ManACE Board Member

     This past weekend I was lucky enough to head into Winnipeg to spend some time with some amazing teachers, enjoy some great BBQ, and discuss some plans for educational technology in our province. What was the occasion you ask? Well I am proud to announce that I will be serving as a board member on the Manitoba Association for Computing Educators and this past Saturday was their informal Annual General Meeting where I was welcomed aboard.

     Prior to me becoming a board member, I presented at the first ManACE TIN (Technology Information Night) in Neepawa and was also published in their journal twice. I am very excited to be joining such a great group of educators and had a great time meeting the other board members. I follow and interact with almost all of them on Twitter but had only met a few face-to-face and there were a few funny moments while we realized who everyone was, "Oh! You're @MissLwbt!" In fact, two of the board members, Leslie & Erin, inspired me to begin blogging in October of 2011 when they presented at the MTS Fab 5 Conference in Brandon and this year's president is one of my former professors from university!

     If you are new to ManACE or wanting to learn more, here is their "About ManACE" write up that is featured on their website:

ManACE is Special Area Group of the Manitoba Teachers' Society. ManACE is also a member of the International Society for Technology in Education. The primary purpose of ManACE is to promote the use of instructional technology at all levels of education. ManACE will promote the use of instructional technology by:

- encouraging potential users;

- providing leadership in professional development for exchanging ideas, 

  techniques, material, procedures, and methods for implementation;

- encouraging educational research relating to its use in education and

  reporting these findings;

- encouraging use of telecommunication;

- assisting in the development of specific curricula relating to instructional

  technology;

- and assisting with the integration of instructional technology into all curricula.

Membership

Regular membership is voluntary, open to individuals who are:

- educators;

- others interested or engaged in related in school, college, university, local

  school board, provincial or national systems;

- active or associated members of the Manitoba Teachers' Society.

     I am really excited to be a board member and am looking forward to the upcoming year and working with so many great educators. I've officially added a ManACE label to my blog and will share exciting/important/interesting information as it becomes available. 

Resources To Start Off Your Week 68

     The Twitter-Tried-It Challenge has been in place for over a week now and while I haven't gotten a big participation level on the blog, I am hoping that a lot of people are individually participating in their own ways. Right before the weeked I shared the great resources by the mRLC and tweeted it out so hopefully that inspires a few people to try it out!

     I know that a lot of my American followers are officially on their summer holidays (lucky ducks) so I wanted to share another resource that is perfect for the holidays and could be used for the challenge! MOOCs are a great way to participate in professional development, are often free, and can be done from the comfort of your own home! If you haven't ventured into the world of MOOCs yet I've included an infographic below that does a nice job of summarizing them. As always, I will be adding this to my list of resources under the Fav Websites heading.

The MOOC List
- This website features information about upcoming MOOCs
  (Massive Open Online Courses) that anyone can participate and benefit
  from! It takes information from other MOOC sites like Coursera, Open
  Learning, EdX, etc and puts all the information in one nice, clear list.
- This website is a great place to visit if you are interested in some free,
  online PD or you could use it to research MOOCs for your students who
  may need extra enrichment.
- http://www.mooc-list.com/

     Remember, if you try something new I would love to hear about it! Link up with the Twitter-Tried-It Challenge, leave a comment, or tweet to share your experience :)

mRLC Backwards-By-Design Planning

     If you are a teacher in Manitoba who is also utilizing backwards-by-design planning then you definitely need to check out the resources available through the Manitoba Rural Learning Consortium (mRLC). My principal shared this with us this week and I am so glad she did because it is going to save me a lot of work in my planning! The backwards-by-design method of planning (sometimes called understanding-by-design, backwards planning, or planning with the end in mind) involves planning out the "big ideas" or main goals for a topic first, then selecting the best assessment options, and finally determing instructional methods to prepare students for those assessment options. For example, here is how I might set up my planning for a Grade 7 Science class using backwards-by-design planning:

Big Ideas/Goals/Learning Outcomes
- Ecosystems contain complex interactions between organisms and
   their environment.
- Includes learning outcomes: 7-1-01, 7-1-02, 7-1-03, and 7-1-04

Assessment Options
- Outdoor ecosystem analysis lab
- Ecosystem flowchart/web project
- Ecosystem labelling SMART Board group activity

Instructional Methods
- "Web of life" hands-on game
- Ecosystem notes/lecture
- Ecoystem rap song (available on YouTube)
- Group discussion and activities

     What the mRLC has done is that they've taken various Manitoba curriculums and done the preliminary planning for us! They have looked at the learning outcomes in our curriculum, created enduring understanding statments (or "big ideas"), organized outcomes by concepts and even set a framework for assigning learning outcomes to the new Manitoba report card categories. Here is a screenshot showing a sample from their Grade 7 Science page:



Grade Seven Cluster 1: Interactions with Ecosystems. (2012). Uploaded by mRLC. Available online at: http://www.mrlc.ca/science_middle_years.pdf

      All of their planning can be found on the mRLC's Products page for free! So far they have this set-up available for:
- Early Years E.L.A
- Middle Years E.L.A
- Early Years Math
- Middle Years Math
- Senior Years Math
- Early Years Science
- Middle Years Science
- Senior Years Science (Grade 9-10)

     If you are new to backwards-by-design planning, planning for a new subject, using the new Manitoba report cards for the first time, or just needing to refresh your planning then this resource is definitely a go-to source! A BIG thank you to all the teachers who are involved with mRLC and have volunteered their time to putting these resources together for us :)

Resources To Start Off Your Week 67

     Today I was back substitute teaching in "S-School" & their student council had a big display advertising, "Only 10 Days To Study Before Exams!" It is hard to believe that the school year is almost over. While it can be easy to start going into summer mode I think that there is still time to try something new and make the last few days of school different.

     My Twitter-Tried-It Challenge is still underway and I think this is a great time to implement something new in our classrooms. Maybe it's a new activity to review before exams, a virtual field trip, a way to organize your exam questions to differentiate or even a new organizational strategy as you get ready for next year. All of these resources were found through Twitter retweets, hopefully thet can get you inspired :) As always, I will be adding these to my lists of resources under the Fav Websites heading. 

     If you do try something new, don't forget to share it with us and link up with the Twitter-Tried-It Challenge.

1 ) 21st Century K.W.L Chart
- I love using different versions of the traditional K-W-L chart so I was
  really excited when I saw this new version used by Victoria Olson. It
  allows students to not only ask questions about what they want to know
  but also develop a plan in order to find the answers and move forward.
- This updated K.W.H.L.A.Q Chart allows students to fill in: What do I
  know? What do I want to know? How do I find out? What have I learned?
  What action will I take? What new questions do I have?
- https://twitter.com/MsVictoriaOlson/status/338855616703508482

2 ) New Teacher 1st Year YouTube Channel
- This YouTube Channel is just getting started up but promises to deliver
   helpful teaching tips, explain different strategies, share inspirational videos
   and be a great resource for teachers when they start out!
- This channel is monitored by Lisa Dabbs who also organizes the #ntchat
  on Twitter so I trust that this channel will soon be full of great ideas :)
- http://www.youtube.com/user/NewTeacher1stYear

3 ) Cybrary Man Rubrics Page
- Jerry Blumengarten (AKA Cybrary Man) is an amazing online
  curator whose website features over 20,000 online resources for
  educators!
- His dedicated Rubrics Page features links to pre-made rubrics, rubric-
  creation websites, and helpful articles about rubrics & assessment. This
  is definitely something to check out if you need to revamp your assessment
  system or find that perfect rubric to modify for a new project.
- http://cybraryman.com/rubrics.html

Happy Monday everyone!

Also, I am trying to reach 300 followers by the time of my 300th blog post so if you like my posts and would like to follow I would really appreciate it! (This is post 294 & I'm holding strong with 294 followers) Thank you!

Twitter-Tried-It Challenge Update!

The Twitter-Tried-It Challenge that I introduced on Thursday is in full swing

 and I'm happy to announce that, after just 1 day, 

I had my first challenge participant!

Way to go, Ms Duemm!

Iris is a Grade 3 teacher in Ontario, Canada and 

I am so happy to have her as my first Twitter-Tried-It participant.

If you want to learn more about the Genius Hour strategy that she implemented, 

check out the Twitter hashtag #GeniusHour (there is a Twitter chat the first Wednesday of each month)

or the Genius Hour Website!

__________________________________________________

If you would like to participate in the Twitter-Tried-It Challenge, pick at least ONE THING that you've retweeted on Twitter and actually implement in your life!

      It can be a recent idea or one that you've had favourited for several months, just get that idea in motion and actually start utilizing it in your life! Some ideas are:

- Lesson plan ideas

- Organizational strategies

- Classroom management ideas

- PLN connections

- Just make sure it is related to education!

1 ) If you happen to be a fellow BLOGGER, link up below and 

     share your Twitter-Tried-It attempt in a post!

2 ) If you aren't a blogger, post a TWEET with a picture and tag

     me: @MissLwbt

3 ) You can also post a COMMENT below sharing your 

     Twitter-Tried-It story :)

Lets see how many great ideas we can bring into our lives in the month of June!

Twitter-Tried-It Challenge!

A while back, I was browsing through Twitter and I came across this tweet by David Moroz:

Simple and straightforward... right? Then I did a quick check through my Twitter feed and reviewed some of the many, MANY, ideas I had retweeted over the past few weeks and realized just how few of those ideas I have actually implemented.

I know that you can't do everything at one time, but
I am challenging myself and my followers to pick at least ONE THING that they've retweeted on Twitter and actually implement in their lives!

      It can be a recent idea or one that you've had favourited for several months, just get that idea in motion and actually start utilizing it in your life! Some ideas are:

- Lesson plan ideas

- Organizational strategies

- Classroom management ideas

- PLN connections

- Just make sure it is related to education!

1 ) If you happen to be a fellow BLOGGER, link up below and 

     share your Twitter-Tried-It attempt in a post!

2 ) If you aren't a blogger, post a TWEET with a picture and tag

     me: @MissLwbt

3 ) You can also post a COMMENT below sharing your 

     Twitter-Tried-It story :)

Lets see how many great ideas we can bring into our lives in the month of June!

June Currently

     If you haven't encountered a "Currently" post before, it is just a fun post at the beginning of each month that serves as a way to share what is Currently going on in your life! You can link up and share your own "Currently" post by visiting the wonderful Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade. 
     Happy June everyone! I am beyond excited that it is finally June and we have officially started having weather that could be called "summer-like". If you were able to check out my last Currently post in May you'll remember that we were still having major snowstorms last month. Needless to say I am so excited that the snow is gone (after about 215 days) and that it is finally beginning to feel like summer. My fiance and I's outdoor wedding is in only 26 days so here is hoping the weather is still nice then :)

May 1st

Mid-May, warm enough to suntan... still snow

June 3rd, finally summertime!

     Hope everyone has an amazing June! Also, I am trying to reach 300 followers by the time of my 300th blog post so if you like my posts and would like to follow I would really appreciate it :) Thank you!