Be A Techie:)

Coming from Chicago, just going to Florida in January is considered a “snowbird.” But, attending FETC at the same time, I am flying high! I only had 48 hours at the conference, so I tried to make the most of it. After arriving late Wednesday night, I hit the ground running on Thursday morning.

Leslie Fisher

• www.lesliefisher.com
• I had never seen her present in person, this was an experience. She is amazing. Of course her complete presentation is online. www.lesliefisher.com > handouts > (I agree) > iPhone / iPod Touch Application Support Group
• The coolest thing was the vast levels of techieness. She was able to keep me engaged and not overwhelm the newbies. Her web resources are incredible. I am going to spend MLK day just to go through all her stuff. It is great to see a female techie in action, yippee!
• Take-away evernote I have this installed on my laptop, but never really used it. Just reactivated my account and will download the app on my iPhone. I plan on putting all my presentations on there, along with other really important stuff.

Meg Ormiston

• http://megormi.wikispaces.com/google
• I adore Meg, her energy and passion to learn creates an environment of collaboration within her presentation. She gave her TOP 10 LIST. I really enjoyed how she made her audience part of the presentation.
• Take-away goog-411 I had completely forgotten about his cool google feature. Call 1-800-4664-411,  give them your location, and what you are looking for, they give you the information.

Rushton Hurley

• http://sites.google.com/site/freetoolsoutthewazoo/
• He gave an outstanding preso as well. Being a google-certified teacher, he had the audience of 300 engaged and wanting more.
• Take-away He runs a non-for-profit http://www.nextvista.org/ and I encourage all of you to sign up for his newsletter as well. http://www.nextvista.org/contact/

Time for the vendors and lunch with two newbies from my school and discussed the conference and their excitement to try new things. Yippeee! I then made a mad dash to the tweet-up at TGIFridays and met up with my PLN. Guess what – won a t-shirt! Caught a rickshaw back to my hotel to do some final tweaking of my presentation tomorrow.

Carol Broos

• http://musictechie.pbworks.com/Collaborative-Composer-Project
• I had a Skype call from Brenda Muench, who is part of this project. We talked about how we met at a conference where I was presenting on Podcasting. After the conference, she sent me some of her podcasting links from her students, since then we have become best friends. I emphasize that in order to have a successful collaboration, you have to get along with the people first, then work on the curriculum.
• Take-away “If you can google it, you don’t need to memorize it.” Have students make projects in music, not learning facts about music. I loved connecting with fellow music teachers, there aren’t many of us that are music innovators. I added a few more to my PLN.

Just Connecting…

• Another person I had never met in person was David Fisher, out of Palm Beach, Florida we had done a collaboration on the Lincoln Project last year with his fifth graders and my fifth graders. http://lincoln212.pbworks.com/ He was presenting at the same time with Lee Korbert on VoiceThread, but we manage to carve out time to talk about a new collaboration with his kindergartners and my fifth graders.

Getting Others Involved…

• I had the other teachers from my group go to the VoiceThread presentation with David and Lee (The school already has purchased the VoiceThread accounts and I have set-up all 200 accounts, with avatars) The fourth grade teachers finally saw how cool it was. Even though I have been pushing VoiceThread for over a year, when someone OUTSIDE the school talks or presents, they think it is cool.
• I also set them to see Steve Dembo, he was doing a “Newbie” session. One teacher was texting me through the presentation how cool this was and FINALLY she understood what web 2.0 is and wants to move ahead in technology! Thanks Steve!!!
• It was a wonderful conference, now the work begins with the new apps, programs, and material that gleamed from FETC.

Tags: Carol Broos Brenda Muench FETC FETC2010 Composers David Fisher Lee Korbert

I do not like the words “Gifted” or “Talented.” They bring up an elite attitude with me and really just because you are gifted or talented, you may not use your talents. I like the term “amazing,” because ANY student can be amazing, not just the gifted and talented student. It also includes those who work hard, practice, and have a drive to succeed.

I have taught a lot of amazing students. They range from low to high intelligent. The basic theme is that they are ALWAYS THINKING. They have an inner drive to be excellent and creative. They aren’t the most talented, but they are the most ambitious. They desire new possibilities and crave a creative outlet. I don’t teach these students, I just get out of their way and create possibilities. I say that I give them TIME and SOFTWARE. I usually have one to three students within the class that fall into this category. Upon starting a new project, they are the ones that come to me asking if they could spin the project a different way, usually a way I have never thought of before. They are those students, that find every possible time during the day to be in my room, whether it is during lunch/recess, silent reading or upon completion of a project in another class.

As these students move within the projects, sometime their project takes more time and effort than the others. Other times they finish within a day and are ready to move on to something else.They are NOT on the same page as the rest of the class, and I do not have them do the same projects. They are different and I say that directly to their face. “Whatever I say to the rest of the class is not intended for you.” I have them work separately and at times individually allowing them to soar. When an amazing student is allowed to soar and create, you will see their attitude within the classroom improve and help others. Because they are constantly within this “creative individual” mode there will be ups and downs. The creative mind cannot constantly be in up mode. It needs a “processing” mode as well. So, if the student has come to a road-block and cannot think of what to do next, or how to proceed, it is important you have as least two or three other projects the student is working on. This way they can “process” on one project and  work on another. Contests and web 2.0 excites them. They delight in show their work to the outside world.

People ask me how do I get so much out of students with such a limited amount of time. Students are working on MY stuff outside the classroom, by thinking and processing. So, by the time they arrive in the classroom, they are already at full steam on the creative meter.

The delicate balance of the general population student and the “amazing” student is always on my mind. So, that is why I see myself more as a facilitator than teacher. I want to inspire and “allow” these students to be the best they can be.

You can hear my discussion about this with Brenda Muench and Jen Brinkley about teaching “amazing students” on Musically and Technically Speaking podcast.

Tags: Brenda Muench, Carol Broos, CarolBroos, gifted, Jen Brinkley, MATS, Students, talented, Thoughts