Angela Maiers

This evening after school we had the privilege of having Angela Maiers at my school to help us get a handle on Twitter.  She is very inspiring and helped me think differently yet again. 
This summer I read her book The Passion Driven Classroom after hearing her at my district's summer conference which has inspired me to structure my Girl Scout troop around it's main points.

How do you use Twitter?


I used it in grad school to help me stay abreast of the most current educational issues so that I would be able to contribute to conversations.
However tonight, it was made very clear that part of being part of Twitter is finding your community, taking a risk and SHARING.  What you are doing in your classroom, school, life, could help someone else.  In turn, there are millions of people out there who share their lives.  I found that I was thinking about who I am.  What do I want to learn about?  What do I have to share? What are my PASSIONS?  As I begin to answer these questions, I think I will be able to better focus my efforts on Twitter.

What do I need to make this happen?
I need to answer the above questions.
I need to explore Twitter and its management - such as Lists and Hashtags
I need to be willing to take a risk and share as well as ask questions

Have a great night!
Anna

First Week Down

We have welcomed all of our new students and had a successful week. Assessments are in progress and I can't wait to talk with teachers to help them analyze their data and formulate focused instruction for our ELL's and our Dual Language students. As part of this I am continuing my hunt of iPad apps as well great RtI interventions for our second language learners. If you have used something successfully in the past, please share here.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ana-lombas-spanish-for-kids/id385509506?mt=8

There are a couple of apps I am currently working with. I really like Ana Lomba's apps that read stories to the learners in Spanish, but can be read in English too. Some are free, some aren't. I'm enjoying the free ones right now.

I am also investigating Español Lectura mágica. This seems like an in-depth app and I'll be testing it with my kiddos as well as have some of teachers try it with their learners at school.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/abc-spanish-reading-magic/id458648992?mt=8

The group of ESL Elementary facilitators I work with are a great group of ladies. We plan to have an e-newsletter this year with help strategies, teacher examples, as well as a group twitter account. As soon as we have this set up, please follow us. I am really excited about this idea and can't wait to see how it all turns out this year.

Have a great rest of the long weekend and second week of school.