3 PM Friday 2.18.11

Friday 3 PM 2.18.11

So I have taken the next step in my social media experience and added blogger to my blogging.  I will post on the EnglishCompanion.ning.com and Fri3pm.blogger.com.  I am also on twitter @mikeBrawer.  I am new at this and interested in improving my abilities to write.  Hopefully this week is better than last and next week will be better still.  My goal is to do one a week.

I am trying to get some feedback from the twitter-verse regarding research done in a district.  The history is, as most histories are, a bit complex, so I will just say that we are working on aligning all of the research done in the 7-12 district.

 My committee, I call it the research initiative, had a great session yesterday and I am curious about what other districts do with regards to research.  Yesterday, like I said was very productive.  We finished our discussion of what we think a senior needs to be able to do by the time they graduate in terms of finding reliable sources, documenting sources, extracting and documenting information from those sources, organizing that information and producing a product.  Our ultimate determination is that by the time a child is a senior in HS they should be comfortable using digital and “analogue” methods for all of these procedures and they should be able to develop a system that works best for them.  It is our job as a district staring in 7^th grade to cultivate their abilities to use a wide range of possibilities for them to practice with and perfect.

My next step is to thoroughly go over the notes from the last three meetings where this question was discussed and create a document that outlines our outcomes. 

Our last thoughts was that our students should be creating a digital portfolio at every level and when they are done they will have an trove of artifacts that they can look to and see their growth and accomplishments from 7^th grade to 12^th.  The initiative started talking about the digital footprint and that led to a discussion about twitter and a few of the ning teacher resources out there.  There was some real excitement and a few of them signed up.  If we have certain expectations of our students we need to be able to be real leaders for the teachers in our district.

I have to say I think this is better than last week’s blog.  Thanks for reading I value your feedback.  Look for #RsrchInit (The Research initiative) on twitter.