Innovative Education in Vermont
Exploring innovative, personalized, student-centered school change
Reaching beyond the walls I’m always looking for ways for educators and students at different schools to use technology to connect in far-flung locations. One middle-level educator was kind enough to share how he used Google Hangouts, a Google+ Community, back-channeling and plain old email to enable his students to connect with students a couple of …
Continue reading “Using Google tools to connect with other schools”
3 strategies shared by local educators At Manchester Elementary Middle School, sixth grade students speak fluently about their Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). They’ve been working on setting goals in a PLP for years; some students in this school have been doing so since third grade. Manchester educators Seth Bonnett and Melissa Rice, share what they’ve learned about …
Continue reading “Providing support for goal-setting in a PLP”
Modeling a PLP as an adult learner As a new year dawns, are you thinking about self improvement? A Personal Learning Plan (PLP) is a great way to plan and document your professional growth, provide a framework for reflection, and gain a better understanding of how to make PLPs most useful for your students.
A step-by-step guide to publishing your first episode Podcasts have been around for awhile now but can be a little intimidating in terms of knowing the technical aspect of how to launch one. Thinking of starting one for your school but need a little help unpacking the tech? Here’s how to get started podcasting, the …
Continue reading “How to get started podcasting with SoundCloud”
Life’s four guidelines for goal-setting In my experience as a teacher and administrator, I noticed a pattern to goal-setting in my school and classroom. We would do some good goal-setting at the beginning of the year and then at some point during the dark depths of winter I would realize that I was too overwhelmed or …
Continue reading “What makes for good goal-setting in a PLP?”
Using Vialogues for social learning Vialogues: visual dialogues. Video dialogues. (Visible violet dogs? Risible eyelet hogs? Dirigible side-slit frogs?) Vialogues are an online tool that encourages viewers to answer one specific question about a video, and the tool creates a comment thread based on the answers. When applied in an educational capacity, this creates a …
Timeline tools for transformative learning Timeline tools can serve two important purposes: concrete help with project planning (for PLPs, 1:1 rollouts, PBL) and for displaying evidence of learning in an easily digestible format. But the online, anytime/anywhere, collaborative nature of such tools can unlock meta-learning for students, providing them with a platform for bolstering collaboration and …
Steps to a student-led conference Some of my most poignant moments as a teacher occurred around the table of a Student Led Conference. Truly. My eyes have welled with tears at the sheer emotion shared. I’m a believer in giving students the voice and the power to be at this table. It requires a strong …
QR codes unlock learning anywhere These simple workhorses of technology — ink and blank spaces on a screen or page — can be incredibly powerful in making learning an anytime, anywhere endeavor, and turning the world into a classroom.
“Candy apps”, or how to have fun and still learn anyway During a five minute reflection, if a student is given one minute to find a picture and mark the mouth, then he or she still has four minutes to try to come up with something interesting to reflect about. So this is four minutes more …
Who decides the acceptable ways to use devices in your school? You’ve jumped through the hoops, filled out the paperwork, located the three missing chargers and managed to agree on a set of apps and a management system. But what will expectations around tech device usage look like? Will they stay in classrooms? Go home? Hop …
Continue reading “Establishing behavior expectations in a 1:1”
Collaborative blogging puts students’ voices out front Hazen Union School 8th grade student Elijah Lew-Smith shared the first student post of the school year on the school’s shared Middle Level Blog. Check out his post to see this year’s new initiatives: 1:1 with iPads, a new House structure, and the focus on Project Based Learning, from a …
Continue reading “Multiple platforms, multiple voices: scenes from a 1:1 rollout”
Approaching student digital citizenship from many levels Our students live in technology-rich worlds, regardless of how much technology they are using in school on a day-to-day basis. Technology has all kinds of awesome educational benefits, but Uncle Ben’s advice to Spiderman is fitting here: “With great power comes great responsibility.” As educators we’re obliged to …
Continue reading “C is for Citizenship (digital of course!)”
Becoming a Google Certified Educator My fascination with Google started in the early 2000’s simply from a financial interest. Here was this really cool “tech” company entering the stock market for just under $100 a share, $85 to be exact, at a time where comparable companies were selling for much higher prices.
Reflections from Vermont educators embarking on the 1:1 process As the 2015 Middle Grades Institute draws to a close, we check in on some of the amazing work educators have been doing with their teams this week. And this time we’re focusing on the 1:1 planning they’ve been doing.
Setting goals for summer learning and beyond It’s Day 3 of the 2015 Middle Grades Institute, a gathering of more than 200 Vermont educators all passionately invested in technology-rich, student-centered educational change. And with the Act 77 deadline requiring a Personal Learning Plan for every student in Vermont grades 7-12 coming up in November, talk …
Continue reading “4 educators reflect on personalized learning”
Rachel Mark is a Professional Development Coordinator in the southern part of Vermont. Prior to working with the Tarrant Institute, Rachel was a middle school literacy and social studies teacher at Tarrant partner school Manchester Elementary-Middle. As a teacher, Rachel loved exploring new content and new methods with inquisitive young adolescents. She thinks middle schools …
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So many schools in Vermont are engaged in innovative, student-centered, tech-rich education work.We’re proud to partner with The Cabot School for just this reason. Their students write the school’s website updates. They’ve been featured twice on VPR this past year. They win national awards for their recyclable, energy-efficient musical production, and their educators are Rowland …
Continue reading “4 amazing things afoot at The Cabot School”
Two years ago, our middle level team undertook a pilot project to begin work on personal learning plans (PLPs). Under the guidance of James Nagle, professor of education at St. Michael’s College, Team Summit teachers and students initiated the process of creating personal learning plans as mandated by Act 77 and the state of Vermont. …
Continue reading “Professional development through Google Hangouts”
Study the Earth’s ecology with deep-digging tech tools Earth Day is April 22, and if you’re looking for some ideas on how to dig deep into earth sciences with tech, we’ve got 4 Earth Day lesson ideas with iPads. Already made Earth Day plans? These ideas will keep until the weather gets better and it’s really …
What’s your school song? A few months ago I wrote about not spending enough time on personal reflection. It is incredibly easy to be immersed in the many “Top 10” lists of education; and it’s fun spending time trying to solve tool based problems (anyone come up with a best way to insert images on the …
New podcast episode: Essex STEM Academy In this episode, we talk with math educator and STEM Academy leader Lea Ann Smith about Essex High School’s STEM Academy and take a look inside a program that lets students pursue projects in medicine, engineering, computer science, mathematics or biology — by working with community partners during the school …
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At TechJam this past autumn I was fortunate to run into a number of student groups who were there to show off projects. That forum, and others like it, gives learners a space to share, interact, and learn from each other. One group I met was from Big Picture South Burlington (@BigPictureSB), a community of learners …
Keeping your resolution to reflect My colleague, Meredith Swallow, recently shared a post about the importance of reflection in her professional growth, which got me thinking. She points her readers to Reflect or Refract: Top 3 Tips for the Reflective Educator where the authors suggest “reading a wide variety of education blogs regularly exposes educators …
Give your students ownership over their learning through goal-setting activities Happy New Year! With school back in session and a new year upon us, why not use this time as an excuse to take a deep breath, reassess your goals, and refocus on what you and your students are striving to achieve? As your students …
Continue reading “Links Round Up: Goal-Setting for Personalized Learning”
Students provide evidence of increased engagement with social reading platform (Editor’s Note: we asked 5th grade educator Hannah Lindsey to share her experience using the LMS edmodo for a literacy block with students on netbooks. Her blog post is excerpted from a longer reflection prepared for the 2014 AMLE annual conference.) Does the use of a …
[huge_it_slider id=”2″] Meet some of the guest bloggers for the Tarrant Institute: Keegan Albaugh, The Centerpoint School, Winooski VT Jacqueline Drouin, Asian Studies Outreach Program, University of Vermont Rep. Diana Gonzalez, Vermont Legislature, University of Vermont Education Dept. Lindsey Halman, Essex Middle School, Essex VT Jonah Ibson, Harwood Union Middle School, Moretown, VT Supanya Khienjarern, …
This has been a very interesting week for me, trying to write a post for today. The task actually seemed pretty straight-forward. Audrey had passed along an app for me to take a look at: Monster Physics. A number of folks seem to be thinking about it from an education standpoint. At first blush I was …
Continue reading “Monster Physics and the importance of careful consideration”
Twitter’s not just a great way to build your PLN as an educator, it’s also a powerful tool to connect students with the world around them in very unique ways. But how can you make those connections authentic learning experiences? Let’s look at making the most of twitter in your classroom.
Free app for students to make quick and easy back-to-school slideshows
Get a sneak peek at the new Thinglink Many of you have undoubtedly heard of Thinglink’s new video service, where you can embed links, text, images, videos and audio directly into videos. We tried it out last week for our iPad case review article, and the finished product looks a little something like this. Now …
Get out there! It’s spring (unless you’re in the Antipodes) and IT HAS FINALLY STOPPED SNOWING. Yes, all those capital letters are really necessary to announce that fact. The sun is out and if you’re planning on doing some outside work with your students, here are four activity ideas for using iPads outside when there’s no access …
Continue reading “Get out! 4 ideas for using iPads outside (and away from Wifi)”
In September of 2009, Sarah, the 9 year-old daughter of our keynote speaker posted a 90-second YouTube response to President Obama’s speech to US students. This video “went viral” and currently has over 190,000 views. In May 2010, a 6th grader in our keynote presenter’s hometown attracted the attention of Ellen Degeneres with his YouTube …
Continue reading ““When Student Published Videos Go Viral” (podcast)”
It’s no secret that here at the Tarrant Institute, we’re a bit batty for badges. Not just because they’re shiny and fun to sew on a sash, but because in our initial experiments with badging platforms, we’re seeing increased teacher/learner engagement and motivation. But what does that really mean? Here, guest blogger Valerie Sullivan weighs …