry some communications technologies with us because I noticed last year that I could often hit cellular services from the summits of many Colorado peaks.  So here's what we'll do:

My father (Fred Maas) will carry a small Ham...