Today's lesson involved the use of an Promethean(R) Interactive White Board and the review of DNA, RNA, and Protein Synthesis. The time spent working on interactivity was more than I expected - but I hoped students would enjoy being directly involved in their lesson. As we are on the block schedule, I allocated 80 minutes and was worried it might be too much time. Students went to the board and worked out challenges - often by asking for help from peers who were seated. Following their…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on December 9, 2008 at 7:32pm —
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This afternoon, I had the opportunity to demonstrate the use of document cameras and interactive white boards to our school's community council. This group includes school administrators as well as teachers and parents. Most of these teachers were unfamiliar with both technologies. They were very excited at what they saw could be done! Parents enjoyed the presentation as well. Of course, I had active Interaction with the IWB. I had parents and teachers at the board moving objects and creating…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on December 3, 2008 at 5:00pm —
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During my homeroom class today, I had students create "posters" of what they are grateful for. These posters were created in
Wordle. I learned this was my students first introduction to this Web2.0 activity. There was great enthusiasm and students consistently were trying to create longer "thankful" lists to see how they turned out. I showed the posters to our 7th Grade Counselor and she was so excited, she brought down a student aid and copies of the posters…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on November 25, 2008 at 1:00pm —
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One area that I feel does not receive enough attention by classroom teachers is the concept of formative assessments. Recently a tweet from
@clifmims reminded me how I use games as a form of formative assessments. As I considered the variety of formative assessments I have used, I realized that games were where I saw students enjoying and participating the most. Any points earned in a game are for BRAGGING rights only. Below are variations of games and…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on November 22, 2008 at 9:48pm —
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Yesterday afternoon, the Health Teacher in the room next door invited the principle to come with her into my classroom. She had seen me using my Promethean Board and was VERY impressed. The principal enjoyed the short few minutes he observed of the board's usage in the classroom. Then when my students began an activity, I invited him to come and play at the board. He saw the many possibilities for math, language arts, social studies, and of course the science I had been showing. In the last few…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on November 20, 2008 at 9:25pm —
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21st Century Learning is based on the philosophy of “It’s not what you know, but how or if you share what you know.” As I reviewed the
NETS-S provided by ISTE, it seemed that this Learning Target could be applied within each standard.
A review of the
NETS-T provided the impetus behind…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on November 17, 2008 at 8:20pm —
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I've been working to develop a test for my Biology students. We have been studying cells so tonight I developed a summative assessment to give my students. I use individual response devices from TurningTechnologies. The software interfaces between PowerPoint and the receiver. Because of this technology, I was able to develop this test including many color pictures (including some taken through the microscope.) This test also includes video clips (because I had the ability and it fit my…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on October 22, 2008 at 8:40pm —
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I am looking forward to sharing with teachers during my session at tomorrow's State Education Association convention. My session is titled "Westbroek's Top Ten Internet Tools for 21st Century Skills." I plan to start the session by showing the video clip "A Vision of K-12 Students Today." It is possible that this will result in some teachers feeling slightly uncomfortable from what they see and hear. During the session, we will review 21st Century skills as defined by ISTE including both the…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on October 15, 2008 at 9:22pm —
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I finished preparing and submitted a presentation for NECC 2009 late last night. I hope to share the process my Biology students use to organize thoughts and describe why they organize things. My fingers are crossed as I know I have to wait until mid-December until notifications are sent. Having attended the last two NECC events, I would love to go again.
Added by Glen Westbroek on October 4, 2008 at 8:40am —
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As part of my eMINTS training, I have had the opportunity to learn more about and begin using WebQuests with my students. I am amazed at the opportunities that can be created when we as teachers stretch beyond the usual pedagogy. I look forward to continuing this kind of activity with my students.
Added by Glen Westbroek on June 26, 2008 at 5:30pm —
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Today my students used the Promethean Activslate in a review activity. Every student was so engaged in the lesson. It was worth the time needed to make the interactive elements work together. As we closed up class, one student summed it up "What do you mean we're done, we just got started with class!" He was unaware of how much time had passed. Based on student interactions as they gave suggestions to the person using the Activslate there was a deeper understanding of the concepts. The…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on April 23, 2008 at 9:59pm —
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I am participating on a district committee to determine what policies need to be instituted in a new district policy. Our current district policy is "NO PODCASTS" (teacher or student.) Any links or copies of other policies that are more appropriate would be greatly appreciated! We are trying to create a policy that will allow Podcast Publication.
Added by Glen Westbroek on April 10, 2008 at 6:00pm —
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This past week there was a gathering of all Intel(R) Teach Senior Trainers. We reconnected and learned modifications to the Intel(R) Teach program. I am excited for the changes as I believe each is designed to help participating teachers learn how to implement the concepts in their classrooms. As Senior Trainers, we tried to challenge each other to learn how to use different Web 2.0 tools - that was a lot of fun!
Added by Glen Westbroek on April 5, 2008 at 1:30pm —
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I've had the opportunity of attending the Literacy Promise conference in Salt Lake City the past two days. There have been several presenters who discussed various methods we can involve adolescent students in the reading and learning process. My personal favorite was the "Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century" session done by David Warlick. During this session, he helped remind us of the need to help students become literate beyond what is on the printed page. I enjoyed seeing the reactions…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on March 7, 2008 at 12:22pm —
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During tonight's eMINTS training, we had a lot of hands on / sharing / how do you do that activities. We had a presenter present who gave basic instruction and asked us to experiment with the four boards that were set up. It was a lot of fun as many participants had learned some fun ways to use the software. Each who had learned to do something fun shared their ideas after we practiced what we were taught. It was fun to see how many people had been "playing" with the software and the boards on…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on March 4, 2008 at 9:19pm —
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Over the past two days, I have enjoyed attending sessions of the UCET conference. A highlight was having David Pogue as the keynote speaker. He is as fun to hear in person as to read in the NY Times or to enjoy as a podcast. His message was to encourage us as teachers to help students understand how to include technology in meaningful ways in their classroom instruction. I found great information from many of the different breakout sessions that I attended. I look forward to implementing ideas…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on March 1, 2008 at 7:00pm —
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This afternoon, our school's technician called and informed me that I needed to stay late and help unload the laptops and put them into the cart. Loading two carts of laptops for two different classrooms took a lot longer than I expected. We still have to set up the access points and get things tested and make sure they are working, but the excitement is beyond anything I experienced in the classroom in a long time. Our electronic boards and sound system are supposed to be installed sometime in…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on February 22, 2008 at 8:28pm —
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The material for us to use with our eMINTS grant is beginning to arrive. The first item to make it to us as teachers were our new laptop computers. I'm excited to get students involved in the technology and collaboration available and encouraged through this grant and its associated training. Many of the other teachers have less experience with Web 2.0 and are beginning to ask me and others with more experience questions. It has been fun to share concepts of what can be done in the…
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Added by Glen Westbroek on February 4, 2008 at 8:32pm —
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I was invited to help transfer images from a prepared laptop to the new laptops for our e-MINTS computers today! We had a fun three hours as we set up the area and completed the first 40. There are now only about 650 more computers to transfer images to. It's nice that they did not all have to be done in ONE day!
Added by Glen Westbroek on January 18, 2008 at 8:39pm —
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My school has used Deep Freeze regularly with the Windows computers in the building. There has been a suggestion that we might consider using it with the Macintosh computers as well. I do not know anyone who is or has used Deep Freeze on the Macintosh Platform. If you have experience would you please let me know what it has been like for you?
Added by Glen Westbroek on January 16, 2008 at 5:30pm —
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