Category Archives: Uncategorized

Happy Campers: Edcamprva

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So it has been quite a while since my last post. Unforeseen circumstances lead to my taking on an additional class, and the time to blog just got eaten up. There has been, however, a lot to blog about.

I attended my first edcamp and for those of you who haven’t had the experience, you really should consider it.  If you are looking for a personalized experience that empowers teachers and exposes you to some of the most dynamic educators in your area, edcamp is the professional development for you.

Our day began in the dining hall of the incredibly beautiful St. Christopher’s School in Richmond. We had plenty of time to network with teachers from other schools, both private and public, and we got started by pairing up and responding to prompts from The Daily Create which we then emailed to the blog on the Edcamprva website . Our prompt asked us to choose an image of a famous figure, fictional or otherwise, and then to find a quote from a related figure. Here is our contribution. This was a great exercise and a tool that I was not familiar with so I immediately was excited about what the day would bring.

The whole point of edcamp is that it is an unconference, meaning that you have not set plan and you do not know exactly what sessions will be offered. So after a lengthy period of networking and creating, we engaged in the creation of the board and posted sessions we either were interested in leading or attending. Here is a screen shot of the board we created: Image

I started in a session on ESL. After seeing that it was mostly public school teachers whose students had little in common with my own, I used the rule of “two feet” and moved on to “Collaborating with Colleagues”. I then ended up helping lead a session on blogging despite the fact that I am rather inexperienced and attending a session on Ipads and another one called “Things that Suck” which was far more positive than the title suggests.

In the “Ipaded” session, I heard about Nearpod a tool that allows teachers to create interactive presentations that students download onto their computer or other devices. You upload a pdf of a ppt or keynote presentation and then add quizzes, polls, or draw its and a report is generated with all of the students answers, scores, and drawings.  I tried my first presentation last week and the kids loved it. This was definitely a great take away from this conference.

While I definitely enjoyed meeting all of the wonderful people in the blogging session, I was hoping to be more of a listener than a leader. Nevertheless, it was great to talk to fellow educators interested in blogging both for their own development and with their students.

One misconception I had about edcamp was that it was all about technology. The other two sessions I attended had more to do with school culture than tech, and they were both great. In the first session, we discussed how we currently collaborate with colleagues and exchanged best practices and challenges. In the other session, “things that suck,” a title that I have to say threw me off initially, the facilitator threw out controversial issues and you were asked to move to a side to physically cast your vote as for or against. Some of the topic that came up included school uniforms and zero tolerance policies. We then moved to our side and were asked to state our position. We were only allowed 5 minutes per topic, so just when things got heated we moved on. This was a terrific exercise and one I could definitely see using in my classroom or in faculty meetings.

By far my biggest take away though was that the model of Edcamp is one that could and should be duplicated both at schools and in communities to provide teachers with personalized professional development. The ability to use your voice and ask for the kind of collaboration and information that you want and share your passions is essential to professional development in the 21st century, and I think that this model is exactly what we need. This model brings together public and private school teachers, techies and newbies, and administrators to share in a profoundly empowering and enlightening educational experience.  I am very interested helping to facilitate an edcamp in Charlottesville and hope that we will begin by exploring this format during one of professional development days in the coming year. Overall, Edcamprva was terrific and I was very grateful to Carey  Pohanka  and Suzanne Panter for all their incredible work organizing it.

For those interested the what other edcamps have done please visit:

Edcamp Chicago Google Doc

An Edcamp Waller Blogpost by attendee

Edcamp D.C.

Part II of Why I Love Twitter: Twitter Chats

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I’ve already written about my newfound love for twitter, and why I think it is the best free tool for teachers seeking professional development out there.   In the past two weeks, I have taken my engagement to the next level and participated in four twitter chats, two  #sschats, one #21stedchat, and one #engchat. A twitter chat for those who don’t know takes place at a set time and all participants use a hashtag to follow and continue the conversation. It is an amazing way to connect with educators from all over the world who come together to share resources, explore challenges, and ask questions.

The experience of following and engaging in a twitter chat is invigorating. I found myself constantly bookmarking, emailing links, and retweeting or favoriting resources and ideas from fellow participants.    #sschat is particularly lively and active, and I picked up many tips and resources for our American Studies course and about teaching in general.  Two weeks ago the topic was Evernote and Livebinder. I already use livebinder extensively and was able to both contribute tips for newbies and learn a great deal from educators far more proficient than I am. I already had Evernote on my ipad, but I had only experimented a bit with it. This chat really got me thinking about transitioning to Evernote, and for the past two weeks I have used it exclusively to create and archive lesson plans, keep track of handouts and readings, and manage my bookmarks. I’ll discuss the benefits of Evernote later in a post. Suffice it to say, I am now hooked and this chat has already had a significant impact on my teaching and given me a new mechanism to keep track of everything in my teaching and personal life. Pretty cool!

This week the topic of #sschat was Women’s History, and I again gained valuable resources and exchanged ideas with insightful and engaging educators.  I am sure the quality of different chats varies, but I am definitely hooked on the ones I have tried so far. I highly recommend trying a chat out or viewing the archives of past chats.

If you want to find out more about how to find chats to serve your purposes or for some guidance on how to use twitter and engage in twitter chats, please check out the board I made on Learn.ist where I compiled the best advice I could find and a directory of hashtags and twitter chats.

I hope you will try out a chat. I’d love to hear which ones you have found most valuable. Who knows maybe I’ll even see you there.

Why I love Twitter: The Best Professional Development Tool

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ImageI know that to some degree I am late to the Twitter game. Educators have been using twitter and creating hashtags like #sschat #edtech and #edchat for years. Yet, while I have had a twitter handle for two years, I mainly used it to read news and connect with friends, former students and family. I tweeted links to articles, pictures on instagram of my four munchkins, and other links I found interesting.

Yet, I was missing the proverbial boat. Twitter is an invaluable tool for educators as I discovered this fall when my students needed to create timelines and xtimeline was no longer functioning as it had in the past, and one of my colleagues advised me to tag my tweet with #sschat. I received many useful tips and alternative tools to use in our American Studies class.

Since that first tweet, my eyes have been opened to the endless possibilities and professional tips that educators on twitter provide every moment. Some of the greatest tech discoveries I’ve made have occurred via twitter. I heard about learn.ist, socrative, todaysmeet, and muraly all on twitter. I’ve gotten fantastic ideas and material from fellow teachers that I’ve incorporated into my lessons all from people I follow. Recently,@jeremyneely, an American history teacher from Missouri who I followed tweeted this picture of a Klan wedding from 1926 that went directly into a Prezi I was creating on the complex racial issues of the 1920’s.

I am lucky to work at a school that prioritizes professional development both by providing valuable inservice training and allowing us to pursue our own professional goals by attending conferences and taking classes, but twitter has been the best professional development I’ve experienced. So, if you aren’t on twitter yet or you are only using it sparingly, here is my advice. Get on twitter; Begin following master teachers like @DebMeier, @mikeherrity or @mseideman  and professional organizations like@Edudemic @ASCD, @21stCenturyTch,@CESNationaland @SHEG_Stanford. Figure out which #hashtags to follow and search for them.

In an age when our time is at a premium, twitter is one investment that I guarantee is worth it. It will inform, strengthen and deepen your appreciation of the world of teaching and provide you with invaluable connections and resources.  Feel free to follow me @Mamarobertson4. I’d love to continue the conversation and I promise to follow you back:)

Google Docs and the Dreaded Research Paper.

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Google docs  has transformed the writing instruction of the classes I teach. Prior to our school’s adoption of Google Aps, I gave significant feedback on the margins of  student papers. I also used the comment boxes in Pages or MSWord when my students began to hand in their papers electronically via email. I liked the freedom that the infinite space of the comment box gave me. This space enabled me to rework students sentences and to specifically and directly target individual words and sentences. It did take a bit longer as I found myself giving more feedback, but ultimately I liked the improvements I saw in my students writing as a result of the increase in comments I was able to give them.

Two years ago,  when I began using google docs to comment and grade my papers, I thought that it would be similar to the use of a word processing program. I thought the main benefit would be that I wouldn’t have to email my students their corrected papers. Yet, I  vastly underestimated the benefit of using google docs.  I can say without a doubt  that because of google docs our students receive better and more thorough writing instruction, and they are becoming stronger writers because of it.
Our American Studies students, I say we because I team teach, write 10-12 page research papers during the second trimester. Students submit focused thesis paragraphs, very thorough outlines, first drafts and final drafts.  For the most part( I do not require it because all of my students don’t have internet access at home), students use google docs to submit each part of their papers and I use the comment feature to give them feedback. This lengthy process has been made much richer because of the amount, quality, and responsiveness of the feedback students received on all parts of the process.

Here are some of the benefits:
Realtime Feedback: The ability to give students real time feedback on their writing is what I love most. Often times we can either sit together looking at the same screen or I can get online with them, comment and give them instant feedback as they rework their writing.

The Comment Box: The unlimited room of the comment box and the ability to tag individual words or complete sentences makes it clear to the student exactly what part of their writing you are talking about and gives you the opportunity to give them examples of ways to improve or enhance their papers.

Accountability: Students, once they share their documents, enable you to see exactly where they are with the writing process. This is especially important when they are undertaking major assignments like research papers.

Convenience: The google doc is convenient in all of the obvious ways, but the ability for students to “resolve” your comments makes their editing easier and more focused.

Nothing in the world of teaching is without its challenges. Here are a few I’ve found:

TIME: You can and do spend more time with each individual paper. Although I do think that the benefit of seeing multiple drafts means that the final draft requires much less reworking.

Organization: Difficulty keeping the documents organized. I do have folders, and I use them. Yet I still haven’t found a great method of organizing my documents yet and that makes finding documents challenging sometimes. Yes the search feature works, but keeping the titles of all of my students’ work straight is difficult. Yes I am sure there are ways to do this, but I haven’t yet developed a good system yet. (Suggestions welcome!)