Nibs from Nancy

How is technology used in your classroom?  It depends on who is in the driver’s seat.  Is it teacher driven, or student centered?   It makes a profound difference!  Integrating technology effectively  involves the intentional design, development and implementation of resources or tools that best suits an instructional purpose.   It’s not about how many video clips [...]

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Educators are provided countless ways to receive professional development.  Everyone including  TRTs, content area specialists, and building level personnel are offering training opportunities.  Things are offered before, during, and after school, during the summer, online,  in whole group, small group and 1:1 settings.  There is no shortage when it comes to opportunties to learn something new.  To take [...]

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A recent professional development activity forced me to think about my role as a change agent.  Our role places us in a unique position to change others.  Here are my ramblings concerning this role:  TRT’s are change agents that strive to enable teachers to make profound changes in thoughts, attitudes and practices in efforts to [...]

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Questions, questions…21st century learners…  are they really different?  Is it necessary to always use technology? Is it more appropriate sometimes to use the “no-tech” approach?   Where are we now and where are we going with this?  So many questions…   

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We are blessed to be living in a time when educators can use technology to cross time and space boundaries to connect, share, collaborate, trouble shoot, and grow and develop as professionals.  Thanks to the power of the Internet and web 2.0 technologies, educators have countless ways to talk with each other to learn and [...]

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Ready, Set, Teach is a session at TEACH Academy designed to help teachers get a head start on the next school year!  Participants  explore and use various resources, web 2.0 tools, and templates that will take them to the head of the class.  Participants  have the opportunity to create personalized classroom expectations, motivational posters, open house [...]

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When a former legal counsel service provider for Portsmouth and Norfolk Coast Guard decided to make a career change, she chose to become a classroom teacher with Portsmouth Public Schools.  Little did she know, almost everything that she knew about the world of education had changed.  The road to transform this career switcher from a [...]

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In the recent Virginia Superintendent’s Memo #050-11, the Thinkfinity Teacher Excellence Award was featured.  This high profile competition is designed to showcase teachers that are using Thinkfinity in their classrooms.  They have some pretty sweet prizes including iPads and $1000 stipend to attend a conference. There will be 8 regional winners in Virginia.   If you are interested, [...]

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Flip Cams are easy and fun to use, and there are so many ways to use them. At present,  I am exploring ways to use them with reading.  Recently, I worked with a second grade teacher and her class to use the Flip cam to record them as they participated in a Reader’s Theatre activity.  Reader’s [...]

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