Humbled by some AMAZING Educators

This week coaches for PA Classrooms for the Future are at Bootcamp...this means a 7 am - 9pm day full of information that we can use to help support our teachers in effective technology integration. This morning we got to listen to some of the teachers share what they are doing in their classrooms and honestly all I can say is WOW! The level of rigor and relevance in the activities and day to day assignments BLEW ME AWAY...we got to see 4 teachers one in each core content area, but across the state there were 16 model teachers sharing what they do. Our group took some notes which I am embedding below and am also putting some links to sessions that came through out cross state skype backchannel.

As Diane Castelbuono, PA Deputy Secretary of Education said as she addressed the group at lunch to continue her support of the grant and reinforce that this initiative is NOT ABOUT THE LAPTOPS..It's about transforming how teachers teach and how students learn...
CFF is not about the latest educational fad it is about utilizing technology in effective ways
60 % change classroom set up from rows to learning community...kids WANT to be in class and learning is shifting to students...they are producing and they are proud of their work.

Coaches need to provide instructional strategies that meet instructional goals and craft rigorous lessons. I am lucky to work in a place where there is a broad network of support. Take some time to explore some of the great things happening across the Commonwealth of PA!



LINKS TO CLASSROOM Examples:
We are STRUGGLING with our network connectivity...but here are some of the things I wanted to archive from the skype chat to go back and look at later on and save to diigo
http://sites.google.com/site/cffhempfield/

book video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7601300597155214987

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/ shared by model lesson teacher for Poetry Webcasts

http://kheckman.wikispaces.com/ awesome math wiki!

http://www.thisibelieve.org/

model teacher sharng AWESOME Costa Rica trip podcasting wiki: http://foycostarica.wikispaces.com
the science teacher from aly's school used podbean to host a podcast, and then grabbed the embeddable player code to embed onto her wiki - good stuff alas, we have no teacher webspace...podbean hosts vodcasts too

Lesson idea for Language Arts http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ using who ever wrote the card as a character create a character based on it - character prompt
links from English session at NC: http://help4teachers.com for intro to layered curriculum http://austincff.wikispaces.com

What is freedom unit SHS Delaware County
Video http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d5796fe663f8ff3f39fe
and blog:
http://shsconstitutiondayblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-does-freedom-mean-to-you.html

http://mrsmeluskey.pbwiki.com/ gifted geom project

CFF Anne Van Meter-Jenkintown 10:26 AM
Have you all seen the "doing what works" site? Videos of teachers teaching!
http://dww.ed.gov/see/see.cfm?PA_ID=8&T_ID=18&P_ID=38 for example

http://youthleadership.net/index.jsp

Through out the week these are
SOME PLACES WE ARE SHARING
http://modellessonnc.wikispaces.com/Coach+Group+6
http://modellessonnc.wikispaces.com/Coach+Group+7
http://modellessonvf.wikispaces.com/Coach+Group+8
http://whsdcff.wikispaces.com/CFF+SHOWCASE

During the session Coaches created
http://cffbootcamp2008.wikispaces.com/

Other Comments
Model Lessons are great. We need 5 minute or less vodcasts/screencasts of these lessons so we can share them with CFF Teachers and Administrators