The Extending Teacher Creativity Workshop at Indiana State University can be pretty intense.  Cecil has been here before and is known by many of the Fellows… to the point where yes, he did get a nametag and a drink ticket this year.  We split the swag… he ended up with the 4GB USB drive (Who knew that Monkey beat rock, paper, scissors, lizard and Spock? I have been told it is a result of some hidden message at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey).  This workshop is an opportunity for those who have received the Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellowship to get together and be creative.  Fellows take a couple of days and focus on a topic of interest which includes: drawing, writing, musical theatre, curriculum development, and technology.  I chose technology this year and spent some time learning about social media & networking.  The group I worked with spent time with Ning, Edmodo, Skype, Blogger, Edublogs, Teacher Tube, and the 800 pound gorilla in the room Facebook.  Just like in a classroom setting there are teachers at a wide variety of levels which can make teaching difficult.  I did help a few teachers with geocaching, and a bit of odds & ends as I created accounts for either Cecil or myself, or reacquainted myself with some of these sites.  As with the wide variety of sites trying to bring us all together or build a community, the most difficult part is keeping them all straight and not getting overwhelmed.  There is so much out trying to decide where to focus your limited time can be difficult.  I already have been using Twitter, Facebook, a bit of Linkedin and  Meet-Up so adding anything on top of what my school district also has set up makes me have to choose between time for eating or time for sleeping.

With all the learning that goes on the best part of the workshop seems to be just chatting with colleagues and finding out that it seems every school district is using the same playbook developed by someone from Arkham.

As for Cecil, he did get monkey-napped multiple times – strangely enough each during a time when I was supposed to be paying attention to a presentation, for those who visit his Facebook page- you already know he did help a few Fellows with their video project which resulted in some stunt work.  Cecil ended up today with the group working on Curriculum- with the state of education throughout the U.S. I think the influence of a monkey is long overdue- he’d  do better than many of the folks presently in charge- he supports creativity, bananas, and learning to write neatly with your feet.

Today, we head back home after everyone presents what they did (which can be rather amusing) and we eat (one more time).

Focus
Posted on July 28, 2010 by Bruce
The Extending Teacher Creativity Workshop at Indiana State University can be pretty intense.  Cecil has been here before and is known by many of the Fellows... to the point where yes, he did get a nametag and a drink ticket this year.  We split the swag... he ended up with the 4GB USB drive (Who knew that Monkey beat rock, paper, scissors, lizard and Spock? I have been told it is a result of some hidden message at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey).  This workshop is an opportunity for those who have received the Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellowship to get together and be creative.  Fellows take a couple of days and focus on a topic of interest which includes: drawing, writing, musical theatre, curriculum development, and technology.  I chose technology this year and spent some time learning about social media & networking.  The group I worked with spent time with Ning, Edmodo, Skype, Blogger, Edublogs, Teacher Tube, and the 800 pound gorilla in the room Facebook.  Just like in a classroom setting there are teachers at a wide variety of levels which can make teaching difficult.  I did help a few teachers with geocaching, and a bit of odds & ends as I created accounts for either Cecil or myself, or reacquainted myself with some of these sites.  As with the wide variety of sites trying to bring us all together or build a community, the most difficult part is keeping them all straight and not getting overwhelmed.  There is so much out trying to decide where to focus your limited time can be difficult.  I already have been using Twitter, Facebook, a bit of Linkedin and  Meet-Up so adding anything on top of what my school district also has set up makes me have to choose between time for eating or time for sleeping. With all the learning that goes on the best part of the workshop seems to be just chatting with colleagues and finding out that it seems every school district is using the same playbook developed by someone from Arkham. As for Cecil, he did get monkey-napped multiple times - strangely enough each during a time when I was supposed to be paying attention to a presentation, for those who visit his Facebook page- you already know he did help a few Fellows with their video project which resulted in some stunt work.  Cecil ended up today with the group working on Curriculum- with the state of education throughout the U.S. I think the influence of a monkey is long overdue- he'd  do better than many of the folks presently in charge- he supports creativity, bananas, and learning to write neatly with your feet. Today, we head back home after everyone presents what they did (which can be rather amusing) and we eat (one more time).

Leave a Reply