Stepping Stones – A Classic Group Collaboration Activity | Paradigm Shift Number of Participants: 5-25Time: 30-45 minutesActivity Level: Moderate Props: Stepping Stones (paper plates, carpet squares, pieces of cardboard) 2 ropes or masking tape as a boundary, and throwables Objective: As a group, the entire team must cross from one side of the room to the other without stepping foot in the “hot lava.” Set Up: Place a rope across one side of the room. Rules: If a participant loses touch with a stepping stone at any time within the hot lava, they lose the stepping stone to the facilitator who keeps in until the end of the activity.If a participant steps off the stepping stone or falls into the lava, the participant must go back behind the starting line. Description: At the beginning of the initiative, hand each participant a throwable. Separate the groups into two equaled numbered teams. These stepping stones are the tools and resources the group can use to accomplish their goal of crossing the room. Variations: Facilitator Notes:
Team Building Activity We have really worked on being a productive citizen in our classroom society. Which at times, means we need to go slow, to learn fast. We took about 35 minutes to conduct another team building activity. See the idea below. We then completed a writing prompt found here. ✔12 students tweeted ✔12 students left comments on our classroom blog ✔23 students created their own blog post. Positives: ✔All video below was shot with an iPad ✔The ability to return to the classroom to reflect via everyone on a digital device with the opportunity to respond was beneficial. Negative: ✔Would like to have students conduct the filming and production of video. ✔Would like to have students develop the writing prompt. ✔Would like to have students interview other students on the experience In due time, students will have their own YouTube account which will facilitate turning the negatives into positives.
Setting up a Team Calendar To have an overview of each other’s activities and availability, we were thinking about implementing a Team Calendar. What would be the best way to approach this and how would we synch our personal Calendars with this Team Calendar? When you are in an Exchange environment, rather than to create an additional Team Calendar, consider sharing your Calendar with your team mates instead. By creating a Calendar group for your team, you can quickly select them all and display them in the Overlay View to get a combined overview of the activities and availability of the entire team. Step 1: Sharing your Calendar and set what is visible To share your Calendar, right click on it and choose Properties. For instance, you can grant them to only see your availability (Free/Busy time), allow them to see the subject and the location but also to allow them to create new items in your Calendar folder or to update existing ones. The permissions available depend on your version of Outlook and Exchange.
Teaching English using iPads – Day 1 by @InstTechTalk This is the first post in what will be a series of posts pertaining to how I am teaching Summer School English using 1:1 iPads. Some background info: Our iPad program is in the beginning of its second year. We are still in a pilot program, but it has expanded with the start of our 2nd year to include more schools in the district. I am our Instructional Technology Director, but originally taught English. The majority of the students are in the class for Senior English, there are a couple students in the class for Junior English. My goal for the course: I want to use the iPads as tools to help students learn the material in an interesting and modern way. My goal for these posts: To chronicle the daily activities of my class (4 hours a day, 4 days a week, 3 weeks, 2 sessions) in a way that is brief, but also informative. What we did Day 1: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. That was basically it for Day 1. See what we did on Day 2 here.
Manage your team's time with Outlook - Outlook By Jim Boyce If part of your workday involves managing work schedules for a department or team of people, you'd probably love some new tools to make that part of your job easier. New features in Microsoft Outlook 2002 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 can do just that. You can use the group scheduling feature in Outlook to create multiple groups and view the free/busy status for each member of the group. You can use group scheduling with or without Microsoft Exchange Server. Configure free/busy settings When you're trying to set up a work schedule, you need to know when each team member is available. In Outlook, "free/busy" refers to the status of a block of time in someone's schedule. The free/busy information for each user has to be stored where Outlook can obtain it. If you're not using Exchange Server, however, you need to perform some setup steps first. Note If you're not using Exchange Server, all time that is not blocked as Open is Busy. Publish your free/busy information
Multiple Intelligence Resources I've found Multiple Intelligence (MI) theory and practice to be very empowering in the classroom. When students realize that there are many ways to be smart, it helps build their self-esteem and confidence. Over a period of several years, I developed techniques for teaching students about MI theory and helping them to discover their own MI profiles. Eventually I developed so many teaching resources for MI Theory that wrote Teaching Multiple Intelligence Theory: Step-by-Step Lessons for Intermediate Grades. Multiple Intelligence Theory and Education Dr. Most educators quickly embraced his ideas and began to search for practical applications in the classroom. Traditionally, schools have been designed for students who are mathematical and linguistic, while students who were artistic, musical, or kinesthetic learners were out of luck. Multiple Intelligence Survey for Kids - Free Survey Watch the video below to learn how to download this free Multiple Intelligences for Kids survey.
Desktop Top Down and Bottom Up Planning Create a project plan even though the task-level details are still vague. When you have specialists who work on the details, 2-plan Desktop is the perfect PM tool. It aligns your strategy with the real world conditions that your people encounter at the front line. Test its free strategic planning decomposition tools for program management and enterprise planning. Read more... Graphical WBS Control your work packages graphically. Read more... Project Control System Create a project baseline and compare this with the forecasts of your virtual teams. Read more... Project Scheduling Management Schedule your projects with innovative project scheduling management tools. Read more... Project Planning Tools 2-plan Desktop has designed project planning tools that lets you work with multiple projects and easily drag-and-drop previous project plan components from the template folder. Read more... Free Extensions Use the core features for free.
Digital Citizenship Poster Now Available in 6 Languages Tagged with: digital citizenshipDutchFrenchGermanGreekPortugeseSpanish Last month we posted a free digital citizenship poster for our educator community to download. The response we received after posting it was incredible – more than 20,000 downloads in the first week! After publishing the post, many international educators requested a version of the poster in their native language and today we’re please to announce that it’s now available in Dutch, French, German, Greek and Spanish. A big thanks to the Edmodo translator group for helping us with this project. UPDATE: We’ve now added Portugese to the list! English8.5 x 11 black & white8.5 x 11 color11 x 17 black & white11 x 17 color
Effective Team Project Planning In whatever project we attempt, effective planning profoundly increases the likelihood of successful completion of that project. This holds true for professional or school environments. It is a major factor in both independent and team projects. Because the bulk of planning for a group project traditionally falls on the shoulders of the group leader's guidance, I will be focusing this article on the team leader's perspective, organization, and effectiveness. Teams are most successful when all members of the team understand the basic concepts that make a team successful. We will take a look at five important components that are vital to the successful completion of a group project. Communication Team members' styles Delegation of responsibilities Time management strategies Creating equity within the team Understanding the value of these components will help an effective team leader stay organized, and keep a functional team productive. Communication Team Members' Styles Time Management
An introductory guide to iPads for Teachers I’m delivering some iPad training to a school tomorrow, so thought it might be useful to collate some of the links I’ve been putting together for the session. The session is concentrating mainly on teachers using the iPads for their own professional use, rather than being used as a classroom resource, but a lot of the apps below will be suitable for use by students too. I’ll do another post sometime of great apps for different subject areas. Here’s some of the useful apps I’d recommend investigating. File storage / Transfer Dropbox Dropbox is probably one of the most useful applications I’ve used in years. Other apps also work with Dropbox too. Word Processing / Office Capability Documents to Go Microsoft have yet to release an Office app for the iPad – so there’s a need to look at alternatives. The spreadsheet would make it possible to set up grade books and student record sheets without having to buy additional gradebook applications. Note taking Also worth taking a look at these apps too :
iPad Tips: Getting Started with the iPad Have you just got a shiny new iPad as a holiday gift, or maybe just bought one for yourself? Here’s an easy Getting Started Guide that will help you get the most out of your new favorite tablet: The iPad has been a huge hit ever since it first hit the market back in 2010. It’s an amazing and powerful device, and a joy to use – whether for work or play. I’m hoping this short guide will give you a good jump-start on getting the most out of your iPad. This guide is divided up into short sections covering key topics, so you can dive in and out of them as needed for subjects you are interested in. iPad External Buttons – Turn It On and Off and Lots More You’ve probably noticed that the iPad has very few buttons. How to Power Off the iPad: To power off the iPad, hold down the Power button for a few seconds, until you see the ‘Slide to Power Off’ bar across the top of the screen. Uses for the Home Button: The home button is your key to navigating your way around the iPad. The iPad Dock: Or …