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Happy Friday!

(I really hope this isn’t blocked!)

At the start of the school year, during the Technology Kickoff presentation, I challenged teachers to take their Professional Learning Communities to the next level – beyond the walls of the building and the boundaries of the school district. I thought that now, right before our PLC Professional Development Day, it would be a good time to re-issue that challenge and provide an idea on where to start.

I wrote about Twitter.com last year. This is a GREAT place to start. I know some folks will say, “What? Why on earth would I want to know what other people are doing during all hours of the day, every day of the week, and in 140 characters or less?!?!” Well, the key is in WHO those other people are. In Twitter you “follow” people with similar interests and backgrounds. They, in turn, “follow” you. It may sound like one big stalkfest (I know stalkfest isn’t a real word. But this is a blog and not even remotely close to anything resembling literature), but Twitter has proven to be the most valuable online tool I have used during the past year. After logging in to Twitter, within minutes tips, tricks, and resources come flying in.

If the key is in who to follow, how do you find the people? Twitter4teachers provides lists of educators on Twitter by subject area. Once you find folks that post information that you find useful, check out who they are following and follow them, too. If you know of others in your field, you can search for them on Twitter. It’s amazing how many people are tweeting–authors, professors, politicians (and, yes, Ashton Kutcher is tweeting, too, if you are into that sort of thing). Or, you could check out who your friendly-ITRT is following and start there. You will find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tekkieteacher.

Once you have started setting up your online PLC, the next step is to actually post something. For those of you who are a bit shy, try “re-tweeting”, or just re-posting someone else’s post that you found useful. Be sure to include the “RT” indicator and attribute the post to the original person with the “@” symbol like the example below:

When working within an online PLC, you will get more out of it if you are a contributor to the conversation rather than just a bystander. Before you know it, people will start following you, too! I recommend always screening your followers and blocking anyone that you aren’t sure about. However, I have to admit that it was also very cool once some of the big names in the the Ed Tech world who I was following started following me, too!

Our PLCs are about helping and learning from each other to improve ourselves and the instructional process. There are 195 people in my Ed Tech PLC and I am much better at what I do because of them. Come join me!

With the end of the marking period upon us, it’s important to make sure all our students are receiving credit for the work they have done. If you had a student who has transferred out of your class and gone to another teacher’s class, please be sure to forward that student’s grade to his/her new teacher. If you are no longer seeing that student’s average in IGPro, here’s what you do:

1. In IGPro, in the Show drop-down list, choose Tasks/Students/Notes.
2. At the bottom of the spreadsheet window, make sure Show Inactive Students IS checked.
3. Click the transfer student’s name. The date the student transferred out of your class and his/her average at the time displays in the Notes window at the bottom of the screen.

If a student has come to your class from another school, please check with guidance for that student’s grades.

For some “Feel Good Friday” chuckles, here are 20 of some of the best one-liners I’ve found on the web:

1. I want to die peacefully in my sleep, just like my grandfather. .not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
2. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
3. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
4. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
5. Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They both should be changed regularly, and for the same reason.
6. Did you know that dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish?
7. The sole purpose of a child’s middle name is so he can tell when he’s really in trouble.
8. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not sure.
9. Knowledge is power, and power corrupts. So study hard and be evil.
10. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
11. Why is it that most nudists are people you don’t want to see naked?
12. If Bill Gates had a penny for every time I had to reboot my computer…oh wait, he does.
13. Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.
14. The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
15. What if there were no hypothetical questions?
16. What is the most important thing to learn in chemistry? Never lick the spoon.
17. A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
18. If Wal-Mart is lowering prices every day, why isn’t anything in the store free yet?
19. If everything seems to be coming your way, you’re probably in the wrong lane.
20. I’m in shape. Round is a shape isn’t it?

So….which was your favorite?

 For those of you who are interested in one of the 10 SMART Boards we are purchasing, here is a great site with resources for SMART educators. This might be a nice place to start for your lesson ideas!

Smart Educator Resources

I want to thank all of you for your patience. This has been a very busy start to the school year this year and consequently I have not kept up with my weekly posts. Many of you have told me not to worry about it, that you know how busy I am with the extraneous duties I’ve picked up, and I appreciate your understanding.

The reality is, though, that we in education are traditionally overtasked. Back in my consulting days, when my colleagues would complain about their workload, I would tell them that teachers work more in 9 months than they ever would in a year’s worth of consulting. They never questioned me about it. I like to think that was because they knew I’d done both, but it was more likely because they were afraid I would assign them more tasks if they did.

With as busy as I’ve been, I still know that I do not work as hard as a classroom teacher. I do not have to take home papers to grade and although I try to collaborate with teachers on lesson plans, it’s nothing like what I had to do when I was in the classroom all the time.

So, I’m going to do my best to keep up with these posts. The extraneous duties I’ve picked up have to take a back seat to my primary responsibility of helping teachers. Teachers are the stars in education. The rest of us are  just support personnel.

Now for today’s mini-byte….

Many of you are still having trouble logging in to Novell in the mornings. Over the summer, how users are set up in Novell was changed by the Department of Information Technology Services. The “context” was reset for everyone. However, for some reason, your computers aren’t always  ”remembering” your context and it has to be set by hand.

If you aren’t able to log in to Novell, please try the following:

1. On the Novell Login window, click the Advanced button.
2. Click the Contexts button.
3. Navigate to PWCS/HS/Hylton and select Employee.
4. The Server line should be left blank.
5. Once these settings are in place, try logging in, again.

You should be able to log in once the context is set correctly. However, if this continues to be a problem, please submit a Help Request indicating that your computer will not “hold it’s context and has to be re-set”.

Several staff members have asked me where in the world their SchoolFusion Message Center has gone?!?! There used to be a link beneath where you now see “FusionTools”. With this summer’s upgrades, that link was removed, probably because it was redundant. You see, your Message Center is located on your profile page, and since there was already a link for that I suppose the engineers decided to do away with the other.

So, to get to your SchoolFusion Message Center, click FusionTools/View My Profile. Your Message Center is located just below your profile picture.

Although all of the messages sent to staff members through SchoolFusion are also delivered to your GroupWise inbox, it is still a good idea to check the Message Center every once in a while to make sure nothing was skipped. Also, even if the sender does not have an email address in the system, you can still respond to their message through the Message Center. Britt B. has found that feature especially handy lately!