Narrable

 I discovered Narrable listening to a podcast created by Dr. Wesley Fryer who interviewed Dustin Curzon, the creator of Narrable. Mr. Curzon lives in Tulsa, if I understood correctly, and created this web based digital storytelling resource that allows you to record audio over pictures where ever and whenever you want directly into or using a cell phone. A cell phone was used to create the experimental one posted above. The creators have plans to create native iPad and iPhone apps to host this application. You can share Narrables, email, or embed them. Thank you to the Asher students who directly or indirectly gave permission to allow the use of their pictures in my project. Linked here is our first experimental Narrable with the help of my group partner, Ken.  

Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers | Reading Topics A-Z | Reading Rockets

Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers | Reading Topics A-Z | Reading Rockets

Necessary Furniture

I'm always rejuvenated by articles supporting the use of technology in the classroom. This morning Twitter provided me with two I would like to share. I've long been a proponent of technology as a tool for learning. It opens the door for learning. It makes learning exciting. It encourages students to take learning into their own hands. Dependent learners are limited learners. An article in USA Today featured schools in Sioux City, South Dakota, who is spending $7.3 million to put iPads in the hands of K-2 students and Google ChromeBooks in the hands of 3-12th graders.  Sioux City schools are calling the machines "necessary furniture".  A few clicks later, I ran across a video, embedded above, of how teachers in North Carolina are learning how to use the iPad for students who are visually impaired.  Macombs and Miller (2009) cite Stephanie Pace Marshall, founder of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, who is quoted as saying, ' "We are born learning beings.  We naturally imagine, wonder, invent, and explore our way into unknown territories and perplexing and paradoxical questions.  Our curiosity and insatiable drive to know and figure things out in innate." '  Compare this worksheet my son, Mason, did while in school to this digital story (part of a state-wide digital story telling initiative the brain child of Dr. Wesley Fryer and Dr. Dana Owens).
Cliff Williams WWII Veteran.  What if Mason had completed a narrated screen cast using an iPad to describe what he had learned about chemical reactions and in it compared it to chemical reactions in fireworks from this lesson on Thinkfinity?  Technology affords the ability to learn in multilayers. This multilayered learning is like watching a spontaneous shower of fireworks.  Each display seems to get higher and higher with colorful cascades of reaction.  Necessary furniture and necessary fulmination.

Explanation Please

I've made my concerns public for quite some time regarding the financial struggles all schools are experiencing especially my district.  There are a plethora of reasons why schools are struggling. For my district it boils down to one question.

The question is this:  WHY is my school district under collecting ad valorem?  Here's what it looks like - The Estimate of Needs estimates $264,581.47 (without delinquency)in ad valorem collections.  That figure is approved by the County Excise board based on the valuation of your district.  The value of my district is $7,455,099.  When multiplied by .03549 (the mills in the General Fund), you get $264,531.46 which is the total required for 2012 assessments.  This is approved, on a yearly basis (with year appropriate figures) by the County Excise Board.  The EON is publicized in local newspapers which is a legal requirement.  My district received $112,000 in January, 2013.  Last year that figure was $120,000.   This means in March, 2013,  I will need to collect some $150,000 (without delinquency).  Last March, 2012, $80,000 was collected.  With delinquency figured in it looks like this:  received through 3/31/13 totals $208,531.43.  Switching perspectives and including the amount of delinquency (which I didn't include above), the bottom line is we have under collected $31,997.17.   This UNDER COLLECTION is the difference between opening next year and not.  My question is, if we are required by law to provide public information on what levies are required and CERTIFIED by the County Excise Board, why aren't we required to disclose publicly when these taxes AREN'T collected.  More importantly WHO and WHAT they will affect.  Why the concern?  We OVER COLLECTED in prior fiscal years according to the Estimate of Needs.  

The Sokikom Story

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Leading in a Learner Centered Environment

The Persian poet, Rumi, wrote, "A story is like the water you heat for your bath.  It takes messages between the fire and your skin.  It lets them meet and it cleans you."  How many actually take the simple value of a story to this level of intimacy?  Jim Trelease (2001) in his book, "The Read Aloud Handbook", wrote that we have lost our love for print.  In fact, people read less frequently and with less passion.  Where once a relationship existed between a reader and the lingo of literacy, television and video games have replaced the melody of words.  McCombs and Miller (2009), while they don't discuss the relationship between stories and readers, they do discuss the delicate balance between learning and leading.  They refer to it as, "an ecologically interdependent system(s) of networks and relationships" (p. 42).  Leadership takes people who are "authentically committed to putting learners and learning at the core of schooling...resulting in a community of learners" (p. 42).  It takes exceptional leadership focused on creating "a community of relationships" through supportive efforts to spark transformational and meaningful change. Educators are having to learn what it means to lead in a culture of change.  Boyle (as cited by McCombs and Miller, 2009) wrote it takes leaders who have the ability to build capacity and exercise emotional intellegience.  Cushman (as cited by McCombs and Miller, 2009) wrote students want "teachers who respect them and their needs" and "a sense of agency, purpose, and meaning that will help them with the major task of adolescence-forming a personal identity and sense of purpose" (p. 80). The 21st Century has been a challenging period for educational leaders who must make both the needs of the teacher and the student a priority while possessing a geniune humbleness to nurture and value the significance of learning.  Learning is like the water you heat for your bath.  And, a good leader always runs a perfect bath.