Today I am teaching a class, and I am showing teachers how easy it is to embed bits of code in their blogs or in Google Sites. Here is what I’m embedding for their benefit: a favorite video from Vimeo.

BSS | Breakfast Interrupted from Bruton Stroube Studios on Vimeo.

Remember that kids will need practice with video conferencing — they need to practice speaking and questioning skills.

Here are some of the links we’ll be referencing:

• Skype
• Apple FaceTime
• Apple iChat and Messages, iChat Support

• Google Hangouts with Google+

• Classroom 2.0

• iEARN
• Flat Classroom Project
• ePals

• Twitter

• Ten Ways to Create Global Connections

Creativity and Innovation in STEM classrooms will develop a comprehensive teacher professional development model to create a culture of creativity and innovation in STEM classrooms.

• As active members of a professional learning community, a maximum of twenty-four grades 6-12 mathematics, science, and career & technical education (CTE) teachers from multiple school divisions including high need school divisions will collaborate with each other in a week-long professional development workshop in summer 2013 and explore research-based instructional strategies and resources that facilitate the development of creativity and innovation skills through interdisciplinary STEM learning activities till summer 2014.
• Twelve grades 9-11 high school students will be recruited by the ITTIP and these students will join their teachers in this learning adventure on creativity and innovation during the summer week.  In this professional model, students are co-designers of their learning environment; teachers and students will discuss and create instructional and assessment resources to integrate creativity and innovation in interdisciplinary STEM teaching.
• Teachers will also participate in a three-credit course on “Mentoring students and teachers as 21^st Century Leaders” in fall 2013 and receive follow-up during the school year in the form of classroom visits, online learning community, and webinars on integrating reading and writing in STEM learning and on tools of inquiry in math.
• In enhancing the pedagogical and technological knowledge, teachers will receive training on the integration of problem-based learning strategies, and technology tools of inquiry to meet the needs of diverse learners.
• Teachers will receive stipends and three graduate credits for completing all activities including development and implementation of one unit of instruction per participant and presenting their digital portfolios with student artifacts in a Saturday summit in early summer 2014.

Teacher commitment (all activities are required)

1. Five day summer workshop
2. Three-credit Graduate online course in fall in education
3. Development of unit plan (Problem based learning as pedagogy) and implementation in fall or in spring
4. Participation in two after-school webinars on integrating reading and writing in STEM  classrooms
5. Saturday summit in June 2014

 Incentives

1. Stipends: $300 after completion of summer workshop in 2013; $150 after completing all course requirements in December 2013 (payment by February 2014); and $300 after participation in webinar and June summit 2014 (payment by August 2014)
2. Graduate credits: 3 (at no cost to participants or school divisions)
3. Camera for documenting instructional practices

Preference: At least two teachers (math, science, technology, engineering, CTE) to enroll from the same school division

Dates:  July 22 – 26, 2013 for Summer Workshop

Location for Summer Workshop: TBD (for one third of the teaches, travel, boarding and lodging will be provided if they have to drive more than 100 miles to workshop location)

Register Today: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CISTEM2013

Recently, the Virginia Department of Education announced that Goochland High School was recognized among the 100 Best W!se High Schools Teaching Personal Finance. W!se is an acronym for “Working in Support of Education” – a leading New York City based educational not-for-profit whose central mission is to develop personal finance literacy and readiness for college and the workforce.

During a ceremony last month on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange the organization recognized excellence in one-hundred high schools from across the country as part of its 10th anniversary ceremony of its award-winning Financial Literacy Certification Program.

Ms. Sarah Voyack and Mr. Joe Fowler teach Personal Finance for Goochland High School.

Here are all of the representatives from Goochland (Dr. Carchman, Mr. Hamzey, Mr. Watson) accepting the Regional Award from Dr. Wright (state superintendent):

As always, John was stellar. The class was engaging and I learned a ton – namely:

• It cannot be said enough: less is always much, much more when designing slides. There’s nothing worse than a presentation in which someone reads a heavy-print slide to a heavy-laden audience…
• Look for themes in your graphics. Catchy, provocative images are useful – and always better than text – but they should, themselves, tell a story. Try to integrate them around a theme.
• Change is good. Don’t be afraid to use the transition effects to enhance your audience’s  reception of your points, especially where bullets are concerned. Having key words dance behind you onto a tastefully sparse screen while you elaborate from your own anecdotes is energizing for your audience. Don’t just throw up a bulleted list – make it artistic.

I’m looking forward to my next presentation, putting to work the great tips I picked up from this class. We are fortunate in GCPS to have access to such exemplary training.

Thanks, John!

We have continued our partnership with former CarMax executive strategist, Joe Kunkel, as we pursue a revitalized vision, mission, goals and comprehensive strategic plan for the school division. During this most recent retreat, we worked to reach consensus on the general target for our vision and mission. We also agreed upon some shared core values we believe drive our organization.

Leadership team engages in strategic planning discussion in JSRCC new community room.

We look forward to working with our board soon to share the work we’ve done and seek direction in finalizing the plan that will support our advancement toward an even more excellent, personalized educational experience for all of our learners.

We have been privileged to bring you our board meetings through live stream as well as archived video. It’s important to us that all of our meetings, including important discussion and decisions, are made available to you in the comfort of your home and according to your own convenience.

As you may be aware, the county supervisors and administrator have graciously extended the invitation for our school board to host meetings in their facility. It has been a welcome development and we have enjoyed the room tremendously. We are, however, transporting our own equipment to be integrated into the county’s existing broadcasting system. Thus far, it has worked flawlessly – until recently when we experienced problems that prevented us from making the stream available.

I’m happy to report that the “bugs” have been fixed and we anticipate no more challenges to offering you the live stream meetings.

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

I have a 5 scoop ice cream cone. Each of my 5 scoops is a different flavor of ice cream. The five flavors are blueberry, chocolate, strawberry, vanilla and bubble gum. You don’t know what order my ice cream flavors are from top to bottom. However, here are some clues to see if you can figure out what flavors are from top to bottom:

1. The bottom flavor has 10 letters.
2. The vanilla scoop touches both the chocolate and blueberry scoop.
3. Vanilla is below the chocolate scoop but above the bubblegum scoop.

Can you apply some logic to figure out the order of scoops by flavor?

See the article now at ideastations.com

I offer special thanks to our Science Museum partner, Chuck English, and Ms. Rowan for pursuing excellence and creativity on behalf of our community and children!

• Today’s interactive notes
• Vulnerability TED Talk

Tell me about this presentation – the speaker, the slides, the format…

• How to Live to be 100+
• Presentations should mimic the framework of a good story. Read this blog post and summarize about the use of story
• What are the major points of “Presentation Zen?” Take a look at this Slideshare deck
• Here’s Garr Reynolds talking about Presentation Zen
• Try your hand – I have a Keynote Template for you to try your hand at – each person will develop their own Keynote presentation and then present to us. I’ll then give you feedback.

15 Minutes of Work Time

Download the template and look at details in the notes section.

• Some Power Tips – John shares some of his presentations
• Flickr
• CreativeCommons
• Shapes
• Builds
• MagicMove
• Simple Slides and Backgrounds
• Use color slides to divide up presentation
• It’s okay to break some rules
• Refine, refine, refine – get feedback

John’s Tips

• fast tempo – keep engagement up by using a lot of slides
• emphasize visuals over text when you can
• Check out the manual and videos from Apple
• ask yourself what’s the purpose of the slides? Am I giving information away? Or am I leading someone through an experience?
• Best handouts are a written document – how to copy/paste content from the slides into Pages
• Another good handout is a podcast episode – narrated slides into Quicktime.
• Slideshare
• Export to PPT into Google Presentations
• Presentation Mode in Keynote with non-mirrored display setting

Reflect

• Dan Meyer’s Algebra Keynotes
• Steve Jobs with NeXT
• Introduction of PowerMac G4 Cube
• Introduction of the iPhone

Post any questions you have in the comments!

Ashley Payne didn’t know that a festive photo of her holding both a pint of beer and a glass of red wine would lead to her losing her high school teaching job.

The 24-year-old educator posted the image to her Facebook profile, and after a parent complained, school officials told Payne she’d have to choose between resigning and suspension, according to IOL News. She resigned.

If those same school officials were hiring and found a candidate with a similar photo shared on the social Web, it’s most likely that person wouldn’t even get an interview.

According to a new report, turning down young job candidates because of what they post on social media has become commonplace. The report, by On Device Research, states that 1 in 10 people between ages 16 and 34 have been turned down for a new job because of photos or comments on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social networking sites.

“If getting a job wasn’t hard enough in this tough economic climate, young people are getting rejected from employment because of their social media profiles and they are not concerned about it,” On Device Research’s marketing manager Sarah Quinn said in a statement.

Ten percent of young people said they knew they were rejected from a job because of their social media profiles, yet 66 percent of young people still don’t seem to care that these profiles may affect their career prospects. The majority of young people cater their social media presence to friends rather than potential employers, according to On Device Research.

Quinn says that better education on how social media can affect employment is needed to ensure young people aren’t making it even harder to excel in their careers.

Several U.S. states have created laws to protect employees from being firedbecause of what they post on social media. In January, six states officially made it illegal for employers to ask their workers for passwords to their social media accounts.

It’s unclear how many employers have demanded access to workers’ online accounts, but some cases have surfaced publicly and inspired lively debate over the past year. In one instance last year, a teacher’s aide in Michigan was suspended after refusing to provide access to her Facebook account following complaints over a picture she posted.

As for Payne, even though she ultimately resigned, she since has sued the school to get her job back or receive monetary damages, according to IOL News.

On Device Research surveyed 17,657 people, ages 16 to 34, in China, India, Nigeria, Brazil, the U.S., and U.K.

Completing the FAFSA is the first step toward getting federal aid for college, career school, or graduate school. Federal Student Aid provides more than $150 billion in grants, loans, and work-study funds each year, but you have to complete the FAFSA to see if you can get any of that money. Not to mention, many states, schools and scholarships also use the FAFSA to award financial aid, so every college-bound student should complete it.

2. It’s FREE!

The FAFSA is free to complete and there is help provided throughout the application. Several websites offer help filing the FAFSA for a fee. These sites are not endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education. We urge you not to pay these sites for assistance that you can get for free at the official FAFSA website: www.fafsa.gov.

3. It’s easier than ever.

We’ve done a lot over the past few years to simplify the FAFSA. One of the most exciting enhancements has been the launch of the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. The tool allows students and parents to access the IRS tax return information needed to complete the FAFSA, and transfer the data directly into their FAFSA from the IRS Web site, saving lots of time. This year, the IRS Data Retrieval Tool will launch in early February, so be on the lookout for that.

4. It only takes about 30 minutes to complete.

Given all the simplifications we’ve made over the last couple of years, the FAFSA now only takes about 30 minutes to complete. That’s probably less time than you spend watching your favorite TV show each week. And think of the benefits: spend 30 minutes completing the application and you could qualify for thousands of dollars in financial aid. Talk about return on investment.

5. More people qualify than you’d think.

If you don’t fill out the FAFSA, you could be missing out on a lot of financial aid! I’ve heard a number of reasons students think they shouldn’t complete the FAFSA. Here are a few:

• “I (or my parents) make too much money, so I won’t qualify for aid.”
• “Only students with good grades get financial aid.”
• “The FAFSA is too hard to fill out.”
• “I’m too old to qualify for financial aid.”

If you think any of these statements apply to you, then you should read “Myths About Financial Aid.” The reality is, EVERYONE should fill out the FAFSA! Don’t leave money on the table.

For information and tips on completing the FAFSA, visit StudentAid.gov/fafsa.

Nicole Callahan is a new media analyst at the Department of Education’s office of Federal Student Aid.

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James just graduated from GHS with the class of 2013 and we are proud of his scholarship and his pursuit of excellence on and off the golf course.

We look forward to recognizing him in an upcoming school board meeting. Please join me in congratulating James and his parents, Lisa Melton, teacher at Goochland Middle School, and James Melton, Jr., former chairperson of the Goochland County Planning Commission.