Friday at Lewis

Posts by Lewis staff via a Flipboard Magazine...

Posts by Lewis staff via a Flipboard Magazine...

This has been a pretty busy week at Lewis. We are continuing with our work with Portland Taiko. The last of our classes will work with them again on Monday, with a performance on Tuesday afternoon. It has been a great experience and several of our teachers have written about it on their classroom blogs. To read these please follow the link below:
Taiko at Lewis: Posts from classroom blogs...

Intel's Jones Farm Conference Center

Intel's Jones Farm Conference Center

This week Mr. Marchyok, one of our 5th grade teachers, and I had the opportunity to travel to Intel's Jones Farm facility in Hillsboro to take part in a Chromebook app design session. Intel brought in some educators, engineers, and user interface designers to work together in Design Thinking teams. This was a new experience for me and I found it very exciting. It was also nice to be able to see how a corporation goes through a development process. All in all a very good experience.

 

 

It is looking like spring is finally here, we had some great weather this week. Our plum trees in front of the school have started to bloom, along with our daffodils, and our tulips are just about ready to do so. 

Friday afternoon at Lewis

Friday afternoon at Lewis

Lewis Audio Postcard: March 7, 2014

We produce a semi-weekly audio podcast about events and activities taking place at Lewis Elementary School. Below is our most current effort which highlights our recent Talent Show, kindergarten information, and a bit about our current Japanese drumming residency with Portland Taiko.

listen to ‘Lewis Audio Postcard: March 7, 2014’ on Audioboo

IntegratED in Portland...

This week IntegratED-PDX was held in Portland. This is the annual conference put on by OETC. The event opened up with a special leadership strand on Wednesday. I had the opportunity to work with Tricia George and we helped to facilitate a session with school administrators focused on using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to share the story of your school.

Photo Credit: rwentechaney via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: rwentechaney via Compfight cc

The opening keynote was by Mark Frauenfelder, the founder of BoingBoing and Make Magazine. His message of the maker movement and the celebration of DIY, was something that I have not heard spotlighted in a major education conference keynote and was very glad that OETC provided him the opportunity to share this. 

On Thursday Tricia George and I helped facilitate a discussion with school leaders about trends and challenges associated with technology. I liked that the majority of the time was spent in table groups having conversations.

Finally the aspect of IntegratED that i enjoy most is that this conference works very hard to break down hierarchies. Michelle Cordy had an insightful Twitter post about how the name badges did not have ribbons to designate speakers, board members, and other strata of conference goer. Just a a blank slate which allows participants to tell who they are.

To me that is the most important take away from this event. Darren Hudgins and the staff of OETC work hard to bring in interesting people, doing interesting work, work focused on students and learning, and then make a space that allows them to share, and learn with the participants. The opportunity to connect with participants is just one of the many aspects of the program that make this my favorite conference. 

iPDX14 

iPDX14 

An important aspect of this is time after sessions, when people gather. I was fortunate to be able to connect with many of the participants in the evenings and between sessions. The size of the conference makes connecting possible. 

Finally the event allows me to connect with old friends and also connect with new friends that I have met via social media. It is a great venue for connecting with educators working on the cutting edge of education and I encourage folks to consider attending next  year...

@techlandiacast and friends on a rainy Saturday in Portland... 

@techlandiacast and friends on a rainy Saturday in Portland... 

The Lonesome Teacher Trio...

On Friday evening Lewis Elementary School held its annual Talent Show. The show is lead by our 4th grade teacher, Sarah Kohn, along with support from many parents. The acts are mainly students singing, dancing, performing gymnastics, playing musical instruments and performing in skits.  Students also act as announcers and stage support. We have posted a few photos on our Flickr site. http://flic.kr/s/aHsjTAVD1g 

In the last few years we have started a new Talent Show tradition. A performance by  The Lonesome Teacher Trio. The trio consists of our won Mr. Colvin, Mr. Jamesbarry, and Mr. Marchyok. Enjoy.

The Lonesome Teacher Trio...

Dancing in the Gym...

Oregonians are a pretty hardy lot when it comes to rain, but every once in a while we have to call an inside recess. When that happens our some of our students have the option of going to the gym. There are PE teacher, Ms. Layman, has several activities set up for them including one that involves an iPad running YouTube, a Chromecast a data projector. With this setup she projects dance videos on the wall and the kids get to take part as the did today dancing to the Gummi Bear song. Click the image above to take a look.  

Pamela Kennedy: Room 17 at Lewis

In an earlier post I mentioned the upcoming IntegratedPDX conference taking place later this week in Portland. I'm looking forward to attending and taking part, but another reason I'm looking forward to the conference is that one of my teachers, Pamela Kennedy, will be leading a session on Thursday. Her topic is the use of Evernote as a portfolio system.

Pamela Kennedy is a 3rd grade teacher at Lewis Elementary.  Pamela's classroom incorporates seating and standing options that allow students to work in ways that best fit them. You can read more about Pamela's classroom and the work of her students on her class blog: http://mskennedy17.wordpress.com. Be sure to also follow her on Twitter: @pamelakennedy17.

And if you will be attending IntegratedPDX this week, make a point of meeting her. 

Ms. Kennedy's classroom. Room 17 at Lewis Elementary School... Photo by Pamela Kennedy

Ms. Kennedy's classroom. Room 17 at Lewis Elementary School... Photo by Pamela Kennedy

Accelerate & IntegratedPDX14

Photo Credit: rwentechaney via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: rwentechaney via Compfight cc

I am looking forward to a couple of events this week.

IntegratedPDX is a education conference put on by the folks at OETC that attempts to connect people in the educational technology world with one another and provide a venue for the sharing of ideas and strategies that focuses on learning and how technology can be used to support this.

Photo Credit: rwentechaney via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: rwentechaney via Compfight cc

The conference starts Wednesday night with a keynote by Mark Frauenfelder, founder of BoingBoing and co-editor and founder of Make magazine. The organizers of this conference do an excellent job bringing in speakers, who are at first glance, are not connected to traditional education, but are always connected to learning and how people learn. 

The traditional keynote is where this conference stops being like most education conferences. It doesn't have speakers, but rather facilitators/presenters. The goal of each session is not to have participants sit and listen to someone up in front of the room, but rather get people in the room talking and sharing and learning from one another. I'm looking forward to facilitating a session, Making Connections - Supporting Educational Technology as a Building Leader, on Thursday with Tricia George.

Another event that is connected to IntegratedPDX, is Accelerate. Accelerate, also sponsored by OETC, has a similar format to IntegratedPDX, but is only one day and the focus is on school leaders. This takes place on Wednesday. Tricia and I are also doing a session at Accelerate, Juggling the Possibilities: Promoting personal growth and teacher innovation through technology in K-12 schools. 

The hashtag for both events is #ipdx14 

Signs of Spring...

A promising sight...

timlauer's photo on Instagram

What a difference a week makes. Last week Portland was covered in about 6 inches of snow. Sunday saw temperatures near 50. The daffodils planted in the front of the school are coming up and in a few weeks should be in bloom. A nice sign that winter is ending and spring is just around the corner.