Month: February 2013

7. Take Credit

Following up in my recent post about Changemakers, I have been trying to view my work and schools frustrations through that lens. It has been a game changer for me, definitely for the positive.

A quick example happened in a meeting the other day when there was discussion about using a technology tool to deliver a specific set of programs. The program manager was very excited to step into this new delivery model, and expressed it as idea his team had developed.

This concept was, in fact, an idea I’d been pushing for at least three years. I’ve brought it up in meetings and in conversations, I’ve demonstrated it by showing it used by others, and modeled the technique with unrelated content. At first I was MIFFED and wanting to jump out of my chair saying FINALLY, that was my idea!! I then thought about the Changemaker concepts and realized that we were at #7 (for this particular idea) where they take the credit. I was thrilled. It’s working. It’s slow, painful and frustrating. But maybe it’s working.

Homeschool

My daughter asked if we could homeschool for French. Long story short – we are!

I’ll be dong the second half of French 2 with her at home. In school, there was tremendous focus n memorization, spelling, and tests. I didn’t teach French that way 20 years ago when I taught and I’m not going to do it now.

Ran across a great blog from a French teacher! http://www.frenchappsforkids.blogspot.ca/

Other ideas:
– have her create an RSA Animate video
– search out more ebooks in French
– seek out more French games

I’ll keep adding ideas and I’ll write about it as we go along.

I was excited to see this blog post from Indiana Jen about online and interactive museums for two reasons:

  1.  It’s what I do with my life! I work at a museum, and my work is all about bringing the collections, content, experience of the museum to schools, teachers and students through a digital experience. Museums have a wealth of resources and the digital tools now available mean we can empower educators to use the content in ways that best serve students. Or – students can be empowered to learn on their own.
  2.  I am giving a talk at a local college about this very topic, how museums can impact K-12 education through technology and 21st century skills. This is a great reference from the teaching world. Thanks, Jen!

Museums and Education

I’m prepping for a talk at a local college about how Museums can impact the future of K-12 education. I love the title: “Museum in Your Backpack: Museums, Technology, and the Future of K-12 Education. An Interactive Presentation .” (I didn’t come up with it.)

I plan to talk about museums and the future of education in general, as well as the work we’re doing. Here are a few of the resources I’m using, either sending to have a class read  and discuss, or will reference in my talk.