January+Literacy+Council


 * TITLE OF PRESENTATION:** Literacy Council Meeting


 * **YOUR NAME: Literacy Council** || **DATE:** 1/27/10 ||
 * **SCHOOL:** || **GRADE/DEPARTMENT:** ||
 * **LOCATION:** Ad Bldg. || **SPONSOR:** ||


 * PRESENTER: Felice Willis, Lea Travis, Alison Cox, Amanda St. Clair, Michelle Bellitto, Mike Zaletel

Please provide the key points from the presentation or workshop.**
 * Priority indicator mapping for language arts
 * Introduction to wikis
 * Books for boys
 * FordPAS program
 * Texting in the classroom
 * Podcasting and garageband

The language arts priority standards are being developed to help us focus more of our teaching efforts on the standards that are most important at each grade level. We will still touch on all standards, but we will really focus on the priority standards, which will ensure greater mastery by our students.
 * How do you see this material/strategy being integrated into your classroom instruction?

All children are motivated by technology. We could use WIKIS and Podcasting to hook them into a lesson. Students could write a story then post it on a wiki or write a poem and use garage band to put a musical background with it. They could then make a podcast of the poem and post it on a wiki. Giving the students a place to post their work will help them feel more ownership and be more encouraged to participate in the lessons.

The books for boys presentation was a good reminder because sometimes we forget that boys like to read more nonfiction or graphic novel type texts. Having magazines or old Guiness books on hand is always a good start.

The FordPAS program is a great use of 21st century skills in the classroom. Teachers from grades 4- 12 could use some part of this program to integrate the skills into their classrooms.

What questions do you still have or barriers do you see relative to the implementation of this strategy? The FordPAS program is somewhat harder to implement than the other pieces of technology and curriculum we learned about because it is an actual program designed by Ford to be bought and put to use in schools. If you want to break apart that program and only use parts of it in your classroom it will certainly take a lot of time and effort to find where it fits.

The priority standards will take time to implement and get accustomed to. Teachers have to remember that they are still teaching every standard, just not to the depths they would have in the past.

To which 21st Century Skill(s) does this strategy most apply? During this meeting we used a lot of communication and collaboration to discuss and map out possibilities for priority standards. Creativity was also used in applying all of the technology strategies to our curriculum.

Are there other resources (links, titles, etc) to which we can go for information about this strategy/workshop? To learn about wikis you can watch the commoncraft video about wikis on this website. Another wiki site is pbworks.com, which allows you to set up passwords for the site. Mike Zalatel gave us the website for cnn.com/studentnews, where students can go to publish their response to a news story. You can visit www.fordpas.org to learn more about the FordPAS program.

Would you recommend this workshop to others? If you are ever asked to be a part of a district committee I would definitely recommend taking that oppurtunity. It is a great place to network with other teachers and learn about best practices going on within the district.

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