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Book Reviews are Starting to Roll In!

NOW Classrooms, Grades 3-5: Lessons for Enhancing Teaching and Learning Through Technology (Supporting ISTE Standards for Students and Digital Citizenship) Released September 29, 2017

by Meg Ormiston (Author), Sheri DeCarlo (Author), Sonya Raymond  (Author), Grace Kowalski  (Author), Justin Gonzalez (Author)

Order yours today!

“NOW Classrooms, Grades 3-5 is a simplistic tool for all elementary educators wanting meaningful and relevant strategies of engaging students in their learning through the use of technology. Rather than organizing and sharing ideas of how to use a tool, NOW Classrooms, Grades 3-5 authors share effective strategies to learn how to focus on the skills and content of the lesson and how technology will enhance that learning. Having examples of model lessons, NOW Classrooms, Grades 3-5 is a valuable tool for any elementary technology specialist coaching educators in the school.” —Nichole Allmann, Technology Integration Specialist, Columbia, South Carolina

“The text provides readers and coaches with practical, ready-to-implement technology integration ideas that emphasize instructional decisions rather than technology tools. In addition to sample lessons, teacher tips and tech tips sidebars prepare teachers to consider common stumbling blocks before presenting a lesson, making first-time implementation more successful and meaningful. In addition to providing sample lessons and applicable integration tips, the text sets a standard of student empowerment with a positive urgency to create a more authentic learning environment for students today. The lessons in the text are appropriately differentiated for both student and teacher comfort levels regarding technology integration and are device and content neutral. Any content-area teacher working with any devices will benefit from the examples shared in the text. The book provides supports to ensure teachers consider instructional goals first and technology integration second. By emphasizing data-informed instruction with an emphasis on instructional practice, student learning outcomes always remain at the center.” —Brady Venables, Technology Integration Specialist, Columbia, South Carolina

“I believe NOW Classrooms, Grades 3-5 can be an invaluable resource for teachers of many levels of technological ability. It provides great guidance as well as inspiration for how to integrate technology into their lessons. I believe that these lessons embrace the SAMR model and help to move the integration of technology and tools forward for our students. Additionally, the sidebar tips would be very helpful for adapting the lessons if the devices or programs varied by classroom.” —Amy Tong, Instructional Technologist, Azle, Texas

Leadership Book

NOW Classrooms, Leader’s Guide: Enhancing Teaching and Learning Through Technology (A School Improvement Plan for the 21st Century) Released October 13, 2017

Order yours today!

by Meg Ormiston (Author), Cathy Fisher (Author), Jamie Reilly (Author), Courtney Orzel (Author), Jordan Garrett (Author), Robin Bruebach (Author), Steve M. Griesbach (Author), Becky Fischer (Author)

“I found this book incredibly timely and practical to help schools and districts move from deploying technology to developing a plan to transform student learning. The Why, What, How, and Then What are critically important to creating a growth mindset for educators as well as students.” —Eric Ferguson, Director of Instructional Technology, Bellevue School District, Bellevue, WA

“Leveraging relevant K-12 advice and intuitive frameworks to build on, NOW Classrooms, Leader’s Guide is a must-read for anyone in classroom technology leadership. This book can easily become a foundational guide in any institution looking for innovative approaches to teaching and learning.” —Chris Cummings, Director of Information Technology, Klein Independent School District, Klein, TX

 

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Telling Your Story

School district’s face challenges and opportunities of meeting the unique needs of the communities in which they serve.  As educators, we are servant leaders, and we often get so immersed in the day to day work that we forget about the big picture of the messages that we send to our families.

If you don’t tell your district’s story, someone will do it for you.  In fact, someone is telling it right now.  What do you want them to say?  Have you given them the right story, the right information, and the right tools to share your message?   In today’s immediacy of information and technology, it’s natural for people to be constantly communicating, sharing, telling stories on a personal and professional level.  How do we, as educators, share how and why our districts do what we do for children and the community?

Technology has changed our avenues of communication and opened doors to share our message.  We have an amazing opportunity to tell our district, school and classroom story through technology.  Whether it be through social media, e-blasts, or apps and websites that share photos and messages, we underestimate and underutilize the power of such tools.

Think about the best part of your day as an educator today.  How did you share that message?  Did you take a snapshot of a class who just mastered a concept for the first time?  Did you share a blurb with parents about the exciting project that is coming up next week?  Did you watch students learning on a field trip within the community and share it with the local paper?

Every day we have opportunities to share the amazing work that we do as educators that affect the lives and future of the communities we serve.  I am lucky to serve in a school system with talented, driven and ambitious staff who want to proactively share their work with the world.  We have a large percentage of our staff sharing their message via Twitter and social media.  And while it started small, their leadership and ownership of telling their story has positively changed the dynamic of our story…and we’re creating magical classrooms, NOW Classrooms…

My next blog will focus on our journey of going 1:1…stay tuned!

Courtney Orzel

Superintendent, Lemont-Bromberek SD113A

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Crazy!

This week we hit a major milestone with the Now Classrooms project. The 9-12 writing team submitted their major edits last night, and it is time to celebrate! Writing 5 books at the same time with 26 co-authors sounds absolutely crazy, but the writing part was nothing compared to the editing cycle, that officially was crazy! There were major edits, and minor revisions on all 5 books staggered over months, and I wonder where the summer went. I never want to think about things like referential time, again period.

Even though we are not out of the editing woods YET, the timing of submitting the final edits and the arrival of the fall Solution Tree catalog gave me a chance to reflect on this crazy journey. After hitting send on the 9-12 I opened the catalog and there was our book series on the New Releases page. In the Technology section, the books are also listed with the other new books and we also scored the Expert Spotlight with more details about the process.

As I read through the spotlight I thought about my 26 co-authors and their dedication and perseverance through this laborious process. As we planned, collaborated, wrote, revised, and edited they still were doing their day jobs of teaching, leading, and juggling all the other family responsibilities. I kept flipping through the catalog and in the author index there were all my co-authors on the same pages as some of the greatest names in education.

As new Solution Tree authors, I hope they find a minute to reflect and see their names on the same page as Becky and Rick DuFour, Bob Marzano, Tim Kanold, Doug Reeves, Ken Williams and hundreds more fantastic educators. I’m so very proud to have gone on this crazy adventure with my co-authors. This is a group of educators to watch become the leaders in teaching and learning with technology.

We don’t have a lot of time to reflect, crazy starts again on Monday when the next round of edits starts for the 6-8 book. Books will be available soon, pre-order them here!

Meg Ormiston

@megormi

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NOW Classrooms Leadership Guide Almost Done!

As our team wraps up final edits we look forward to the October publication of our NOW Classrooms Leadership Guide. Once we are done with this round of editing the next time we will see our work it will be in a book! Our leadership team of authors are school administrators and consultants on the front lines of creating  change-focused schools starting with teaching and learning and adding digital tools. This journey is what this guide is about.

Through this writing project, we have weaved our experiences together to create a guide for other leaders ready to lead change. Our team is made up of five practicing administrators, two retired superintendents and one educational consultant all from different school districts in the Chicago area. Although the journeys to creating digital rich schools have been different we write about the common themes and things we collectively have learned along the journey. We created an easy to pick up guide to share and discuss with your administrative team as you create change-focused schools.

“This book is all about leading a change-focused school. Each member of this writing team is a practicing educator or education consultant, and although our journeys have been different, we all share a passion for thinking about how to launch students into the rapidly changing world outside of school, equipping them with the digital skills to be lifelong learners and change agents. We also share a passion for thinking about the best practices for you—a K–12 administrator who shares these goals—to help your team create the highly engaged and digitally enriched 21st century classrooms that will lead students to develop those skills. It’s with that passion that we wrote this guide for you.” xv NOW Classroom Leadership Guide

There are also four additional books in the NOW Classroom series, coming out this Fall is the k-2 book, the 3-5 book, the 6-8 book, and the 9-12 book. With 27 co-authors on this project look forward to hundreds of classroom tested lessons k-12 and much more to create change-focused schools.

Our Three Goals with the NOW Classrooms Leadership Guide

  • Thinking about how to launch students into the rapidly changing world outside of school
  • Equipping students with the digital skills to be lifelong learners
  • Create change agents
    Future blog posts will focus on the three goals. For now, our administrative writing team is busy launching a new school year as they also finish the editing of the Now Classrooms Leadership Guide. Pre-order your copy today!

Meg Ormiston

@megormi

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Starting a New Year: Focus on Learning

Typically the start of a new school year marks the implementation of new technology. In some schools, iPads or Chromebooks are introduced for the very first time. Organizations who have equipment might be readying to add new software, or have just trimmed down what was once a long list. It is important to make sure that, whatever the case may be, that student learning remains front and center.

In order to keep the focus on learning, it is important that the district’s plan for technology be based upon learning outcomes and a model that supports that vision. There are two models districts can use to put the learning first: the SAMR Model and TPACK.

The SAMR Model was developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura. SAMR is an acronym for Substitution, Augementation, Modification, and Redefinition.  It is designed to provide guidance for teachers to integrate technology in a way that cialis en france will support student learning at the highest levels. Similarly, it is designed to help teachers identify the best method for integrating technology.

source: http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog

TPACK, or the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge, framework inter-weaves the three forms for knowledge to help teachers utilize these intersections to integrate technology. Whether it be student demographics, teacher proficiency, or available technology, every situation is unique so each combination of the three forms meets a different need.  Due to the complexity and overlapping nature of this framework, it represents an amalgam of work completed by many researchers.

 

source: http://www.tpack.org

Districts should explore each option and compare them to other driving factors such as strategic plans and belief statements about instructional technology. This can help bring to light the option that fits best. Then, it is important to train staff on the selected model to ensure it can be applied appropriately, no matter what technology is made available to teachers and students.

by Becky Fischer

Dir. of Curriculum, Instruction, & Assessment Skokie School District 73 1/2  @beckylynfischer

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Digestive System Choice Project

After learning about the digestive system, students created a project to show their understanding of the path that food takes throughout the digestive process. Students were to pretend that they were a piece of food and write or speak their journey in the first person. The project was a student choice project meaning students were able to pick how they were going to show their learning. Many students chose to use their ipads and used iMovie, Keynote, Strip Design and many more apps.

This video made with iMovie.

Whitney Cavanagh @Mrs_Conboy

and Janice Conboy @WhitneyCavanagh

6th Grade Teachers

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Moving to NOW Classrooms

Articulating what the Now Classrooms Project is has been a challenge for me. The classrooms I envision are so different from a teacher focused classrooms in so many ways. I see a teacher-student partnership classroom with everyone learning together while they are engaged solving real world problems. This concept is really a complete shift in teaching and learning from the traditional model of school.

I made the first draft of a visual of the continuum of change. I think this document will change many times, but at least it is a starting point. There are many charter and private schools that have created schools all around the concept of the student-teacher partnership classrooms, but I want to bring that to public schools.

I understand not every teacher, administrator, school system, or community is ready for a new model of school. That is why I founded the Now Classrooms Project team to start working with the educators that are ready for the shift. I would love to hear your comments on the document.

Meg Ormiston

Founder of the Now Classrooms Project