Bill Sheskey Blog

A Time of Thanks and Good News!

Bill Sheskey — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:59:33 +0000

It is with great pleasure that I have the opportunity to share news with friends and colleagues that I have accepted a position in the Charlotte – Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) in Charlotte, North Carolina as the Director of Instructional Technology. The position is part of the CMS Chief Information Office team that is directed by Dr. Valerie Truesdale. The CMS has 159 schools that serve approximately 141,000 students and their families. I have the opportunity to lead a team of instructional technology specialists who provide professional development and learning opportunities related to instructional technology for 9,000 teachers and administrators in the CMS. The CMS has already begun exciting teaching and learning initiatives related to iPad, Bring Your Own Device, online learning systems, and teacher web page construction. I look forward to working with an outstanding team of dedicated and talented educators in the CMS.

I will still be maintaining a professional working relationship with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs’s Curriculum 21 team. I also look forward to presenting at ASCD regional and national conferences in 2013 and beyond.

This blog will remain active and I will use it as a platform for communicating in my work outside of the CMS. Thank you to all of you who have supported my work over the last four years and I look forward to connecting with you soon!

iPad as an Interactive Whiteboard

Bill Sheskey — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:53:32 +0000

Those of you that I have worked with in the past know how much I like Educreations and ShowMe for interactive whiteboard space on the iPad. I found a new one today called Doceri. Teachers and students can create hand-drawn lessons, presentations and graphics and share them as still images, PDFs or audio/video screencasts. Doceri has a desktop screen sharing and also connects to an Apple TV as well.

With the built-in remote desktop control you can access and annotate over files resident on your Windows PC or Mac and present them to your classroom or audience when a projector is connected. My initial tests are working well and I like all the available drawing tools that align with the screen sharing functions.

Check it out and share with your colleagues!

Student Response System: Infuse Learning

Bill Sheskey — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:39:22 +0000

Anyone who has worked with me over the few years knows how much I like student response systems. Going all the way back to the first days of the eInstruction clickers I have always encouraged teachers to use any applications that engage and focus students in the moment. Plus, responses systems provide immediate feedback to the teacher and the students.

Richard Byrne posted a web based response system called Infusion Learning on his www.freetech4teachers.com blog. As with many of Richard’s posts I immediately test them out and then share with the teachers that I work with. As you know, I am a fan of http://menitmeter .com, http://todaysmeet.com and http://socrative. com. After testing the Infusion Learning response application today I am going to begin to use it in the live professional development workshops that I am leading. It has the benefits of all of those applications and the set up time is minimal. All of the school districts that are implementing BYOD/BYOT initiatives should add this FREE application to their tool box for students and their devices.

A few of the highlights are:

1. No sign up needed for students.

2. Spontaneous responses for short answer, numeric, and Likert Scale questions.

3. There is a drawing function for iPad, iPhone, and Android devices and the drawing function works on a PC as well.

Let me know what you think and I look forward to sharing the Infusion Learning response system in my work coming in the next few weeks.

Anyone who has worked with me in recent years knows how much I like student response systems. Going all the way back to the first days of the eInstruction clickers I have always encouraged teachers to use any applications that engage and focus students in the moment. Plus, responses systems provide immediate feedback to the teacher and the students.

Richard Byrne posted a web based response system called Infuse Learning on his Free Technology for Teachers blog last week. As with many of Richard’s posts I immediately test them out and then share with the teachers that I work with. As you know, I am a fan of http://menitmeter.com, http://todaysmeet.com and http://socrative.com for engagement and assessment. After testing the Infuse Learning response application today I am going to begin to use it in the live professional development workshops that I am leading in the next few weeks. It has the benefits of all of the applications listed here and the set up time is minimal. The school districts that are implementing BYOD/BYOT initiatives should add this FREE application to their tool box for students and their devices.

A few of the highlights are:

1. No sign up needed for students or you can create your own classes.

2. Spontaneous responses for short answer, numeric, and Likert Scale questions.

3. There is a drawing function for iPad, iPhone, and Android devices and the drawing function works on a PC as well.

Let me know what you think and I look forward to sharing the Infuse Learning response system in my work in the near future.

Google Search Lessons for Back to School

Bill Sheskey — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:45:16 +0000

As I facilitate back to school workshops this month in Iowa, Texas and New Hampshire I will be sharing Google Search Lessons as a web literacy activity for students beginning the new school year. Google for Educators has produced a series of hands on lessons that guide students in enhancing their search engine and web based research skills. These Google Search lessons will be valuable for teachers to share with their students at the beginning of this new school year as research, writing, and laboratory projects are assigned. Also, it would be great for media specialist to reference these lessons as the lead their new school year media center orientations.

Enjoy your back to school days!

Free iPad Flash Browser

Bill Sheskey — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:44:32 +0000

Have you ever tried to view the area of the Common Core State Standards where there are drop down menus to view the standards in depth on your iPad? This part of the CCSS site is in a flash format and it will not view on the iPad. Click here for the link…

The free Flash browser app called Puffin will allow you to view websites that have Flash built into them. I have worked in numerous CCSS related workshops recently where participants only have an iPad or iPhone (that is not a bad thing) and this app allows you to view the valuable area of the CCSS site.

http://corestandards.org

Click here to access the iTunes link to Puffin…

South Carolina Upstate Technology Conference

Bill Sheskey — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:04:54 +0000

I look forward to presenting this week at the Upstate Technology Conference in Greenville, South Carolina. Over the last 5 years this conference has grown tremendously and now has over 1200 attendees. Jeff McCoy, the Director of Instructional Technology for the Greenville County Schools, and his staff do a wonderful job of hosting this conference that is free and open to anyone to attend. This week I am doing presentations on social learning, upgrading professional development, and mobile device applications for administrators. We will be tweeting from all of my sessions and I look forward to making new connections with fellow educators.

Did you see the announcements from Apple about the new iOS 6 operating system? Check it out…

New PBS Learning Media Site

Bill Sheskey — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:57:50 +0000

PBS has always been a valuable resource for learning applications. They just released a new version of their web site called PBS Learning Media.

Here is their description of the new version: PBS LearningMedia™ is your destination for easy, instant access to tens of thousands of classroom-ready, digital resources including videos and interactives perfect for the Interactive Whiteboard, plus audio and photos, and even in-depth lesson plans. You can search, save, and share with ease. Best of all, PBS LearningMedia™ is free for educators.

Beautiful Perspective on Our Universe

Bill Sheskey — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:46:21 +0000

I love applications for learning that are elegant, powerful and simple to interact with. My friend Jeff Jacobs is a person who studies astronomy and the universe. Jeff was kind to share this site called The Scale of the Universe 2. Developer Cary Huang designed this visually beautiful application to provide a metric measurement perspective of the size of objects, animals, and other things that are common in our world. As you move the slider bar at the bottom of the screen you can zoom in and out to see the metric size comparison of the things on the screen. Sliding more to the right takes you out into our solar system and beyond. The visual representation of our universe reminds us that it truly is a big world out there.

Check out the other learning applications created by the team at http://htwins.net

Enjoy!

The New iTunes University

Bill Sheskey — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:21:47 +0000

When Apple announced the new iTextbooks and the iBook Author App on January 19th they also upgraded iTunes University. When you go to iTunes (free download on any type of computer or mobile device) and click on iTunes U you will see the all new, and free online courses offered from a myriad of universities, colleges and technical schools from around the world. In the public school K-12 setting these courses could be used to advance the course work of high achieving students and also provide support for students that have struggled with traditional course work. In the area of professional development for teachers the new iTunes U is a tremendous resource for developing and implementing 21st century teaching strategies. The opportunity for us to learn, explore and grow as learners using iTunes is expanding everyday.

On the technical side, you only need to download iTunes and many of these courses are designed to be applicable on mobile devices as well. Check out the new iTunes and you will immediately see ways to apply it to your work.

The LEAD 21 Academy

Bill Sheskey — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:50:33 +0000

I am excited about the opportunity to be a live presenter at the 2012 Curriculum Mapping Institute LEAD 21 Academy on July 10 and 11, 2012 in Saratoga Springs , New York. This 2 day academy brings together the top education bloggers and network leaders in the United States. These hands on work sessions will guide you in creating a vision of who a school network leader must be, why the school leader must lead the network, and how you can design diverse social network connections infused with knowledge and powered by passion. As a school leader or teacher you have the opportunity to design your own personalized social network that will connect your local and global learning communities. Early Bird registration is open until February 1st, for more information please visit www.cmi2012.com and I look forward to seeing you in July in beautiful Saratoga Springs, New York.