Use Twitter Lists to Connect with Colleagues!

Written by Linda Ashida



Last week my Prospect High School colleague, Teri Buczinsky wrote a great post: Top Three Reasons Teachers Love Twitter.  In this piece she included examples of how her students use Twitter lists to facilitate their research. If you missed it, make sure to check it out!




In this post, I would like to expand on Teri's ideas for using Twitter lists, and share some additional examples of how you can use them to connect with colleagues.  Specifically, I will share several of my own Twitter lists and show you how to subscribe to them.  Whether you are new to Twitter or a long-time user, you might find the lists helpful to connect with more EGHS and District 214 colleagues.  If you are a reader who is not from EGHS or D214, this post might still give you ideas on how to use and create lists to connect with colleagues from your own school and district.

Why lists?

By creating lists, you can easily check, at-a-glance, all the Tweets from your colleagues; the Tweets won't get lost in the shuffle of your long newsfeed.  Organizing Tweets into lists is a powerful way to strengthen our connections; to learn about and share the work of our colleagues and our students.  It is a great way to build community.

I have heard some educators say, "I don't have time for Twitter!"  They imagine having to sift through a long newsfeed of Tweets each day.  But with lists, you really can connect with colleagues in just a few minutes daily!  In those brief minutes, you will learn about the work of your colleagues and students, you might come across a really great resource, and you are bound to be inspired!

Subscribe to Lists!

If you are an Elk Grove High School staff member, and you want to connect with more EGHS staff, clubs, sports, or extracurricular groups, you can subscribe to my list: Elk Grove High School.  Just click on the link to get to my list. On the top left corner you will see the name of the list and and the "Subscribe" icon (screen shot below).  Click on "Subscribe" and you will be immediately connected to more colleagues and EG groups that you can follow.  Click on "List members" (just below the "Subscribe" icon), and you can choose the colleagues whom you wish to follow.  (You can subscribe to a list without following the members.)

If you are interested in connecting with more District 214 colleagues, you can subscribe to my list:
District 214.

Please note! If you are an Elk Grove or District 214 colleague and you find that you are not included in my lists, I would love to add you and connect with you! Please follow me and I'll follow you back, and then add you to the lists!  If I am already following you and accidentally missed you, please message me so I can add you! The more members we add to these two lists, the more we can grow our school and district connections!

Lists can be a great way to follow colleagues who share similar interests, or who teach the same subject.  For example, whenever I follow World Language teachers, I add them to World Language Educators.  That way, if I just want to quickly see the Tweets from these teachers, I can easily do so by checking that specific list.

You can find other interesting lists to subscribe to by checking out the profile pages of people you follow. You will see at the top of their profile pages:  Tweets, Followers, Following, Favorites, and Lists.  Click on their link of lists and, if they have made them public, you will be able to subscribe.

Create Your Own Lists!

As you follow more people, you may want to create your own lists.  It's easy!  When you follow someone, you will notice the settings gear icon to the left (photo below).  Click on the gear and choose, "Add or remove from lists . . . "  The next window will give you the option to "Create a list." You can choose to make the list public or private. Then click on setting gear for each person/group you are following to add them.  As you follow new people, remember to add them to the appropriate lists.

Next steps:  TweetDeck!

Once you get the hang of lists, you can set up TweetDeck. I think TweetDeck looks daunting at first; however, it really is easy to set up. And TweetDeck makes it SO much easier to organize your lists in columns so that you can efficiently check multiple lists at-a-glance.  More on the "how to" in a future post.

For now, I'll share below a screen shot to give you an idea of how I use TweetDeck. I include columns for both lists and hashtags.  For example, you will see columns for my EGHS and D214 lists. This week I added a column to follow all of the tweets of our D214 Graduations by creating a #d214Grad column.  I also have a #EGSR2015 column to follow our Summer Reading Tweets. You can add many, many columns if you wish, and easily scroll across them to check out all the tweets from your favorite categories.

If you want learn more about anything in this post, or anything at all about Twitter, come see us in the Collab Lab! Or contact us at CollabLab@d214.org. We would LOVE to help you, and grow our learning connections!

If you have ideas to share, please leave us a comment!

Book Recommendation: Teaching with Poverty in Mind

By Kim Miklusak

I've been reading a lot lately...This week's book recommendation is Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids' Brains and What Schools Can Do About it by Eric Jensen.

So often we as teachers can get wrapped up in the day-to-day of curriculum and assessment.  Sometimes we can overlook that what happens in the students' home lives--and, in fact, what has happened for their entire lives--plays an enormous role in not only their ability to accomplish the tasks we give them but also in their ability to function in class and process information and emotions.  This book serves as an excellent reminder in both theory and practice.

One of the most interesting concepts to me was the chapter on emotional challenges, stressors, cognitive lags, and health and safety issues and their effects on academics.  Jensen covers the how and why of these effects, but he then offers specific action steps for individual classroom teachers and whole schools.  This includes the graphic below that highlights the idea that while most people are "hardwired" for certain emotions, other emotions like those on either end of the "emotional keyboard" are ones that need to be taught--in this case, at times, by teachers.  This is partnered with the importance of a mindset of change, a concept also echoed in Mindset by Carol Dweck. 

A graphic from the book

Finally, Jensen closes with a chapter on schoolwide success factors and a chapter on classroom success factors.  At a schoolwide level, he suggests focusing on Support of the Whole Child, Hard Data, Accountability, Relationship Building, and an Enrichment Mindset.  At the classroom level, he focuses on Standards-Based Curriculum and Instruction, Hope Building, Arts/Athletics/Advanced Placement, Retooling of the Operating System, and Engaging Instruction.  He goes into great detail on each of these factors, including suggestions for avoiding common mistakes.

What makes this book so accessible to administrators and teachers alike is not only Jensen's approachable explanations of theories but also the tangible and manageable set of factors for helping to guide entire schools in better teaching students in poverty. 

Curriculum Changes-Mastery of Learning

By Mark Heintz


The Elk Grove freshmen human geography team added a document based question curriculum to achieve higher level thinking skills.  Over the last month of school, the team has been testing new ideas through student-centered document based instruction in hopes to get a great understanding of how to move forward next year.  The concepts and skills are driving a focus for next year in human geography centered around four main categories.

Content	Writing	Interpreting Texts	Interpreting Charts, Maps, Graphs
·        See each unit plan.	·        Write main ideas to examine and convey complex ideas. ·        Through writing, provide examples to support main ideas. ·        Through writing, analyze details.	·   State the main idea from texts. ·   Draw evidence from texts to support main ideas.	·   State the main idea of charts, maps, and graphs. ·   Provide evidence from charts, maps or graphs to support the main idea.
One summative multiple choice test per unit.	One summative writing per unit.  Each unit the skills will build upon each other.  The grade will reflect the students overall writing ability at the end of the semester.	One summative interpreting portion per unit as measured by providing the main idea and supporting details for the number of documents listed.  The overall category grade will be reflective of the student’s ability at the end of the semester.	One summative interpreting portion per unit as measured by a multiple-choice test.  The test will cover charts, maps and graphs.  The overall category grade will be reflective of the student’s ability at the end of the semester.
30% of the overall grade	30% of the overall grade	20% of the overall grade	20% of the overall grade

The team came to agreements that the semester grade would reflect student's current ability levels.  From the "testing" period, came a greater understanding of what students were capable of and what we as teachers could do to improve the student's mastery.  Over the semester, the skills would advance, requiring higher level thought processes.  Additionally as the year progresses, increasingly complex passages will be used as their abilities hopefully improve.

The work that we are doing is has been so rejuvenating for me as a teacher as we move towards a place where students are rewarded for mastering content and skills over time.  The students' learning is centered around interpreting texts, charts, maps, and graphs to learn content.  And then writing to express their understanding of content.  It is very powerful and the impact in the classroom leaves students tired from thinking so much.  

Another change is the instruction.  Since the team's focus is centered around a blend of skills and content, the instruction must mirror that.  That subject is for another post.

  

Guest Post: Adding Value to People

By Joe Bush

In February of 2015, I was fortunate enough to attend the John Maxwell Team Leadership Certification Program.  It was the best professional development I ever experienced, and the knowledge I learned from that conference fundamentally altered they way in which I teach.  The most important pieces of information that I took away from the three-day conference are as follows: 1. The best leaders are those who have the greatest influence, 2. Leaders need to serve, 3. Leaders need to add value to people and 4. Expectations drive beliefs and beliefs drive behavior.

As a teacher, I have always considered myself a leader. However, for much of my career, I was a positional leader.  A positional leader is someone who leads because someone else gave them a position.  An example might be an NFL head coach who was handpicked by the owner, but is unable to influence the players.  That type of teacher rarely has success in the classroom because they use their position to hold it over students.  After hearing John Maxwell (The Number One Leadership Guru in the World) speak, I began to think differently about teaching.  If I were going to truly change the minds and hearts of students and educate them they way that I saw fit, I was going to need to serve them.  The second part was adding value to the lives of the students. 

I would like to explain more on the notion of serving others and adding value through an example.  This year I was blessed with the opportunity to teach a leadership through service course.  What I quickly realized was that my students had great ideas, were already influential in their own circles and they all loved to serve.  After hearing Maxwell speak I realized that instead of pushing my own leadership agenda at the beginning of the year I should have focused on helping each student become more influential using their own strengths.  For some it may have been through public speaking, others it was through organization and still others just needed encouragement.  After coming back from the conference, I quickly changed my agenda in time to help the students succeed in our St. Baldrick’s charity drive.  As I incorporated Maxwell’s ideas, I could quickly see how the students grew in an explosive fashion.  I helped my students enhance what they already did well. 

The final piece to the puzzle was the idea that expectations drive belief and belief drives behavior. Motivational speaker and entrepreneur Paul Martinelli talked about how he overcame stuttering and the fact that he was a high school dropout to build several million-dollar businesses.  Paul said that belief drives behavior.  Therefore, if we think we are stupid, our behaviors are stupid.  However, because expectations drive beliefs, as a teacher it is our job to set expectations for our students to live up to.   When we set those expectations, hold students accountable and provide supports to assist them, students achieve more.

What I found to be the best part of the Maxwell training was the fact that serving and adding value to others is something that can be done regardless of your position. Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”  This is true because leadership is influence.  So, regardless of your position, you can always strive to be more influential, thus becoming a better leader.   Going forward, I will strive to add value to my students right from the start.  Each year will be different based on the different needs of students, but the lessons learned from that conference will forever change the way I think, lead and teach. 

Student Voice: Business Incubation & App Creation

This week the CollabLab welcomes guest bloggers Sean and Wendy, both juniors at Elk Grove HS.

Hi, I’m Sean Duffy and I partnered with my classmate, Wendy Rosenquist, to create our business, Údar. Both Wendy and I attend Elk Grove High School. We are part of the brand new EGHS Business Incubator program, which provides us with the resources and determination to create and pursue our business. In this new class, students, such as ourselves, are placed into a supportive environment where they are allowed to create their very own businesses. In its starting year, Elk Grove's Business Incubator program had 14 unique businesses that competed against each other in front of a panel of judges in order to continue on to compete against Wheeling High School's winning business incubator teams.

Údar won first place in Elk Grove High School's "Shark Tank" competition and went forth to face Wheeling's teams in D214's first ever Start Up Showcase. Once again Údar won the competition in a decisive tie between a rivaling businesses from Wheeling High School. From this experience I can say without a doubt that this new class offers a new and unique experience in learning while also bringing forth an exciting opportunity to gain an excellent foothold as a business in the real world! We can say that we will be taking this class once again without a doubt and we look forward to any competitors that are prepared to enter the EGHS business incubator program!

From Udar's website: "We are a mobile game meant for fun and enjoyment! Everyone has a story to tell, and that's where we come in. Check out our promo video below to learn more!"  Follow them on Twitter @Udar!

Library Books on Your iPad!

By Kim Miklusak

As a disclaimer, I've only started playing around with the OverDrive App this past week.  There are so many things I'm still discovering, but it's such an easy app, and it will be great for our Summer Reading books (#EGSR2015) and for reading more throughout the year, so I wanted to share!

OverDrive is a free app that allows you to access books, audio books, and videos from your local library.  It's available for iPhone and iPad (as well as other formats).  It's simple to sign up for an account.  Then you just add your local library or libraries.  In our case, when students search Elk Grove High School, our district libraries come up.  You can check out books using your library card number or ID depending on the library.

The books are searchable by level, by topic, by recommendations, etc.  You can even search for more than one category at once to narrow down your choices.  There's also an extensive section for recommendations based on books you like or have read.  Once you find a book, it's as simple as clicking "borrow" and "download."  Then the books are listed on your bookshelf to read whenever you want.  They can be downloaded or read off the web browser.  If your book is on hold, you just click "hold," and you will receive an email telling you when it's available.  Renewal is simple, too!  Either click "renew" when you receive your 3-day notice.  When you are finished, you click "return book," and it disappears from your bookshelf.  The app also tells you how many more days you have left before your book "expires."  No worries about overdue fees!

Do you have any experiences with OverDrive that you can share?  Leave them in the comments below!

Active Learning through a Scavenger Hunt

By: Rachel Barry

I don't know about you, but I have a few students who get frustrated in their seats.  I can't blame them.  I love that I get to spend each class period walking around while facilitating instruction in my classroom.  This is why every once and a while I create activities that have students move around.  One activity that I have found to be successful is a scavenger hunt.

Here is a Scavenger Hunt that I made for my freshmen to review angle properties and relationships.  I print these pages on cardstock paper and randomly tape them up around the room.  The bottom half of each page is the math problem that the students solve.  Once they have an answer, they look around the room at the top half of each cardstock paper to match their answer with one that is up on the walls.  If they find their answer, they solved the problem correctly, and their next problem is the bottom half of the page with their previous answer.  If their answer is not on another cardstock paper, they check over their work to see where they went wrong.

Typically I assign partners based on student understanding and ability of the topic.  I have found that working in partners gives each student a voice, and also allows me to help struggling students in smaller settings.  To pair up students, I use formative assessment scores to rank the kids highest to lowest.  Then I cut the list in half and match the top student with the student at the top of the second half of the class.  I keep working down the list to create partners, adjusting if I don't feel the personalities of the students will work well together.  I find that this process pairs students that are within a reasonable Zone of Proximal Development from one another.  

Students record their work and answers on this worksheet.  I used to do this prior to students having iPads, and it worked fine.  However, with the integration of technology, students are able to take pictures of the problems graphics and write on the diagram to solve the problem.  I actually observed a pair of students doing this, and now encourage all of my students to do the same.  

So much of our math curriculum is structured.  Bringing in an activity like a Scavenger Hunt fosters learning in an active and engaging way.  I get to see students teaching one another how to solve a problem, thorough discussions on whether or not the answer is positive or negative, and many other enticing conversations amongst my students.  I find it incredibly beneficial in classes that tend to get off task because they focus more on each individual problem in front of them instead of getting overwhelmed with a whole page or packet of practice problems.