Monthly Archives: November 2008

November Meeting Follow-up

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Thank you so much for attending the November Contact meeting. Our focus was on 21st Century skills: Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity. Alfonso Favale, Suzanne Whitlow, Will Brizendine, and Frank Fitzparick highlighted some excellent projects and ideas from Patty Gross, Shady Grove; Elizabeth Miller, Three Chopt; Amanda Florio, Johnson: Megan Meals, Gayton; Amanda Brady, Longan; and Tricia Gregory, Carver. I’m certain teachers at all schools are incorporating 21st Century skills daily. Please applaud your teachers’ excellent work and share their success stories with your faculty.

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Thanks to Jennifer Barnett, you now know some very helpful Leopard Tips and Tricks. Thank you, Jennifer! The handout from the meeting has been placed in Virtual Shate>Technology>Share>Technology Tips. Please share with your teachers.

PIXIE is our newest POWERFUL technology tool. Students are integrating 21st Century skills and Pixie to create some amazing projects in all subject areas. Stephanie Wright did an excellent job demonstrating the steps for saving and opening a folder of slides. Please share what your learned with your teachers. Handout is in Virtual Share>Technology>Share>Pixie.

Essentials Database – The 2008-2009 Essentials Database icon will be sent to Contacts on November 25 for distribution to all K-5 teachers. Please let me or your ITRT know if you have any questions.

Keep Them Clean – What do you do at your school to promote care and cleanliness of our new hardware. Please post your ideas by adding a comment here. It’s so important for us to take good care of our NEW hardware. You never know when the Clean Machine Team might just show up at your school! Be ready!!

Surplus Ink – If you have ANY surplus black or color cartridges for the Epson 900/980 printers, please send to me as soon as possible. Thank you!

What is a rubric?

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“Heidi Goodrich, a rubrics expert, defines a rubric as “a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work or ‘what counts.’” So a rubric for a multimedia project will list the things the student must have included to receive a certain score or rating. Rubrics help the student figure out how their project will be evaluated. Goodrich quotes a student who said he didn’t much care for rubrics because “if you get something wrong, your teacher can prove you knew what you were supposed to do.”Generally rubrics specify the level of performance expected for several levels of quality. These levels of quality may be written as different ratings (e.g., Excellent, Good, Needs Improvement) or as numerical scores (e.g., 4, 3, 2, 1) which are then added up to form a total score which then is associated with a grade (e.g., A, B, C, etc).Many rubrics also specify the level of assistance (e.g., Independently, With Minimal Adult Help; With Extensive Adult Help) for each quality rating.

Rubrics can help students and teachers define “quality”. Rubrics can also help students judge and revise their own work before handing in their assignments.”

Some helpful sites:

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/
http://www.phschool.com/professional_development/assessment/rub_coop_process.html
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/assess.html#rubrics