Image by Stan Faryna. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons licensing. Some rights reserved.
At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, on September 17, 1787, the U.S. Constitution was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present (This Day in US History.) Two years later this document would become the foundation of the Country’s Bill of Rights.
Therefore, this week CMLE’s Recommend Ed Tech Tool is the National Constitution Center’s website. This phenomenal resource is broken down into three main components;
The Experience Centershowcases exhibits, programs, museum links and current initiatives.
Search Constitutional Articles, Amendments, and Issues by using the Explore the Constitution tab.
And finally, click on the Learn tab to participate in free and live webcasts (Constitutional Hall Pass), find out more about civic holidays and how they became recognized, incorporate recommended resources from the educational resources page, and much more.
Tip: If you work with a teacher interested in traveling to the nation’s capital, the Plan Your Trip tab provides tickets, visitor’s guides and lists with links for trip essentials.
Image by anieto2k. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons licensing. Some rights reserved.
This month marks the beginning of a new school/academic year. With that comes a list of items and ideas for your work plan. In terms of technology, Edudemic created a top ten list of the most popular tools used by teachers to-date. Many of them have been discussed in previous posts by CMLE. However, if last year you weren’t quite ready to try out a new tool-you might want to reconsider it for this year. If you have already invested time in learning/training others to use these tools, then this post can serve as an affirmation that they should remain on your favorites list. Click here to view Edudemic’s list and compare notes.
Tip: As a library professional you interact with other teachers on a routine basis. Here is secondary post by Edudemic, 5 Goals Teachers Should Shoot For This Year. You might want to take a moment to compare your goals to this list. It could also serve as a great starting place to assist teachers, you work with, as they come to you for advice throughout the year.
The Edcamp Foundation was formed in December 2011 to assist teachers and other stakeholders in organizing edcamps. The vision of the Edcamp Foundation is to “promote organic, participant-driven professional development for K-12 educators worldwide.”
What is an edcamp? It is a low-cost/free user-generated conference designed to promote professional development for K-12 educators. Edcamps operate without keynote speakers or vendor booths. Sessions are planned the day of the event, as participants volunteer to be presenters on a topic of their choosing. This process encourages attendees to join or lead a peer conversation that meets their professional needs and/or interests. Technology is a common area of interest along with pedagogy and practical examples in instructional use of modern tools. If you would like to learn more about edcamps, Edutopia recently posted an article (April 2013) titled, Why Edcamps? It provides additional information regarding the basic structure outlined in the edcamp model and highlights what makes these events unique to other conferences. Click here to read the full article.
Would you like to participate? Educamp is coming to the Twin Cities on October 12th. Click here to learn more about this Minnesota event.
If you have participated in one of the more than 250 edcamp events that have occurred over the last 3 years; we would like to hear from you. Feel free to share your experience with our followers in the comment section below!
It is still April and a month long celebration of school media specialists, AKA teacher librarians. We received lots of positive feedback about our April 3rd post on 100 Things Kids Will Miss if they Don’t Have a Teacher Librarian in their School so thought our readers may want more of the same. Never stammer if asked what you do….have your elevator speech ready! To help you formulate or flesh out that speech, we recently uncovered another great document authored by Dr. Joyce Valenza/teacher-librarian at Springfield Township High School in Erdenheim, Pennsylvania and Gwyneth A. Jones, teacher-librarian at Murray Hill Middle School, Laurel, Maryland. Check out their document, titled What Do TL’s Teach?
No matter what kind of librarian you are, you probably accept the fact that you are a teacher. And as teachers we interact with individuals or groups who also interact with teachers in other settings. Therefore, it is important for us to keep track of what is changing in the broader educational world, as it has direct impact on many of our users. The recent SXSWedu Conference in Austin Texas highlighted the idea of educators becoming facilitators in personalized learning environments.
Read a short article for details about the bullets below, but in a nutshell, the key foci of the conference were:
• Teach students to find the answers.
• Ignite a spark.
• Put context before content.
• Let learning be iffy.
• Bring students in as curriculum designers.
Partnering with libraries for visioning, advocating, and educating
