Cloud Outliner is my new Favorite App!

Cloud Outliner allows us via our iPhone or iPad to create and update outlines with promote, demote, collapse, expand and syncing functionality with a very simple and intuitive user interface. There is also functionality to send your created or updated outlines to Evernote! I'm using version 1.8. Love it!

Wilmington Boys Hockey Wins Second Division 2 Title

Congratulations to the WHS Boys Hockey Team on their win at the TD Garden.

Top Ten Things Students Need From Teachers

In Jennifer Nichols' article, "10 Things Students Need From You", she identifies the following as needs students have for their teachers:

1. I need to feel important 
2. I need you to care about me
3. I need to care about my future
4. I need to see past the work
5. I need to understand why
6. I need you to protect me
7. I need you to make learning fun
8. I need you to be a model for me
9. I need to know that I can be myself
10. I need to build skills for my future

Jumping into the 21st Century

Tina Barseghian has a follow-up post of Jumping into the 21st Century to show it's worth it for teachers to get out of our comfort zone and consider the students' futures in these uncertain times.

Creating Classrooms for Inquiry Learning

Enjoy the uplifting read from Tine Barseghian in Create Classrooms We Need.

1. Be flexible
2. Foster Inquiry by Scaffolding Curiosity 
3. Design Architecture for Participation 
4. Teachers Teach Kids, Not Subjects
5. Provide Opportunities for Experiential Learning
6. Embrace Failure
7. Don't Be Boring
8. Foster Joy 

Google Apps to Improve Our Chrome Experience

Check out Richard Byrne's 13 Good Chrome Extensions and Apps, specifically the Daum Equation Editor.

Collaborative Outlining Tool for Education? Awesome!

thinklinkr

With refined collaborative capabilities, thinklinkr allows multiple users to synchronously edit an outline. It is a feature rich outliner, with the full range of functionalities including the ability to import and export outlines, track revisions, and switch between different outlines. The interface is well developed and is supported by an extensive range of keyboard shortcuts.

However, some may find the interface a little cluttered and the range of functionalities a little confusing for many outlining tasks.

What does any one know about this tool? 

Things You Should Focus On

Shane Parrish, @FarnanStreet, suggests with this very simple visual the Things We Should Focus On.

Things to Make Us Happier

Eric Baker offers yet another dose to improve life with "Here are the things that are proven to make you happier."

Top Ten Every Day

Eric Barker suggests the 10 Things We Should Do Every Day. This includes:

1. Get Out in Nature
2. Exercise
3. Spend Time with Family and Friends
4. Express Gratitude
5. Meditate
6. Get Enough Sleep
7. Challenge Yourself
8. Laugh
9. Touch Someone
10. Be Optimistic

How many do you do every day? 

A New School Designed by Students?

Check out Tony Wagner's (@DrTonyWagner) latest installment regarding new schools.

Take Your Learning to the Next Level

When we take our learning to the next level, we take our habits, character, attitude and work ethic along with us. What do YOU need to do to step it up? ~ Coach T (@3PointPlayer)

9 Characteristics of 21st Century Learning

I'm trying to get my arms around the 9 Characteristics of 21st Century Learning.

Time to Survive and Thrive!

I'd like to improve our ability to incorporate Dr. Tony Wagner's Seven Survival Skills in our learning. They are:

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
• Agility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Entrepreneurialism 
• Effective Oral and Written Communication
• Accessing and Analyzing Information
• Curiosity and Imagination

What are your thoughts on how these can become more of our collaborative learning? 

Don't Let Your Studies Get in the Way of Your Education

Dr. Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap, encourages students "Do Not Let Your Studies Interfere with Your Education". Are your studies, your homework or your teachers getting in your way? Am I?

Learning is Great; Homework is Not

Chris Thinnes enables elementary through high school students to have a voice regarding whether we should have homework and what it should be in "Learning is Great; Homework is Not:" Elementary Student Voice on Homework. Kindly share your thoughts on what increases our learning outside of our classroom. After all, that's where the rest of our lives will be spent!

Is Being a Better Teach Within Reach?

Whew! Google has just offered 25 Ways To Become a Better Teacher! Just in time! Help me know where the first place is we can improve to make all of our futures more exciting and engaging!

Am I a 21st Century Educator?

See the 25 Signs You Might Be A 21st Century Teacher and offer some suggestions as to how we might alter our learning environment to prepare us for the future that we can't even imagine!

Will You Get Stuck as the World Shifts?

Katrina Schwartz shares her 7 Essential Principles of Innovation Learning on Mind/Shift. Tina Marseghian also speaks about Gaming as the new Essential Literacy. Really?

21st Century Competencies, If You Dare...

Greg Miller, Principal of Pre-K to Grade 6 in Southern Alberta, Canada shares in his Relection - "Oh, How Things Have Changed" the skill set needed to move into the 21st Century. Be ready for his insights!

Make Sure You're Not the Weakest Link

Maria Popova's article entitled "How to Save Science: Education, the Gender Gap, and the Next Generation of Creative Thinkers" provides great insight for learners and graduates to find success in the years ahead. Let me know your thoughts.

Can I Redo my Last Test Since It Was Not my Best?

Eric Sheninger, Principal of New Mildford High School, offers some interesting thoughts on when Second Chances should be offered for real learning to take place. I welcome your comments.

I Used to Think Grades Were Stupid...

Consider reading the thought-provoking article on Teachers.Net called I Used to Think Grades Were Stupid; Then I Found Out I was Right. I welcome your comments.

Integrating the 16 Habits of Mind

The George Lucas Educational Foundation published 16 Habits of Mind that can lead to success in learning and mastering concepts. Check this out. I'm sure you'll be as intrigued as I am.

Creating a Content Canvas

I'm thinking we might want to create a "content canvas" where we can update, enhance and relate the concepts we're learning and applying. I'm wondering whether this "canvas" should exist in Google Drive, a Blog or Evernote. I'd like to provide an outline of the course in terms of sequential Units. We could then begin to expand, connect and relate the concepts we're learning along with the ones we already understand. I want to link and relate concepts. Should this be similar to our Q2PA of relating Chapters 5 through 7? I'd like to be able to embed links, videos, images and attachments. Thoughts?

Some Core Competencies we can relate might include:

• Our "Big Nine", ASTC, Soh-Cah-Toa
• Law of Sines, Law of Cosines, Polar Coordinates Distance Formula
• x=rcos theta, y=rsin theta and tan y/x = theta for Polar and Vectors
• Reciprocal, Quotient and Pythagorean Identities 

Phases of the Design Process from 3/7/13 Webinar

Design Process Phases by Grant Wiggins:

• Frame
• Investigate
• Generate
• Manifest
• Evaluate
• Refine

Review the #ubdchat from the 3/7/13 Webinar

The #ubdchat hashtag was extensively used during tonight's Webinar on Design Thanking for Education with Grant Wiggins, David Jakes and Don Buckley. Review the discussion.

3/7/13 Design Thinking Webinar

Moderator: +Kristen Swanson 

Panel: @GrantWiggins, @dJakes, @DonBuckley

Curriculum Design Components (iterative):

• Design Process
• Design Standards
• Design Elements
• Design Tools

The content and presentation must be engaging. One student's comment was "The more the teacher spoke, the more the student felt alone". One of our goals should be to engage the minds of all involved. This engagement takes place in the learning environment (collaborative classroom), online question resolution (Twitter) and while practicing (i.e. homework) (often in isolation). 

Our #WHSAlgebra 3/4 Warm-Up

Our 3/4 Warm-Up is due Friday, March 8th. Period 6 should remember that it is due at the start of our class. There will be no time allocated to work on it in class Friday.

Twitter feeds now embedded in my blog!

Thanks to Jason Luciana @WHSLampLighters who helped me to embed Twitter hashtag lists in this blog.