Best+of+West+Smart+Board

//Members: Katrina Lantz, Robert Walling, Jan Horetski, Mary Damiani, Debbie Emans, Barbara Robeson//
 * Best of the West group**

What do we want to learn:
 * How to use Beta tools (explore and use)
 * Research and compile list of activities and internet sites for all grade levels.

What do we want to do for the 3 hour All Day Coach Mtg. Accomplished Work during the all day tech coach meeting: Action Plan for Nov Meeting(1 Hour)
 * Compile agenda for staff development. Our group will work on our Staff Development Plan together.
 * Create a list for care of the Smart Board.
 * Student created contracts.
 * Reviewed the beta tools as a group
 * discussed and started our professional development plans for the 0708 school year. Some group members finished and submitted their plans. Others will take their plan back to their site administration for approval before submitting to Peggy in early November. Katrina will be sharing her plan with the staff at Mesa Verde along with the rigor/relevance rubric. Jan and Robert will be presenting to their appropriate technology committee/collaborative at their sites.
 * group discussed the fact that the care of the SmartBoard is on the CD provided and we will use and modify that as needed with our staff and students. This leads into creating student contracts for SmartBoard use.
 * Debbie submitted her plan to both Peggy and Andy Heinemann for approval.
 * Great sites Peggy - Thank you!
 * Share how our plans were received/modified by admin and staff
 * What has been implemented to this point?
 * Discuss successes and roadblocks
 * Share products or lessons if available
 * Homework: Before next meeting, find several examples of sites/lessons/activities to share with the group

__Meeting Notes: 11/28/07__ Most of the sites had a positive responses from the site administrations. However, since then, very little time has been made available for any implementation. Mary and Debbie are planning on giving their first presentation in the next two weeks. Robert is planning on creating his group of high interest teachers to start their study of 21st century skills and rigor/relevance. Katrina met with her team and came up with a plan to come up with a smartboard lesson by Januray meeting. Barbara had servey completed by the whole teaching staff. Most of the ratings were at novice or "N/A" becuase they only have six boards at their school. Jan has a lunch bunch where smartboard tips and tricks are shared by anyone meeting during that lunch period. Wilson and Painted Sky have grade level share files for students to add lessons for the grade level to use and modify.

Barbara has had some teachers with smartboards offer to assist in "how to" activities and basic care. One teacher has created lessons and is willing to share to help other teachers. Mary worked with a teacher to create a lesson. Debbie shares her smartboard during her lunch with a second grade class. Many of the student teachers at our sites are learning and utilizing the smartboard technologies.

The biggest roadblock that we all agree on is a lack of time available for us to obtain inservice time. Many of the sites are overloaded with mapping inservices, school meetings, etc. and finding time where teachers will come has been tough.

Jan added that there are a lot of math interactive sites and has added a few to the wiki. [|Stop the Clock] is a site that she really enjoys and uses to teach half hour, 15 minute, nearest minute. This resource is a [|TUSD page] with a TON of links to great sites! Lesson Activity Primary [|Smarttech Website] http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/thats_a_fact/index.html Interactive math activities/games for all levels. http://www.lethsd.ab.ca/mmh/games/top100.htm Intermediate http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/thats_a_fact/index.html Interactive math activities/games for all levels. http://www.lethsd.ab.ca/mmh/games/top100.htm

Current [|Smart Board newsletter] with ideas, lesson plans, resources and information about version 10.0 [|Amphi Smart Board Resources] - check out Smart Board podcast (they banter a lot but have good links and resources), Intel tools are perfect for higher level thinking and Smart Board and numerous resources to check out and share with teachers.

This is a nice compilation of [|SmartBoard resources for primary grades K-5] that was put together by Nan LeFebure- Canada
 * Here is a list from Peggy George that she shares with her teachers:**

Great Sites for [|Using the SMARTboard K-3]

[|Engaging Learners the SMARTboard Way] (Eduscapes - Annette Lamb)

[|Primary Interactive White Board Resources]-For Key stages 1,2,3 and Foundations-math, literacy, science and other subjects

[|Jefferson County Schools-Interactive Websites] for Grades Pre K-12

[|Smartboard Notebook Files created by Lakeland Teachers], NY

[|Getting On & Falling Out-SEAL Interactive Smartboard Files] for friendship, cooperation & resolving conflict, feelings, managing & understanding anger, working together

[|Worthwhile Websites for Learning] - Here's another really good website to share with teachers so they can tell their students/parents about these great resources. While it is a Canadian website and some of the links are unique to the curriculum/ communities in Alberta Canada, many of them are useful anywhere. I'm sure you'll recognize lots of them. It's a fantastic collection of websites for students and parents (grades K-6). Division 1 sites are K-3 and Division 2 sites are 4-6. Teachers could use lots of these sites with their SmartBoards for in-class instruction. It's an amazing resource!!!

[|First Grade Backpack-Reading] - If you haven't discovered this website, you are going to want to take a look at it and explore all of the wonderful links!!! It is the most amazing collection of beginning reading websites I have found in one location. There are online stories, poems, interactive games, phonics activities and much, much more!! It would be great for kids to use independently or for teachers to use with SmartBoards. It is designed for first grade, but it could really be appropriate for any primary grades, and would be great for ELL students. Have fun exploring!!!

[|A great SmartBoard resource]

Working with [|SmartBoards to support student-centered inquiry-based learning]

[|Technology in Motion-SmartBoard Basics] (University of Alabama)

Training Opportunities http://www.ccsprojects.com/trainingcenter.cfm

Meeting Plans for February All Day Meeting: Mary would like to work on a spreedsheet to collect data for a pre and post assessment using the SmartBoard User Rubric. She would also like to analyze data and determine where she should focus her energies in professional development.

Katrina would like to find lessons for the resistant teachers to be able to use the smartboard in the lab setting and get teachers more excited for smartboards.

Debbie and Barbara would like to create something that will help them show the SmartBoard tools to their staffs to excite staff members.

Robert and Jan would like to create a rigor/relevance presentation with links and samples for his mini group.

February12, 2008

Explanations of Rigor and Relevance can be found at the following sites: Rigor and Relevance

[|http://www.leadered.com/rigor.html] International Center for Leadership in Education


 * What we accomplished this school year**: We learned more resources/ become more proficient using the BETA tools, shared folders on the server, created resources for teachers and shared them in various ways. Barbara created a teacher resource page that is linked to the Donaldson page.

The Rigor and Relevance framework with an explanation of each quadrant [|http://www.leadered.com/pdf/Academic_Excellence.pdf] Willard Daggett’s Achieving Academic Excellence through Rigor and Relevance [|http://www.natpd.com/present/files/RR_Feb.ppt] PowerPoint about Rigor and Relevance

February meeting was outstanding. We used our time wisely and found many great sites to share with our staff. Debbie and Barbara set -up Delicious accounts for our staff and we filled them with many critical thinking activities/sites as well as SMART lessons.

Katrina found many webquests for all grade levels and emailed them to her teachers...and Jan.

Barbara--It is hard to talk about or encourage others to use Smartboards when you don't have one yourself. Barbara was able to have others help her lead a workshop. After a staff Debbie held a couple of demos, but only about half showed up. We need to find out a way to have create time. The principals need to build in time for us. The curriculum mapping takes up a lot of time! Robert sees grade levels at his school building capacity by creating Smart notebook lessons- 3rd grade is doing a great job. None of us had as many opportunities to meet with our school collaborative group.
 * March 26** We haven't had much success getting people to come to workshops or to find the time to have workshops. We have so many committments on our early out days it is hard to schedule anything else.

Next meeting we will discuss how we can better build capacity at our schools thinking about next school year.