Weekly Learning Links 10.17.11
(Anyone interested in posting next week’s Weekly Learning Links? If so, please shoot me an email!)
The majority of the Fifth Grade team attended Trinity’s Teaching the iGeneration Workshop with George Couros in June. One product of their experience is that they committed to the idea of promoting online writing in their classrooms. And as a result of their collective brainstorming and planning, there’s a certain momentum that’s building in their classrooms with this new kind of writing. As an outsider, it’s been powerful to watch two things. First, each teacher (lead and assistant) has their own blog in order to model what to do with this powerful medium. Second, various Trinity teachers are engaging students in their writing by leaving comments on posts. What a powerful message this sends to the students: I am engaging in the work that I am asking you to do. Other teachers, not just those in Fifth Grade, are also engaging with you by reading and commenting on your writing. If you’d like to see a specific example of what this looks like, check out Ashley Johnston’s “Welcome to the Blogosphere” post.
Did you know that all students in the Second Grade have written letters of thanks to our troops serving overseas? After listening to the radio on the way to school one morning, Mary Riddick Stallworth and Kathy Bruyn realized that the students could write letters to troops and meet the needs of the writing and social studies curriculum simultaneously. Now, they want to take it a step further! By sharing what they did (on this wiki called Teachers for Troops) and by hopefully getting time “On Air” with The Bert Show to show what they did to help The Bert Show’s BIG Thank You, they want to inspire other classrooms and schools to help meet the goal of 400,000 letters by October 28, 2011. Check out the PhotoStory that Mary Riddick and Kathy’s students created last week:
Here are the Weekly Learning Links for the week of October 17th:
- edu180atl 10.14.11 by Suzanne Edwards — In this 250 word post, our very own Science teachers reflects on the power of our own habits and the need to travel a new path…in our daily routines and also in the classroom.
- “…and this is why teachers should have blogs” by George Couros — With more and more Trinity teachers thinking about blogging, this posts (and the links within it), provide a few good examples of how blogs could positively affect teachers, students, classrooms, and ultimately schools.
- Doodling: An Essential Skills to Develop and Support in Our Students? by Silvia Tolisano — How do you define the act of doodling? How can doodling promote greater comprehension, creativity, and engagement? This post (with a link to an excellent five minute TED Talk) provides good ideas about engaging some of our aesthetically-minded learners.
cc licensed flickr photo shared by dkuropatwa
December 30th, 2011 at 6:49 PM
[...] overseas as part of the Bert Show’s Big Thank You Campaign. Members of the Trinity community, inspired by Trinity’s very own Second Grade students and teachers (see second paragraph of linked post), contributed over 500 letters to help the Bert Show meet [...]