Differentiate the process in the classroom and digging into ASTE.

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Dear Diary,

This week’s challenge is to find sources to help differentiate in the classroom and “storify” them. First of all, I found storify to be an easy Internet source to use. My qualm is that if I use storify to curate sources, I have to double curate because I am committed to using diigo to store and organize my teaching sources. I do like that storify is another way to publicly document information. I could search within storify to try to find other resources. There was a function to publish my story automatically to my wordpress blog. After several tries, I could not get it to work. Right now I do like using this blog as the central place for curation. It allows me flexibility to keep all my sources linked to text, which also keeps me organized. Searchable tags make for efficient searching.

I’ve been at ASTE all weekend. The best thing about ASTE is stuffing my face with fresh fruit and salads. Em. Ok, that is one of the best things. 🙂 I attended one of the key note presentations which was presented by Cheryl Lemke. Her (little more than an hour) presentation referencing studies and research clearly outlined the need for differentiated and personalized instruction for our students. Her encouragement for using technology to help students individually came with a caution to make sure that the practice aligned with the students preferences and needs. With the right mix of individualized instruction and technology supports, students can achieve amazing results. I did videotape almost the whole presentation, with my iPad, as my tech-savvy way of taking notes! I think the idea of getting to know students, and really investing the time in making the learning applicable and meaningful for students should be the fundamental thought behind every lesson plan, even if a teacher is working with a prescribed program. Think about every good presentation you have ever been to… it was good because it was meaningful to you.

Diary, ASTE was a blast as usual. My diigo, my stickies, my word document with notes, my business card wallet are all at capacity. I am walking away with so many new ideas. As I dig in to all this good stuff, I will let you know which ideas are working and why. Besides all the delicious fruits and vegetables, I really enjoyed meeting people face-2-face! I got to meet people that I have had in my learning network for a long time. There is still so much value to me to work with people face to face. I went to one session on video conferencing in the classroom. It made me wonder if the video of a real person would give me the same connection with someone as meeting them in person. I would guess not. That leaves me wondering about my students and how to ensure that they get face-to-face contact with real people outside the village of Point Hope.

This week left me with more questions than answers, diary. This is actually a good thing. I don’t think I clearly answered our essential question. But, I clearly have a million more ideas how to differentiate and how to present lessons differently using technology! Now it’s time to reflect on all the questions and information and see how it all fits together.

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