Learning in the Lou

Many of us have dabbled in all things design thinking over the past few years. Here is a free event that would be worth your time. Why not come learn with us! I have been to a number of their events and have always left feeling positive and pumped up. Check out Connected Learning for more information. 

I found this Post-It note on the floor in my house today. Simple and right to the point. Some days are wicked easy while other days are pretty challenging. This note is why I love getting up early in the morning, greeting each day with new hope. Where did this note come from? My daughter's room. She has maybe about a dozen or so sayings like this. She finds them online and writes them down. Pretty sure she sees that world as not half full or half empty. She sees the third option, it is refillable.

I used to image all these inventors toiling way at some desk in a dusty room for hours, weeks or years until their invention was finished. The lone genius hard at work. When I started teaching that is what I believed to be happening when I walked down the halls of Truman Elementary. Behind all those closed doors everyone was by themselves perfecting their lessons for the day. I now know that isn't possible for either scenario. There is no such thing as the lone genius. No one gets there by themselves, it takes a lot of experimentation and teamwork. And mistakes. Lots of mistakes. Someone recently played this video and I was floored. Take in each obstacle the team had to overcome. Some of these ideas just seem too far fetched but it worked! Without a team this would not be possible. Without risk taking it would not be possible. Without some crazy ideas this would not be possible. What risk are you going to take today? Don't ever forget that you are not alone. No

Did you like out Next Practices conference? Ready to learn a little more? Join us on Saturday February 11th from 8:00-3:00 for Edcampstl. Register here before the tickets are gone! Not only is it an action packed day of learning but lunch is provided. This event is 100% free. I have been to many of these events and have always walked away with great ideas I could deploy that day.

Sometimes you need to adjust an image just a bit to make it really pop. You could use an app on your phone, or PicMonkey. Open picmonkey.com Click Edit . Select an image. 1. Click Auto adjust - PicMonkey will take care of the rest! 2. Choose some additional editing if needed. Finished editing? Click Save. 1. Rename the file. 2. Save to your computer.

Is your feed filling up with a billion pictures? So many that your message gets lost? Check out what PicMonkey can do to help clean up the feed a bit and make your images pop. Open picmonkey.com Click Collage . 1. Click the little shapes. 2. Choose a layout. Double click the area you want to add an image. Note - you will need to delete any images you don't want before adding new ones. Pick where you want to add an image from. Hover on the picture. Click Edit. Adjust the image as you see fit. Click save when you are finished adjusting and editing. 1. Rename the image. 2. Save to your computer. Final product. Now you can add four images and a simple description to one Facebook post. 

Diigo - Wicked Easy Curation We all deal with stumbling across so many great resources every day. Saving them has always been a hassle. Bookmarking them can be limiting as some of what we find does not fit into one category or folder. We share them but sometimes we struggle to find that great resource that is somewhere within our overstuffed inbox. I personally struggle with context. I saved things but when I pull that resource back up I have no idea why I saved it in the first place. There is one simple tool that can solve all of our issues and then some. Diigo Overview How I use Diigo Resources Sign up for a free upgraded teacher account . How To Use Diigo's New Outlining Tool: Social Bookmarking Made Easy - defiantly check out this post. I would recommend taking a look at how you and your students can use the outlining tool.  7 Ways Students Use Diigo To Do Research and Collaborative Project Work - beyond offering a few ideas on why students should be

The above image are the results from a Google Form. Reading these Sheets isn't exactly a user friendly experience and can be rather cumbersome for some kids kids. If you run one simple Forms add-on the results can be entered into a simple Doc that is wicked easy for everyone to read and interpret. This shows the exact same data that is on the top image but in a much easier and readable format. Do you see the amazing difference that docAppender can make? Follow the directions in this video to learn how to use docAppender allowing you and your students to clean up the data. What else can you use docAppender for? Use this method to keep a running document of each time you conference with a student. Creating a rubric form and share the results with teh student. The results are much easier for the student to read and interpret when compared to the sheets results. Peer views! Teacher observations. Tracking progress through a unit or focused on specific sk