Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Category: assessment

  • Podcast423: Mystery Skype, Minecraft, iPad Digital Portfolios, & More with Shelly Fryer

    This podcast is an interview with 3rd and 4th grade teacher Shelly Fryer, discussing mystery skype, Minecraft in the classroom, iPad digital portfolios with Seesaw, and more. Check out the podcast shownotes for referenced apps, links and resources. Thanks to Adam Jones for sharing his podcasting inspiration!

  • Strong Reactions to Today’s Note on Makeup Work

    Update 4/16/2015: I emailed Rachel’s teacher and she decided to change her policy on late work and redone assignments. She is going to accept late work with a penalty and redone assignments within a reasonable time limit. The following tweet (which I’ve archived as an image on Flickr using the free Chrome extension “Awesome Screenshot”)…

  • Show What You Know with Media (Feb 2015)

    Updated 2/20/2015: An audio recording of my keynote is available as a YouTube video. These are my slides for my opening keynote at the February 16, 2015, “Little Apple Tech Fest” in Manhattan, Kansas, for teachers in USD 383 Manhattan/Ogden Schools. The keynote description is: Media products created by students can provide a clearer, deeper…

  • Mapping Media is now Show What You Know with Media

    I’m pleased to announce my book series and digital literacy framework “Mapping Media to the Curriculum” (originally titled “Mapping Media to the Common Core“) officially has a new title: “Show What You Know with Media!” This title more clearly conveys the focus. While I love maps (including the Waldseemüller map) and still like my original metaphor,…

  • #WhatIf My Ideas on School Reform Become Reality?

    Thanks to Valerie Strauss’ post today on the #whatif Twitter meme responses to Arne Duncan, I realized something surprising and was encouraged to tweet some of the ideas for CONSTRUCTIVE education/school reform that have been marinating in my mind for many months.    by  stevegarfield  First of all, when viewing the lively #whatif twitter stream, I saw…

  • Show What You Know with Media

    I’m sharing a presentation on Thursday at the Miami Device” conference titled, “Help Students Show What They Know with Media.” My “Mapping Media to the Curriculum” website and eBook series are the primary referenced resource. Here are my slides: The official description of the session is: Tablets, smartphones and computers should not be used by students just…

  • Inspired by Ben Wilkoff’s 6 Second Stories for Learning

    This post is the first of a series of reflections on presentations I’ve watched that are part of the 2014 K-12 Online Conference. @k12online is a free, annual, pre-recorded video-based conference by educators, for educators. This year the conference strands were STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math),  Stories for Learning, Passion Driven Learning, and Gamification. I’ve…

  • Mastery Grid with Openly Licensed Icons

    I created the following “Mastery Grid” to use with my students in our STEM classroom today, using openly licensed icons I found with iconfinder.com (here and here). This is also available as a downloadable PDF. As our district continues to implement the “Marzano Teacher Leader Evaluation” (TLE) framework for Oklahoma, based on “The Art and…

  • Act Today to Encourage Teachers at Crutcho Public School

    I feel a lot like a member of the stringed quartet on the Titanic, playing away to soothe remaining passengers as the great ship sank. As I write posts (after school, of course) about my end-of-year student lessons launching water bottle rockets and completing a coordinate grid “orientation challenge” in MinecraftEDU, I’m confronted with multiple…

  • Why is Oklahoma Education Policy So Screwed Up?

    Oklahoma science teacher Lisa Seay, who I met at EdCampTulsa several weeks ago, asked a great question in a poignant post today titled, “Tattered, Torn and Tired.” She wrote: I have only been teaching 11 years. Maybe some of you can answer this: How did we get to this point? At what point in history…