COLLIER COUNTY, FL – A smart pen is making a big difference in Collier County classrooms. It’s quickly taking the place of chalkboards and notebooks.

“A lot of times students have trouble taking notes, writing things down and listening, doing two things at once,” said Tom Keer, Math Specialist at Corkscrew Middle School.

The Livescribe pen can do everything at once, so students don’t have to stress.

“Sometimes she would talk a little too fast and I would be still writing something while she would be explaining something else,” said student Janine Cortesi of Corkscrew Middle School.

Now kids in don’t have to get caught-up with catching-up- because the pens are at every school across the county.
The pen records everything a teacher says and writes, and kids can access the information from any computer in the world.

“It gives students a personal tutor at home, they can re-watch lessons, relearn things,” said Keer.

“Sometimes I don’t get everything down right when it’s said so I always rewind and play over,” said student Autumn Rybak of Corkscrew Middle School.

Students can work at their own pace and teachers can keep a closer eye on them.

Some pre-record lessons and play them in class, which frees the teacher up to walk around and monitor progress and problems.

“Makes it where you can kind of clone yourself,” said Keer.

That helps give students more individualized instructions based on each student’s needs.

“It helps me get better grades,” said Rybak.

Click here for the full story.

Victor Johnson said he understands the value of hard work and preparation. “I was taught if you don’t have a plan, you have a plan to fail,” said Johnson, a senior who is taking advantage of DeSoto High School’s new multimedia program for special education students.

MyGraduationPlan is a national online resource created by Excent, a Roswell, Ga. based company that develops special education software. Starting in middle school, students in DeSoto can use the program to map a path h from high school to college.

In its second year at Desoto, the program is an interactive online resource that increases self-awareness and encourages self-advocacy. Students can use the curriculum to discover strengths, needs and interests, enabling them to design a plan aiding in the transition from high school to the college admissions process and beyond.

“It has enhanced our [special education] program because of the individuality of the program,” Desoto High School principal Cheryl Ensley said. In high school, special education students are active members and participants of their Admissions, Review and Dismissal committee and Individualized Education Program. MyGraduationPlan is an additional resource available for students who have disabilities such as ADHD and dyslexia and meet state requirements for accommodations.

Ensley said she expects the program to be a long-term resource for students at DeSoto, rated academically acceptable by the Texas Education Agency. It’s designed to help improve graduation rates, she said.

“It puts the focus on the individual and the individual student’s needs,” Ensley said. The eight-step program is designed to empower students to take ownership of their futures.

“At first, I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I get older,” said junior Sterling Benjamin, whose dream is to become a veterinarian.

Benjamin, whose parents moved to the U.S. from the southern Caribbean island of Trinidad, said he has learned to be more focused and has a new mind-set since he started using MyGraduationPlan. “I learned you can do good in school,” he said.

For some, such as senior Tony Contreras, it’s become an essential tool for navigating the sometimes confusing process of college applications, essays and financial aid forms. Contreras said he will be the second member of his family to go to college, and he wants to set a good example for his 14-year-old brother.

“As an older brother, I have to step up and teach him,” Contreras said. Johnson, who has applied to three schools, hopes to attend Prairie View A&M University. He said MyGraduationPlan is “like one of the jump-starts to success.”

For others, the program is becoming an essential step in realizing their long-term goals. “Don’t let anybody stop you … from your dreams,” Benjamin said.

-Jana J. Pruet

[Read More]

[see more]

Local 6 CBS News in Florida recently featured Letters alive during their Making a Difference segment. Local 6’s Nick VinZant traveled to Orlando, Florida to see how this new reading curriculum is making a difference for Pre-K and Kindergarten students at Audobon Park Elementary.

[see more]

Traditional flash cards literally come to life with new 3-D technology called Letters alive. Teachers say the cards and noises are so real, kids no longer have to make believe. Kids can learn about letters and even build sentences.

Recently, I had the privilege to witness students achieving in a high school environment that works. DeSoto High School in the DeSoto Independent School District (DISD), DeSoto, Texas has figured it out, during a streaming presentation quests during the streaming presentation to local and national media at the school. I was fortunate to be in the right place, at the right time, to hear it, and be able to share it with you.

There are a combination of things happening, together, to  help students succeed at DeSoto High School, which uses a College and Career Academy system to support their curriculum. DeSoto’s  five academies— Arts & Performance, Business & Technology, Health & Science, Classical, and Professional are the foundation. So, from the start, students make choices that place them into curriculum and course studies that matter to them. Another puzzle part is having the right people guiding students. One of these influential educators is Melvin Barnes, the school’s Transition Coordinator. He helped lead students in discussing their learning at the presentation I attended. Barnes works with students based on vocation interests, translates that into secondary education opportunities for his students, as well as employment opportunities—in their chosen fields after graduation.

I think that those parts are essential to the DeSoto plan, but there was one added piece that helped make it a student plan. DeSoto High students are using MyGraduationPlan to get them through the courses they need, and keep them on track for that graduation walk. Each student, who talked at the DeSoto presentation shared that this was an integral part of their achievement, because they had learned to plan for success by using it. MyGraduationPlan for DeSoto students answers the planning ingredient.

I was talking to a friend of mine about what I had witnessed, right after the presentation. He said, “Most times I don’t think people talk about expectations enough. Then they are easily saddened when they aren’t realized.” I told him that a closer look at DeSoto and DISD might be in order. It seems they are not only talking about it, but also doing something about it—and the students, not the adults, are the ones with the expectations. And that’s what we’re after, right? While I’ve talked about the academy role in this, I really think that when students plan their own path, it sometimes motivates them beyond any expectations we, as educators, may have for them. I’m all for more education stories like that…

–Ken Royal

[Read More]

Meet Your New PD Tool

See how these administrators are using social media to connect with peers—and improve how they run their schools.

Tiffany Della Vedova entered the social media universe gradually. She started with ASCD EDge, an online community of some 33,000 administrators and educators where she still regularly blogs. “I had been reading their publications and blog. And I thought, I’m going to join the conversation. I started blogging and reading other people’s blogs. I think people gravitate toward the places that offer them their best human connection.”

Then she began following people from EDge on Twitter, and once she got the hang of it, a whole new world opened up. “I realized it’s like the largest virtual teachers college out there,” she says. “I’ve learned more over the last year than I have in any kind of professional development conference.”

She did so simply by posting questions on Twitter, appending a relevant hashtag, and waiting to see what she got. “We were looking at a new resource for our social studies curriculum and it was all video-based, very multimedia,” she says. “I didn’t know what equipment was going to be necessary. I wanted to see if somebody could give me feedback. So I ‘hashtized’ my question to the social studies chat people. And I said, Is anybody using this…

[Read entire story here]

DeSoto High School prepares students for the future

[Read More]

Four-year-old Christopher Gómez lined up a set of specialized word and animal cards, including one with the letter ‘I’ and a picture of an iguana under a camera to compose the sentence, “The iguana can eat.”

Christopher shifted his eyes toward a projection screen, smiled and said, “I like the iguana!” as the reptile appeared to pop off the card and onto the screen to eat an insect. A woman’s voice simultaneously spoke the sentence displayed above the screen.

Teachers at the Baldwin Park public school say “Letters alive,” software that combines interactive 3-D technology with sounds, words and realistic animal actions, is helping the school’s 50 autistic children overcome the challenges they encounter when learning to read.

“A static image has little meaning to Christopher, but a three-dimensional image that interacts with him through movement and sound makes a lasting impression because it becomes functional,” said Mary-Elizabeth Langston, Audubon Park’s primary special education teacher. “I hear the children throughout the day repeating the sounds they learned.”

Audubon Park is the first school in the nation to test the preschool and kindergarten program developed by Logical Choice Technologies, an educational firm based in Georgia.

The program costs $995 and contains the software, a document camera, 26 alphabet cards illustrated with animals and a set of 94 flash cards with common pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and verbs necessary for developing reading skills before a child enters the second grade.

When the animal and word cards are joined in a sentence under the camera, the animals perform the actions, but only if that particular creature is capable of such movement. For example, in the sentence, “The giraffe can fly,” the 3-D giraffe will shake its head from left to right to show it cannot do it.

“Students learn what these actions mean, how they are performed, and how they are spelled based on real animals in their natural habitat,” said Audra Cervi, the school’s reading resource teacher.

The user can also flip the animal card to show all sides of the creature. If the teacher presses a colored tab on the card, a 3-D letter replaces the animal. Teachers can show students all sides of the letter. These features appeal especially to autistic students who focus more on visuals as they learn language.

Teachers at Audubon Park, which acquired the program in October, said so far there has been no measurable improvement in their students’ skills. But Langston said students are more socially engaged since they launched the technology.

“We’re starting to see the difference in how they form sounds and words,” she said. “I’ve noticed more eye contact with others, and there’s a willingness to learn that we had not seen before.”…

[Read More]

Traditional flash cards literally come to life with new 3-D technology called Letters Alive. Teachers say the cards and noises are so real, kids no longer have to make believe.

“I’ve had different reactions,” said Holly Hammonds, the school’s librarian. “I’ve had one cry before.”

Students are between three and five years old, and are part of Early Head Start, Head Start, and the Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities.

The video game and movie-like look of Letters Alive is keeping kids focused. They don’t even realize they’ll walk away better prepared for kindergarten.

“Rule of thumb is that for five minutes, they’ll be engaged. For them to do that for 25 minutes, that’s the biggest challenge of a teacher,” Hammonds said.

And while this process starts with individual letters, Hammonds progresses to creating words and then sentences, hoping students will achieve beyond state expectations.

“T-O-Y,” spelled one student…

-Shelly Slater

[Read More]