Earlier today, I had the opportunity to visit two campuses. The first was Salado, where I'd been invited to watch Brad Grant introduce his fellow teachers to Edmodo.com. The second was Legacy MS, where two teachers were being inducted into Cohort 1 of the EC3 iPad Initiative.
In this blog entry, I'll focus on my Salado visit but the picture collage below is of the EC3 teachers and the bottom right picture in the collage shows the Legacy MS EC3 teachers.
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| This collage was made with an app that's free only on 08/24/2012, TurboCollage |
At Salado, I attended two of the multiple sessions being offered that afternoon. The first session was a presentation by Brad Grant on East Central ISD's Edmodo. If you're not familiar with Edmodo, think of it as a virtual classroom space that you and your students can use to share what you're learning with each other. It comes with a gradebook, and allows for parent access. Here's what my home page on Edmodo looks like:
Brad Grant (pictured below) did a wonderful job presenting to a classroom of his colleagues:
After a short overview, Brad led the teachers in the use of Edmodo, enabling them to login to a campus group for Edmodo. Many saw it as a replacement for Facebook, as well as other social media tools (e.g. Foursquare). Brad was kind enough to write this follow-up comment via Edmodo:
Thanks! It was a lot of fun. I owe it all to Marguerite's excellent teaching. The teachers at each session were VERY enthusiastic. I am going to do some follow up sessions with them as soon as possible. We will discuss making literature groups and some Salado teacher groups too. I am even going to try to talk my principal into doing our book studies on Edmodo. Mr. Steen won the shirt and Mrs. Kolinda won the laptop. She was so excited. (big grin)
It's funny that Brad suggested doing book studies via Edmodo...I made the same suggestion to his principal upon walking into her book study session! Brad was also kind enough to write:
Mr. Grant - Thanks for coming by! It was an honor to have you help the teachers in the Lab. They were very impressed that the head of tech would do that. :)
In truth, the honor was all mine to have the opportunity to see such committed educators at work learning!
That said, the second workshop I attended--facilitated by principal Teresa Triana--involved an invitation to participate in a book study...the teachers had several book choices, but I must confess I only took a picture of my 3 favorite titles...Mike Schmoker's book immediately called out to me, as did the middle title:
The Collaborative Teacher, which focuses on professional learning communities, certainly seemed appropriate for educators looking at Edmodo.com as a way to facilitate online learning. Here's a brief overview of that book:
The Collaborative Teacher: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community seeks to change education from inside the classroom. Using insights from a variety of experts who have implemented and sustained collaborative cultures of continuous improvement in schools around the nation, this anthology offers best practices, expert insight and testimonials, and supporting research to show the benefits of collaboration in creating a school that reaches all students.
The time of exclusive top-down leadership is over; only teachers can transform education from inside the classroom. The Collaborative Teacher defines best practices of collaborative teacher leadership in a professional learning community. Specific techniques, supporting research, expert insight, and real classroom stories from experienced practitioners combine to illustrate how to work together for student learning, create a guaranteed and viable curriculum, and use data to reach all students.
I'll be investing in this book myself (although Teresa was kind enough to offer me a copy, I didn't feel comfortable since they had been purchased for Salado staff) to read, and, if time allows, participate in the book study.
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