Monday, April 28, 2008

Skills Tutor Tip: Working with charts, maps and graphs

Many of our social studies teachers have let us know how helpful the Maps, Charts and Graphs lessons in Skills Tutor are for their students. Lots of schools find this a difficult part of their standardized testing. Skills Tutor can be a great way to sharpen up those skills.

To find the lessons, look under Information Skills. There you will find a section named Using Maps, Charts, and Graphs. You will find lessons such as: Latitude and Longitude, Picture Graphs, Bar Graphs and Tables. There is also a prescriptive pretest and a posttest to measure retention of the lessons.

If you need any assistance with Skills Tutor, contact your project leader with your questions.

Assessment Center Tip: Collaboration

With so many of our teachers now working in collaboration, it becomes necessary for more than one teacher to be able to manage an Assessment Center class. This is an easy adjustment and here's how you do it.

First, log in to Assessment Center and open your class by clicking its name from the list of classes. Next, click on "Class Details" from the menu on the left. A sub menu containing two choices appears after the page reloads; choose the "Add/Remove Teachers" command. A list of available teachers will appear in the left window; choose the teacher you want to add to the class and click add. Then click save and you will have two teachers with equal access to the class and its information.

This practice is useful for checking reports and seeing how any student in the class is performing as well as seeing how the entire class is doing. Good communication between the collaborating teachers is important because either teacher can delete, reset, add or create an assessment. Having both teachers in the same account can also increase communication since both teachers can always see what assessments are pending.

If you need assistance adding another teacher to your class, contact your project leader for assistance.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Assessment Center Tip: Sharing an Assessment

One of the great features of Assessment Center is the capability of using an assessment in more than one class.  There are two situations to be considered here.  The first situation ins using an assessment in more than one class that you teach. This one is easy; when you are creating the assessment, you will come to a page where you are asked to name the assessment. On this page, you will see a box at the bottom in front of these words: Make this assessment available in my other classes. After clicking this box and saving the assessment, you will find the assessment listed as an unassigned assessment in each of your classes. Remember, this assessment is not yet assigned in the class you are working in until you assign it on the page after the naming page

The other way to share an assessment is to share it with other teachers. This decision should be made right away when creating an assessment. On the very first page of the test creation, there is a box at the bottom of the page which says: Share this assessment, so that other educators can search for it. Now when other teachers search for your assessment, it will be available to them. It is a good idea for your staff to agree to some common language for assessment names so the search is more efficient. For example, it might be good to put your grade and/or subject in the title of the assessment.

Need more help with sharing assessments?  Contact your project leader.

Skills Tutor Tip: Loading Reports

Sometimes when you try to load a report in Skills Tutor, you end up in a sort of loop; in other words, you get sent back to a page you just came from.  Don't get frustrated; you haven't done anything wrong.  Your computer probably has a pop-up blocker turned on.  There are several solutions for the problem.  If you want to leave the blocker on, you can usually override it on a windows system by holding down the control key while clicking on the continue command.  If you want to use a more permanent solution,  go to the Tools command on a windows machine or the Safari menu on a Macintosh and simply turn off the pop-up blocker. Your reports should now load just fine.

If you do not have access to the commands to turn off the pop-ups, you may need to contact your school's tech support and ask them to stop blocking pop-ups for the two Skills Iowa websites.

If you have further questions about turning off pop-up blockers, contact your project leader.

Grant Funding

Vic Jaras is the new tech guy at the DE. He has provided these sites for us that highlight technology grants and money that are available. Hope you find them useful! Thanks very much, Vic!

Win a wireless lab and all the trimmings!
http://cdwg.discoveryeducation.com/new/site/step1.cfm?pgid=enter

Technology Grants for Rural Schools:
http://www.fred.org/tech.html

Toshiba Grants for Math and Science:
http://www.toshiba.com/tafpub/jsp/home/default.jsp

Smart Board Grants for 6th Grade:
http://www.smarterkids.org/k12/connections/index.asp

Recycled Computers and Technology for Schools:
https://www.cristina.org/oga/

Olympus Camera and Toolfactory.com Grants (every month):
http://www.digitalwish.com/dw/digitalwish/grant_awards

Best Buy Teach Awards (available in July- awarded in September):
http://www.bbycommunications.com/crnew/teach.asp

Toolfactory PODCASTING Grants:
http://www.toolfactory.com/olympus_contest/olympus_podcasting.htm

Verizon Tech Savvy Technology Grant:
http://www.famlit.org/site/c.gtJWJdMQIsE/b.2180327/k.5E33/Verizon_Tech_Savvy_Awards.htm
Web Site Makeover Grant (this one could be good for smaller districts)
http://www.schoolspan.com/

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Skills Tutor Tip: Differentiating the Lesson

Skills Tutor frequently has similar lessons that are presented at differing levels of expertise. In Reading Comprehension, for example, there are six Skill Lessons at each of the performance levels (LL, A, B, C). If a teacher assigns the lower reading level lessons to the struggling readers in the class, the on grade level to those students reading at grade level and the above grade level lessons to the advanced readers, all of the students in the class will be covering the same skills and each of them will be reading at an appropriate reading level.

After making the assignment at each grade level, go to the Give Assignment command on the left side of the page and select the appropriate assignment for each of your students.

If you need assistance with Skills Tutor, contact your project leader.

Assessment Center Tip: Finding the Skill You Want to Assess

If you want to assess a skill that isn't showing up in Assessment Center, perhaps Assessment Center has aligned it with a different grade level. Al Bode, a recently retired Skills Iowa Project leader, has created a great web page that gives links to all skills assessed at each grade level in all subjects. It can save you a lot of time when you are searching for a skill.

Go to: Assessment Center Grade Levels and then bookmark that website for future reference.

Happy Earth Day

It's not only the Pennsylvania presidential primary, it's also Earth Day.

I was struck by the news this morning that the first Earth Day was in 1970. According to Wikipedia, here's what else was going on in 1970:

Among other things, 1970 in the United States brought with it the Kent State shootings, the advent of fiber optics, "Bridge over Troubled Water," Apollo 13, the Beatles' last album, the death of Jimi Hendrix, and the meltdown of fuel rods in the Savannah River nuclear plant near Aiken, South Carolina -- an incident not acknowledged for 18 years. At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Environment was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news. But Earth Day 1970 turned that all around.

Well, I don't know if we have conquered our environmental problems, but it is certainly good to hear that our air and water are cleaner than they were nearly 40 years ago.

One thing I have learned in traveling around the state for Skills Iowa is that we have a beautiful and varied state. I hope we all do what we can to insure it stays that way.

Happy Earth Day!

Here is the official U.S. Government Earth Day website. www.earthday.gov There are some interesting educational activities listed there that could be used on ANY day of the year.

Jim Lippold
Skills Iowa Project Leader
jlippold@ia-sb.org

Reading Good Nonfiction


Last week we asked for what you do in the summer. Mrs. M. responded that she reads and reads some more. What are you reading? I read World Without End and The Pillars of the Earth both by Ken Follett who used to write good spy novels on the recommendation of two very different friends. I thought if they both liked them, so would I. When I saw the length of both, I was flabbergasted, but once I got into them, I really like them. He’s a good story teller.

I have always had a place in my heart for non-fiction books. When I was a senior in high school, my speech teacher, Mrs. Stull, gave me a biography of Sarah Bernhardt, who Wikipedia says has been referred to as the most famous actress in the history of the world. I loved it because I wanted to become a famous actress (well THAT didn’t happen) and over time, have found other wonderful works of nonfiction. American Dreamer, a biography of Henry A. Wallace, written by former Senator John Culver and Des Moines Register reporter John Hyde, I’ve found particularly interesting. Vice-President Wallace was born in my county and was named the most influential Iowan of the century by the Des Moines Register. What an amazing guy he was – a founder of Pioneer, a developer of effective farm programs, a promoter of peace, a scientist, and certainly a dreamer. The picture at the beginning of this post is from his farm located about 8 miles east of Greenfield in Adair County.

When my former school began working in the Every Child Reads initiative and we began to focus on children’s nonfiction, I became a great lover of Seymour Simon, Gail Gibbons, Jim Murphy, and others. I learn so much reading nonfiction children’s books. Talk about developing content knowledge! A friend who knows says that the vocabulary in children’s nonfiction is often commensurate with doctoral level writing. No surprise to me! I’m so glad we’re understanding the value of nonfiction integrated into our curriculum in Iowa for students of all levels. Nina Carran, Emily Calhoun, Carlene Lodermeier, the statewide reading team, and others have certainly contributed to that understanding. Thanks to them.

So back to you… what are you reading? Do you like the infusion of good nonfiction into the curriculum? Weigh in!

Monday, April 21, 2008

Healthy Kids


The Drake Relays are coming up. I love the Relays. Even if you don't like track and field, watching all those healthy young people gives me great hope for the future. And the food - speaking of the OPPOSITE of healthy. Whew. Pic is of my favorite track team at state track last year. Geesh. We've missed a lot of meets already. Hope the weather holds this week, so the kids can get in some meets. Even if you don't like track, go hang out a meet and get your energy renewed. Great kids being healthy - ya can't beat that.

Tom Friedman, The World Is Flat

Tom Friedman who wrote The World is Flat and hails from Minneapolis spoke to the National Governors’ Association when they met in Iowa in July of 2005 when then Governor Vilsack was chair. While that seems like a while ago, his message is certainly still pertinent and I think you might find it interesting. He addresses clearly WHY kids have to know more when they leave school than I did when I left Beaman-Conrad way too many years ago to say out loud.

In the World Is Flat Friedman argues that if we don't figure out how to educate everybody well, our economy and our standing in the world will not be what they once were. While I know this idea gives people hives, given the problems kids have who walk through the school house door, how do we do this? If schools don't, who will? What resources would we need to make it happen? Isn't this what public education is all about - giving kids a chance to be somebody? Let me know what you think.

Go to this site to see the video or to hear the audio.  Scroll down the page and look for Thomas Friedman.

Preschool!


My sister Jen, this wonderful woman to the left, is a preschool teacher. I think she’s a saint. I taught a few kids in K-2 when I taught special education, but I thought it was a tough go. What do you think about the infusion of preschool dollars into local schools? How will that help you do your job? Does your district make clear what you want kids to know and do upon kindergarten entry? What are those things? IASB provides tons of resources for developing a quality preschool program. Find them at this website.

Assess, Analyze, Act

The project leaders; Pam, Dennis, Myra, Jim, Doug, and Jane; are coming into Des Moines for our monthly meeting on Wednesday. We do have a good time together, and they work hard to help schools implement Skills Iowa well. Al has retired and he and his wife Patricia plan to spend serious time traveling. You can see the project leader pics at http://www.ia-sb.org/skillsiowa/staff.aspx

Do you think the way you use Skills Iowa makes a difference for kids? Do you use the Assess, Analyze, Act sequence to support the learning of your students? Let us know how that works for you.

The National Middle School Association provides an interesting article on formative assessment. “Formative assessment is a tool teachers can use to probe student understanding, inform instructional decisions, and develop relationships. Bell and Cowie (2001) defined formative assessment as ‘the process used by teachers and students to recognize and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning.’ This rich description explicitly states the process and the players, but not the difficulty of its implementation when district calendars are promoting coverage of material.”
http://www.nmsa.org/Publications/MiddleSchoolJournal/Articles/March2006/Article7/tabid/722/Default.aspx

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Summertime



This is one of my favorite teachers (HS special ed) and her daughter spending some time away from school. It drives me crazy that people think teachers don't work in the summer. Boy, I did when I was a teacher and so did (and still do) my friends. It was nice to set my own schedule in the summer, but I thought I deserved that after 9 months of being driven by the needs of middle schoolers. Anyway, what do you do in the summer? What would you LIKE to do in the summer? Let us know!

PBS Science Resources Plus



PBS provides cool resources for teachers and their students – interesting, great video, links to national standards, a useful instructional sequence including materials you need to round up and good questions. Here’s an example of a lesson plan I found at this website: http://www.pbs.org/teachers/

1. Alien Invasion: Estimating a Snake Population
Source: Scientific American Frontiers
Explore biologists' use of capture/recapture statistics and analysis of sampling techniques by estimating the population size of a tagged species. Use a mathematical model to uncover the total population of brown tree snakes in a sector.
Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8
Subjects: Math, Science & Tech
Topics: Data Analysis/Probability. Animals: Reptiles & Amphibians. Ecology.
Resource Type: Lesson Plan

It’s a real-life activity that incorporates multiple disciplines and is interesting, as are many of the lessons described. Hope you find it useful.

Do you ever have time to find good lessons on the net or are you overwhelmed by the day-to-day work of school?

Have a great weekend.

Susie

Friday, April 4, 2008


Seems like in my life as an educator teachers have been in one of two categories: either we supported skills like decision making, problem solving, communications, etc. OR we were advocates for the basic skills. Well, FINALLY we’ve figured out that our responsibilities to kids lies in both arenas if they’re going to be successful. And that challenges us to think beyond what WE know and moves us into what our STUDENTS must know. Hard, but I think we can figure it out.

The 21st Century Partnership folks have a nice graphic that makes the case. The inner green half circle represents the basic skills – kids have to be able to read, write, do math, understand government, etc.… the things we’ve traditionally taught in school. The purple arc on the right brings in the information, media, and technology arena, which is changing at an extraordinary rate. The yellow arc at the top of the diagram represents learning and innovation skills and the red arc on the left acknowledges the importance of life and career skills. More about all the areas can be found at this website:
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=120
What do you think? Can we do it all? How? What kind of training and support will educators need to do this work? Thanks for your ideas... Susie

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Education and Paul Potts - You Tube!!

This video from YouTube was fun. Nice background music and good graphics – contrasts education in the past and the future. Hope you enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnh9q_cQcUE

And my VERY favorite YouTube video – Paul Potts, a worker in a video warehouse in Britain performs on Pop Idol (I think), which is the British version of American Idol. He looks very ordinary until he opens his mouth and sings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLF9iEXnBRo

Hope you enjoy these. Susie

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Collaboration in School and in the Work Place

Since coming to work at IASB I’ve had such a different experience than I did when I worked in schools. When I was a young teacher, at least 200 years ago, we worked independently and in fact hoarded our ideas and materials. Wanted to keep them fresh for our OWN students, not allow others to pilfer them! I guess. Actually, I really can’t remember why everything was so private. But by the time I left seven years ago, we were just learning to collaborate around instruction, plan lessons together, look at data together. The work environment here at IASB is very collaborative… people are on work teams and not much goes out the door without multiple contributions, multiple eyes having seen it, multiple perspectives, etc. While sometimes it frustrating, that environment makes for much better work products. Makes me wonder how that’s going in schools now? Are your collaborative teams focused on improving instruction? Better lessons? More challenging curriculum? Fill me in!

Google expects their employees to be a part of collaborative environment.
Wesley Fryer blogs at this site, “Moving at the Speed of Creativity,” about Google. He noted this question and answer posed to and answered by the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, in Wired magazine in May 2007.

“Google’s revenue and employee head count have tripled in the last two years. How do you keep from becoming too bureaucratic or too chaotic?”

Schmidt’s Response:
“It’s a constant problem. We analyze this every day, and our conclusion is that the best model remains small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion. The attempt to provide order drives out the creativity. And so it’s a balance.”

Fryer comments about schools in relation to this:
“Note his language: “..the best model remains small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion.” This connects directly to what we need to see MORE in the classroom, but many classroom teachers (as well as building administrators) don’t feel comfortable with: The noise/hum of collaborative learning and discussion. Teachers are often not comfortable “letting go” of the sense of control they have when lecturing to a largely silent classroom of listeners. The lesson here is that the business world does not merely want to hire listeners and fact regurgitators, but rather thinkers who can collaborate, “run fast” and create innovative ideas which reflect both higher level thinking as well as creativity.”

Fryer’s blog: http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2007/04/29/collaboration-in-schools-more-reasons-we-need-it/

Do you agree with Fryer’s comments? Why or why not? How can we connect better with the world our students are going to?

Anxious to COLLABORATE... Susie

Collaboration: in school and in the world outside of school

Since coming to work at IASB I’ve had such a different experience than I did when I worked in school. When I was a young teacher, at least 200 years ago, we worked independently and in fact hoarded our ideas and materials. Wanted to keep them fresh for our students only! I guess. Actually, I really can’t remember why everything was so private. But by the time I left 7 years ago, we were just learning to collaborate around instruction, plan lessons together, look at data together. The work environment here at IASB is very collaborative… people are on work teams and not much goes out the door without multiple contributions, multiple eyes having seen it, etc. While sometimes it frustrating, that environment makes for much better work products. Makes me wonder how that’s going in schools now? Are your collaborative teams focused on improving instruction? Better lessons? More challenging curriculum? Fill me in!

In addition to this, read about the environment Google expects their employees to be a part of and what one writer thinks is the disconnect between the environments in schools and the environments kids will need to adapt to when they go to work.
Wesley Fryer, writer and editor for the website, “Moving at the Speed of Creativity,” noted this question and answer posed to and answered by the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, in Wired magazine in May 2007.
“Google’s revenue and employee head count have tripled in the last two years. How do you keep from becoming too bureaucratic or too chaotic?”
Schmidt’s Response:
“It’s a constant problem. We analyze this every day, and our conclusion is that the best model remains small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion. The attempt to provide order drives out the creativity. And so it’s a balance.”

Fryer comments
“Note his language: “..the best model remains small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion.” This connects directly to what we need to see MORE in the classroom, but many classroom teachers (as well as building administrators) don’t feel comfortable with: The noise/hum of collaborative learning and discussion. Teachers are often not comfortable “letting go” of the sense of control they have when lecturing to a largely silent classroom of listeners. The lesson here is that the business world does not merely want to hire listeners and fact regurgitators, but rather thinkers who can collaborate, “run fast” and create innovative ideas which reflect both higher level thinking as well as creativity.”
Fryer’s blog: http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2007/04/29/collaboration-in-schools-more-reasons-we-need-it/ :
Do you agree with Fryer’s comments? Why or why not? How can we connect better with the world our students are going to?


Would you like the world of google? Let us know... Susie

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Don't Worry

Hi Everyone…

Hope you are staying warm and dry. Can’t believe it’s already April and we haven’t had much nice spring weather.

Many of you may have gotten a notice when you entered Skills Tutor called "A Friendly Reminder" saying that your account is soon to expire. This appears on all screens, those who have grants that pay the fee like we do in Iowa and those who pay the company directly. DON'T WORRY!! We are funded for next year. And this isn’t something you need to tend to or worry about.

Thanks for your hard work.

Susie