Category: Friday Recap

Friday Recap: poems, painting and an app

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Friday Recap: poems, painting and an app1954 views

It has been a while since I have done a Friday Recap post; honestly, most weeks I’m just lucky I’ve made it to Friday!

This week I have some fun things that I couldn’t wait to share!  This is what I was up to when I wasn’t blogging:

The first share is an INCREDIBLE poem written by 5th grader, Emma at Anastasis Academy.  The kids were writing poems ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas style, Emma wrote the brilliant poem below about the night before braces. 🙂  Clever!

Twas The Night Before Braces

Twas the night before braces, my teeth were all clear,
not a spot of silver, or a rubber band near

I knew it would be painful and bring on a tear,
but I knew someday they would come off, and I would
celebrate and cheer

I stopped and smiled and looked in the mirror,
my teeth are all crooked and need to be cured

Tomorrow is a bad day and I wish it would pass,
I wish it would happen super duper fast,
Which nearly wouldn’t happen like I have heard in the past,
now I need to pick my colors and make sure they don’t clash

Now Pink! Now Purple! Now White and maybe Red!
Maybe after my appointment, I’ll be happy instead

I shouldn’t be complaining, I sound like a drag,
My dad works so hard for me, I don’t want to make him mad

So I’ll go in with a smile, it might take all my might, so….

Happy Smiles to all and to all a straight bite.

What did I tell you?  We have the MOST brilliant, creative kids at Anastasis! (I’m sure every teacher reading this could say the same!)

 

At Anastasis Academy, each Friday we have a learning excursion.  Sometimes these are field trips out of the building, but this week we had a local artist, Scott Beckley, come to us.

Scott taught the kids how to paint in acrylic using palette knives.  The results were fantastic!  Some students made curvy cartoony pencils.  I wish I had caught more of them to take pictures of as they were heading out the door!

      

Thank you Scott!

 

Did you know Flat Stanley has his own app? Very cool!  You can check it out on my other blog iPadCurriculum.

Wishing you joy this weekend!

Friday Recap: Geeking over new apps, celebrating week 5

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Friday Recap: Geeking over new apps, celebrating week 53098 views

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.

 

Friday Recap: TGIF (especially a 3 day weekend TGIF!!)

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Friday Recap: TGIF (especially a 3 day weekend TGIF!!)1002 views

You know it has been one of those weeks when I only manage ONE post here all week long.  I think that is an all time low since I started iLearn Technology in 2007.  Just wow.

Between starting a school and working out details for the Learning Genome it has been a busy week where I feel like life is moving at turtle speed.  Let’s get these shows on the road already!

This is just a post to let you know that more useful tech tools WILL be coming your way, it just may take me a 3 day weekend to get back on top of life.

In the mean time…if you aren’t yet part of an online personal learning network, I can’t SHOUT it enough- you need one.  All you have to do is sign up for Twitter, engage in conversation with other educators from around the world and BAM- your own personal learning network is born.  It is brilliant, I can’t tell you how much I learn from my PLN every day.  This week was particularly wonderful because I got to follow all the happenings of the ISTE conference.  Even though I couldn’t be there, I could keep up with all the fun and learning.  If you are so inclined to jump into Twitter and give it a try, be sure to drop me a hello (@ktenkely). I haven’t been great about tracking new followers lately but I always respond to @messages.

A ginormous thank you to all of you who wished me a happy birthday yesterday on Twitter, Facebook or by helping with this custom birthday present.  Tears when I saw this beauty.  Thank you!

Today I entered the Learning Genome (if you don’t know what in the world that is, feel free to click here and learn about it) in a grant contest to raise some funds.  I would be grateful if you could vote and help spread the word like crazy.  It is easy, just click the banner below 🙂


To all my friends in the US, Happy Independence Day!

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

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Friday Recap: Look where you want to go and steer in that direction- how a blog started a school #missingISTE111925 views

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!

Friday Recap: Apps, jobs, new blogs

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Friday Recap: Apps, jobs, new blogs2139 views

Happy Friday!!  Fridays during the summer are especially wonderful aren’t they?  Nothing better than a weekend ahead, some sunshine and fresh air and flip-flops.  Bliss.  I finally managed to keep up with posts here and get a few in over at iPad Curriculum with some application reviews.  Next week we are beginning to interview for positions at the school I am starting, Anastasis Academy.  If you are interested in applying, get yourself in gear and get your application in soon!  The job does require that you are in Colorado 🙂  On a serious note, we are looking to build a ball team.  I happen to believe that my PLN is made up of the best educators in the world, if you are interested please do apply, we would love to have you!

I ambitiously started a new blog last week for the school called Stand Again (I must be crazy, I think this makes blog #7…)

Below are posts from iPad Curriculum:

Stick Pick– I am VERY excited about this app from my friend and blog alliance member Buzz Garwood, worth checking out!

Virtual Rat dissection– just as gross (and educational) as you would imagine.

 

Happy weekend to you all!  I hope you find some time away from work and technology.

Friday Recap

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Friday Recap2490 views

Three day weekends are a gift straight from heaven!  I could not be more thrilled that we are headed into one of those.  I have been on turbo speed for the past few months and I need a reason to take a forced break- this seems like the perfect excuse to do just that!

Working to open a school in August is hard work, I continue to be amazed at the learning community that is being pulled together and I am excited to see it all unfold!

This week:

I hope you had a meaningful week full of many learning gifts.  To those who finished school this week-congratulations! For those who have some time yet- keep doing what is best for kids!

Happy weekend!

Friday Recap

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Friday Recap2177 views

It has been a few weeks since I have done a Friday recap, mostly because I have been BUSY and haven’t done anything on my other blogs worth mentioning here. Okay, to be honest it isn’t worth mentioning because there has been nothing to mention.  This week I got my act in gear and wrote a post about an absolutely FANTASTIC app over on my other blog, iPad Curriculum.

So, in case you missed it:

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, don’t forget to celebrate moms!

Better Late… Friday Recap

Kelly Tenkely8 Comments on Better Late… Friday Recap1340 views

Hi all, I hope you have had a wonderful week!  This is a late night Friday recap- better late than never 🙂  This has been a fantastic and exhausting week as I finish the website for the new school I am starting.  For those who are interested, you can take a look at it here: Anastasis Academy (if you are interested in learning more about employment, send me a comment through the contact form on the admissions page).

A few weeks ago I ran a Survey2Go Contest and promised I would announce the winners today.  Congratulations to those who won!  You will be hearing from Survey2Go with instructions for redeeming your 100 Survey2Go credits.

Yvonne Lenard
Rebecca Woodcock
Tania Schutz
Lisa M
Christy Dugger
Ann Taylor

Congratulations to the winners and happy weekend to all of you!

And the winner is…

Kelly Tenkely6 Comments on And the winner is…2532 views

I’m getting ready to head to wine country for a little vacation but before I go, wanted to wrap up some contests, announce a winner, and announce another iLearn Technology give away.

Thank you to all who entered the iLearn Technology Starrmatica classroom giveaway. I was overwhelmed with comments, tweets, Facebook comments on my fan page and people filling out this survey.  I can’t thank you enough!  I put all of the entries into a spread sheet and then used Random Number Generator to choose the winner.  The winner is…

Congratulations Deb!


For those of you who entered the Grade Trac contest, thank you so much!  I will announce those winners when I am back from vacation.

In the mean time I have another stupendous give away (I am full of them lately…lucky you guys!).  I have ten 100 survey2go credits to give away!

First a little about Survey2Go.  As I mentioned in the Grade Trac post, although we would all LOVE to be paperless, that just isn’t the case for most of us yet.  Survey2Go bridges the gap by offering the convenience of the paper we are already using, and the online automation of organizing the data.

Survey2Go provides:

Easy Survey Creation

  • Easy copy/edit features to build new surveys from existing ones.
  • Visual interface makes it easy to select and modify your custom survey format on a question by question basis.
  • Upload pictures to include in your questions and answers.

Uses Standard Office Technology

  • Use your office scanner/copier; no special special scanner required.
  • No software to install or manage; you just need an Internet browser.

Fast, Accurate Results

  • In most cases, results are ready for your review the next day or sooner.
  • Automatic response evaluation for all multiple choice questions.
  • Easy, fast, consistent process for summarizing write-in questions of any size.
  • A variety of survey result reports and tools to meet your needs.
  • Trend reports across same surveys

I can’t tell you how many stories I hear of technology being used for weeks at a time for surveys.  This means that while student surveys are being conducted, no one else can use the technology for *ahem* learning.  Anyone else see the problem here?  Why are we using technology for throw-away tasks like student surveys when authentic learning opportunities could be happening?  Silly!  Survey2Go is a great solution, the survey still gets completed, the results are automated, and the computer lab stays open for learning.   Not only does Survey2Go offer the ability to take a paper survey and automate it, you can have a school survey where half of the students use paper and half of the students access it online.  Regardless of how students (or teachers, or parents) take the survey, the results are all automated and organized in the same space. Brilliant!

So, can we all agree not to occupy our technology with surveys when we could be using it for authentic, hands-on learning experiences and creation instead?  Survey2Go is a great way to free up technology for meaningful tasks while still collecting necessary data.

If you or your school is interested in Survey2Go, leave me a comment about it below.  On April 15th (2011) I will announce 10 winners.  Be sure to use an actual email address in the comment form so I can get in touch with you.

Friday Recap

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Friday Recap2312 views

Once again this has been a crazy and amazing week.  I am inching closer to realizing the vision of opening a school fall of 2011. This week I found the space, and I tell you friends, it could not be better. Truly!  The next goal is to reach our goal of getting 50 students enrolled in order for us to open.  Even if it doesn’t happen this year, it has been an incredible education for me!

Don’t forget that you can win a free subscription to Starrmatica by entering this contest.  You have until the end of March.  I just didn’t want anyone to forget that we are WEEK away from that happening…how did it go so fast?  This is a really incredible prize and it is just so darn easy to enter, why wouldn’t you?

March Madness is here and that means if you buy anything from my Printfection store you get 20% off of any order and 25% off an order of $50 or more. Not too shabby! Coupon codes below must be entered before completing your order.  The sale ends March 21, 2011.

Coupon Code: MarchMad20%

Discount: 20% off no minimum order

Coupon Code: MarchMad25%

Discount 25% off subtotal of $50+

Have a wonderful weekend!