Does your school or district have a Pinterest Plan? If not, you might want to consider leveraging the power of this very popular social media tool. So many educators use this virtual pin board to stay on top of best practices. Taking it a step further and using it to tell your school's story will do wonders for all involved. Below you will find a Pinerest Plan of sorts that can help your school or district move the educational conversation forward.
Creating and maintaining a school or district Pinterest board will help with informing school stakeholders and promoting student and staff achievements. It can also be used to highlight alumni and how they are still making your school or district proud with what they are accomplishing. The content on your school or district's Pinterest board does not have to solely focus on what is happening with your staff and student's in school. Putting focus on the great things that happen outside of the school day goes a long way in strengthening community pride. Brad Currie is the author of All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities. He is one of the founding partners of Evolving Educators LLC. Brad is an ASCD Emerging Leader, Bammy Award Finalist, ClassDojo Thought Leader and Google Certified Educator. He currently serves as a K-8 Supervisor of Instruction and Middle School Vice Principal for the Chester School District in Chester, NJ. Learn more about Brad by following him on Twitter @bradmcurrie or visiting his website at www.bradcurrie.net.
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PARCC is very controversial and has sparked many debates. As a parent, taxpayer, and educator I often struggle with the impact these assessments have on our students, my own children, fellow colleagues, and education as a whole. Here are twenty reasons for and against PARCC....... Reason #1 (For) ~ Students need to know how they progress from year to year in subjects like math and literacy. Reason #2 (Against) ~ Schools will be in testing mode for 40 days (20 in March and 20 in May) Reason #3 (For) ~ Parents need to know how their children progress from year to year in subjects like math and literacy. Reason #4 (Against) ~ The test results do not come back until late summer or early fall. This timing makes it incredibly difficult to help students when results come back six months later. Reason #5 (For) ~ Teachers need to know their students' progress, or lack there of, in order to impact future instruction. Reason #6 (Against) ~ The computers being used for testing will not be available for other students who are not testing for close to 40 days out of the school year. Reason #7 (For) ~ Schools can use test results along with other pieces of evidence to help promote the success of students. Reason #8 (Against) ~ Teachers and support staff will be pulled out of their regular classes to proctor the tests for up to 40 school days. Reason #9 (For) ~ The shift from paper tests to online tests has forced districts to buy more technology and upgrade infrastructure. Reason #10 (Against) ~ Critics of standardized testing claim that PARCC is technically not being used for diagnostic purposes. Reason #11 (For) ~ Ultimately the PARCC will have results made available in a more timely fashion which will address student learning gaps. Reason #12 (Against) ~ PARCC scores are being tied to teacher evaluations. Is this really fair given that it's one piece of the puzzle? Reason #13 (For) ~ Students are working on their typing skills more at much younger age in preparation for the PARCC test. This will help them down the road when they enter the real world. Reason #14 (Against) ~ STRESS. Students, Teachers, Administrators, and Parents are going through undo stress as it relates to testing. This can not be good for anyone's health. Reason #15 (For) ~ Over time results will show which schools and teachers are ineffective. Reason #16 (Against) ~ PARCC testing is costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Reason #17 (For) ~ Standardized testing results help people understand how schools match up with others nationally and globally. Reason #18 (Against) ~ Tech staff have no choice but to be solely focus on ensuring that the online tests are working at all times. What about other tech issues in non tested learning areas? Reason #19 (For) ~ Students work hard in school preparing for the PARCC exam. This is their time to shine and show what they know. Reason #20 (Against) ~ Finnish students rarely take standard tests and are tops in the world at educating their students. Why is it that the United States wants to compare themselves to every other top performing country except for Finland? Not sure if I totally agree with the reasons listed above, but I am glad I got it off my chest. It will be interesting in the coming months and years to see how these new age standardized tests impact the educational world. Let's all try to keep an open mind and continue to do what's best for kids. Brad Currie is the author of All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities. He is one of the founding partners of Evolving Educators LLC. Brad is an ASCD Emerging Leader, Bammy Award Finalist, ClassDojo Thought Leader and Google Certified Educator. He currently serves as a K-8 Supervisor of Instruction and Middle School Vice Principal for the Chester School District in Chester, NJ. Learn more about Brad by following him on Twitter @bradmcurrie or visiting his website at www.bradcurrie.net. This past week we welcomed back students and staff from their well deserved summer break. The organized chaos that comes along with starting a new school year is unexplainable. All in all the first two days of the 2014-2015 school year were a huge success. Here are some things that I was apart of to help ensure a tremendous opening......
Brad Currie is the author of All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities. He is one of the founding partners of Evolving Educators LLC. Brad is a 2014 ASCD Emerging Leader and Bammy Award Finalist. He currently serves as a K-8 Supervisor of Instruction and Middle School Vice Principal for the Chester School District in Chester, NJ. Learn more about Brad by following him on Twitter @bradmcurrie or visiting his website at www.bradcurrie.net.
Looking for a simple yet effective way to reach a group of students, parents, athletes, or key stakeholders in a safe manner via text messaging? Try Remind 101. Recently, I have been playing around with this wonderful communication tool to see just how effective it is with reaching groups of people. In particular, I have used it while coaching our middle school softball team. That's right, I have returned to the coaching world and love every minute of it. At the beginning of the season I had our players and parents voluntarily sign up for the free service. Basically, they visited the Remind 101 website, registered, and then joined our private softball group. Anytime there is a schedule change, important reminder, or a positive message that needs to be shared I simply open up the Remind 101 app on my Smartphone, type in the message, and press send. Parents and players will then receive this message from an anonymous number via text message or email. They can not send a message back nor can I send a message to one individual person. Recently they have added a feature that allows a user to send files which is just outstanding.
Many educators throughout the country use this tool in their classroom to communicate with students and parents. Take for example Melissa Tonnessen at Dickerson Elementary School in Chester, NJ. She heard about Remind101 from a fellow colleague before the school year began and decided to include information regarding the service in a back to school packet that parents take home after the September visitation. That information told the parents what the service provided and gave instructions for signing up. So far Melissa has 13 out of 19 families sign up for it, and has used it for a variety of reminders, ranging from "Don't forget that your Reading Bingo is due by Friday" to "No snack is needed tomorrow due to our class celebration." She even used it on the first day of school, letting parents know that it was going well and that I had a class of happy second graders. As you can see there are so many uses for Remind 101 in the school setting. From athletics to academics, school stakeholders are taking advantage of this very powerful and safe communication tool. It's important that schools meet students and parents where they are in the communication world. At the present time, people want information at their fingertips on a cellular device. Remind 101 makes this possibility a reality. So what do you say? Take the plunge and try it out with one of your classes, teams, or clubs. You never know, they might like it. Often educators deal with some tough stuff in and outside of the classroom setting. It's incredibly easy to get caught up in the negative and forget about the positive. Those of you who know me personally or on Twitter understand my committment to telling your story and constantly celebrating what's right with education. Today I was fortunate enough to visit a bunch of classrooms in my own building as well as some in one of our elementary schools. The learning and teaching that was taking place was tremendous. So here are a few snippets on why my day was so good.......
As you can see the day was filled with wonderful experiences that promote the success of all students. I am very fortunate to work with tremendous educators who exhaust all options to meet the needs of diverse learners. EdPerspectives is a OnAir Google Hangout conducted by myself and Starr Sackstein. We examine educational trends and issues from both sides of the aisle. Our latest conversation focused on achievement. Click on the video below to see the lively conversation unfold. The Winter Olympics are starting in a few days and I am totally pumped! Why you ask? I get to watch my cousin Chris Creveling compete for the United States Speed Skating Team. There are not too many times in life that you are able to watch someone you know go for the gold. As an added bonus, Kyle Tress, a person I somewhat grew up with in Lambertville, NJ is on the U.S. Skeleton Team. Looking past all the glory and adulation is a common theme of perseverance. Chris and Kyle stayed the course and dared to succeed in order to get to this point in their lives. |
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