Silvana Meneghini and I  have created a template for technology, learning and literacy coaches. In an effort to create a depository of examples and scenarios for lessons and activities and how an upgrade movement through the stages of the SAMR model actually looks like in the classroom, we are shared  the template and infographic of the model. http://langwitches.org/blog/2014/01/28/framework-for-professional-development-samr-template-infographic/ We are looking for teachers and coaches to contribute examples to that depository by going through the exercise via this form- http://langwitches.org/blog/2014/01/30/putting-activities-through-the-samr-exercise/ We will also be holding a Google Hangout on Air to discuss framework and walk participants through the exercise on Wednesday, February 12th at 6 pm EST. Would you mind strategically sharing this information with administrators, curriculum coordinators and learning coaches in your network?

Google Glass Reflection: In the first few days, I made it a point to wear Google Glass all day at school (…well as much as the battery life permitted). My main point was to get used to the feel of them on my head, to increase my fluency. (Happy to report that my initial complaint of this lack of fluency after the first week  with Google Glass is dissipating. As with most technology devices and apps, it just takes time to get used to tapping instead of clicking, winking instead of pushing the button… speaking a new language to have my voice recognized…. swiping next to my temple instead of a mouse pad…:) Wearing Google Glass all day, also allowed me to consciously make decisions on the fly, if I could use the device in certain situations (teachable moment, planning with a colleague, interesting discussion, worthwhile visual, googlable moment etc.). As I am walking into more and more classrooms with Google Glass on (with permission from the teacher), I make sure that I spend a few minutes in the beginning to TALK to students about what Google Glass is?…wearable technology, a mini- internet enabled device on my head… it is a device still in beta TESTING, which means that it is not perfect…does not work all the time the way I want it to work. where did I get it… I received a beta-invite to the Google Explorer program from Google… it is not available to be purchased by the public yet. why me?… I believe (maybe wishful thinking?),  I was chosen for the program as an educator and due to my philosophy of sharing my learning process. what is an explorer?…An explorer is a person who explores unfamiliar territory; someone with imagination, a mindset of an adventurer.  According to Google: " The Explorer Program is designed for people who want to get involved early and help shape the future of Glass." I want to be a model for our learning community to be an explorer, an innovator and a shaper of how we can use technology to transform learning. what are my goals and intentions?… my goals are to test Google Glass in school for education to improve teaching and learning. I want to find ways to use new technologies to find ways to transform our teaching and learning experiences. (Watch for an upcoming blog post about using Google Glass for filming at school). I want to make students and teachers aware of the implication of "disruptive technology" and spark conversation… what I will NOT use Google Glass for?… I am not "policing" anyone… I am not taking videos in class to "catch" students anyone doing something wrong. I am not taking pictures in order to embarrass anyone… my promise to observe digital citizenship… I will always ask permission to record or take an image… I will not share potentially embarrassing captured moments. I will observe a "no questions asked" policy of someone not feeling comfortable being recorded or photographed and I will take of my Google Glass if a teacher or student is uncomfortable around them. I  found it awkward in certain situations to continue having Google Glass on my head as I was continuing my field test. Cafeteria- I was there to eat… some colleagues at the table felt uncomfortable (unspoken feeling)… There was no need to wear Google Glass for the remote possibility of stopping a conversation and saying "Hey let me google that on my Glass"… It would not have felt fluid, but disruptive to the conversation (maybe just as disruptive, if I pulled out my iPhone to google something)… so as I have not found a need to use Glass during lunch, I make it a point to not even bring it into the cafeteria. Rest room- Yes, you read correctly… There comes a time during the day, ( even) if you are wearing Google Glass, that you will need to go to the rest room. I was not even thinking about the Google Glass on my head, when I entered. As soon as I saw that others were in the restroom , I felt that it was completely inappropriate for me to be wearing Google Glass (even in the turned off stage). I immediately disappeared in one of the stalls and closed the door (I don’t think anyone had noticed them on my head). Then the feeling of " privacy invasion" increased when I thought of the possibility of Glass taking an accidental image and sharing it with my Google Plus circle. Not a good feeling… Where was I supposed to place my Google Glass when I "have to go". I am making it a point to go to my office and dropping them off before heading to the "little girls’ room" 1:1 Teacher planning-  as teachers and I meet and plan together, I NEED a device to write notes, search, demonstrate, share resources and examples on the spot. My iPad is the first choice of device to take to those meetings. I am able to listen to a teacher and multitask by looking up examples or resources of interets at the same time to be able to share or project. It seemed awkward to use Google Glass to look  up any links. There was no way for me to instantly show the teacher (I am still not fluent enough to set up the scree share through my iPhone. Even then the iPad’s bigger screen seems to be a preferred solution. The lack of being able to take "silent" notes (to be shared later) in order to not interrupt the flow of the conversation also makes it impossible to rely on Google Glass to be the only device to bring to the planning meeting. It seemed silly and awkward to have both devices with me when the iPad was able to do the job for all my needs. Looking for more reflection and perspective on Google Glass in schools? Head on over to our school‘s High School principal, Blair Peterson ‘s blog as he also reflects in a recent blog post titled How is your school handling Google Glass? Google Glass Reactions: Student Reactions I spoke about the overwhelming range of reactions of colleagues during the first week  with Google Glass in school. The images below will speak for themselves of students’ reactions when trying on Google Glass. They continue to line up when they see me roam the hallways during their breaks. I have to chase them away so, they won’t be late for their next classes. Some of them had heard about Google Glass and were very knowledgeable about specific capabilities that the wanted to test out. Most of them were simply in awe of seeing the screen and being able to give voice commands and scroll though the timeline. Most heard comments were "Wow", "This is awesome", "Where can I get one", "I will save money", "This is incredible"… Other Reactions: Teachers and parents have voiced their concerns about privacy issue with Google Glass on campus. We need to have an open conversation, we need transparency in the intended use of Google Glass in educational spaces. We need to balance fears with the desire to MODEL AND BE INNOVATIVE, to "boldly go where no one has gone before"… We need to balance fears fueled by main stream media about the negative reactions. (Traffic Ticket for driving with Google Glass ,  Facial Recognition via Google Glass, Going to the Movies. Interrogated by FBI for Wearing Google Glass.) We need to balance fears with positive reports and documentation of how these technologies are making our lives better and can improve learning and innovation. (Google tests Smart Contact Lenses for Diabetics, The Future of Education Seen Through Google Glass, 365 Days with Glass ) Take a look at the article "New Privacy Menace? Cell Phones?" from Wired Magazine from 2003 (yes 11 years ago). The article was shared via my PLN on Twitter and we were asked to simply substitute the word "cell phone" with Google Glass. It looks like we had the SAME concerns about cell phones and their potential to invade our privacy as we do now with wearable technology such as Google Glass

The impact of the SELFIE on our culture has started to intrigue me. As I see my little granddaughter love looking at (and taking) pictures and videos of herself on the iPhone and iPad… I wonder what the long term impact will be. There are very few images of me, due to the fact that taking and developing images was expensive and I was a second child. The culture of taking photos back then (beyond for special occasions) was not common. In wonder about the impact of selfies on our culture? I wonder if there is a difference in views on selfies, what types of selfies and meaning of them in different cultures around the world? For now I am consciously aware of, documenting and follow the evolution of the selfie in my own family, at school, in different countries I visit and in the media. Image credit Elena- 22 months (picked her own filters too) Image (taking with Laptop webcam) by Elena- 7 months old My iPhoneography class at school collaborated on a list of TYPES OF SELFIES, and came up with the following outstretched arm duckface mirror "tongue" smile/pout tilted head peace sign sign language for "I love you" rapper fingers eyes squinting winking funny face shadow Here are their RECOMMENDATIONS AND TIPS for taking selfies: don’t take it from below (your chin will look disproportionate) don’t take it from above (your nose will look disproportionate) have good light (don’t be in poorly lit environments) be appropriate (keep LARK in mind) When I started using Google Glass in school, it was one of the most common reactions for students to immediately grab their phone to order to take a selfie. Selfie- Photo Credit (used with permission) Marina D. Image used with permission by Jack Looks like I am not the only one wondering about selfie and what does it mean for us as a culture? "ordinary people doing ordinary things" Selfie Culture (Graham Brown mobileYouth) from Graham Brown (mobileYouth) Analyzing Selfies from Tim Stock Dove, the creator of the Photoshop Transformation video, created another important video. This time about girls and their power to create their own image of beauty and redefine the view of society on beauty. In partnership with the Sundance Institute, directed by Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Cynthia Wade and produced by Sharon Liese, Sefie reveals how we have the power to redefine what is beautiful in all of us. Selfie captures the digital journey of a group of high school girls and their mothers, as they create a new type of selfie - one that celebrates their unique beauty. Dove wants to inspire all women to redefine beauty Interested in reading more about the phenomena of selfies? Extreme Selfies- This Selfie Is Pretty Much the Epitome of ‘Pics or Didn’t Happen’ Obama takes a selfie at Nelson Mandela’s funeral- The Obama-Selfie-Face-Gate First selfie for Hillary and Chelsey Clinton The first Papal Selfie The Selfie Olympics: A new trend of teenagers taking images of themselves in the bathroom The Meaning of the Selfies (New York Times) Investigating the style of self-portraits (selfies) in five cities across the world. (SelfiCity)      

I have a new favorite designer tool :  Canva Key Features: A simple new way to design. Easily turn your ideas into designs for Web and print. Search and drag simplicity. Search Canva’s integrated library of stock photographs, graphic elements and cut-out images then drag-and-drop to create your design. It’s online and free to use. Canva is entirely online so there’s no expensive software to install. Choose from one million images and hundreds of fonts. Design with 1 million photos, graphics and fonts, or upload your own. Collaborate with anyone, anywhere. Canva lets you share and edit your designs with friends, clients and coworkers. Canva has a very informative blog, if you are interested in blogging, visuals, designing and using design for your brand. I have been using the tool for the last few months to create slides for presentations, posters to hang around school or for illustration purposes on my blog. Canva has beautiful layout templates but still allows you to start from scratch, customize and design with your own creativity. There are plenty of images for you to use for free ( I have not felt the need to purchase any stock images). The easy drag and drop features make it very intuitive. I believe, you currently still need an invite to be able to use Canva. Just sign up via their site and activate account after receiving email. One feature I am desperately missing is a collaboration feature. For now, I am exporting the slides as images and inserting them into Google Presentations.  I was really excited to be able to use the tool with students. It would be a fantastic support tool when talking with students about the importance of visuals while blogging, help in their presentation and visual design skills. Unfortunately, I read in their Terms of Services: "Canva is a great service to use for creating your designs, but you have to be at least 18 years of age and fully able to form binding contracts in order to use it. You may not use the Service in violation of these terms or any laws or regulations." That puts a damper on being able to use the service with our K-12 students. I wonder if the canva team is thinking of allowing  educational accounts for students under the age of 18 or allow schools to act as guardians in order for students to create accounts. Here is an overview:

I am continuing to document using Google Glass at Schools. What are some ways we can use Google Glass in schools to document learning, reflections, practices and just life at schools? I brainstormed a few scenarios, I wanted to try out: teacher planning professional development highlights student perspective self-evaluation/reflection interviews conferencing PE skill practice on the spot reflection tutorials videos for flipped classroom Share your school with others (Admission, Recruiting, Marketing) First of all, let me thank all the "brave" teachers at Graded, The American School of São Paulo, who trusted me, were adventurous and jumped in with both feet when I approached them about testing Google Glass. They brainstormed with me potential uses to benefit their teaching and learning. They were gracious about being recorded. They were natural and professionals in  using Google Glass on their own with little more than the instructions of: Put them on your nose, say "OK, Glass" when you see the time on the screen and then say "Record a Video". Below you will see snippets of different scenarios. Some of the snippets make it obvious that Google Glass was acting as a substitute for any other device with camera possibilities,. Some of the snippets though show: a unique perspective from the videographer’s point of view. the videographer has two free hands to demonstrate, work, drive, show action. show that the people being filmed were more at ease (instead of a camera obviously pointing at them) and "almost forgot" that I was recording them. This lessened anxiety in some. the potential of the easy access through voice activation of the camera. No interruption of having to pull out the cellphone or grab a camera device. the spontaneity of being able to record a moment in time. Thank you to Rens (6th grade Graded student) for creating the music used in the above video clip. Are there any scenarios that you could think of where a device, such as Google Glass could help to enhance and contribute to experience transformational learning and teaching. Share your thoughts… I am ready to explore further.

Silvana Meneghini and I  work as Academic Technology Coordinators at Graded, the American School of São Paulo. " A flashlight in the fog of technology integration", initially the title of a conference workshop proposal, quickly developed into the desire of creating a framework to guide and coach teachers based on Ruben Puentedura‘s SAMR model. The framework does not place emphasis on technology devices (or technology integration) in itself, but on the process of upward movement from substitution to redefinition of tasks and learning activities. Our collaboration in developing said framework became a prime example it itself, demonstrating the power of a metacognitive approach to redefining the creation of a professional development framework. In an attempt to motivate educators to take another look around and evaluate the relevance in our modern world of traditionally taught lessons and activities, skills and curriculum, we encourage educators to continue learning how to learn. This past week, Silvana  and I hosted our first Google Hangout on Air . The hangout was the next natural step in transforming our own growth as learners. We wanted to share our framework, solicit feedback, gain perspective from the various experiences from other professionals and be open to revisions to our thoughts and framework. The short story of our transformative learning experience is as follows. Silvana used to have her own office. Isolated from daily informal interaction with a colleague to spontaneously chat, talk, request feedback, question, challenge or agree with. We share an office since I moved to São Paulo  at the end of last July. REACHING OUT- Local, face2face We talked, we pushed each other’s thinking on our thoughts, points of view, practices and visions of educational technology and modern teaching and learning. There were some extremely good conversations going on in our little office. The big huge whiteboard which takes up one entire wall in the office, was being put to good use as we brainstormed, wrote, erased, doodled, starred, circled and started over again several times. Our essential question: How could we best support our teachers in going beyond adding technology to their existing lessons and units? Silvana marveled at the relationship of the SAMR model, technology and pedagogy and reflected in her fascinating blog post titled Technology shoving Pedagogy to the center stage? TPACK Reviewed. From our brainstorming thoughts and attempts in articulating our idea of helping teachers think deeply about the difference of using technology to substitute a traditionally taught lesson and what redefining relevant LEARNING means, we started reaching out. REACHING OUT - Global, Small group We enlisted the help of 3 trusted colleagues of our PLN, who we knew would support us in starting to create a depository of classroom activities that were put through the different stages of the SAMR model (developed by Ruben Puentedura. Andrea Hernandez (USA), Allanah King (New Zealand) and Maggie Hos-McGrane (Mumbai) contributed the first three examples and in the process helped us see the value of creating the SAMR framework and exercise to support teachers in working through the relationship of technology, pedagogy and relevant teaching and learning. REACHING OUT- Global, Crowodsouring, open group In our belief that a myriad of examples of different grade levels, subject areas and activities would support and benefit our teachers and in turn other educators as well. We reached out further to ask members of our PLN to contribute to a Google Form, that guided them through the SAMR exercise. The feedback was positive, that going through the exercise proved to be "incredibly helpful" and "forced me to think about tech integration". REACHING OUT- Global, for feedback, amplification, deep discussion and conversation Blogging is part of my reflection and learning process. It was natural to share and solicit feedback via Langwitches. My readers did not disappoint by leaving thought provoking comments. Dissemination via Twitter is another unconscious part of my learnflow. Monitoring responses, questions and RT (retweets) allows me to gauge the interest, feasibility and helpfulness of an idea, template or resource that I am sharing with my network. Challenging ourselves to take it beyond the comfort zone of our blogs and Twitter, we invited Cathy Beach (educator from Canada) and  Laurel Jankewitz (Math teacher at Graded, The American School of São Paulo) to be part of our first attempt in using Google Hangout on Air. We created an event and disseminated the day and time via our PLN. At one point there were 20+ viewers of the live stream. We truly learned as a group across timezones and continents. Canada, USA, Mexico, Brazil, UK, India, and Australia were viewers who identified themselves during the event.  The active participation of the following educators truly lifted our understanding and learning to new levels. Thank you for staying / getting up at all hours of the night/ morning to be part of the learning. Thank you Dana Watts, Karin Hallett, Josh Mika, Joe Dale, Becky Fisher, and Chrissy Hellyer! Below are some of my notes as I was going over the questions submitted during the Hangout. At one point the question was raised, if the Google Hangout in itself Karin Hallett, a friend and former colleague (we happen to speak German/English with each other) gave me feedback via email after reading my blog posts about the framework. She questions the last step of the process being revision and suggests the addition to evaluation/reflection as an integral part of the PROCESS subfocus area.   Of course! How could we forget the reflection as part of the process. Back to the drawing board.   credit for the "reflection icon"that is part of the one above goes to Kevin S. (a Graded student) Next week, Silvana and I are on our way to ASB Unplugged to present in person our framework and ask our workshop participants to put their activities through the exercise, pick it apart, judge it for usability to think deeper about pedagogy and modern teaching and learning. Looking back on the process of my learning that I have described above, I truly believe it has been redefined. My LEARNING has been redefined, not because I was able to have a Hangout or blog or tweet, but because of the ability to receive feedback, talk to colleagues and learn with people who believe just as passionately about the value in sharing and contributing to other people’s learning than I do. The biggest take away for me is Becky Fisher’s comment about the IMPACT, not the ACTION that defines the redefinition stage. So… how do we translate that into our schools to give our students the IMPACT, not just the ACTION?

My Middle School is using blogger (part of Google) as a platform for our students’ blogfolios. The blogfolio (term coined by Andrea Hernandez)  is part blog and part digital portfolio. Students not only showcase their best work, but document their learning journey. A blogfolio shows student work at a particular moment in time (due to its chronological nature) with a reflective component to show evidence of growth and learning over time. Using a blog as a platform amplifies the opportunities for: social learning for writing with a global audience in mind for receiving feedback, new perspectives and becoming a link in the chain of learning of oneself and others archiving information over time: organizing, linking, connecting, categorizing One component of the blogging platform, that supports a strategic and pedagogical redefinition and transformation of learning are labels (as used in Blogger) or categories and tags  (as in WordPress). Blogs and labels are  also about INFORMATION LITERACY. We are in the age of information overload. Our students will amass more and more digital information at a faster and faster rate. We have to prepare them to not only create it, but also to organize that information. Labels/categories function as a tool: for searching for filtering for curating for organization of assessment over time. Our students use the blogging platform as their hub for documenting and reflecting on their learning. It means that they do NOT have a separate blog for Math, another one for Humanities or P.E. All there work is on one blog. With time that means hundreds of blog posts in one school year and potentially thousands of posts over several years. When not organized well, this can become… well… a mess… Students won’t be able to find a particular post or another , when selecting blog posts for their Student Led Conference. It will make it impossible to search for specific posts, when not choosing blog post titles containing specific, related keywords. Teachers will spend more and more time having to look through hundreds of student blogs to find a post, created for their subject area. Instead they could have been subscribed (via RSS feed) to their subject specific category or tag, filtering like this other student blog posts irrelevant to their feedback or assessment. Labeling  becomes indispensable for bloggers. Being able to organize your work, tag it, categorize, group them and later on find them again IS PART OF INFORMATION LITERACY!   As our school (K-12) is slowly spreading blogfolios across all grade levels, we have to look a labeling as part of  the "big picture". How will we use the blog for growth over time?  How do we facilitate connections and the learning process for specific skills?A reader of a blog, should be able to tell, by simply looking at the list of labels/categories what types of blog posts the author likes to write about. When labeling, keep the following in mind: Universal: It is important to keep labels/categories broad. When choosing a label/category, ask yourself if you will be blogging about this type of content again?… frequently?…. Think of your readers. Would a potential reader be interested in finding more blog posts like the one you just labeled with that category? Less is more: The broader your labels, the less labels you will need in the future. The less labels, the easier for your reader to find items of interests. Pre-set Labels: As a school community, we have pre-set labels, that we ask every students to choose from for EVERY blog post they publish. Grade Level and subject area labels are a must and the label "SLC" will be used, if a student chooses to highlight a particular post to present during their Student Led Conference. We are also asking students to label blog posts with the identified core values by the school. Personalized Labels: Learning does not only happen in school during the pre-set hours of the school schedule. We are encouraging our students to document and reflect on the learning and the growth outside of the curriculum areas. Students will create (universal) labels for their out of school interests and learning that they choose to share on their blogs. When left to their own devices, some  label/category lists on student blogs have gone a little out of control. Hundreds of labels, when there are only 10 blog posts to date, do not help but hinder the information flow. I am recommending to be extra careful to not create the following labels/categories: Two versions of the same label. Ex. reflective and reflection. Try to stay consistent. Specific technology tools. Unless you are a pro at a specific tool and you envision to be writing regular posts about the mechanics, examples and tutorials about Photoshop, for example, do not label your posts with the tool you happened to use to create an image inserted into your post. No need to label your post with your name…. this is your blog… supposedly all posts are by you…unless you invite a guest blogger A specific book title. Although you might write two or three posts about a specific book, most likely you will move on to other books and never use the same book title label again. Better to use a label called "books" or "reading" in order to tie and connect with other posts about books you have read. Examples of current label lists of our student blogfolios I am looking to learn with all of you. How can we support our student blogs with a labeling system that guides students in learning to work, organize and curate their own digital information? The digital information created by our studnets (inside and outside of school) will jut keep growing exponentially! How are you teaching students to label their work on their individual blogs? Have you created a system for your class or your entire school to facilitate multi-year blogging? How are your librarians and media specialists getting involved? Further resources about labeling Tips for  using labels on your blog Using Categories and Tags Effectively on Your Blog Putting some thoughts into categories and tags

When using Copyrighted work with written permission from owner… Used with permission from "name" , URL link to original source and or owner online presence. Ex. Used with permission from Silvia Tolisano http://langwitches.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/google-glass-recording-225×225.jpg When using images licensed under Creative Commons… Image licensed under Creative Commons by "name or username ". Link to original source. Ex. Image licensed under Creative Commons by langwitches- http://langwitches.org/blog/2014/02/13/google-glass-recording-at-schools/ When using an image falling under Public Domain, you are not required to cite the creator/owner of the work. A teacher or student wanting to model awareness for Public Domain might want to choose to include. Image from Public Domain by "name". Link to original source.   When using images claiming Fair Use, you have to give full credit to original creator , with name  as well as link to original source (ex. Book or website) Image used, claiming Fair Use. "Full Name"- and source of original work.   Click to enlarge poster.

I have been following Suzie Boss on Twitter for years, but finally had the pleasure of meeting her in person at ASB Unplugged this past week in Mumbai, India.  I attended her workshop of Project Based Learning. Tweeting has become my preferred method of note taking at conferences , since it has the potential of lifting the usual individual activity to much higher collaborative levels. (taking advantage, if other tweeting participants are present, of backchanneling with on-site or off-site participants and curating and adding other participants’ perspectives). I also feel that my efforts to disseminate by using my (public) Twitter feed, as well as using the conference hashtag (#asbunplugged) adds value (hopefully) to a larger audience. I am also reminded of the Headlines Visible Thinking Routine by Project Zero, when I am tasked to share and catch reader’s attention in their Twitter feed. This routine draws on the idea of newspaper-type headlines as a vehicle for summing up and capturing the essence of an event, idea, concept, topic, etc. The routine asks one core question: 1. If you were to write a headline for this topic or issue right now that captured the most important aspect that should be remembered, what would that headline be? A second question involves probing how students’ ideas of what is most important and central to the topic being explored have changed over time: 2. How has your headline changed based on today’s discussion? How does it differ from what you would have said yesterday? Below you will find my embedded Storify tweets (I was not aware of tweets  from other participants in that session). The exercise itself ,of curating my tweets to "tell the story" of summarizing my understanding/documentation of Suzie’s session,  is a valid component of learning by remembering and reflection. A learnflow of note-taking at conference could be summarized as: listening summarizing (in 140 characters or less) curating (adding resources, retweeting valuable contributions by other participants) disseminating (to my Twitter followers/via conference hashtags) reviewing notes/tweets (by going through my Twitter feed or via Storify) creating a filtered story of a particular session or event via Storify [View the story "ASB Unplugged" on Storify]

Recruiting does not happen via newspapers anymore (mostly). In the International teaching circles, the trend is also moving away from recruiting fairs and more and more towards making contact and hiring through networking and social media. There is something inherently hopeful for the match between a potential hire AND a school, when both are network literate and fluent to facilitate the initial connection and go through a hiring process. It is also evident that social media and networking can facilitate connecting the candidate to a school, which otherwise would never have been able to get in contact with each other. Graded, the American School of São Paulo (Brazil), is looking for a match for its High School position: Innovative Science and Technology Education If you are, know of someone or a willing to disseminate via your network the opening, please link, tweet or contact our HS principal directly (blair.peterson@graded.br) Please see the job description below. Graded seeks a dynamic and forward-thinking science educator to join an already outstanding team for the 2014 school year. Over the past three years, the school has revamped the curriculum to make it make it more relevant for our students. The person will be charged to work with the science team to explore ways to offer students STEM-type of learning opportunities. While the person will initially teach Integrated Science II and IB Physics, the possibilities for the future may include electives such as, Design Technology, Robotics, or Engineering. These offerings will complement our current offerings of International Baccalaureate Biology, Chemistry and Physics. In grades nine and ten, Graded has adopted an integrated science program through . The curriculum Educhange is truly integrated and the units spiral over the two years. The five units include: ? Environmental Dynamics ? Genetic Unity and Diversity ? Food Nutrition and Fitness ? The Quest for Energy ? Health, Drugs and Disease The person hired will work closely with another member of the science department to collaborate on the Integrated Science II course. Currently, Graded students are , creating programming prototypes with a 3D printer in our MakerSpace, and the Graded Developers’ Association is learning programming skills. This is just the beginning of a movement towards increasing STEM opportunities and the possibilities for the future are endless. Graded is a private, co-educational, non-sectarian, nonprofit day school for children ages 3 through 18. The school follows an American curriculum with instruction in English and is accredited in the United States through AdvancED and in Brazil by the Ministry of Education. The school has three divisions: ? Lower School, from 3 years old to grade 5 ? Middle School, grades 6-8 ? High School, grades 9-12 The Lower School consists of the Montessori Preprimary (3 years old through Kindergarten) and the Elementary (Grades 1 -5). The High School program is college preparatory and all graduates receive an American High School diploma. Students also have the opportunity to earn an International Baccalaureate diploma and a Brazilian High School diploma. The initial contract is for two years, with one year renewable afterward. Graded offers a competitive salary and benefits package that includes international health and dental insurance, a housing allowance and furnishings, a severance savings plan, annual home leave at the end of each contract, moving and settling in allowances and professional development funds. Please contact the High School Principal, Blair Peterson ( to learn more about this blair.peterson@graded.br) opportunity. Candidates can apply through Graded’s  website  

Following the post:  Note- Taking Learnflow of a Conference Workshop, here is the second story of my curated tweets from a session with Julie Lindsay. My favorite take away from her well run workshop was her quote "Flat learning is a pedagogy". Amplifying our classroom, allowing students to reach out beyond the classroom walls, learning from people in different timezones, cultures and languages shouldn’t be a one time project, but a way how we teach, not a tool we use to connect every once in a while Designing Engaging Curriculum for Global Collaboration in the Classroom [View the story "ASB Unplugged- Globally Connected Projects" on Storify]

It is no secret, that I am a big fan of Alan November‘s Digital Learning Farm concept. I especially believe in Teaching is the Highest Form of Understanding and the power of motivation and demonstration of evidence of student learning via the Tutorial Designer role. See a myriad of blog post on the topic over the years: Is It Worth It? Student Created Tutorials Creating Blog Tutorials for Parents & Grandparents Quality Tutorial Designer’s Checklist Tutorial Designers, Guides, Step-by-Step Instructions: Amplification & Imagination Tutorial Designers- Empowered Learners- Contributors At the beginning of the  year, I was tasked to redesign the school’s 1:1 Toolkit Class at my new school. With the end in mind, I wanted students to learn basic skills along the way (movie making,  screencasting, blogging, copyright, etc.) and allowed them to create tutorials to teach other either about a specific tech skill or any other topic that they were interested in. We also reached out to the world via a survey to receive authentic feedback what type of tutorials would be of interest to a wider audience and took the results as a guide as students developed a variety of tutorials. Here are a few results Do you know how to make a Google Site? Try it out using this tutorial! by Alyssa  1:1 Toolkit SLC video by Nadya Minecraft Tutorial by Logan Beginning Minecraft by Jack My Blogger Tutorial  by Karin iMovie Tutorial Reflection by Diego Friendship Bracelets for Dummies by Fiona Reflection on Tutorial by Mathew How to buy music on iTunes by Bernardo How to Ride a Horse by Brenna iMovie Tutorial  by Pietra iMovie Tutorial by Yael Reflection iMovie tutorial by Juan    

Silvana Meneghini and I created a website that houses all the resources and examples for the Professional Development Framework based on the SAMR model we developed. Interested in the history of the framework? Checkout a previous post Redefining My Learning Want to put your own thinking and activity through the exercise?  Putting Activities Through the SAMR Exercise Want to take a look at the Matrix, integrating TPACK and SAMR? Looking for specific examples from subject areas and grade levels? Elementary School Examples from the Classroom High School Language Arts Math Middle School SAMR Science Social Studies World Languages We welcome feedback, questions and suggestions.

I have been facilitating an iPhoneography activity for our Middle Schoolers over the past two quarters. iPhoneography is defined by Wikipedia as: Phoneography is the art of creating photos with an Apple iPhone.This is a style of mobile photography that differs from all other forms of digital photography in that images are both shot and processed on the iOS device. It does not matter whether a photo is edited using different graphics applications or not The class was 40 minutes long, which I divided into the following workflow: 10 minutes of challenge explanation 20 minutes of "in the field" photography 10 minutes of photoapping and sharing of final images We worked on: basic photography tips, such as contrast, brightness, depth of field and saturation photoapping (sending one image through several apps to achieve a desired result) storytelling communicating via images In addition, the class discussion, activities and reflections  lend themselves to: copyright (digital citizenship) photo etiquette (digital citizenship) (exponential) producer-culture (media & information literacy) editing of media (media & information literacy) visual storytelling (media literacy) instant sharing (network literacy, digital citizenship) photoapping (tech fluency) I built the class around photo challenges (There are many, many photo challenge suggestions shared online… just google them. I also use an app iPhotography Assignment Generator) : Feet Selfies Something green Depth of Field Clouds Forced Perspective Scavenger Hunt Reflection Black and White Angle & Perspective Cartoons What’s next? During the last nine weeks of the school year, I will be offering another activity for Middle School students. We will focus our efforts on the infamous Cultural Phenomena of the Selfie. We would love to make contact with classes from around the world to exchange selfies in order to look for cultural trends, best photography tips and overall give our students an opportunity to redefine the concept beauty. Interested to connect and collaborate with my students about Selfies? Interested in "just" contributing selfies? Get in contact with me via Twitter (@langwitches) or via this blog. Take a look at some of the challenges I shared with students and examples below. (Thank you  and credits to all the photographers from iPhoneography! Ana Luiza, Ale, Laura, Vicki, Anna, Fiona, Hannah, Ian, Patricio, Lara, Ida, Giovanna, Ana Clara, Manuela, Gabriela, Belen, Laura, Lauren, Isabel, Martina, Luiza) Look on down…Feet, Feet and More Feet Let’s take a look at our feet today. Why feet you might ask? …Why not? Sometimes it is not "just" about the object in your photograph, but about the STORY behind it. It is about the story "your feet" tell. I wanted to share with you the following blog, with a truly inspirational post about : Why Take Self- Portraits of your Feet? Your mission today is to tell a story with a picture of (your) feet. Something Green Colors… Colors… Colors… Our world is colorful. Photography allows us to focus in on one element of our world and bring it to the foreground to enjoy without distractions. A photographer leads the eyes of the viewer to something that otherwise he/she might not have noticed.Let’s focus on the color green. There are entire Pinterest Boards dedicated to the color green. Cartoons Do I need Glasses? It is so blurry… Depth of Field You have all seen these photos. Only part of the photograph is in focus, the rest seems blurry and further away. That is called in photography terms "Depth of Field". "Depth of Field is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image." (Wikipedia) We are on Cloud Five Let’s work on photoapping today. use any app you would like or try out this new (free) one Pixlr Express+ After you sent your photo through one, two or three apps, use a Pic Collage app (like PicStitch) to show BOTH pictures and email them to me to upload and showcase them on our Pinterest Board.Let’s look up today! Up, up, up to the clouds. It is ok if we have beautiful blue skies in São Paulo… make it your challenge of the week to take a photo of interesting clouds, photoapp it and send it to me via email to be included on our Pinterest Board. Forced Perspective Ever heard of "forced perspective"?Definition according to Wikipedia: Forced perspective is a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It is used primarily in photography, filmmaking and architecture. It manipulates human visual perception through the use of scaled objects and the correlation between them and the vantage point of the spectator or camera Let’s look at lots of examples 5 tips for forced perspective photography Forced perspective examples on Pinterest 25 Awesome Examples Creative Forced Perspective Images Scavenger Hunt Challenge Today you will complete a Scavenger Hunt! You will roam campus to take one image for each one of the assignments to complete the hunt. Once you have images for all assignments, import to PicCollage app and label the image with the title of the assignment. E-mail me the final image from PicCollage. The time stamp of the email will confirm the winning photographer. Photograph the following assignments (Total of 7 images): cold funny brave light fuzzy jumps separated Black & White Challenge Reflection Challenge It is the photographer’s job to show something that others do not see in their photograph. Today’s challenge is to capture a reflection.It can be an intentional reflection or a reflection that normally we would run by and might see it. Let’s see how creative you will be. Selfie "Selfie" was voted Oxford’s Dictionaries word of the year in 2013. "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website" What types of selfies are out there? outstretched arm duckface mirror "tongue" smile/pout tilted head peace sign sign language for "I love you" rapper fingers eyes squinting winking funny face shadow Silhouette Challenge Definition of a Silhouette by Wikipedia  A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single color, usually black, its edges matching the outline of the subject. Perspective Challenge Contrast, Brightness, Saturation Challenge Sometimes ordinary photos can be transformed (edited) with just a few adjustments. Check if your favorite photoediting app has adjustments for Contrast Saturation Brightness Suggested Apps: Snapseed Pixlr Express

I am presenting  at AASSA 2014- Association of American Schools in South America, here in São Paulo, Brazil today and tomorrow. Over 900 educators from South American schools (American and International) are here to REDEFINE RELEVANCE! Are the so called 21st century buzz words a cliche or yet another fad? Or are we in the middle of a learning revolution? We are into the second decade of this "21st century" that seems to be part of labels for everything in education these days. What does it mean to be literate in 2014? What will being educated mean for the class of 2027? Is traditional reading and writing enough? Let’s look at some of these terms, their implication for our schools, and examples of educators who have embraced "new forms" of teaching and learning. Learn how you can look past the semantics and work towards preparing your teachers and students for a changed world. Modern Skills -> Literacies -> Fluency from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

I am presenting  at AASSA 2014- Association of American Schools in South America, here in São Paulo, Brazil today and tomorrow. Over 900 educators from South American schools (American and International) are here to REDEFINE RELEVANCE! This concept of a PLN has been around for many years. What has changed in recent years though is the reach, the size and the availability of that network. Your PLN is no longer tied to your zip code and you no longer work in isolation. Collaboration no longer just means to work with a colleague in your building. You are able to connect to educators from around the world who are ready and willing to teach beyond the walls of their own classroom. Your PLN is customized as: • it filters the vast information available and pushes what interests you • you choose who is part of your network • you decide when and how to access and use it Learning how to build your own PLN is: • a 21st century skill • learning about tools that enable your to make these connections • being in charge of your own Professional Development • connecting to educators who will contribute to your learning • extending your learning • receiving "just in time" learning and help • becoming globally aware • sharing your own best practices • experiencing the power of 21st century learning for yourself • filtering through "too much" available information Building a PLN from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

There is a NEED and URGENCY of updating curriculum and instructional repertoire to give the critical literacies of our century justice. Upgrading and amplifying traditionally taught activities, lessons, units or entire classroom learning environments takes time and practice. Just as in any sport, if you want to get better at it, you have to put in the time and practice. The same holds true with upgrading and amplifying. Most educators are "not in shape" and not in the routine of upgrading their curriculum to embed emerging critical literacies and amplifying their own and their students’ work. Curriculum Upgrade & Amplify Exercise from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

My 7th grade advisory students together with Ms. Arcenas‘ group has been discussing the impact of Google Glass, mainly because I have been bringing my Google Glasses to class and am sharing my experience with the students. As a grade level, we have been exploring Digital Citizenship and the impact wearable technology has, is and will have on our perception, definition and lives as  Digital Citizens. Students jotted down their initial feelings about the Pros and Cons of Google Glass technology in a collaborative spreadsheet. Invading people’s privacy (surprisingly!), cheating and becoming distracted or lazy was a major concern to many students. Pro Con Instant access to info and recording. Distraction for class. Share our perspective. Hazard for walking through streets. Might need it for work, work more efficiently. You have a less chance of being caught doing something bad. makes life faster you can be watched, tracked, and/or stalked. people can be "glassholes" Can share special moments with friends Can be robbed of them easily and cos Easier to contact people around the world You could catch a virus in the technology (google glass.). You can search up anything anywhere Is more efficient for social life You can do something wrong while walking. Somebody could see something about you and like it and want to meet you or offer you something. Someone could blackmail you with what they have found on the internet that was filmed by someone else, or someone else has filmed of you without your permission. Easier for learning, can help teachers, and help schools. Could distract people in class, might not listen to the teachers. Easier to find way around with Google Maps. Someone could stalk you. Easier for politicians to contact other people anywhere. People are taking the risk of exposing themselves to others. For example, with the google glass, you can not know  if someone is filming you or not. It is an all in one device. It has video, camera, time, etc. People might not know if people wearing the Google Glass are disturbing your privacy example: filming, taking pictures, face identity. So you will be able to talk to your friends and family whenever you want. People could feel exposed and like their lives are out in the open to people with Google Glass Could help you with reminders, if you have homework and you have to be reminded: it can help you remind you in the morning or the night before. You could get better homework grades. It could help you cheat on tests and quizes. It helps if a person wants to know something immediately. During class people could be doing other things that they are supposed to without the teacher even knowing. It can help teachers film their students presentations to measure progress. People could be on websites or things they’re not supposed to be doing and no one would ever know. Able to film something important With google glass, people will lose their privacy. Maybe something bad about the person is on their identity, and that might be dangerous. Able to film something instant for example a plane crashes and you could be evidence. No privacy new technology You can film them and embarrass them/ cyber-bully. You can share things with distant family and friends/ Take picture and videos/ talk to people/ research People can stalk you, cyberbullying With google glass, accessing things are easier when using your phone. People can cheat Be able to share film and photo instantly anywhere you are. Picture from your eyes perspective Could be filming someone without them knowing or taking someone’s privacy. Being able to film something at any time. Invade people’s privacy through filming without them not knowing. Makes your life easier. ????????? Easier to people record your personal life without permission A person who constantly talks to their Google Glass, ignoring the outside world. Can access information and do searches faster and more efficiently people take pics/vids of you when you don’t want to Our discussion continued: We shared with students the recent Do’s and Don’ts of Google Glass Explorers, Google’s Glassiquette Some Google Glass explorers reported that "Wearing Glass, I’ve had more people take my photo without my permission than I’ve taken photos of people without their permission. " We talked about the term "Glassholes"and the word’s origin and rapid spread. We compared the saying "Guns don’t kill people, people kill people" and how does this apply when thinking about using Google Glass in public. All the possibilities technology makes possible that Google Glass is using, is available in some shape or form on other tech devices. Any new device seems to "make the public" upset until everyone becomes used to it and another new technology appears on the horizon and the "old" technology has become main stream. Since our discussion, Google published a post on their blog, trying to debunk the Top 10 Google Glass Myths I recorded a few moments of the students ‘conversation. The irony was that I had to record the video clips with my iPhone, since my Google Glass had run out of battery! To emphasize the point of responsibility and trust, when someone is using recording devices, I showed the students the movie I created from the recorded clips and asked their permission to share it to a larger audience on Langwitches. My policy is to give them the choice to say no, "I don’t want to be included" (No questions asked). Please forgive the interrupted flow of the conversation, since some parts were deleted at the request of the student. Google Glass Etiquette and Digital Citizenship: What do the Kids Think? from langwitches on Vimeo.

cross posted with permission from Dr. Silvana Meneghini,’s On The Edge Blog. Silvana, the High School Technology Coordinator at Graded, The American School of São Paulo, shared a How-To post to connect augmented reality to student reflection by adding a layer of learning (not technology for technology sake). I highly recommend adding her blog to your RSS reader and following her on Twitter to connect with her learning and teaching journey. Enjoy Silvana’s post below: Augmented Reality allows you to expand the experience of the real world with information, video, sound, GPS data, and so on. If well utilized, it can be much more than just another cool tech thing… You will see below an example of how Augmented Reality was used to expand the experience of visitors to our school’s Art Exhibit. As students had to reflect on and verbalize their artistic choices, an augmented reality layer was created for viewers of the exhibit. In the process, students were excited about sharing with an authentic audience and had to really recall and reflect. It created a hyperlinked reality that enabled amplification of the viewers’ learning experience that was much more engaging than text. By pointing a tablet or smartphone at a painting, through the viewing lens of Aurasma App, visitors could learn about the artist that influenced the work and techniques that were applied. Through Aurasma, an "overlay" video appears to be coming directly out of the painting and the student starts talking to you. But wait… this engaging effect of merging the video with the real object does not happen automatically in Aurasma Studio. It was consciously created to provide the "real" augmented reality experience, through the use of green screen effects. In order to do that, the overlay video had to be superimposed on the image of the real object, which is easily done with the GreenScreen by Do Ink App on iPad . So we first took a picture of the painting that was then inserted as a background at the Green Screen App. As we hold the iPad to record the student, we would already see the painting image on the background, allowing the correct positioning of the iPad camera to give the desired illusion. This is a very easy and quick process if you have a green screen already setup in your school and the students were able to do the recording by themselves. Below you can watch the overlay video for the Horsehead painting created with Green Screen by Do Ink, and check the type of content on artistic choices and technique. Aurasma was used only to create an "Aura", which is a combination of the "trigger" image (picture of the real object, in this case the painting) and the "overlay". How to: Step 1: Take a picture of the real object for your Trigger Image Tip: If the trigger image is not detailed enough it will generate an error. Crop the image on its more detailed parts. The resulting Aura will be focused around the cropped part, but at least it will show. Step 2: Use a Green Screen App to create an Overlay Video Install Green Screen by Do Ink from Apple Store on iPad or Cell Phone (Tutorial) Add the Camera to record over green screen Add the Trigger Image (the same as the real object - will show on the background) Place camera so actor appears in the right position over background image Record Step 3: Use Aurasma Studio to create an Aura Prefer the online Aurasma Studio to the App Add a Channel Add your Trigger image Add your Overlay video Create / Add an Aura: Select Trigger image Select Overlay Choose Channel Step 4: Provide instructions for Viewers Install the Aurasma App Search for your Channel Follow the Channel Then point to the real object and see the Aura come to life!

The conversation about visible thinking in Math started with one of our teachers at Graded, The American School of São Paulo, Adam Hancock, wanting to know how he could incorporate having students’ use their blogfolios in Math class. It seemed natural to have students write for Humanities (Language Arts and Social Studies), but writing did not seem part of what Middle School Math was about. How could "blogging" go beyond taking a digital image of a Math problem on paper or a quiz and writing about  "how the student felt about solving the problem or passing the test?"or ask themselves what they could have done better? One of the first steps was to bring more "language" into the Math classroom. In a Skype call with Heidi Hayes Jacobs, she said that Math should be taught more like a foreign language. Students need to know vocabulary words and become fluent in "speaking Math", in order to be able to communicate their thoughts and ideas. Videos and screencasts are great tools to articulate, visualize and then share ones’ thinking when working to solve a Math problem. Below is a video of Adam, modeling solving a mathematical equation. Google Glass- Math Equation from langwitches on Vimeo. Making Mathematical Thinking visible had the following purpose for Adam in his classes: 1. give students a truly differentiated math experience and expose them to a wide variety of math concepts. 2. encourage self directed learning and allow them to demonstrate their understanding in a way of their choosing. 3. make their learning process visible and allow students to reflect on their growth and learning in the process of solving the problem, by using the KWHL routine (What do I know? What do I want to know? How will I find out? What have I learned?) KWHL by Mary Prezi by Isabella More student blog posts: Nico’s KWHL Chart and Problem (chart, video, text) David’s Math KWHL (Chart & video) Andre’s  KWHL Chart ( video, text) Lucas’ KWHL Problem (image, video, text) Alexandre’s KWHL Problem: Quadratic Equation (graph, audio) The process of making mathematical thinking visible, as well as the artifacts’ quality, was hopeful, awkward, "messy" and challenging… Adam and my observations: Students were working in different areas of math, and most of them had to learn something new, and tie it to what they already know in order to explain their problem. It is not a natural skill for students to be able to "speak" Math. There is a need to expose and encourage students to use mathematical language to communicate. The ability of being able to articulate and make a thinking process visible is a skill we need to support our students in becoming fluent in. It was challenging for students to think about and articulate their learning value instead the production value of their artifact. Some students focused in their reflection on documenting the steps of what they did as they were solving the problem, not on the necessary thinking that was involved. Some students don’t/didn’t see the reason why they should be reflecting on their learning in Math. It seemed unnatural to ask students to write a reflective blog post tagged on the end. It seems artificial and one more thing to do as an add-on, versus reflection as part of the learning process. Option of breaking the reflection process into different blog posts along the way, which later on can be linked to each other to demonstrate the process path. When students are given a lot of freedom to demonstrate their understanding, a lot of them need structure and some clear guidelines or else the product does not turn out very well. This may improve with practice and more opportunities for them to work independently.  Many students didn’t fully follow the KWHL routine, and only posted an explanation to their problem.  In some cases the explanations were wrong. In many cases, they didn’t actually post the KWHL page, and so they lost sight of "the point".  Maybe because this was a new process, a lot of students produced "the bare minimum ". Generally speaking, students who are conscientious and engaged did well and produced meaningful blog posts. If they did the KWHL process correctly, they documented what they didn’t know before they began researching their problem, and then demonstrated what they learned in the process. There is a sense among many students that this is actually ‘more work’ than just taking a test, and therefore it is harder. These observations are helping us continue to strive for meaningful activities and strategies that support student learning. I am often reminded of Vicki Davis’ blog post, Fail Foward, Move Foward. The word "fail" has a connotation in education, that has to change, along the paradigm shift of how we learn best and differently. In the spirit of Failure is Mandatory in the Culture of Innovation, we are celebrating these "failures" and seeing them as challenges to continue to talk, think, rethink, repeat, throw out, tweak and re-imagine… Quote seen in Tweet during #asbunplugged I am excited to see how we will continue to make thinking visible in Math and help students write /blog about their thinking strategies in order to become fluent in the language of Math. A big thank you goes out to Adam for  learning along side! Stay tuned for Part 2 in Visible Thinking in Math…

Holly Epstein Ojalvo and Shannon Doyne define the flipped classroom in a post titled 5 Ways to Flip Your Classroom  : It’s an "inverted" teaching structure in which instructional content is delivered outside class, and engagement with the content - skill development and practice, projects and the like - is done in class, under teacher guidance and in collaboration with peers. The flipped classroom has become quite a buzz word in the last few years. There are many teachers who swear by it, there are just as many teachers who don’t see the value in the classroom. There are many teachers who believe the flipped classroom has transformed their teaching and their students’ learning, while other teachers believe the flipped classroom is a waste of time There are many teachers who believe the flipped classroom is nothing more than creating a bunch of videos (or tapping into already created videos by others) and assigning to watch them to their students at home. No additional value to learning for their students. Needless to point out, many educators are torn when it comes to the flipped classroom trend. One survey results reveals though that flipped learning is on the rise. Emily Vallillo, sixth grade Humanities teacher at Graded, The American School of São Paulo is exploring what a flipped classroom might mean for her and her ten/eleven year old writing students. Leaving the debate of "best thing ever" ored "it just gives students more work to do at home" aside, I want to look at the production technique of her videos as well as the advantages of using these videos as one more teaching structure or strategy to support student learning. I was impressed with Emily’s creative approach of creating the video (reminded me of the "In plain English" series by Common Craft). She used for the first time the Explain Everything app on the iPad and was able to use quite a few techniques to make the video appealing for sixth graders (and others)  to watch. She wrapped the mini lessons in a little story of "Carol" who received a writing assignment and was having trouble knowing where to go from there. The story structure (or sequence) is represented visually by image objects that are zoomed in and placed at the center or minimized and placed on a timeline at the top of the screen. When reviewing or repeating an element, it is visually pulled up again. These image objects were created with paper strips, sticky notes, pens and markers, digitized by taking an image on the iPad and then imported into the app (or directly taken from within the app) The clever use of additional videos clips within the main video. These video clips are modeling explanations, orally annotating, making them visible for viewers.  Again, the app allows to record the videos within the app or import them from the photo gallery. What are some other production techniques that you have seen and/or used that have been successful in the flipped writing class? Please share a link, so we can all be inspired and learn from each other to improve production techniques. Production table for the video lesson Emily also used EdPuzzle , a platform that allows teachers to create a class,  invite their students, add chosen videos to an assignment, embed additional audio comments as well as quizzes to check for comprehension.    Students are able to work at their own pace. They are able to "rewind" and review . They can start writing their paper and go back to explanations and modeling whenever needed (It is not that easy to "rewind"your teacher, especially when 20+ students are all are trying).  Watch more videos from Emily’s Writer’s Corner  

Graded, the American School of São Paulo, was fortunate to have Taylor Mali, a performance poet and teacher, come all the way to Brazil to engage and get our students and teachers excited about poetry and performing the spoken word. Below is a Storify of his visit via Twitter.  I am wondering how our school can not let the enthusiasm and engagement of Mali’s visit die down, but use it as a springboard to add another layer of writing and presentation skills for an audience.  Along came a tweet linking to poetry examples created by Haiku Deck. I have always been a fan of Haiku Deck as a tool to embed more visual teaching and learning into the classroom. Haiku Deck has added in recent months the ability to use their presentation/slides/ design tool on a web based platform in addition to the iPad app. The easy step by step flow of creating visually appealing and text-light slides that  search Creative Commons images on Flickr (what an amazing concept to then AUTOMATICALLY cite  the images appropriately and include the citation on the created slides make the tool my number one choice. During Taylor Mali’s workshop with students, I jotted down bits of writing, according to the exercise he was working through with us. Although I am a writer who enjoys the written word (I can get goosebumps when I read or write a good sentence :), adding visuals added another layer of intensity to my writing process. The writing "felt deeper" and more thoughts and connections went into my writing after using visuals as part of my process.       Together with our Library Coordinator, Meryl Zeidenberg, we kept brainstorming how to amplify the Taylor Mali experience even further. What if we were to contact other school’s and classes who participated in workshops facilitated by Taylor Mali? What if we collaborated  with them in creating a poetry book, visually enriched with photographs or students’ own illustrations? What if we tweaked Taylor’s exercise adding a component to include the geographic location, cultural characteristics or traditions? [View the story "Taylor Mali Getting Students & Teachers Excited About Poetry" on Storify]

  On the heels of The Cultural Phenomena of Selfies and  iPhoneography: Photo Challenges, Ideas & Literacy, students from the American School of São Paulo, Brazil want to know more about Selfies around the world. If you and your students would like to CONTRIBUTE with actual images for an in- school and online exhibition (part of a slide deck presentation). Please make sure you receive permission to share the images. Please send the image file to silvia.tolisano@graded.br and make sure to include the following information in the email : First name and country you live in. By sending the image, you allow us to use them in the exhibition and share a slide deck presentation online along the results of our survey. Please consider filling out the following short survey. If you are a teacher, ask your students to fill it out to help us analyze Selfie behavior according to gender, age and geographic location.  

This is the second part of the blog post : Visible Thinking in Math Another Math teacher (sixth grade) at Graded, The American School of São Paulo , Laurel Janewicz, has been passionately piloting metacognitive thinking and reflection in her own Math classes. She started out with laying a foundation from the start of the school year. Listen to her students explain the why, how and what next of metacognition in Math class. Why? How? What Now? How could she give her students practice in articulating their mathematical thinking? We chose to use iPads and Explain Everything app.   Process: Students took an image of the Math problem Students recorded themselves solving the Math problem. Emphasis was placed on articulating their thought process, including when they thought "I really don’t know where to start". Helping making their "fluency" of following thinking like that with strategies to continue audible. Once the video of them writing and talking themselves through solving the problem (correctly or incorrectly solved), the project file was saved as a video clip and exported to the camera role. Another student was then charged in starting a new Explain Everything project on the same iPad and importing the previously saved video clip from the Photo Gallery. It was the new student’s job to watch and listen to the thought process and annotate mathematical thinking and strategies observed. The new video (original video clip plus annotations, written and oral) was saved as a new video clip and uploaded to Google Drive to be able to be embedded into a blog post Examples of one of the final video clips (make sure you listen to oral annotations by student #2… about 3:13 minutes into the recording). Laurel presented at the AASSA (Association of American Schools in South America) conference this past month with an elementary school colleague, Kelli Meeker, about her findings and experience of Redefining Reflection Laurel also developed a few questions as follow up to help her students reflect on their blogfolio on the metacognition "project" What does metacognition, thinking about your thinking, mean to you and how has it helped you in math? Metacognition, thinking about my thinking, …… What does your "inner voice" say to you or what questions does it ask you as you solve a problem? I have an inner voice that ….. How has reflecting on your thinking while solving a problem helped your mathematical thinking? Reflecting on my thinking/listening to my inner voice while doing math …. What have you learned about yourself as a mathematician from this project and from this whole year? This project/This year I …. Below are a few excerpts of student responses. Click on the students’ name to see their entire blog post and embedded video. Brenna Thinking about my thinking is reflecting in my own words. It is thinking about how your thinking can improve and what your thinking has mastered. When I am thinking about my math thinking like when I am screen casting a video on Explain Everything, my inner voice tells me to break up the problem and then read the specific part and work on that part. Afterwards, I think about if this is a good strategy or not. I think that this Explain Everything project has helped me a lot because I solved a problem and then I listened to my thinking while solving the problem Pedro In math, Ms. J taught us to kind of talk to our "inner voice." I only talk to my inner voice in difficult problems, I sort of ask for help. When I’m with my inner voice, I try to think differently, and usually can get a way for my answer, but I need to concentrate a lot. While I reflect on my thinking I always think in a better way. This helps because I always question myself and see if I’m really correct. I get to a more profound way of thinking. Jack We have been focusing on metacognition while doing math. This means thinking about our thinking, and asking our selves, "What am I doing, and why?"Using metacognition has really helped me analyze my results in math and it has also made my work a lot more error-free. Whenever I do questions now, and I am not sure how I got my answer, or if it is right, than I always think back to what I did to find out the answer, and if I could do anything better. This is also a habit of mathematical thinking that I find that I am very good at, and I use a alot. Fiona  Metacognition, thinking about thinking. When Ms.J first introduced this to us I was like, What The heck! What does she expect us to do? But now I see that it’s a useful skill that has improved not only my math skills but my other classes as well. Very early on i realized that I loved to talk. Ever since i was little i knew this. So it’s one of the reasons why sometimes I think I get bad grades in math. I hate being alone, and in fact am afraid of being alone, so not talking is a symptom. I usually struggle in silence because I like to work through my thinking  aloud. Which was why I benefited from this project so much. Alyssa I think that I can apply metacognition to lots of different things, like sports that I play, like basketball. During a game, I can ask myself: "Why isn’t this working? What can I do to improve?" The next quarter, I can work on improving in those aspects to help the team win the game. Maya  I realized while doing the project that in my head I am thinking about more than one aspect of the problem at a time, as we call it in math class, my inner voice. It was constantly checking if what I was doing made sense and figuring out other efficient and coherent ways to solve it, so if I had any difficulties or needed to revise my work I could use them. By, also, hearing my second voice I was able to understand the problem on another level, meaning I could draw the right visuals, analyze it, and do it with a different method. Nana When I first came here from 5th grade, I soon realized that I was not really listening to my thinking, actually not at all.  I still did not know what metacognition actually meant and could not define it in first quarter. Now I can define it, and know what it is.  So then, I started to think more deeply what I am doing and why I am doing this while doing these problems in my head.  This has really helped me because it can not only help you to see the reasonableness of the answer but also to read more carefully. Yael Metacognition helped me, because, when I make a mistake in the problem, I don’t really notice it, unless someone else shows me what the mistake was, or where it was. After hearing myself in the problem, I can tell if I made a mistake. For example, if I misread the problem and didn’t notice, then heard what my thinking was, I would’ve noticed the mistake I had made. Metacognition, to me, means understanding what works, and what doesn’t work in your head. Lara When I would reflect my thinking on the iPad, it helped me by looking over my homework’s, my tests and etc. It would help me now and then. My inner voice would ask me "Does this answer make sense?" "How did you get this answer?" When my father would ask me "How did you do this problem?" I would say "I don’t know?" That when I realized that I need to ask myself these things. Now metacognition helps me a lot, like when I am asking my dad for some help and when I am doing a problem by myself Roseanne I have an inner voice. I think that the whole purpose of the iPad projects, was to find my math inner voice, and use it. I think I found that inner voice. I’m pretty proud of myself for that because it was with my first projects, it was pretty hard, though now, for sure I found it. It helps me wonder, and think: Should I use this chart or this chart? Which method works best? Diego While doing these problems, I have sort of an "inner voice." Not in the crazy, psychopathic way, but the thinking way. I tell myself to do this or do that, or check my work. I say hundreds of things to myself in my head. And I always ask myself how I did this. I explain to myself, and try to find mistakes. Mistakes teach you that to become great at math, you need to make mistakes. Albert Einstein once said,"A person that never made a mistake never tried anything." I know I’ve made mistakes that that inner voice saved me from. We are having conversations, looking at student samples, tweaking how reflection and thinking about their thinking impacts student understanding and learning as well as create peer-created resources for future students (think Alan November’s thoughts about leaving a legacy). A million thanks go to Laurel and Adam for sharing their thoughts, questions, trials, failures and success in the process and most importantly their willingness to make it transparent for others to learn with and from their process. Do you have student samples of making mathematical thinking visible? Please share the link for all of us to learn from and have quality examples to model after. More examples of students "writing" in Math: Debora’s Blog ( 9th Grade) Natalie’s Blog (9th Grade)