May+2

May 2nd "Virtual" Meeting  I know you are all thinking about this: media type="custom" key="16239450" align="center"

Hopefully, this won't be too taxing. :)  The department heads who attended the meeting on April 19th felt that since much of this information was school specific, it would be best to meet at buildings, which also maximizes everyone's time. Please review/discuss/complete the following items with your colleagues on a projector or as a group at individual computers (survey needs to be done at individual computers by all members of the department, other questions should be done together on one computer)   1. Diane was very pleased to present the following information to the board regarding the technology implementation and adoption at the middle school level:

** //6th and 7th Grade Social Studies teachers were asked these questions prior to the implementation of a 15-iPad classroom set in 2010-2011 and one year later near the end of school year 2011-2012. The following is the percentage of teachers responding accordingly:// ** ** She was so pleased that the data showed a huge increase in use of technology in the classroom on a more regular basis and how that helped teachers to implement more problem-based learning; the board was also impressed, and is inspired by reports like this to be more willing to support our needs financially when possible. **  2. Diane is interested to know similar information about the high school adoptions; each person needs to complete the survey found at this link ( http://bitly.com/TSDsocstudies2012) __**before the end**__ of the meeting today.

3. Diane is also interested in feedback regarding standards implementation, grade level gaps and overlaps, how we're implementing and supporting financial literacy and technological needs for next year; please click on the link below to your specific school. In the top right corner of the page, click "EDIT," and type the outcomes of your discussions under each of the questions on the page __**before the end**__ of the meeting today - __//when you have finished, simply click "save" on the far right of the edit tab and use the left panel navigation to return to this page (May 2)//__:

Berthoud High School  Loveland High School   Mountain View High School   Thompson Valley High School   Ferguson High School 4. We heard a presentation from the Fort Collins Representative of Junior Achievement at the April 19 gathering, as a potential way to teach/incorporate financial literacy into our curriculum. They have a wide variety of programs which work in a number of different ways, some that are teacher directed, some that involve presenters coming to your classrooms, and some that are a combination of both. Please review the information as a group, discuss where these programs might meet various PFL needs and contact our representative as necessary - JA is very interested in helping where they can. ** Click here to be taken to the JA website to view their programs ** 5. Technological applications that might be useful in your classroom: Please view as a group the following screencast (15 min, sorry I'm too close to the mic a few times and that I breathe heavily), and then as individuals you might choose to use the remainder of this meeting time to pursue learning about one of the technologies discussed by using the annotated list of helpful links below: media type="custom" key="16238342" Pixtale.net - amazing photos  Visual.ly - create and peruse infographics for classroom use   BlockPosters - make images from online bigger! (the better the resolution the better the poster, but images can't be more than 1mb in size)  MegaMaps - create maps that are up to 8 by 8 feet on your 8 1/2 by 11 printer (get a student to put it together :) )   GoogleMaps - have students create maps with pins anywhere in the world   Here is a link to a tutorial on how to create a map as well as use GoogleMaps for a bunch more classroom applications!   TEDEd - some amazing options to use here, as pre-made little lessons with a video, comprehension and further thought questions and additioal links and resources about a topic, as well as an opportunity to make almost the exact same thing with a YouTube or other TED video! Great possibilities for the "flipped classroom!" (Here's an infographic on what a flipped classroom is if you're not sure/familiar)  Here's a short (3 minutes) tutorial on how TEDEd can be used - I hope you'll take a look! media type="custom" key="16238870" Thanks so much for a great meeting!!! Have a great summer!