Christmas Ornaments from Ashe County, NC

As many of you already know the White House Christmas Tree this year came from Ashe County, NC. Lindsey Postlethwait, an art teacher in Ashe County at Blue Ridge Elementary School, is giving her students a chance to have their art displayed at the White House. In the form of Christmas Ornaments! Her students created ornaments like the ones below which will then hang on the Christmas tree at the White House.

Ornaments created by students at Blue Ridge Elementary School.

Sandhill Leadership Academy Cohort 2

On November 15th, I had the opportunity to travel on Pottery Highway to Carthage, NC.  It was a beautiful drive and I was very excited to have the chance to speak with future administrators who are in the Sandhills Leadership Academy Cohort 2.  It was wonderful to work with excellent teachers who are taking the step into education leadership roles. Thank you for everything you do for students!

Blue Ridge Elementary- Ashe County

On November 14th, I was excited to have the opportunity to travel back into the mountains to Blue Ridge Elementary School  in Ashe County.  While there I had the opportunity to work with teachers and discuss global education, web 2.0 tools, and integrating technology into the classroom.  We had wonderful discussions about the importance of using technology to have our students collaborate and communicate with students across the state and world. 

Thank you teachers at Blue Ridge for everything you do for your students and for allowing me to visit your wonderful school!

American and International Education Week- ECSU

On November 13, I had the opportunity to travel to the coast to beautiful Elizabeth City State University and participate in their American and International Education Week celebration.  This was a wonderful day and one of my highlights!  I was so impressed with Elizabeth City State University and how often they thanked teachers for what they do.  Teachers don't hear it enough!  The entire day at ECSU was scheduled to celebrate American and International Education Week and to celebrate and thank teachers.  It was wonderful!  

When I arrived at ECSU I thought I was only giving a speech on global education, I had no idea the wonderful surprises that were to come.  Before I spoke, two preschool students came up on stage to present me with a flower.  They were precious!  I then spoke with teachers and the audience about  the importance of global education.  The rest of the day involved: a beautiful trophy, wonderful gospel music, an excellent lunch, participation in a ribbon cutting ceremony, and hearing the Chancellor and the Dean of the College of Education thanking teachers numerous times.  It was a wonderful day!  I drove away from Elizabeth City with a full heart and proud to be a teacher.

Thank you Elizabeth City State University for a wonderful experience and for celebrating teachers!


Links to the press release on the ECSU site below:

http://www.ecsu.edu/administration/ia/urm/headline.cfm?ID=11787

http://www.ecsu.edu/events/intledweek/grimes.cfm

http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/grimes-students-must-know-world-1365913

NC Central Teaching Fellows

On November 12th, I traveled to Durham to speak with the NC Central Teaching Fellows.  We discussed classroom management, teaching the whole child, global education, and connecting classrooms across the state.  The teaching fellows were a wonderful group and I was very impressed with their  thought provoking questions about the present and future of education.  Thank you so much for allowing me to come and speak with you!

NCCAT

On November 9th and 10th, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with a group of teachers at NCCAT located in Cullowhee, NC.  NCCAT stands for North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching. According to their website: 

The NCCAT Mission: To Advance Teaching as an Art and a Profession

NCCAT's mission is to keep high-quality teachers in the classroom, advancing teaching beyond that of a simple job to an art form and a profession.  Be renewing their love for teaching, and improving the quality and enthusiasm of the teachers themselves, NCCAT ultimately improves student engagement in learning and academic achievement. 

NCCAT's vision is to help every North Carolina teacher grow in knowledge, skills, compassion, and professionalism so that every student becomes engaged, self-motivated, and successful. 

NCCAT helps to retain the most caring, highly qualified, and skilled teachers necessary to positively impact the quality of public education in North Carolina.  Dedicated to enriching the professional lives of our state's public school teachers, NCCAT provies support for the entire spectrum of their teaching career.


While at NCCAT, I had the opportunity to work with teachers on web 2.0 tools and integrating technology into the Common Core and the teachers' classrooms.  We had a wonderful week and I was so impressed with how much the teachers were able to accomplish in 1 week.  We had teachers who created wikis, blogs, and websites for their classes to use.  While others created lessons using eduglogster, blabberize, voki, animoto, and many other web 2.0 tools.

Many teachers took the opportunity to share with their colleagues what they had learned during NCCAT by creating an animoto video.  Below is Charisma Arbogast's video.  I was so impressed with all of the hard work the teachers put in for their students!  Thank you teachers and thank you Barb for a wonderful week!

Charima Arbogast's animoto video: http://animoto.com/play/XLX7bRYRSuBV0OK4DGNZzg

Race to the Top Update

The following information comes from the Race to the Top weekly update:

Next Generation Assessments Released Forms––Online Version

The online versions of the End-of-Course Assessments of Algebra I/Integrated I, English II and Biology and the NCEXTEND2Assessments of Algebra I/Integrated I, English II,and Biology released forms are now available at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/testing/releasedforms. On the website you will find a chart that includes the online version and the paper-and-pencil versions of the 2012-13 released forms.

Podcasts on Common Core, New Assessments and More

With the many changes occurring in the NC Standard Course of Study, along with new assessments, a new educator evaluation system and more, NCDPI has produced a number of podcasts for teachers, principals, parents and others interested in a video resource to explain the work under way. Topics include READY Overview, Why the Common Core, Assessments, Educator Effectiveness Common Exams and more. Visit http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ready/resources to access these podcasts.

Lessons for Learning for Mathematics

These K-8 documents were created by selecting high leverage tasks from the DPI Week-by-Week and Strategies for Instruction Documents and rewritten to align to the Common Core Math Standards. These lessons incorporate the Standards for Mathematical Practice to support teachers with the implementation of the Common Core Math Standards.  The intent of this document is to support current teacher resources. Because of the high demand for support materials, a first draft has been posted on the wiki:http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/home.  More of these lessons will be forthcoming. 

UNCC

On Wednesday, I traveled to Charlotte to speak with Teacher Cadets, Teaching Fellows, Education Majors, SNCAE students, and Kappa Delta Pi students at UNCC. They were a wonderful group that was very excited about teaching and education.

NC State Board of Education

Did you know each month the minutes and agenda items for the North Carolina State Board of Education are posted online?  You can get to them by going to http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ and clicking in the upper right hand corner "SBE Meetings".  When you click, it will take you to the eboard site. Then find "meetings" in the top tool bar.

You can also go here: https://eboard.eboardsolutions.com/Index.aspx?S=10399#

Free Website Creators

Many teachers are creating their own websites to share information with their students, parents, and fellow teachers.  Below are 2 website creators and videos:


Weebly:  http://www.weebly.com/

Wix: http://www.wix.com/

UNCW

On Monday, I had the opportunity to travel to Wilmington to speak with the UNCW Teaching Fellows and Education Majors.  As soon as I walked in their Education Building I was impressed!  It is a beautiful building will so much to offer for students.  I was even more impressed once I had the opportunity to talk with the students who spend each day inside that amazing building.  Each student I spoke with was excited and enthusiastic about teaching.  What stood out the most though, was the thought provoking questions that they asked.  I could tell just by their questions that they want to become the best teachers that they can be!  Thank you for a wonderful trip to Wilmington! I greatly enjoyed talking with each of you!

University of North Carolina Wilmington

Twitter Help

Are you interested in using Twitter, but are confused my all of the # and @?  If so, check out the article below.  This article helped me tremendously when trying to understand the world of Twitter. Good Luck and happy tweeting!

http://www.teachthought.com/technology/the-complete-guide-to-twitter-hashtags-in-education/

IIS= HomeBase

The Department of Instruction has been working very hard on the IIS, Instructional Improvement System, which is a technology system/ program that will be a resource for all teachers.  The READY diagram below will help explain what the IIS will look like.

With further work, DPI has decided to not only create an IIS but to have one platform that will help teachers easily find the resources that are needed to help students to succeed.  Their goal is to create one platform with one log in that will give teachers access to the new PowerSchool (in the past we have used NCWISE/ESIS) and the IIS.  This new platform will be called HomeBase because it will be the main place that teachers across NC will go when creating lessons, drafting assessments, grading, and taking attendance.  The READY diagram below will help explain this.

The goal for HomeBase is to be piloted among school systems in the year 2013 and to have a complete roll out in the school year 2013-2014.

ASU Football Game

I just want to say thank you to Appalachian State University for a wonderful football game on October 20th.  My husband and I had a wonderful time watching the game and having the opportunity to go down on the field during half time.  Thank you for a wonderful time!