Shayna Malyata

On Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting and working awhile with Shayna Malyata of Lewiston Middle School. It became immediately clear that she believes in connecting personally with students and finding ways to engage them in the learning process. As part of her work, we spent a few minutes looking at iMovie. Shayna already had an educational purpose and raw footage available. She only desired a crash course in editing . . . which is what we did. In my line of work as an integrator, that sequence is ideal: Just-in-time learning with a reason in mind for using a tool. See Grappling's Technology & Learning Spectrum.

Check out the links below to some of Shayna's work:

Kavango Connection

Lewiston Middle School Civil Rights Team

Memoirs for Change: The Lewiston-Auburn Memoirs Project (LAMP)

Memoirs for Change

Storytellers for Peace

Sun Journal: "LMS Students Share Stories As They Write Memoirs"

College Course Videos

Arne Duncan on Education Stimulus

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. ~ George Orwell

Education Week Interview with Education Secretary Arne Duncan from Education Week on Vimeo.

Stimulus Money and Federal Mindset

Will Richardson at Weblogg-ed: "How to Waste the Education Piece of the Stimulus"

Diane Ravitch at Bridging Differences: "Is Arne Duncan Really Margaret Spellings in Drag?

Melanie Smollin: "Education's Piece of the Stimulus Pie - Following the Money"

Schools Matter: "Meier and Konsky on Duncan"

21st Century Literacy

Travels with Earth Bear

Ask Jim Moulton questions using Google Tools to Learn about India.

The Power of Wordle

by Becky Ranks

Having just completed a day in Bangor with teachers there who are working on Inquiry-based Instruction and Essential Questions, my partner in crime, Jim Burke and I were very impressed with many of the things that are happening there in Grades four through 8. We were part of an all day professional development experience that reached all content areas. Jim and I covered the language arts curriculum and presented resources and ideas for language arts teachers.We were just a small part of a day arranged by Martha Thibodeau through the Title IID grant. One of the resources presented was Wordle. I am sure most are familiar with Wordle, but if not it makes wonderful word clouds. Last night while watching CNN's commentary on President Obama's press conference, the commentators used his words in a Wordle word cloud. It was blown up to a tremendous size, and they were able to pinpoint the words that were used most often and it highlighted the power of words. The Bangor teachers were thrilled with exposure to this new resource, and now its reach to mainstream media has taken it to real world uses and shows another use beyond our imagination.

Rainforest Podcast at MVMS

Podcasting at LIM Resources Wiki
Mountain Valley Middle School 7th Grade Team

Maine Laptops and the Future

Essential Questions:

1. What have we learned from the first 7 years of MLTI?

2. What might work even better in the future?

MLTI Laptop Information (2009 Deployment) at LIM Resources Wiki (Feel free to edit (update).

Discuss on LIM Online Community

Middle Level Education in Maine

A Framework of Twelve Core Practices for Maine Middle Grades Schools Developing Full Academic, Personal and Social Potential for Maine Young Adolescents.

"Merit Badge" at Wicked Decent Learning

WDL Blog