Curriculum Blogger: Highlight Week 1-7

 The blogging and connecting to the resources provided in this class allowed me to think critically about the learning that goes on in my room and the curriculum of our district.  The blogs also allowed me to evoke change, instead of just stewing about the issues to myself.  Many of the highlights below include blogs that I used as a way of making positive change after reflection of the material presented in the class.  Some of my favorite blogs are below with a short description of why they stood out to me.  The bold beginnings give a brief connection to the big ideas that I learned in the class.

1. UPDATING CONTENT:  
• "Sustainable Education"  This blog gave sustainability integration ideas: hiking, beach, descriptive writing in the woods.
2. EDUCATING THE COMMUNITY:  
• "Persistent Issue Assignment" I spend a lot of time on this assignment and even included a power point presentation and essay about grading that will be taken to the school board next year.
3. INTEGRATION/ASSESSMENT: 
•  "Metacognitive Writing"  For this blog, I commented on a new found technique that I would use in my curriculum called a RAFT.  It was really exciting creating a new aspect of my curriculum for next year: metacognitive writing in the form of RAFT's.  So far, I have made RAFTs about colonial America, causes of the American revolution, storms, water cycle, and the atmosphere.
4. FUNDING 21ST CENTURY LEARNING / MEANINGFUL ASSESSMENTS / SAMR MODEL REDEFINITION:  
• "Grant Application Technology Fair" I took quite a bit of time to create a meaningful grant application on donorschoose.org that may give students more opportunities to grow in the ways we learned about in this course.
5. REDEFINING SCHOOLS
• "Who Me? Yes You. Couldn't Be! Then Who"  An insight on how our society is needing to figure out who to blame in our failing education system.  
• "Educators Unite:  Reflection on 'The Myth of Charter Schools'"  Diane Ravich had some great insights on charter schools.  I outlined in this blog my feelings about Ravich's article, and gave some suggestions for keeping public schools progessive.