When developing your core, common vocab lists, the Marzano book is invaluable.  (Building Academic Vocabualry)  But, if you give the NWEA MAPS tests, also check the Des Cartes service.  It gives key vocabulary words for each of the RIT levels...a big help when trying to align your curriculum and assessment systems.

Welcome to the new Nebraska NWEA User's Group Blog. The notes from the April meeting are posted in the section called "File Storage".  I will ask Jane Stavem from Columbus to post her Spanish version of the Parent Activities page,  if she is willing.  I have learned the hard way that if you click the "Click here to leave the community"--you actually delete yourself from the blog.  Don't do what I did--Use the "log off" to close it totally.

I have found a great source you all might visit to see how you could do similar things in your own school systems.  Remember that we were told about the Poway School System's use of NWEA....their website has a pdf file that tells their procedures--and has some great ideas.  The document is called "The New and Improved Taming Data Tool kit: Interpreting MAP Data for Teachers and Students."  It includes testing and accessing reports, interpreting results, goal setting and lexile tools.  Handy!  My favorite is the "Extreme Academic Makeover Goals"--kid appeal! 

I found it at:  http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/projects/edtechcentral/MAPS/PDFs/9-07%20Toolkit/FinalMAPsToolkit9-11-07.pdf

 The actual document also says it is available at:  http://www.pusdmap.com

 At the same school district I also enjoyed their tech department's support with pictoral directions for teachers on how to do things with MAPS--It even has powerpoints for parent orientation--and a powerpoint about assessment "Of and For".  Look at this site:

http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/projects/EdTechCentral/Training/MAPsGoals.htm

Let's remember that our professional learning community of bloggers is in its infancy.  Yes, we have plenty of room for growing into a more purposeful community.

There are roughly 6.5 billion people on earth, about 2.5 billion in China and India, 300 million in the United States, 1.7 million people in Nebraska, and 90,000 in the panhandle. (please double check my math) 

Let's look at the numbers another way.  We, the population of the panhandle make up 0.00139% of the world population.  That means 99.99861% of people in the world live somewhere else.

In the global society of today, technology, specifically Web 2.0, is a tool for keeping us connected to the rest of the world.

So we may be blogging along with only an emerging, purpose, audience, and voice, but we have taken a meaningful step into the future by joining the professional development blogging community.  Keep the blogs coming

Thanks for presenting to the school library media specialists about all the Web 2.0 tools available to the teachers and students in our area.

Welcome to the ESU #13 Library community. This site will allow community members to share thoughts on topics of interest, as well as files that might be valuable to others. The community blog and file storage are located in the right column, and your personal blog and file storage are located at the top of the page. Use key words to describe the main ideas within a post, and set the access restrictions to determine what people will be able to read the post. Once an entry has been posted, the comments link at the bottom of the post will allow readers to contribute to the discussion.

The student activity designed for this group is to give them the task of locating educational blog sites for specific content areas. They may want to use the blogroll section of my WordPress site as a place to start. 

The applications discussed during the session included Moodle, Elgg, WordPress, Gallery and Survey phpESP. 

Alliance is choosing a new math series for K-8.  So far, we've narrowed it down to Saxon, Real Math and Everyday Math.  I'm curious who uses any of these and what you think..........are you happy or do you wish you were using something else?

As I glanced at your initial blogs and the meeting minutes I saw that people discussed having "user's group" sessions.  Some that may be of interest in our are are

1.  infinite campus,  2.  Reading programs, 3.  Curriculular models, 4. Math programs

Are these issues that can be handled at a PLACES meeting--or should small sessions be set up that would have specific focus?  COuld DL serve a role so that a very short meeting could be held and people could share issues and solutions and maybe plan together for shared resources?  For example,  the Infinite campus group could meet and one person knows how to do the more complex reports and can teach that to others.  The reading group could meet and could decide to share expenses to bring a trainer to the region. 

Our current structures haven't been able to give much time for this sort of specific needs.

Does anyone want to see that type of specific mini-meetings started?

Basketball is a great sport. In this sport you play as a team. It is a sport that involves thinking about how to play as a team and how to get across the court without the other team getting the ball. In this sport there is alot of runing dribbling and blocking others for a team member to make a shot for the basket. This is a great sport and I would suggest you try and play a game with your friends every now and then.

The world of standars-assessment-accountability is not generally filled with much humor. I was at a training session in Lincoln last week and had the opportunity to view this video. Tom Chapin is the creator of the video.

Do we know anything about this review of Science assessments and portfolio???  I saw it now is posted as new on the STARS reporting calendar.

I should probably add this as a comment to Julie's previous post, but not sure how many people would see it there. One blog site that I am familiar with is LeaderTalk.

The following quote is taken from the "About" section of their homepage.

"LeaderTalk is the first group blog written by school leaders for school leaders. We hope that our insights and resources are beneficial to P-12 administrators and educational leadership preparation programs."

One link from the LeaderTalk page will take you to CASTLE (Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education). This is not a blog site, but does contain links to a few blogs in the left column.

These two sites alone provide access to enough information and links to additional resources to build a solid foundation of blog sites. 

When the STARS project entered our duties as "Curriculum People", it created a time crunch.  A poor non-choice on my part (meaning it just happened without a conscious decision being made), professional reading time was taken out of my daily schedule.  Prior to that, around an hour per day was devoted to reading one article or one chapter of a the book I was reading at the time, or a professional journal is I didn't have a book going.  I'm hoping to use blogging to reinstate some of that professional stimulation in another way, which provides for a new choice....and interesting dilemma.

Which blogs...which communities do we join?  The list of professional journals and books was at least finite, and I knew where to go to select those which would give me the most bang for my buck.  Blog choices, while not yet infinite, appear to be expanding exponentially, and I don't know how to choose the most effective ones for myself.

One thing I stumbled across was the World Cafe Blog (see link below)

http://www.theworldcafe.com/blog.htm

Seems to me the thinking would be cutting edge and creative, so I'll be checking that one out and letting you all know if it was worth the time or not.

Anyone else out there have great suggestions?

I should not have done this, but since Julie is home sick today, I uploaded the meeting minutes for the March 4, 2008 PLACES meeting in the files section of this community. To view the minutes, click the "File Storage" link in the right column, click the "Meeting Minutes" folder, click the "Meeting 3-4-08" file to view the document.

I would like to thank Jim for sharing the evaluation form that he uploaded, and encourage everyone to contribute to the site. The value of this site grows as participants share information. 

 "Staff development needs more follow up."  Yes, it does.  Is your district prepared to make it happen?  Do you have...

1. Scheduled staff development time on school calendar spread out across the school year

2.  A consistent method and scheduled plan for being in classrooms to collect the data of what is happening in the instructional setting (doesn't have to be solely work of principal)

3. A regularly scheduled leadership meeting in which data from the instructional setting and student achievement data are analyzed and used as a springboard for planning staff development (could be the SIP team, should include principal(s), curriculum director, teacher leaders, possibly superintendent)

"Structure is the first step toward organizational maturity."  AdvancEd

Until a district has these structures in place, effective follow up will only be something we talk about.

 "Staff development needs more follow up."  Yes, it does.  Is your district prepared to make it happen?  Do you have...

1. Scheduled staff development time on school calendar spread out across the school year

2.  A consistent method and scheduled plan for being in classrooms to collect the data of what is happening in the instructional setting (doesn't have to be solely work of principal)

3. A regularly scheduled leadership meeting in which data from the instructional setting and student achievement data are analyzed and used as a springboard for planning staff development (could be the SIP team, should include principal(s), curriculum director, teacher leaders, possibly superintendent)

"Structure is the first step toward organizational maturity."  AdvancEd

Until a district has these structures in place, effective follow up will only be something we talk about.

 

The minutes of the PLACES meeting were sent out on March 5.  Many of your firewalls block longer emails, or those with attachments.If you did not get yours, let me know.  

Travis, Sandy, Maribeth, Jill, Tom (and who have I missed?)

We're putting together packets of the handouts from the meeting (you missed a good one!) Watch school mail!

The Staff Development and Technology departments at ESU 13 have worked together to indentify resources that support implementing Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement by Robert Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, Jane Pollock, and technology tools that will support the strategies. There are a number of websites that are devoted to this topic.

In a year from now when we look at our first day of blogging, I wonder what we will think and how we will have grown.

How exciting to be part of community blogging start up.

 Why do I work in education?

-Book report posters that include real mouse poop in a zip loc baggie

-Lists of famous painters including DaVinci, Michealangelo, and Bob Ross

-Explanations such as, " I know the book's genre is fiction because an alien wouldn't wear braces."

I chose to work in education because opportunity for all children is at the heart of our work and because the English major I started out in got too irritating when my interpretation of the Dog poem (that it was about dogs) wasn't literary enough. 

I thought about a new career after six years in this work when I looked around at my noneducator friends who had no college degree who were buying airplane tickects, houses, cars, and clothes.  The newspaper advertised for an executive secretary who could write grammatically correct correspondence.  So after teaching a morning of spring break school to some fourth grade English language learners, I headed to an office building on the classy side of town for an interview.

"How glamourous,"  I thought, "to work in such an impressive looking building, to wear clothes and not be concerned about marker washability, wire notebook snags, or sticky hand prints."  Then I opened the doors.  No love poured out.  No laughter. No original artwork.  By the time I got to the office on the third floor, I was whispering "sucker" everytime I passed those sorry employees in the hall.  Afterall, I had just come from a morning of work where I had seen eyes light up over learning how to use a Spanish/English dictionary.  Who in this office knew the joy of discovering that burgers and mocos were the same thing? 

I went home proud to be in education and still broke.  As if business were really for me anyway.  Estimation is how I balance my check book, I am already looking forward to my tax return, and if the school children need something, I tell someone and they buy it. Besides, education is about kids learning, not money.  Right? 

Last week I went to a meeting of school "finance people." So what I think now is that I need to study up on school finance in addition to personal budgeting. 

To think that finance is separate from school improvement and curriculum is inadequate.  Without knowledge of school improvement and curriculum going into financial decisions, how can we be sure that our money and our teachers are working toward the same end?

Learning for all children is what our work is about whether our specialized knowledge is finance or school improvement and curriculum.