Promethean Board and SMARTBoard User Groups Feedback

Do you have a Promethean Board or SMARTBoard in your classroom or in a teacher's classroom who you collaborate with?  We're looking for some feedback to help improve the monthly user group trainings.

Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey below to help us make next year's user groups even better.

*You will need to login with your SPPS Apps username and password (the same one that you use to log onto your computer - ex. e123456)

Click here to take this short survey.

May Issue Of Personalized Learning Newsletter

Blended learning can be used to extend student learning time!

Want to learn more the blended learning model, how this instructional approach can support learners and different learning modalities, and how blended learning is being used by a Saint Paul teacher to positively impact the learning of his students?

Click the link to access the current and past newsletters on the Center's website at http://thecenter.spps.org/pl_newsletters.html .

Visioning Day

The second annual Visioning Day was held May 22 at Washington Technology Magnet School.

Superintendent Valeria S. Silva kicked off the Visioning Day event with the district's direction of Personalized Learning.  Iowa student blogger Jack Hostager, whose blog Straight from the Desk reveals a student's perspective of education, spoke to the Saint Paul teachers, administrators, and students in attendance about the importance of student-directed learning that demonstrates meeting standards.  Saint Paul students also lent their voices to the table conversations, talking about their vision of our classrooms.

CIPA Meeting Coming Up

The next CIPA Contact meeting will be offered on two dates - May 20 from 4:30 to 6:00 and May 21 from 3:00 to 4:30.  Please choose the time that fits your schedule best and sign up in PDExpress under CIPD: CIPA Contacts.

May Promethean Board User Group

Are you looking for ways to create fun, interactive games on your Promethean Board to help students review key concepts from your content area and maximize every minute of instructional time as we approach the end of the school year?

During the next Promethean Board User Group, we will focus on how to search for, preview, download, and edit files from Promethean Planet so that you can pull the best parts from great flipcharts that match up with your content/subject. We'll also run through the interactive features and tools that are available with the ActivInspire software and resource packs that you and your students could use to quickly build your own games from scratch.

Join us, Monday, May 13 from 4:30 to 6:30 at 345 Plato if you would like to learn more about these topics.  Please sign up in PDExpress under CIPD / MLR(V): Promethean Board User Group.

What Is Personalized Learning?

Have you heard everyone talking about personalized learning and been wondering what exactly that means and how to do it in a classroom of 25 to 35 students?

Image Source

Michael Fullan defines personalized learning in this way:

• Engage all students in their own learning 
• Tailor instruction and learning supports to address the learning needs and dispositions of highly diverse student bodies 
• Adjust the pace 
• Adjust the learning approach 
• Leverage student interests/experiences

"The key to successfully providing more personalized learning on a broad scale is twofold: first, focus on collective capacity building, through approaches such as professional learning communities and, second, strategic use of technology to address many of the challenges. Technology, as a support or accelerator, can ensure more effective collection and use of data to improve instruction. Technology can also facilitate communication, provide much more diversity in content for students, and help schools better meet the varied needs and preferences of students. And technology can be used as a direct pedagogical tool to enable learners to build meaning and knowledge with greater depth than hitherto possible."

http://www.michaelfullan.com/media/13435863160.html

The Blitz Is Coming Next Week

Are you ready to learn more about how to use the Phenomenal Five ++ tools in your classroom to leverage student learning styles and to support personalized learning?

Visit the Phenomenal Five ++ website for Spring Blitz training descriptions, schedules, and locations and register in PDExpress for each training that you will be attending.

Spring Blitz

Are you looking for some training on SPPS Apps, Moodle, Urban Planet, SPPS Apps Docs, SPPS Apps Forms, SPPS Apps Sites, Web 2.0 Sites for K-8 or 7-12, or Search Strategies?  Come to the Spring Blitz May 6 to May 9 to learn more about these handy tools and how they are being used in Saint Paul Schools to support personalized student learning.

Visit the Phenomenal Five ++ website for Spring Blitz training descriptions, schedules, and locations and register in PDExpress for each training that you will be attending.

April Promethean User Group

Have you been wondering how to use your Promethean Board as an interactive review station during independent work time?  Would you like to be able to quickly and easily create self-correcting sorting activities? Join us April 11 for the next Promethean Board User Group and we will show you how to use the Containers Made Easy resource pack to quickly create interactive sorting activities in your flipcharts.

Click the video below to see a little preview of how containers can be used to create activities for students.

Searching For Creative Commons Licensed Images on Google Images

Pictures and images on Google.com are copyrighted by the owner even though they are published on the web.  One of the safest ways to use them in your work is to search for Creative Commons licensed images that give you the rights to repost and modify images as long as you give credit to the owner.

Here’s how to find images posted with Creative Commons licensing on Google:

2. Type in your search topic and click the gear icon to Advanced Search options

3. Use the drop down to change the usage rights that you are searching for. You may want to choose the most encompassing choice.

4. Click the Advanced Search button.

5. Notice that your search results now list the usage rights.

6. Click on the image that you want.

7. Click on the View Original Image button.

8. Hold the Control button and click on the picture (Mac) or right click (PC) on the picture and choose Save Image As (Chrome and Firefox) or Download Linked File As (Safari) to save the picture to your computer.

9. Copy the website address (URL) of your image and paste the address into your product to meet the minimum level of citing the source.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Puffer_Fish_DSC01257.JPG

March Issue of Personalized Learning

The latest interactive copy of the Personalized Learning newsletter was just released by the Academic Innovation and Technology Integration team.

To learn more about how technology is changing the way students learn, how to record your lessons, and tools that can be used to support personalized learning, read the full interactive version of the newsletter online at  http://thecenter.spps.org/march_20_2013.html .

Promethean Board User Group - March

Containers and Restrictors

Come to the Promethean Board User Group Wednesday, March 13, from 4:30 to 6:30 at 345 Plato to learn how to use the "Contain Anything" and "Restrictors" features.

February CIPA Updates

If you missed the CIPA meeting on February 11, please check back soon for information that was shared at the meeting.