Changemakers

I have to brag a bit on the students and staff at Anastasis.  Last week, we turned school into a mock sweatshop where students learned what it would be like to be child laborers.  The adults were mean.  No bathroom breaks, no drinks, no smiles.  It was a rough day for all of us.  The kids spent the half day of school learning about child labor and then breaking bricks in our sweat shop.  The transformation in their understanding of what 200 million children around the world endure daily was astonishing.  They were able to put into words how helpless they felt. How tired, hungry, sad, angry, frustrated they were.  How mad they were when the result of their hard labor wasn’t enough to feed their family.

Lessons we learned:

  • As a teacher it is HARD to be that “cruel” to your students.  It was hard not to give them a smile of reassurance, a kind word or a pat on the back.  It was hard to be that uncaring.
  • We all learned that many of the brands we purchase every day employ child labor.
  • We learned that poverty is a major contributing factor to child labor.
  • We learned that some of these kids are considered lower than the livestock…they are expendable.
  • We learned that our students are compassionate and care about one another.
  • We learned that we have to be the change we want to see in the world.

As a result of the day, @leadingwlove’s class decided to start a foundation.  They are calling it the LSGW foundation and it is worth checking out!  I am SO proud of these students for going above and beyond just learning and into action.  They aren’t using age as an excuse and they aren’t willing to wait for someone else to fix the problem.  These are 11 and 12 year old students.  Changemakers.

I wrote more about the details of the day here:  From Out of the Dust, Dreams

From the Mouths of Babes…

Since I am on holiday, I have time to sit down and really read the blog posts of our students at Anastasis Academy…all 500 of them!  I am so proud of what our students do and the ways that their teachers challenge them to think and reflect.  As I was reading, I kept sending out tweets with links to the posts…I forgot that to read an Edu 2.0 blog post, you have to be registered on Edu 2.0.  Oops!  I thought I would share some favorites here.  None of them have been re-touched or edited.

These are from an intermediate class who started with the prompt: “I used to believe, now I know.”

Post 1

I used to think the traditional way of school was the only, iPads are a new way to learn.and best way to learn. Now I think using IPads, sitting around the room, and being creative is a great way to take advantage of the generations advanced technology. Are homework, tests, and grades the correct way to teach a student? Are discipline, punishment, and un-creativity a way to rotten the brain into what people now call an adult? Then it’s probably time to get a new perspective. The traditional way isn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, but trying something new is always good. Instead of my teachers asking me the correct time to start and finish something. They let me be creative and dig deeper into the subject. Also, the teachers allow me to watch videos that spark my imagination. Free writing is also a great way for me to get my creative juices flowing. I love writing, always have, always will. That’s why I love being able to put my best ideas on paper and watch a story come to life right in front of my eyes. I think that’s what other kids love too but are too afraid to speak up. Plus, students are afraid that they are going to get a bad grade. “Learning abuse” is what I like to call it. Every kid, even I, have experienced learning abuse. It’s when children receive a big fat F slashed across their paper, or get a “No, that’s not what you’re GO TEAM ANASTASISsupposed to do!” glare from their teachers. I’ve learned that if we change the boring way of school into a creative school, fewer children would die of learning abuse. Laying around the room helps me learn, and it does with everyone in my class. So, I think having electronics and creativity is the best and most creative way to learn. I think that ever since I went to Anastasis, my life has changed, hands down. Thank you for the new way of learning!

 

Post 2

I used to think that I was just supposed to remember things I learn in school, now I know that you should be creative with what you know. I know this because when I came to Anastasis, I used what I know to be creative and find out more information, instead of just remembering things I learn in school and checking it off the list. I personally think that creative learning is much better, because you should let your creativeness flow through your imagination instead of being like a robot and learning things so can just remember them and not even care. If you get a job in a factory pressing a button every 2 seconds in one hand and getting paid money in the other hand, how is that using creativity? Being creative is a great quality to have because creativity has no limits. You can use it to be a leader or a other quality. It allows you to make great things that haven’t been done before. It also lets your imagination stretch out and be creative. If you use your creativity during your lifetime it will help you in school, your job, your life at home, and even in other places. God gave you creativity to use everywhere, not just in one certain place or not at all. Use the talents God gave you to worship him.

 

Post 3

I USED TO THINK, BUT NOW I KNOW… I used to think that just getting the grade was the best for me, but now I know that it’s better to be creative and really know what we’re learning. Sometime in school, we all think… “Oh if I pass this test and get the A+ I will be number 1 in our class. That’s all that matters.” Now I know that the A+ doesn’t matter in the long run, but what really matters is being able to… Explain, Create, Retell, Analyze, and Remember. School isn’t about the teacher telling us the problem, we memorize it, put it down on paper, get the A, than forget about it, you know the process. Instead, we should really discover and really understand the process. Some schools think that the best way is too give you a test, we get the grade then they think we know it all. But we don’t. And we are missing the most important meanings of learning. I did a project at my old school, Cherry Hills. We had to create a cell, and its’ insides. We did this project at home. So my dad ended up doing most of it. I took it into school presented it, and got the A+. Now at this school, we do our own projects AT SCHOOL. We learn to be creative and really understand the concept. It definitely makes more sense to do it by yourself and maybe it won’t look as good as your dad, but thats not the point. The point is actually learning, and being creative.

 

From the mouths of babes I tell ya!

 

Dreaming: A look at Anastasis Academy

You may be wondering (or not) where the daily posts have been lately.  Believe me, it isn’t for lack of tools to share!  The slowness here is directly related to the time I am spending starting a school…as it turns out it is quite a bit of work! 😉  If you are a reader of all of my blogs, you have already seen this one, but for those of you who only follow me here, I thought I would give you a peek into the school I started this year.

Below, I share a picture of an incredible morning we had at Anastasis Academy where we welcomed singer/song writer Matthew West to join us for our morning devotion…we had NO idea it would result in the incredible private concert that it did.  What an enormous blessing to have Matthew share his time, creativity and passion with us.  Check out video of the morning on our school blog Stand Again.

|Kelly Tenkely|

It’s a pretty incredible thing to see dreams come to fruition.

For me it started with an obsession and passion for creating rich learning environments where every student was recognized as an individual. In that first post I wrote:

“I have a dreams of education. I have dreams of the way that schools should look. I have dreams of kids who find their passions. I have dreams of schools as rich learning centers.”

I had dreams of stripping the “vanilla” away so that passions could emerge.

Dreams of ditching that boxed curriculum that we call an education and watching the factory model fade into the rear-view mirror.

Dreams of ending the practice of viewing teachers (and students) as expendables.

I had dreams of schools that were beautiful, that were designed with students in mind.

Dreams that education would stop looking so much like the McRib.

Dreams of breaking free of the box, of valuing students and teachers,  of using the right tools, of a school where a student’s inner da Vinci can break through, of a school that customizes learning.

I shared dreams of more fabulous failures.

The dreams started trickling into reality in March of this year (2011).  In March I started getting some hints that these dreams weren’t really all that far-fetched.  By May I had officially started a school.  In August we opened the doors to Anastasis Academy with our first 50 students in 1st through 8th grade and had hired a dream team of 5 truly incredible teachers to lead them.  In four short months we went from dreams to reality.

At Anastasis Academy, we lease space from a church building throughout the week.  We have our own wing with classrooms, a playground, a gym and a kitchen.  All of our furniture is on wheels.  This makes it easy to adjust space daily based on needs, it is also a necessity since we use shared space.  Twice a week we move all of our belongings across the hall into a storage room (if I’m honest, this is the part we could do without!).  We can’t complain about the space.  It is pretty incredible!

You will notice that we don’t have rows of desks.  No teacher’s desk either.  We have space that kids can move in. Corners to hide in, stages to act on, floors to spread out on, cars to read in.  We are learning how to learn together, learning how to respect other children’s space and needs, learning how to discipline ourselves when we need to, learning how to work collaboratively, we are learning to be the best us.


You won’t see a worksheet at Anastasis. We use iPads.  That isn’t to say that we ONLY use iPads, in fact, you’ll often see us building, cutting, pasting, writing on a whiteboard/chalkboard and even paper.  We do a lot of blogging, a lot of reflecting, a lot of Evernotting, a lot of cinematography, a lot of discussing.

Every morning we start with a 15 minute walk outside together…as a community.  We invite parents and siblings to be a part of our morning walk. Occasionally we have the dogs join in on the fun.  After the walk we come inside as a whole-school for a time of devotions. Again, this is a time for us to build community, to foster the culture we want for our school.  Families are invited to join us every morning.  We always have at least one family and, many times, multiples.  We pray with each other and for each other. We have hard conversations and funny conversations. We think together and challenge each other.

Matthew West joining us for devotions!

Our inquiry block is a time for hands-on transdisciplinary learning.  This is my VERY favorite time to walk through classrooms.  It is incredible to see the joy in discovery.  It is incredible to have a second grade student with dyslexia discover an app to make stop motion animations, teach himself how to use it and proceed to stand up before 7th and 8th grade students to explain how stop motion works.  I wish I could bring you all through the building during this time.  Every time we have a visitor the students pause long enough to describe what they are doing, the learning that is happening. I often have to pick my jaw up off the floor. These kids are amazing.


We have no curriculum. At all. Zip. What did we do instead? We hired the very BEST teachers we could find.  We gave them a base level of skills that we wanted students to have- an outline if you will.  We used the Common Core Standards as our baseline.  We don’t use the standards like most schools do. We use them to make sure that our students have the building blocks and foundations of learning in place.  And then we let our students and teachers GO. The standards are not a weight we are tied to, they are the underpinnings that make it possible for us to soar and take our learning anywhere.  When you look at the Common Core standards they are pretty underwhelming.  I’m glad they are! They provide us with just enough momentum to propel us forward and then off we go on a journey of learning!  We also have our big inquiry questions in place.  From there, we go where the learning takes us, bunny trails and all.  It is pretty fantastic.  Today one of our primary students came out to see me and said, “Look at this boat I found in this new library book. Can I try to make it?”  My answer: “Absolutely! What materials do we need?”  Together we made a list of all the materials I needed to pull together for him.  Tomorrow he will build that boat he is fascinated with and find out if it works the way he has planned.  That is learning!  Tell me what boxed curriculum allows time for that to happen? None. That is why we don’t have it.

In the afternoons we have more “content” area subjects (i.e. math and language arts).  In the primary grades this means students building the skills they need to support their inquiry.  In the intermediate grades this means honing those skills for better communication and more thorough inquiry.  Again, we don’t work from a boxed curriculum. We find the lessons, approaches, and materials that work for the individual student.  Sometimes this means working with manipulatives, sometimes it means exploring measurement outside, and sometimes it means using an app.  It changes daily based on the needs of the students.

We have mixed age level classrooms.  We do this for a lot of reasons.  Most importantly, it is good for older and younger students to work together and learn from each other; it is vital that a child be able to work at their developmental level and progress as they are ready to; and it deepens inquiry when students with different perspectives work together.

Once every five weeks we invite the parents to join us for Parent University.  This is a time for us to help parents understand this new way to do school.  Detox, if you will.  It is a time for us to show parents what best practices in education look like, why grades aren’t all they are cracked up to be, why play is important.  It is a time for us to think and laugh together. It is a time to get questions answered.

Also every five weeks, we hold a “Meeting of the Minds”.  This is a parent/teacher/student conference where we all get together and set our road map for the next 5 weeks.  Students write goals with the help of their teacher. They have ownership over what they have done the last 5 weeks and tell mom and dad what they have planned for upcoming 5 weeks.

Every Friday we have a learning excursion or an opportunity for an “Anastasis Serves”.  Learning excursions are field trips all over the place that help students start to recognize that learning doesn’t just happen when we are at school.  Learning happens everywhere we are and, if we are paying attention, all the time.  Anastasis Serves is a time for our students to give back to the global community.  Sometimes this is a door-to-door scavenger hunt for donations, sometimes this is learning about orphans around the world, or packaging cookies and letters to send to our troops.

We don’t do grades, we do assessment all day every day while we learn.  We don’t do homework, we pursue our families and passions at home.  We don’t do worksheets, we do interesting (sometimes frustrating) work. We don’t do boxed curriculum, we do on-demand learning.

We do mistakes. We do community. We do collaboration. We do messy. We do play. We do fun. We do technology. We do learning.

How do we do all this? We have a 12 to 1 student teacher ratio (or less).  We have incredible students, parents and teachers.  We have stinking smart board members who are invested in our success and trust our judgement calls.  We set our tuition at $8,000 (per pupil spending in our district) to show that even though we are private, this can be done in the public schools.  We started with nothing…well almost nothing, we had dreams.  There was no capital raised, no fund-raisers, no huge donation. We started the beginning of the year at $0 and put blood, sweat and tears into it.

This is not to say that we have it all figured out, that all of our students are perfect, that all of our staff or families are perfect. We are perfectly imperfect as every school is. We have days when the kids are BOUNCING off the walls, we have disagreements, tired teachers, stressed parents, a founder who has occasional melt downs (that would be me), students who need extra love and support, tight budgets, parents who demand different, scuffles, sniffles and band-aids…lots of band-aids.  There is nowhere else I would rather be. No other group of people I would rather work with. No other students whose germs I would rather share. This is my dream.

There are moments throughout the day when I am stopped in my tracks by the realization-this is my dream.

1-to-1 iPad ePortfolio solution

Today @j_allen asked how we handled eportfolio’s at Anastasis Academy.  The 140 characters of Twitter felt a little too limiting to explain the hows and whys of what we do…bring on the blog post!

Anastasis has a one-to-one iPad program.  Our students own their iPads in a modified BYOD (bring your own device) setup.  I say modified because we requested what device they brought.  The iPad was the ONLY supply on our supply list. Anastasis supplies all other materials (pencils, papers, crayons, markers, paint, glue, etc.).  This has been a fantastic setup for us.  Families are in charge of keeping the iPads in working order, synced with the student iTunes account and charged for class.  We made the decision not to own the iPads as a school to keep costs low for technical support, replacement of broken or out-dated devices and so that our students could take ownership over their own devices.  Students can add any apps to the iPad at home using their own iTunes account.  As a school, we purchase curricular and productivity apps for students.  Students download these apps using redeem codes so that they can stay signed into their own iTunes account.

Anastasis has 60 students in 1st through 8th grade.  At the beginning of the school year, we sent home a list of recommended restrictions for parents to set up on student iPads.  We taught families how to enable parent restrictions on the Internet, movie/app/song ratings, and how to block in app purchases.  We asked all parents to restrict student access to Safari.  At school, we downloaded the MobiCip app to every iPad so that we could filter the Internet.  MobiCip allows us to set up broad category filters based on age. A premium MobiCip account lets us filter exactly what we want to and allow those sites we want to.  (For those who are wondering our students do have access to YouTube.) 🙂

I digress…the question was about ePortfolios.

We use a combination of Evernote, Edu 2.0 and Edublogs to keep and share our work.  Evernote has been a fantastic app for our students.  Students can record text, images, and audio directly in Evernote.  Each note can be emailed to teachers and parents.  A link can also be generated for each note making them easy to share on blogs.  Better yet? There are SO many apps that have the ability to share with Evernote.  Very handy.  Students do quite a bit of writing directly in Evernote.  This is a good place for all of student writing (even those pieces they don’t want to, or aren’t ready to, share).  Evernote makes it easy to organize all of their notes into notebooks (the learning curve here is teaching students to use some organization).  The ability to record audio and take pictures of their work in Evernote is great.  This means that students can capture learning that isn’t natively digital-digitally.  All of those awesome inquiry projects that they construct and build can be captured and reflected on in Evernote.  Another HUGE benefit to the Evernote/iPad combo: it goes with them everywhere.  Recording learning on a field trip? Check. Recording learning at home? Check. Recording learning on the fly? Check. Teachers often send students a PDF instructions for an assignment or a picture to the student’s Evernote account. Parents can login to their child’s Evernote account from any computer or iDevice to see what they are working on.

Edu 2.0 is our education portal.  In Edu 2.0 we can share things as a school community.  Edu 2.0 has a built in e-portfolio (we don’t often use this), a blog, a post feed, calendar, and message system.  Edu 2.0 makes it easy for us to stay connected as a school community.  Because we teach young students, this “walled” community is a safe place for students to share any, and all, of their work and thoughts.  Students often write blog posts in Edu 2.0 about their learning.  Other students, parents and teachers can comment on the Edu 2.0 blog posts.  Teachers use Edu 2.0 to send students assignments, make class announcements and communicate quickly with parents in their classroom.  Students can link any content from their Evernote account to their blog in Edu 2.0 to share it with other students, parents or teachers.  The school calendar is updated with all birthdays, learning excursions and school events so that students, parents and teachers are always up-to-date.  The live post feed makes it easy for teachers and administration to make school-wide announcements.  This feed shows up on the home page of every student, parent and teacher.

Each of our teachers has a class Edublog.  This is where the teachers write blog posts about the happenings in their classrooms.  Students can also contribute to the class blogs to get input and comments from a global audience.  The Edublog is the place for interaction and collaboration with the world.

We have a school YouTube account where students can upload videos and stop motion animations.  The school account has become a nice central place for students to share their work with the world.  I act as administrator on the YouTube channel so that I can moderate comments and videos.  Students can easily link to, or embed, videos they have created in Evernote, on their Edu 2.0 blog or on Edublogs.

This combination of tools has worked well as an ePortfolio for student work. I love that at the end of the school year students have ALL of their work with them.  Because they own their iPads, the Evernote content goes with them.  Even without the iPad, students can access their Evernote account from anywhere and continue using it.

Do you have a one to one program?  I would love to hear your solutions for an ePortfolio!

Goal Book: Personalizing Education

Goalbook Beta Overview from Daniel Yoo on Vimeo.

What it is:  Goal Book is a platform, currently in beta, that helps educators come together to create and track student goals.  The interface is very Facebookesq in feel.  Teachers can create and track student goals from within Goal Book, sharing those goals with any other team member that works with the student.  Each time a goal or progress of a goal gets updated, the entire team that works with a student is updated.  Educators can keep each other updated with progress of goals, celebrate students, and share messages in Goal Book.  In addition to updating educators, parents are now in the center of the conversation.  They can see all progress, communicate with the education team that works with their child, celebrate successes and send private messages from within Goal Book.

How to integrate Goal Book into the classroom:  Goal Book is a fantastic way to keep every part of an education team up to date with IEP goals and progress.  No more keeping track of email threads, assuming someone else is taking care of a particular portion of the goals, or wondering what progress a student has made with another team member.  Goal Book brings all communication to one, easy to manage place.  I like that teams are fluid in Goal Book.  Here, the assumption isn’t made that every student has the same group of educators working on their goals.  The students you have input in are listed in one place and the team members associated with that student show up as well.

Goal Book isn’t just for students with IEP’s, all students benefit from creating and tracking learning goals!  Ask your students to think of a goal they would like to make for themselves for the semester/quarter/trimester in each discipline.  Record the goals and progress with students throughout the semester/quarter/trimester.  Celebrate with students when they have reached their goals and share these with parents.

At Anastasis Academy, we hold parent/teacher/student conferences at the beginning of each block.  We call this conference “Meeting of the Minds”.  This is a time where parent, teacher and student come together to write learning goals for the upcoming block based on the progress that was made the previous block.  Students play a big part in creating their learning goals.  One thing I would like to see from Goal Book is the ability to include students in the goal making/tracking process.  It is important to include students in the planning and tracking of THEIR learning goals.  Kids have to have ownership in their learning!

Tips: The Goal Book blog is worth subscribing to and following if you plan to use Goal Book at your school or in your classroom.  The blog will keep you up-to-date with the latest updates and information about Goal Book.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Goal Book in  your classroom!

Friday Recap: Geeking over new apps, celebrating week 5

Whew, it has been a while since I have done a Friday recap.  Mostly because these days I’m just so happy to have made it through another week that I am celebrating other ways…like by taking a nap.

Anastasis Academy has just completed week number five.  Can I say how incredibly cool it is to see something that you pour yourself into come to fruition?  We have students! We end every week with a field trip learning excursion.  Awesome.

If you are interested in following our journey, you can follow our blogs (yes plural, we each have at least one, some overachievers have two…or more).  I’ve created a bundle that you can subscribe to in Google Reader.  Subscribing to a bundle means that you will never miss a beat…it will almost be as good as being here with us.  This is just the collection of teacher blogs.  Each of our students blogs as well, we can’t share those publicly because we use full student names.  Occasionally I may let you have a peek at some of our student writing by republishing the post anonymously.  For now you will have to take my word for it, these kids are amazing.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and YouTube.  You can be a super fan and like us on Facebook.  If you are ever in town, stop by and let us show you around!

This week I found some super cool apps.  I’m talking classroom changing here.  I couldn’t wait to blog my favorite find which is Demibooks Composer.  A BIG thank you to @ianchia for making me aware of its existence.  I can’t wait to see what our students come up with!  Demibooks Composer puts the power of interactive e-book publishing into the hands of every student.  I am geeking out here.  It is seriously cool.  Hurry up and download it while it is FREE.  I would have paid big money for this app.  Big.

 

First Day of School: Anastasis Academy #standagain

Today was one for the books.  We did it! We opened a school with a radical new vision for what a school should look like in light of learning.  It was a truly great day!

Of course there were some bumps (that is to be expected with ANY first day of school) but I have to say, when you surround yourself with incredible people it is hard to go wrong.  When I say that we built a dream team it is not an exaggeration.  These are true teachers, masters at what they do because each of them is a linchpin.  They don’t wait around for someone to tell them what to do, they exude greatness and encourage the same in their students.

We started our day the way we will start every day at Anastasis Academy, with a community mile walk.  We call this a community walk because families are invited to do it with us.  Every family joined us today.  I know that won’t be the case every day but it was an incredible start to the year to see a whole community walk together.

After the walk, the community gathered for a blessing for the year from our Board Members.  These are people who have poured into us and mentored us in so many ways.  We couldn’t be where we are without our board and the people it represents.

Today there were discussions about community, what it means to properly manage freedom and how to be a friend.  The children are incredibly perceptive and these discussions led to some pretty profound insights from the students.  One fourth grader noted “Freedom requires a lot of responsibility.”  Students seemed to grasp that freedom doesn’t mean that we get to do whatever we want when we want to.  It requires something of us.  There were discussions about what this freedom looks like within our school community, what this freedom looks like in learning and what this freedom looks like in our technology use with the iPads.

The iPads are still a novelty for many of the students.  They wanted to do EVERYTHING on the iPads all at once because they could.  “Let’s play a game, listen to music, and have a video going all at once!!”  I suspect that the novelty will wear off as students come to realize that the iPad isn’t just a once-in-a-while privileged but something that they can learn with all the time.  One of my favorite moments of the day was when some eighth grade boys came up from lunch having an argument about which was bigger: a liter or a gallon.  Their first instinct wasn’t to use their iPads and Google the answer, but to ask an adult.  They are still in the mindset that adults hold all of the knowledge of the world.   It was a great time for us to shrug our shoulders and remind them that they had the whole world at their fingertips and could discover the answer themselves.

We had some fun whole-school activities built into the day.  Before school each teacher wrote 10 things about themselves.  Each item was printed out on a separate piece of paper.  These were spread out on the floor and students were to choose an item and match it to the teacher they thought it belonged to.  Each teacher stood in a different corner and the students set off trying to match talents, passions and fears to the correct teacher.  After they had correctly placed all of the items, each teacher took a moment to go through their stack, introducing themselves to the students.  The kids asked great follow-up questions and were excited that many of their own passions, interests and fears were reflected in those leading them in learning this year.  It was so much fun to see students faces light up when teachers said things like “I love Star Wars” or “I love to play basketball”.  They begged for proof when we shared secret talents “touching our tongue to our nose”.  They shared a special bond when they found out that even adults have fears. (Mine is taxidermy-true story.)

Because we are in a brand new building, we had to come up with a way of helping kids find things like bathrooms, drinking fountains, classrooms, playgrounds, lunchroom, etc.  I thought a scavenger hunt would be a fun way to do this.  Since I am a HUGE geek, I decided to do this techy style with QR codes.  Each team (classroom) got 10 QR codes that led them to clues with each student in charge of one clue.  Students downloaded the free Scan app and scanned the QR codes to receive a clue.  As a team, they worked together to solve the clue to find different areas in the building.  When they solved the clue they took a picture of the answer using the camera app.  At the end of the hunt, students added up their points.  All ages had fun with the hunt!

I deemed the day a success when, at the end of the day, I overheard siblings use their iPad to FaceTime with their dad.  He asked how the first day was and both answered, “great! We had fun!”.  The first grader went on to enthusiastically tell her dad about the scavenger hunt that she went on and the pictures that she took.  The seventh grader added some additional details about how the QR codes worked.  Both talked about relationships with teachers and students.  To have that on the first day of a new school is telling.  We have a great team.

Passwords may have been missing, permissions needed to be configured but all in all it was a fantastic success!  I can’t wait to see what the year brings.

Onward.

The Dream Team…

This marks the week before the first week of school.  The school I’m starting. Wow, weird to say.  I’m can’t promise a solid week of posts as we scramble to get everything squared away.  In the mean time, I thought I would “introduce” you to the Anastasis Academy dream team.  They are a seriously incredible group!

Stand Again (click here to meet the team!)  Stand Again is the official Anastasis Academy blog.  We chose Stand Again because it is what Anastasis translates to in Greek.  You may also see the team using the #standagain hashtag on Twitter to tell of our adventures, it is the quickest way to see what we are up to. 🙂

I hope that those of you who are starting back to school this week have an incredible year ahead of you!

Keynote: how a blog post and a Twitter conversation started a school #RSCON3

Last week at this time I was getting ready for my Reform Symposium Keynote.  It was fun to share with everyone but what I really enjoyed about the weekend was learning from everyone else!  The Reform Symposium recordings are now live!  To keep that learning going I’m going to do a 27 days of professional development series.

For the next 27 days in addition to sharing a tech tool, I’m also going to share one of the Reform Symposium sessions.  Last weekend was such an incredible time of learning and sharing that I want to keep the momentum going.  It is also a GREAT excuse for me to attend all of the sessions I missed out on during the conference.

If you missed my keynote last week about how a blog post and a Twitter conversation started a school, you can view it here.  This is a link to the Elluminate session (a Java download).

Below are the slides I used in my Keynote.  For those who asked, I made the slides using Apple’s Keynote.  I just drew a timeline, inserted some pictures, text and voila- timeline!

 

 

Friday Recap: Look where you want to go and steer in that direction- how a blog started a school #missingISTE11

Happy Friday!!  To all of you who are making your way to Philly for ISTE11, I wish you safe travel, fun and learning.  I wish I was there with you! Someone will have to Flat Stanley me so I can pretend I am there with you all. For those who are missing ISTE with me, we have started a Twitter support group 🙂  Use the hashtag #missingISTE11 to find other peeps who can’t be there this year.

The reason I am missing ISTE: Look where you want to go and steer in that direction- how a blog started a school.

 

Happy weekend!