Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Entry Four: Global Awareness

After spending a few hours today finalizing our presentation on Global Awareness for our school district and NSDC we are excited and ready!  This two hour training showcases years worth of work on helping students become responsible global citizens for our program called EFAC DREAMS.  We created a three week unit for every grade k-8 to help students make connections to students in Kenya, understand their role in our global community, and make a real difference.  Every unit includes a final project with technology.  It’s completely free-- please take a moment and check it out!

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Entry Three: Third Grade in Three Words

Third grade in three words... this was the challenge posed to our students by their amazing 21st century teacher, Laura Isrealsen. Students were asked to to use the 4cs of 21st century learning: critical thinking, communication, creativity, and collaboration to summarize third grade in three words. Click on our project here: Third Grade in Three Words to see this innovative project and pose your own challenge to your students! If you love Laura's ideas as much as we do, follow her blog at Two Geeky Teachers.
What project ideas do you have to celebrate the school year?

Monday, May 21, 2012

Entry Two: Digital Portfolios


With the school year coming to a close we are doing a lot of reflection on the importance of keeping major projects and encouraging our student to reflect on their learning.  There is no better way to accomplish these goals than with digital portfolios!  Digital portfolios are an online collection of student work.  We want our students to develop a digital footprint at a young age to help them carry their success with them to college and beyond.  Check out these resources to help you bring digital portfolios to your students.



Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Entry One: Welcome!

We did it!  We finally started our own blog.  This blog has been a dream of ours for a very long time.  As we are building our careers as educational consultants, we realized it was time to take the leap!  We wanted this blog to fulfill three main purposes:
1.        We want to use this blog as an opportunity to teach; to share materials, resources, lesson ideas, and so much more with fellow teachers. 
2.        We want to use this to dream big!  As teaching partners, Ryanne Van Sciver and I started an LLC called DREAMS (Developing, Responsible, Educated, Aware, Motivated Students).  We want to use this blog as an opportunity to connect with businesses and non-profits to help write curriculum to prepare our students to be responsible members of our community. 
3.       Lastly, we want to learn!  We hope to connect with fellow educators and become the best teacher and professional development trainer we can be. 
Teaching, Dreaming, Learning…take the leap with me!