As part of its longstanding crime prevention and public outreach efforts, the FBI has a free web-based initiative designed to help teachers educate learners about cyber safety.
It is called the FBI SOS (Safe Online Surfing) Internet Challenge—and it was developed with the assistance of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and with the input of teachers and schools.
The goal of the is to promote cyber citizenship and help students learn about online safety while engaging in fun, interactive games. Students will then navigate through the various ... more...
Online Instructor, Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, NC State
Krause Center for Innovation, Foothill College
Linda has been a member of My eCoach since 2005. She is currently part of a nationwide educational reform movement toward small, focused high schools that have chosen the New Tech approach of project-based learning. Linda primarily works with the teachers coaching them through their projects and helping them learn to integrate technology and PBL.
Marsha has been a member of My eCoach since 2009. She works in a mid-sized elementary school where she tries to make the library the hub of her school by creating a comfortable inviting place that both students and staff like to be. Being a Library/Media Specialist, her teaching environment includes both text and technology. As well as working directly with students, Marsha also does technology teacher trainings, sets up programs, and helps solve difficulties ... more...
Video Games and Virtual Worlds in the Classroom:Learning with Minecraft EDU was designed to give parents, students, and teachers a better understanding of how one California middle school uses virtual learning environments in the classroom.
Throughout the year, their sixth grade Core Humanities program immerses students in the digital world of Minecraft EDU, an independently developed video game specifically geared towards the classroom. Explore this website to learn more about how students at Del Mar Intermediate School are re-imagining the Ancient world.
Marcelo was introduced to My eCoach in 2008 and immediately saw its applications for the classroom and beyond. He has incorporated the surveys and quizzes functions of My eCoach in the classroom and found that the ease of creating a website through My eCoach has enhanced his world language department and Migrant Ed. program’s visibility. Most important to Marcelo has been My eCoach’s ... more...
I was a Missouri eMINTS fourth grade teacher when I was introduced to My eCoach in 2000. The ease of use and being able to create online resources for my students that aligned with state standards made the program the perfect tool for me.
I created many online resources, an e-portofolio and as I grew as an educator and began presenting workshops to schools and teachers, I began to use My eCoach for my presentations. ... more...
Certified My eCoach Trainer and eCoach, Washington State
Ken has been a member of My eCoach since 2003 and particpated in its early evolution. He helped administer state grants using My eCoach in his role as an inservice technology trainer in Washington State. Because of the geographical distances between the schools in his grant projects he found that the tools within my eCoach greatly helped bridge these distances.
Most of the projects that he developed were focused on middle ... more...
Here are a few of the websites and resources that we spotlighted this year. We also added vocabulary, questions, and extension activities for you:
Teaching from Space offers experiences and resources not found anywhere else. You can get involved in real NASA missions and research, gain access to NASA experts, and use NASA equipment to take learning to a new level.
FBI Online Surfing (SOS) promotes cyber citizenship and help students learn about online safety while engaging in fun, interactive games. The program was designed to address current Internet safety threats while keeping each grade ... more...
Cynthia has been a My eCoach member since 2006. She has been actively engaged in the online teaching community since 2000 for higher education and k-12. She has over 50 projects in My eCoach which she uses for teaching and for presentations at conferences. From 2007 through 2012, she worked with almost 500 School Administrators in AB 430 Training. As part of their training, administrators engaged in My eCoach by creating blogs for archiving their practicum evidence and by constructing ... more...
Teachers are amazing. We continue to be surprised by the quality of projects teachers create in My eCoach. Here are a few examples of projects we featured over the last few months.
Cynthia has been an active member of My eCoach since 2009. She is currently working on a site for ESOL parents and students. She wanted one place where they could go to practice and learn more about reading by playing games and singing songs. The tools, easy project builder and secure website publishing that My eCoach offers suited her needs perfectly. Cynthia also incorporated Web 2.0 tools by creating glogsters that feature games and songs, all ... more...
Anyone can be creative because we all possess mental processes that include decision making, language, and memory. All we have to do to boost our creative potential is to break down the established ways we view and interact with the world. Allowing yourself to see things differently encourages creativity and looking for ways to be innovative.
Observe: When you are trying to come up with a new project or idea, study how others do something similar and the problems they might be having.
Become an Expert: Focus on something you are interested in and learn as much as you can. Then share what you ... more...
Donna was introduced to My eCoach via a science grant for a collaboration project in 2006. She was so intrigued with the capabilities My eCoach had to offer to create teacher and student friendly websites that she incorporated My eCoach into all areas of her curriculum.
Donna creates surveys, blogs, quizzes, a classroom webpage and projects that include web-based learning units. Donna is always looking to keep up with todays’ demands in the ever-changing ... more...
Russ just retired June 2012 after teaching 45 years. Russ taught most grade levels, coached basketball, was on the Board of Directors for the school district, was a middle and elementary school principal, and went back to the classroom to teach 6th grade and GenYes students. His daughter wrote ... more...
You want to create a form but the surveys keep adding Q1, Q2, etc. to each question. Surveys just didn't look like forms. So now you can just click one box to convert a survey to a form.
When you create a form, you probably want to be notified and know who fills it out. Use the pull-down menu to choose either internal message or email where you want to be notified.
San Diego County Office of Education supports administrators from all over the region starting with AB430 Module 3 training. SDCOE uses My eCoach as a learning management system to house the curriculum for the training. Principals are part of an online community to share and discuss leadership issues and to refer to materials they learned in the workshop.
Problem SDCOE wanted more than a learning management system for their AB430 train... more...
Oakland Unified School District is an urban district that is trying everything they can to stop students from dropping out. Madison Middle School is in East Oakland with a determined principal who wants to make a difference in their children’s lives.
Problem
Teachers were working hard and test scores were improving, but students were not motivated to learn. The lessons needed to be more rigorous and engaging. The teacher turnover rate was too high. The principal, Dr. Lucinda Taylor, not only wanted to increase student achievement and improve student engagement, she wanted to ... more...
BAFLP (Bay Area Foreign Language Department) Stanford University World language teachers in the Bay Area Foreign Language Program (BAFLP) in Stanford University used My eCoach to create a system for collaboration, communication, and demonstrated improved results in the classroom.
Problem World language teachers in the Bay Area Foreign Language Program (BAFLP) needed a system that allowed for collaboration, coaching, publishing, and aligning standards to the curriculum. Stanford University provides ongoing workshops for World Language teachers in the summer and throughout the year. They needed ... more...
Smartphones and mobile devices are changing the business world. Instead of IT departments being able to force a particular set of mobile solutions on the workforce, employees now expect to be able to use the smartphones — and increasingly, iPads or other mobile devices — they bought for personal use.According to data fromAberdeen Group(via ZDNet), about 75% of enterprises now have “bring your own device” policies in place.Read more…
So “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) is making sense for companies. Is BYOD going to work for schools?
ING Unsung Heroes began in 1995 as a way for ING to demonstrate its commitment to the education community. Grants are given to K-12 educators utilizing new teaching methods and techniques that improve learning.
All K-12 education professionals are eligible to apply. Applicants must be employed by an accredited K-12 public or private school located in the U.S. and be a full-time educator, teacher, principal, paraprofessional, or classified staff member working on a project with demonstrated effectiveness in improving student learning. That's YOU!
Submit an application for an ING Unsung Heroes ... more...
“Whatever it takes” is an attitude that drives most of Finland’s 62,000 educators in 3,500 schools from Lapland to Turku—professionals selected from the top 10 percent of the nation’s graduates to earn a required master’s degree in education.
"Whatever it takes" should be education's manifesto everywhere. Every child is unique, special, and gifted. Finland values good teachers, expects them to be highly trained (Master degrees), pays them what they are worth, and provides them ongoing support. Children start school at seven and stay with ... more...
According to Darrell West in his article "Using Technology to Personalize Learning and Assess Students in Real Time", American education must adopt new instructional approaches and leverage new technologies in the classroom in order for the United States to compete in the global economy. In John Dewey’s book Schools of Tomorrow he wrote in 1915 "conventional public school is arranged to make things easy for the teacher who wishes quick and tangible results." Oh my! That was some time ago.
Just think 1915!! Dewey made the case that education ... more...
The month of December is rich in holiday traditions for millions of people around the world so we created this project for you.
Free Animation from Animation Library
We offer you this project, Celebrating December Holidays, filled with resources to help excite and inspire teachers, parents, and children about this wonderful time of year. You can learn about your own family traditions as well as those of others from countries around the globe.
Happy Hannukah! Chanukah or Hannukah, the Festival ... more...
Eyes on the Solar System is a 3-D interactive environment full of real NASA mission data. Explore the cosmos from your computer. See the entire solar system moving in real time. Use this visualization tool control space and time. As an armchair astronaut it’s up to you.
Use the tutorials to learn how to navigate EYES on the Solar System.
Hop on the the NASA Spacecraft Juno. Juno’s principal goal in this NASA mission is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed ... more...
Online Conference November 14-18, 2011 Don't miss any of the 325 presentations starting this Monday as part of the Global Education Collaborative. Each presentation is using Blackboard Collaborative for you to participate or watch later.
Join Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey as they present Personalized Learning Toolkits on Thursday Nov. 17 at 4pm PST. Go here to access sessions.
Personalizing learning means moving to student-centered learning. This takes time. Here are a few tips to help you transform your learning environment.
Find out how each student learns best.
Allow students to choose their topic.
Encourage teachers and students to co-design the curriculum.
Ask lots of questions.
Teach less, learn more.
Share how you learn.
Connect, extend, challenge.
Re-evaluate assessment.
Define goals and encourage reflection.
Focus on learning, not work.
Coordinate student led conferences .
Learning begins with the learner. What children know and what ... more...
Curation is a new skill that all of us can use. There are multiple curation tools where you can collect resources based on a topic, tags, and other people's suggestions. One curation tool that is growing quickly is Scoop-it. Barbara has set up several Scoop-its that you can follow and rescoop any of the resources to your own Scoop-its:
Barbara posts regularly on her blog Rethinking Learning. Join her as she facilitates growing creative and engaging learning environments. Here's some of the latest posts:
We are so proud of the featured projects our members have created that they now appear in the lower right on the outside of My eCoach so everyone can view them. Here are a few of the featured projects since the last newsletter:
Here's a few spotlights that go straight to their websites. When you are on the My eCoach home page, you can find more than a link to the website or resource. We add vocabulary words, keywords, curriculum areas, grade levels, essential and discussion questions, extension activities, and, in some cases, match to standards.
Inquiry-based learning is a style of teaching that is based on asking questions that kids honestly care about and guiding them to find the answers as well as coming up with new questions.
Plan enough time to pre-plan, plan, and plan again during implementation.more...
Barbara posts regularly on her blogRethinking Learning. Join her as she facilitates growing creative and engaging learning environments. Here's some of the latest posts:
We are so proud of the featured projects our members have created that they now appear in the lower right on the outside of My eCoach so everyone can view them. Here are a few of the featured projects since the last newsletter:
Click on an eLibrary Spotlight and find more than a link to the website or resource. We continue to build a rich collection of resources for you with vocabulary words, keywords, curriculum areas, grade levels, essential and discussion questions and extension activities. These are featured on the Home page when you login also with matched standards. Here are a few spotlights we want to share with you:
Follow Janice Friesen, one of our Certificated eCoaches, on one of her trips around the world. Janice set up a blog where she is inviting her followers to add what they are doing. Go to Janice's blog to learn more...
A playshop July 18-22, 2011 in Honolulu, Hawaii for teachers excited about project-based learning (PBL). There are a few spots left where you can join K-12 teachers who will collaborate by topic to create a video and then group by content area or grade level to transform lessons to inquiry-based PBL. A big plus is that the playshop is in Hawaii on the beautiful campus of Mid-Pacific Institute then play even more later on the beach.
Are you going to the ISTE Conference in Philadelphia, PA, June 26-29, 2011? This is the International Society of Technology in Education conference with over 17,000 people from all over the world. If you want to connect with the people who write the articles and blogs you read, this is the conference. You can still sign up to go.
Barbara Bray has a new title: Creative Learning Strategist and a redesigned website and blog called Rethinking Learning. Join her as she facilitates growing creative and engaging learning environments. Here's two of the latest posts:
We are so proud of the featured projects our members have created that they now appear on the outside of My eCoach so everyone can view them. Here are a few of the featured projects since the last newsletter:
Click on an eLibrary Spotlight and find more than a link to the website or resource. We continue to build a rich collection of resources for you with vocabulary words, keywords, curriculum areas, grade levels, match to standards, essential and discussion questions and extension activities. These are featured on the Home page when you login also with even more information. Here are a few spotlights that we hope you find helpful:
Madison Middle School in Oakland Unified School District, CA with the leadership of Dr. Lucinda Taylor put on a successful Expo the evening of June 7th. Everyone in the school community was involved including the district Instructional Technology Team. You could feel the excitement everywhere. Students, parents, teachers, and community members attended in the biggest event ever. Parents shared how much they enjoyed seeing the types of projects their children were doing: CSI Oakland, BizWorld, Dream Houses, Glogs showing Algebra 1 Problems. and a Film Festival. Read more...
Google searches now allow users to choose reading levels of the results of a search. There are three levels to choose among: basic, intermediate and advanced.
So how do you do a reading level search? After typing in a query on Google.com, look at the column of tools on the left side of the search results and you will see "All Results."
Click on "More search tools" and then click "Reading Level."
After you click on Reading Level you will see at ... more...
We are looking for input on what type of support you need as a teacher or administrator. Please take a moment to answer this short survey of 8 questions so we can better understand what your needs are.
What is your Unique Selling Position (USP)? How do you stand out in a crowd or in social media so you are remarkable and different enough to get noticed by an employer or client?
You can do this by branding yourself. The job market is tough and sending thousands of resumés may not be the right way to get that "job" you want. This article from AARP... more...
If you are setting up or participating in an online community, training, or coaching program, follow Barbara Bray's blog. Bray writes a regular column on professional development for the OnCue Journal and has been involved in coaching and designing online communities with numerous organizations around the world. Here's links to the latest four posts:
July 18 - 22, 2011 at Mid-Pacific Institute in Hawaii
Project Based Learning 101: A Playshop for teachers excited about project-based learning but are unsure of where to begin. This is a week long playshop in Hawaii open to K-12 teachers. Go to this site for more details and to sign up for this unique opportunity.
Here are some interesting presentations at this year's Computer Using Educator's conference in Palm Springs. Visit cue.org to get a list of open presentations and to sign up for workshops.
Come & Get It - Free Stuff to Use Right Away (3/17 9:30-10:30)
Digital Storytelling and Web 2.0 Playshop (3/17 11:30-2:30)
Mobile Technology: Learning on the Go (3/18 11:30 CUETip)
Quick Ways to Bring Joy to Learning (3/18 3:30 CUETip)
Comic Style Storytelling to teach Digital Citizenship (Presenter: Jeff Brain 3/19 8am)
We go way beyond just providing links to the eLibrary Spotlights for our search results by finding additional activities, vocabulary, keywords and tags, extension activities, standards matched to this resource, essential questions and more. Login and click on the eLibrary Spotlight for more details about each site.
Language Arts and Social Studies Madison Middle school teachers and students showcased their technology projects to over 220 parents and family members. This was a success thanks to a great team that included Oakland Unified School District's Instructional Technology department, a supportive principal Dr. Taylor and dedicated teachers. What a fun evening for everyone!
The My eCoach team and the Oakland USD Instructional Technology team are working together to support Madison Middle School teachers. Language Arts and History teachers and students are preparing for their exposition Thursday, January 27. Students worked collaboratively and used their netbooks to research and design their posters and presentations. Two of the project-based activities include 8th grade students creating songs and skits about the pros and cons of the Bill of Rights amendments and 6th grade students selling their tour to their Egyptian city as Ancient Egyptian Travel Agents... more...
Teaching online can work even if you have only taught face-to-face. The first few times you set up an online class, you may wonder if your students are listening or even present. Here's some tips that might help you manage your online class:
Take roll: If you are using webconferencing tools, you can see who is online. However, many of your students may not use their names for their login. You can set up a discussion board called "Roll Call [date]" with your students responding "I'm here".
Our new text editor means that now you can use any browser with My eCoach. This text editor is different than our older text editor so you may have some questions about some of the new features. This is a quick overview of some of the features.
Some of these features are pretty intuitive like the first row. There are more fonts and options plus whatever font ... more...
Team managers now can export the contact information for the members of their team.
On the Team Manager, the eCoach has access to loads of tools. Now there's a link to Export Roster right above the roster to the left of Send Message to Team.
The list is exported as a .csv (comma separated file) by first name,
last name, email address, and more. The eCoach has access to the team
manager on their team page.
Webinars
are a convenient way to participate and gain professional development
without the hassle of flights and travel details. Here are a handful of
upcoming FREE webinars for educators:
Joy of Learning at Classroom 2.0 Live
with Barbara Bray on Saturday, October 30, 2010 9am PST will provide an
overview of learning, the background of flow, where technology helps,
and why it is important to bring back joy to learning so students and
teachers are engaged in a joyful learning experience.
Sharing
ideas, websites, projects, and products helps teachers and learners
alike. When you share, you get back more than you give. You can build a
collaborative, learning environment by building in activities that
encourage sharing.
Create projects that have students work in pairs or small teams.
Encourage students to communicate with each other while they are working on projects.
Have students to come up with a guiding question and support questions.
When you introduce new projects, have students use think/pair/share groupings whenever you can.
Individuals and groups are regularly using My eCoach, with many users returning to realize the benefits of their lifetime memberships. Below are some exciting projects currently happening in My eCoach:
Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii
teachers are including inquiry and project-based learning in their
lessons. Barbara worked with an amazing team of facilitators who guided
15 teams of 8-10 teachers to create public service announcements about
their school. Read more...
Madison Middle School in Oakland, CA
is creating exciting learning environments where teachers participate
in job-embedded ... more...
Here are some current and upcoming online conferences and events for educators:
K12 Online Conference
going on now for the next 2 weeks and is a free online conference that
invites participation from educators around the world interested in
innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve
learning.
The 2010 CRSTE Global Symposium
will be held evenings and weekends for nine days, from October 16 - 24,
2010, to pursue and explore this notion of worldwide collaboration
among professional educators. Online and free.
The Common Core Standards (English/Language Arts and Mathematics) are available in the My eCoach standards alignment tool. We encourage you to add the standard that meets the learning objective or target with your lesson or project. There are a few projects matched to the standards.
Add The Common Core Standards to your Standards List. Go to Toolkit > Standards. Choose Common Core Standards and any other standards you want in your Standards List. Then click Save. Go to My Locker > My Standards and ... more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By Rebecca Jones December 28, 2010 -- 12:34 AM
You are creating a website, lesson, or project with My eCoach’s Universal Builder and you need help. If you are part of a team and have an eCoach, you can now request feedback on each and any page you are working on.
You get a pop-up with your eCoach(es). Choose one and send request for help. All communication between you and your eCoach is private and confidential. Only you and your eCoaches can see your comments and the eCoach replies. When you receive a comment, you get a message in My eCoach and an email notification if you set that up in your settings. You can also see a comment icon next ... more...
We
look for resources and projects that go the extra mile. Featured
Projects are authored by one or more My eCoach members using our
Universal Builder. They have multiple activities, images, resources,
links, embedded files and Web 2.0 tools, standards, tags, and more.
When you login to My eCoach ... more...
The 2010 CRSTE Global Symposium
will be held evenings and weekends for nine days, from October 16 - 24,
2010, to pursue and explore this notion of worldwide collaboration
among professional educators. Online and free.
The 2010 Global Education Conference
will be held November 15 - 19, 2010, online and free. Sessions will be
held in multiple time zones and multiple languages over the five days.
They are now accepting proposals for presentations.
One Day Earth On October 10, 2010 (10.10.10), across the planet, documentary
filmmakers, students, and inspired citizens will record the human
experience over a 24-hour ... more...
Webinars are a convenient way to participate and gain professional development without the hassle of flights and travel details. Here are a handful of upcoming FREE webinars for educators:
If I Could Only Get This Kid to Behave, I Could Teach! Join Jeffrey Sprague, Ph.D. and Ashley Faulk, M.S. as they analyze examples of adult-child interactions. See how adults can use Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) at school and home to build positive relationships with children. Oct 8th, 10am PST, 1 hour.
Educators have been taught to create worksheets and print everything.
Look at all the paper in the trash or recycling bin at your school by
the end of the day. The first thing you can do is rethink how you use
paper and why. Before you print out your email or type up your lesson
plan to print, consider the following facts about paper. [Source]
The
United States wastes approximately 749 pounds of paper a year... per
person. That would be one tree per person... if all trees were 18
inches around and 100 feet tall.
Each ton of recycled paper
saves 17 trees, 7,000 ... more...
When the school moves to computers for each teacher and student, the
learning environment not only changes, teaching practice changes. We ask
a lot of our teachers: To not only teach the concepts, assess
understanding, manage the classroom, differentiate instruction, but they
also have to learn technology while they use and infuse it in their
daily activities. What happens when you completely immerse the school
into a technology rich environment is there is systemic change and
resistance. The power of all of this is a strong leader who involves all
stakeholders in the visioni... more...
One
of the best ways to encourage your students to write is to add writing
as part of their daily routine. One way to do this is to have your
students keep a daily journal. Another option is to follow a writing
prompt, such as those on these sites:
Go to Writing Fix and have your students click the daily writing prompt, copy it, and then write to the prompt.
Go to Daily Writing Prompts and have students go to the calendar for each day. Have them use the prompt and write to that prompt.
We
look for resources and projects that go the extra mile. Featured
Projects are authored by one or more My eCoach members. They have
multiple activities, images, resources, links, embedded files,
standards, and more. When you login to My eCoach and visit eLibrary
Spotlights in the eLibrary or from your Home, ... more...
If you are setting up or participating in an online community,
training, or coaching program, follow the blog by Barbara Bray, My eCoach's CEO. Bray writes a regular column on professional development for the OnCue Journal,
is a Learning Strategist, and has been involved in coaching and
mentoring in numerous organizations around the world. Here's quick
links to the latest three posts:
Interactive whiteboards are now used on the computer as way to extend learning with your students. There
are a few basics that teachers and students need to know when they can
use an interactive whiteboard. These tips were adapted from Smart Board Basics:
Calibrate your interactive whiteboard.
Turn on your interactive whiteboard and press the keyboard and
right mouse click mouse button together. This will start the calibration
tool.
Pick up one of the pens, press it against the
middle of the target that appears on your board, and release. Repeat
this procedure
If you are setting up or participating in an online community, training, or coaching program, we suggest following the Rethinking Learning blog by Learning Strategist and My eCoach CEO, Barbara Bray. Bray writes a regular column on professional development for the OnCue Journal and has been involved in coaching and mentoring in numerous organizations around the world. Here’s quick links to the latest three posts:
Tread Softly on Their Dreams - Sir Ken Robinson talk explains about doing your passion, doing what you are good at and personalizing learning. Not everyone is supposed to go ... more...
We
look for resources and projects that go the extra mile. Featured
Projects are authored by one or more My eCoach members. They have
multiple activities, images, resources, inks, embedded files,
standards, and more. When you login to My eCoach and visit eLibrary
Spotlights in the eLibrary, you will access additional activities,
vocabulary, extension ... more...
Just
because summer is here doesn’t mean that learning stops. Here are some
great resources and opportunities for teachers over the summertime: Summer Teacher Opportunities:
Teresa Roebuck, president of Global Association of Teacher Empowerment (GATE) interviewed Learning Strategist and My eCoach CEO, Barbara Bray. The interview focused on empowering and ways to motivate teachers, tools for promotion, finding strengths, etc. You can listen to Teresa’s full length interview of Barbara Bray here:
This interview is just one of the many resources provided by GATE. The intent of GATE is to support the nation’s novice teachers in their professional lives by helping teachers connect - or reconnec... more...
There usually is one manager of an online community. The manager can be
called a community manager, a team manager, or an eCoach. The members
of your community will need to trust you to feel safe in your
community. Here are seven tips to ensure a trusting relationship with
the members of your community.
Why do you love to teach? We asked teachers to tell us in 250 words or less what excites them to teach. The three winners' names and answers are:
"I love teaching because I can make a difference in the life of a child.
If I can bring a smile to a child's face, I consider myself successful,
especially if that child was not easy to smile before you met her. I
love teaching because it gives me the opportunity to reinvent myself on
behalf of children who need my help in discovering the world. I love
teaching because it brings hope to humanity when I can inspire a child
to not throw garbage on ... more...
My eCoach offers lots of tools and many of them are not as conspicuous
for members. If you are on a team and have an eCoach, your eCoach can
provide you ongoing feedback and support to help you meet your learning
goals.
Individual Learning
Plans (ILPs) Members can create an ILP about a specific goal.
The power of the ILPs are how they are interactive and allow feedback. ILPs were created to put in one goal with
where you are currently and where you want to be by a specific time. You
can add 5 steps and concerns. To know if you are doing this right, you
can request for feedback ... more...
When you login to My eCoach, you can change what you see and how My
eCoach looks and feels. After you login, go to the inbox at the top
right or your profile. After you click Settings, click on
Look and Feel.
This
will open some new looks and themes that you can choose from. The
default is the teal theme that you were assigned when you first join My
eCoach. I had changed my look to an olive green theme. Thought it was
time to change it to a more neutral color. Scroll through all the different
themes and choose another theme. Then choose if you want to keep the
icons or not. Then ... more...
We added some more new themes this month for members of select teams. These new themes can help customize your projects, lessons or even your ePortfolio. Some of the new themes include Art, Clouds, Professional, Music, Winter Flowers and Fall Trees.
These new themes are only available to specific teams. An eCoach can
request themes to be added to their team or you can join the New Theme Team for access to these themes for only $15 a year. Stay tuned for more new themes!
Global Association for Teacher Empowerment
(GATE) offers live training opportunities for teachers. GATE is an
association of educators developed for educators by educators that is
dedicated to empowering teachers everywhere.
Join Teresa Roebuck on Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 1pm CST (11am PST)
as she interviews Barbara Bray on empowering teachers how to be
proactive about their work and themselves. Barbara will share how to:
My eCoach has a lot of features that members may not be aware of, so we
decided to share some quick tips with you. Some of these tips are
new features for everyone while some are new features just for teams:
We love hearing from you and want to share inspirational thoughts and words that can help get other teachers motivated. Tell us in 250 words or less what excites you to teach by April 30th. Three random winners will each win a free membership to My eCoach’s New Themes Team where they can have access to fun and inspiring themes for their class website, projects, lessons, and ePortolios. Winners will have access to the New Themes Team as long as they want (normally $15/year for members) and a membership to My eCoach if they ... more...
You can have outside website appear right in your Universal Builder
page. Using an iframe in a label allows you to embed code into the
embed box on the Universal Builder page or a tab in the team pages.
Insert code like:
You
cannot use iframe code with the text editor. Above is a screen capture
of the code. We cannot put the exact code in this text editor for you.
So here is the code without the brackets <> that you can copy,
replace the URL, add the brackets, and then paste the code into the
embed box.
Now when you are on any team in My eCoach, you have your own personal notes tab to store files, reflect, keep notes about work on the team, and whatever else you might need while you are on that team.
Click My Notes and then click Add Notes Now. You will then get a pop-up window to work on your notes that you can use with any of the tabs on your team.
Instructions for developing a successful online portfolio
An ePortfolio is a collection of evidence drawn from a digital file cabinet that represents what a person or organization has learned over time. In this ePortfolio Process you will be following these steps:
Collect
Plan
Create
Reflect
Publish
Promote
Throughout this process, you will have several eCoaches and other members to connect, share, and learn what works for your ePortfolio. There are multiple templates and themes to choose from along with examples, resources, and research. My eCoach members ... more...
If you are on any teams in My eCoach, you probably are using the forums
for threaded conversations. We now have a way for you to follow
specific topics and receive an email notification if anyone adds a post
or comment to that topic. Following is the default.
To check or change your options for following any of your forum topics, go to either your team by or
to My Community on the left navigation to Forums where your team forums
will be at the bottom. You can see the number of posts and last date of
any posts. Click
on the forum and you can see if you are following that topic or ... more...
Congratulations to Cathy Keck, Technology Integration Specialist at the Academy of Notre Dame, in Pennsylvania for winning our Leadership Scholarship! Her school is a private, college-prep, all-girls academy for grades 6-12 in the suburbs of Villanova, PA. Cathy teaches grades 6-9 and help the faculty integrate technology into their
curriculum and hold technology wokshops for faculty development.
Her major challenge is finding time! Cathy teaches classes so her
time with the faculty is limited. She was looking for an online community that can support and aid in
faculty training and collaboration: ... more...
Go to Winter Olympics 2010 for activities we did as we watched the Olympics. This helps one learn about it, think about it, show what you know, and what’s next. One section gives many how-to videos that you just have to check out.
The central focus of this project is actually access, content reading skills, response to content, organization and synthesis of information, and development of deeper understandings. The author also wanted to create a site for her students that shows how to ... more...
We have been busy creating new themes for lessons or websites using our Universal Builder. Several organizations using our teams requested different themes for projects, ePortfolios, and lessons so we went to work. Some themes will be exclusive for select teams and available soon for those teams only.
If you are a Free member, you can now use our Universal Builder Lite Version (UB Lite) where you can quickly create a one page lesson or website. Everyone who signs up to My eCoach, even Free members, has a lifetime membership to My eCoach. Free members do not have access to the Universal Builder but now can Go to Toolkit to Builders to Universal Builder and can access UB Lite.
Free members, click Create New and you can...
create and publish one page to the Internet
combine the features of a website builder and blog
access some of our tips and handouts
choose from a few of our themes
add text, files, and images
embed Web 2.0 tools
allow commenting and cloning
If you are a 30 day trial member, you can access all of the features. After that, try our new UB Lite and see if it’s enough for you to use. Remember you can publish a lesson a day quickly. Free members are not able to clone any projects or templates, nor use our survey or the quiz builder. If you want these features, then upgrade.
Our members who have full memberships can use the Full Version and clone this WRL Template to create a one page lesson plan.
We continue to try to meet your needs and look for ways for you to have a great experience while you are in the My eCoach community. Enjoy!
more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By Edward Woolbert March 3, 2010 -- 10:08 AM
Some of our members have asked us to create a store with our new logo - so we did. Now you can get yourself or a gift for a friend a shirt, children's organic shirts, onesies, messenger bag, prints, teddy bear, tote bag, journal, gift cards, postcards, and even a mug with our logo.
Need a survey for your students, team members, or school community? Why spend your limited funds on a subscription service for your survey program? Save your money by using the multi-leveled survey tool in My eCoach. As a lifetime member, you can easily create surveys that:
New Partner with Free Open Source Curricula Website
My eCoach is a featured partner of Curriki for the month of January. Curriki provides free resources, lessons, and learning objects for teachers.
How can you use My eCoach with Curriki? My
eCoach allows you to use Curriki's resources in our Universal Builder
as you design your class site, ePortfolio, lesson, or unit. Not only
can you download lessons that are documents, you can easily adapt the
lesson to be published online and embed free objects donated by Curriki
members. Learn more...more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By Anna January 30, 2010 -- 10:12 PM
International Marketing Guru Answers Educational Questions
Barbara Bray, CEO/President of My eCoach, recently had the opportunity to interview Seth Godin, "America's Greatest Marketer," and author of the "best marketing blog in the world," about his new book, Linchpin: Are you Indispensible?. In the interview, Barbara had the chance to ask Seth about his views on the future of education.
To read Barbara's interview with Seth, check it out on her blog: Rethinking Learning. Take a moment to read all interviews of Seth including Barbara's on Squidoo.more...
Drag and Drop in the Universal Builder: You can easily modify the position of your pages of your Universal Builder projects with our new drag and drop editor! more...
Choose your landing page: Now
you can easily choose which page shows up first when you log in to My
eCoach. If you are an individual, you can select the Home page or
Profile page. If you are on a team, you also have the option to choose
which team page you land on first. more...
Additional "Delete" in Inbox: We've added an easy-to-access delete button at the top of your Inbox.
We are gearing up our focus on authentic assessment strategies with ePortfolios. We are in the process of building a team with steps for you to create ePortfolios based on your individual learning plans. Our dream is that you and your students have ongoing support and access to the tools you need to demonstrate evidence of learning and reflect on your progress in meeting your learning goals.
We found that if we design a generic scope and sequence ... more...
We added a new free team for My eCoach members who are teachers of English Language Learners (ELL). This team is where they can
ask questions, find resources and research, connect with other ELL
teachers, and share tips and best practices that will help make their job more effective. Some of the members of this team who teach English as a Second Language live in other countries: Ecuador, China, and Korea. ELL/ESL/ELD teachers want to connect and share especially those that work remotely. Discussion topics include:
You now can change your settings so when you login, you can land on
your Profile or one of your team pages if you are on a team. Go to your
settings either on the info box at the top of each page or on your
profile. When you first login, your default landing page is Home. Click on Settings and select either Home (default), your Profile, or one of your teams. Then click Save. Logout and login again to see your new landing page.
You
can continue to keep Home your landing page if you want. Links to Home,
Your Profile, and the pull-down menu to get to any teams you are on
from most pages.
When you set up your team in My eCoach for your coaching program, you can now assign subteams, or "Private Rooms," for confidential conversations with one or more of your members. This unique, coaching feature helps extend the meaning of one-on-one virtual coaching or mentoring. The only people that can have a private room are members of your team. The eCoach is the only one that can set up and add members to the private rooms.
I found a fun site that lets you change the way you present your photo.
Think about a different way to post to your profile on My eCoach or
Facebook. Photofunia
is free and very easy to use. It is an online photo editing tool that
gives you a fun filled experience. You upload any photo and just wait
to see the magic. The technology automatically identifies the face in
the photo and let’s you add cool photo effects and create funny face
photo montages.
You don’t have to login to try it. Choose an effect.
After
you choose an effect, Photofunia converts your picture with that
effect. You ... more...
Our Universal Builder just got easier to use. We implemented drag-and-drop technology into the Universal Builder editor so you can easily move the order of your pages with the quick click and drag of your mouse. eCoach Ken Bakken shows you how easy it is to use in this 5 minute video.
Looking for an easy gift to give a teacher? How about a gift membership to My eCoach? It’s easy, quick and no worries about wrapping or shipping. This is a great value for the teacher in your life who wants to make a website, surveys, quizzes, or more. Click here for your gift of a Lifetime membership to My eCoach.
You can create a quiz, invite a co-author, clone any quizzes you
created, send the link to non-members, embed your quiz in a blog or
website, and add images, videos, presentations, audio files and more to
your description and quizzes. Teachers can also put in correct answers
with a score, view individual results and at-a-glance class results,
and leave comments for students on different answers. By the way, this
is all free for Lifetime, Trial and Team My eCoach members.
more...
Celebrating December Holidays Project:
This project was built by eCoach Charlotte McGovern in our Universal
Builder and has a great list of holiday resources for teachers and
students.
Gingerbread Man Around the World: This is
a K-2, learner-centered, thematic unit introducing children to the
classic Gingerbread Man theme including stories from around the world. It was created using My eCoaches Universal Builder tool.
Ma Buche de Noel: Here
is another fun My eCoach project created to teach children French
through ... more...
A big THANK YOU to everyone that visited the U.S. Dept. of Education's website
that surveyed teachers for their recommendations for the best
technology tools to be included in the upcoming National Educational Technology Plan. My eCoach received some genuine and authentic comments
of real personal experiences and successes. You can find the comments
and votes for My eCoach at https://edtechfuture.org/?s=my+ecoach.
Additionally, there was a very high vote count for our partner, HyperStudio, as well as some
of our other partners. Please check what people wrote about this
wonderful produ... more...
We have state and national content, professional and technology standards, skill sets and curriculum guides. You can add and view standards from your locker and match standards to any lessons or projects you create. We have recently added some new national standards:
21st Century Skills
IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts
Instructional Design Competencies
Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium Standards (INTASC)
ISLLC (Standards for School Leaders)
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
National Standards for Quality Online Teaching (iNACOL)
Now you can drag and drop any of the links or
widgets up or down instead of clicking move one at a time. You can
customize the sidebar of your public blogs by adding links and
embedding widgets. Go to your Blog Home to the T-Shirt icon to
customize your sidebar.*
This is the way we used to edit the sidebar. You can still add links by clicking Add Links and adding the title and the URL. The way we used to have it is clicking on the up or down arrows to move items one at a time. Now
each item is in a box where you will be able to click on a box and drag
and drop an item up or down as far as you ... more...
Team managers can now provide even more focused support to their team
members by using our new team reporting tools. You can see who is using
what tools, how often, and view by each team tool or by each member. Bring up a
report and send messages to team members right from that
report. We added an At-A-Glance chart that gives you activities in a
bar chart by date plus you can compare activities by different dates.
Here is a video made by eCoach Ken Bakken about how to make a simple website in My eCoach using the Universal Builder. In the video he goes through the basic steps of setting up the website, adding categories and content to the pages, embedding video, and changing the template.
Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) An integral part of successful Professional Development My eCoach created a Technology Use Assessment in the 1990s for teachers to generate their Individual Learning Plans (ILPs). This included a list of learning opportunities that were based on a scope and sequence aligned to NETS. All of this started with Concerns-Based Adoptions Model (CBAM) and how we accept change.*
ILPs ensure a successful coaching program. Currently our ILPs are available to all My eCoach members and work best if the user is part of a team with an eCoach who can provide ongoing feedback. ... more...
Our November contest asked people to become fans of our Facebook Fan Page. We had some great response and randomly chose 4 lucky winners:
Diane Chen: A copy of FableVision's Animation-ish
Cathy Keck: $25 Amazon.com gift card
Bobbi Kurshan and Ann Lumm: Individual Lifetime Memberships to My eCoach
Missed out on the contest but want continual updates? Facebook is free to join. Once you have an account, go to this link
and click on "Become a Fan" on the top. Then tell your Facebook friends
by going to our Fan Page and clicking on "Suggest to Friends."
more...
"What are you Thankful For?" survey There
are so many things to be thankful for. Take this 30-second survey that
was built using our survey tool and share your thanks with the My
eCoach community.
What is EETT? EETT is a 2-year grant. A minimum of 25 percent of the total grant award must be spent on
that provides teachers with the
capacity to high-quality professional developmentintegrate technology effectively into curricula and instruction to promote student achievement. more...
How can My eCoach help? If
you have EETT funding or are going to apply for other educational grant
funding, then write My eCoach into your grant. Our services directly
match EETT (and other) grant requirements and have been successful in
similar programs worldwide. ... more...
Leadership Coaching Scholarship Apply 11/20/09 through 12/31/09
Do you have a coaching program where your literacy, math, or technology
coach needs an online community and support to supplement their
face-to-face coaching? We are offering a coaching scholarship to one school or district that includes:
virtual training for one coach to become the eCoach
lifetime memberships for the eCoach and ten teachers
Noemi Ban's Journey to Taipei American School (TAS)
Last month we featured a blog by eCoach Ken Bakken about his trip
escorting Holocaust survivor, Noemi Ban, to Taipei to talk with
students about her Holocaust experience. Ken createdNoemi Ban's Journey to Taipei American School (TAS) as an interactive project documenting Noemi's trip and as a place to host student reflections.
The project Ken created in our Universal Builderdiscusses how Ms. Ban spoke to over a thousand students and parents during
her four day visit. Her impact on the students
was inspirational and life changing for many. It includes podcasts of Ms. Ban's answers to student ... more...
We are constantly adding new features and doing updates to ensure our community has effective tools for learning, publishing, sharing and communicating. Here are some of our most recent:
Share your blog or your project on Twitter and Facebook.
Projects: share by selecting the networking buttons from the sidebar.
Blogs: share by selecting networking buttons beneath each post.
New team reporting tools are available for team managers to view activities
of members by type of team tool and by specific dates. You can now view the
number of blog and forum posts, comments, and replies.
November Contest: Become a Facebook fan by Nov 16th
Become a fan and follow My eCoach on the new My eCoach Facebook Fan Page by November 16th and win! We will randomly select three of our fans to win:
A copy of FableVision’s Animation-ish
An Amazon.com gift card for $25
Two Individual Lifetime Memberships to My eCoach
The My eCoach Fan Pagehas regular updates, links to interesting projects, discussion ideas, information on upcoming grants, photos and more (pls note: this is NOT the My eCoach Share Place Group page).
Facebook is free to join. Once you have an account, go to this linkand click ... more...
"Today Noemi gave her first talk to the ninth and tenth grade students
about her experience of the Holocaust. Her message of hope, love, and
understanding was warmly accepted by the students and staff of TAS.
When she told her story to the 500 plus students, you could hear a pin
drop. Later in the day, she met with two groups of students
who were given the opportunity to ask her questions. The questions were
fascinating. For me the most interesting question was: Do you ... more...
Trying
to find projects or pages in My eCoach with specific keywords or tags?
Now you can easily search from every page within My eCoach with our new
search menu.
This drop down menu is located near the top of
the right-hand bar above the list of your friends and recent projects.
Click and select ... more...
Free team for My eCoach members in leadership roles
We
just launched a free team for My eCoach members who are in leadership
roles called the My eCoach Leadership Team. This free team is for
leaders from around the world to:
ask/ answer questions with people in similar roles
find resources and research
connect/ communicate/ collaborate with others
share tips or tidbits that will help make you and your job more effective
explore My eCoach's customizable team tools and new features in this supportive environment
Would you like to collaborate and communicate with other My eCoach members who have similar interests as yourself? My eCoach offers several free teams for Lifetime Members. Teams provide a great way to use My eCoach tools, access resources, share with others, and more. Watch this 1-minute video on how to log in and sign up to join one of our teams.
So, you’ve joined the free Leadership team in My eCoach, but can’t remember how to access it? Watch this quick video that will take you step-by-step from logging in to finding your team**.
**Please note this video uses the My eCoach Leadership Team, (which is a free team for My eCoach members and leaders of programs, institutions, and organizations), to demonstrate how to reaccess the team and the components of the team. Though this video is for revisiting the Leadership Team, the instructions on how to revisit your own team are the same. Also note, not all teams will have the same tabs once ... more...
Have you ever wondered what
that area called "My Personal Space" is at the bottom of your home
page? This is an editable section that you can customize however you
like. Ken
Bakken, a Certificated eCoach, takes
us on a tour of how you can personalize this space with easy-to-access
links to Web 2.0 tools and My eCoach projects. Watch this short 2.5
minute video to learn
more.
Submit to eLibrary & win FableVision’s Animation-ish and more!
Have you made fun or interesting projects using the Universal Builder in My eCoach? If so, submit it and win!!!! We’re looking to add YOUR great projects to our eLibrary. We are looking for:
educational projects
lesson plans
class websites
topic-specific content sites
presentations or demonstrations
projects made with older builders (pre-2007) converted to the Universal Builder
How to enter: It’s easy!!! Find one or more of your fantastic projects (or create one) and submit by editing your project, going ... more...
Do you find it hard to keep up with all that My eCoach does? If so, become a fan and follow My eCoach on the new My eCoach Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter.
We're adding regular updates, links to interesting projects, discussion
ideas, information on upcoming grants, photos and more.
2009 Bright Green Dream-
$15,000 sustainable classroom upgrade for K-12 teachers and students
who dream up the ultimate energy-efficient classroom. Deadline 10/12
Student Achievement Grants $5,000 to improve the academic achievement of students in U.S. public preK-12 schools. Deadline 10/15
Did you know that My eCoach can also help you write grants to incorporate eCoaching and Class Teams into your school? Contact Us for more information.
Are
you interested in streamlining your team's communication and
collaboration skills but are not sure how? Are you an individual who wants to be on a team but are not familiar with the tools? Schedule a demo today where
we will walk you through team pages using our unique team tools. Contact Us for your demo today.
We recently added a new feature for My eCoach blogs: Follow. You can
now follow someone's My eCoach blog or other members can follow your
blog. The FOLLOW icon is in the sidebar of your public and team blogs
and to the right of Add New Post for Community blogs.
Anyone
who reads your blog can click on the FOLLOW icon and choose to follow
your blog either by receiving a message from the Message Center or
through their external email. A thumbnail of their profile ... more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By soundar April 29, 2011 -- 04:49 AM
Below is a video tutorial about getting started and getting familiar with My eCoach or click here to view it in a separate window. Take a moment to view and share it with others you know.
We
just launched our new team tools, making team management and navigation
so much simpler for the both the team member and team manager. Click on the play button below watch a short video on how this team tool can work for you (you may need to turn up your speakers).
Teams will soon be able to co-author, share, communicate and collaborate with other teams in a new feature in My eCoach: Lounges!
For
instance, this would allow an elementary class in North Dakota to
compare data with a class in Hawaii on the different effects of climate
change. Teams will also be able to use the lounge to work on lesson
plans together, co-author projects, and optimize their communication
between one or more teams. Stay tuned!!! more...
Only a month old, the Homeschool
team and resource list is growing. This free team is for any My eCoach member involved in homeschooling. It is a
place to communicate, collaborate, share ideas, projects and resources. To
join, log in and go to My Community> Teams to Join or click here.
more...
Comments: 2
Last Comment By Sara Zimmerman August 31, 2009 -- 03:40 PM
The National Professional Development Grant was developed through San
Francisco State University (SFSU) aimed towards professional
development and implementation of instruction for English Language
Learners. My eCoach will be the web-based component to help implement
this program so curriculum, program information, and communication can
be done virtually. SFSU faculty and students will be working with
teachers from San Francisco USD, Palo Alto USD, Santa Clara COE,
University of San Francisco, University of Santa Clara, and San Jose
State University. My eCoach members will soon be seeing ... more...
Over 200 teachers, (including many K-12 science teachers), will soon be
part of the newly-formed Accomplished Teaching and Collaborative
Leadership Community, a team within My eCoach for National Board
Certified Candidates and Support Providers. National
University created this online learning community so candidates will
have the tools, resources,
people and support materials available to them, anywhere at
anytime. If you are interested in registering with National University
to join this team, contact Ronarae Adams at radams@nu.edu.
My eCoach members will be able to see the wonderful ... more...
New eCoaches and eTeachers have set up some fantastic teams for the upcoming school year. Class teams include up to 40 of their students and are a great way for the class to work together, share, receive information, schedule events, and communicate. A few of the teams:
Village of Excellence Academy, Charter School in Tampa, FL
Travel & Tourism Academy at Oak Grove High, San Jose, CA
Russ Knopp’s eKids team & his sixth grade class, Waitsburg, WA
San Diego COE, AB430 training in multiple teams with hundreds of new principals
As part of each newsletter, we will be sharing new communities and ... more...
We’ve been busy updating and streamlining our inside member pages. Once you login as a member, you will notice:
We have new icons for our home page and our left hand navigation bar.
There are new color choices for your "look and feel" under your settings.
We also changed our navigation bar on top to have more links and information. Some of these links will take you to a new window to the outside non-member pages where you can view examples, read updated FAQs, and learn more about the numerous features and tools of My eCoach.
Take a moment to look around, enjoy our new appearance,
My eCoach has created a free team for HyperStudio 5 users and trainers called the HyperStudio Digital Playground. This playground is a place for the HyperStudio 5 community to:
ask questions
discuss how they are using HyperStudio 5 with their classrooms
share ideas
find training resources
find trainers who can help with professional development
Teachers can now set up Class Teams as an eTeacher for up to 40 students per team for the calendar school year right in My eCoach. This gives their students access to all of the features in My eCoach. Students can create team blogs where they can share links and resources, participate in confidential threaded discussions, create, co-author, and publish websites, presentations, and surveys, and use a secure messaging system.
A new team eTeachers are setting up are eKids Class Teams. This is where the eTeacher manages either a Generation Yes team or other types of student techies. These eKids learn ... more...
We
just launched our new team tools, making team management and navigation
so much simpler!
As a team member, you now have an organized place to
find all of your teams’ work, materials, and information. As an eCoach,
you now have more editable options, preferences, and space in your
private team. This includs the ability to add, edit, drop and drag tabs, view your team members as friends on the sidebar, add text boxes, embed box, and any team tool, and drop and drag any of those on the tab page. eCoaches can now place the content for their teams and courses right on the team page and ... more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By robert groves July 31, 2009 -- 02:24 PM
Stimulus Money Federal funding can pay for My eCoach services for your educational institution My
eCoach provides the tools and services that support 21st Century
learning environments required in The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and other funding sources including:
Comprehensive Professional Development Integration
My eCoach and HyperStudio of Software MacKiev, will announce their
partnership at the June 2009 National Educational Computing Conference
(NECC) in Washington D.C. Created by Roger Wagner, The My eCoach -
HyperStudio partnership provides an exciting way to extend classroom
learning by creating, sharing, collaborating, and publishing
interactive projects created with HyperStudio 5 to the Internet using a
safe and supportive online learning community. Certificate eCoaches
will be providing training on HyperStudio and manage an online
community for HyperStudio users.
Congratulations Barbara on receiving the Top Online Educator award from Surf Aquarium!
My eCoach CEO/President Barbara Bray was recently honored the Top
Online Educator award in recognition as an esteemed leader in
technology and learning. Barbara was awarded this honor in hope that
through the celebration of her work, other educators will be inspired
to embrace technology as a tool for transforming their classroom into
an environment where all students can be successful.
Now you can center an uploaded image in the edit mode of the Universal Builder. After you have clicked the Add Image icon and have found your image, choose the Center button. Now your image will be centered on the screen like this.
Are you looking for someone with similar interests that you can collaborate with on a project? You can now search for members either from within your own community or the entire My eCoach community. On the top of the right sidebar, there is a link to Search for Members.
You can search by name, email (even just the domain name), title, city, state, country, school, district, grade, curriculum, and tags.
Your search results will give you a way ... more...
We just added a way that you can reply to a comment on a blog post instead of adding another comment at the end of the list. Let’s say you just want to reply to one person’s post that was in the middle of a long list of posts. Now you can and that reply indents so you have something similar to a threaded discussion.
Lots of exciting things are happening with My eCoach. One is our new look. After 12 years with the same logo, we thought it was time to change to represent people helping each other and coaching.
My eCoach provides tools all in one place but it’s not the tools that make My eCoach. It’s the people, the coaching, and that My eCoach is an umbrella larger community for all the members. There ... more...
Search is available for Universal projects on your sidebar. Need to
find specific pages within your project, then use search.
Type in what you are searching for and then click Search. The results page appears with the title of the page as a link and highlighted areas where the search terms appear on the pages.
When we made the text editor larger, members using the Universal Builder or Blog templates found text overlapping the template. So now there is an option to select 800 pixels wide or 1000 pixels wide templates using a new selection tool. The default template is 1000w.
Choose 800w if you want to keep the same size you are using or 1000w if you want to add comment boxes, pictures, tables, etc. You can easily go back and change the ... more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By Miriam April 10, 2009 -- 04:11 AM
Did you notice that there is a new tab on the left navigation bar? Now you can quickly access the message center inbox and even see how many new messages are waiting for you. When you have any messages waiting, you willl still see the flashing envelope above your profile on the upper right.
The text editor is now larger. Why? Because members were adding more pictures, tables, and other files. This way they can now keep writing and sharing not only in the Universal Builder and blogs, but wherever there is the text editor including the comment box.
Searching tags in My eCoach? When you start ... more...
Congratulations to Barbara Bray for winning the prestigious Platinum Disk Award at the Computer Users Educators (CUE) Conference in March 09. Barbara won this award for her contributions to the educational technology community. Mike Lawrence, Executive Director of CUE, is congratulating her as Bonnie Marks, CTAP IV Director, takes her picture.
Comments: 4
Last Comment By MR. WEBB April 20, 2009 -- 08:47 AM
We set up a place in Facebook to promote projects, programs, or events that you may be doing in My eCoach. Why did we do this?
You are doing so many wonderful things in eCoach that people may not know about. We feature projects that have been reviewed and submitted to the eLibrary. We spotlight resources that have been shared in the eLibrary. We write about programs that eCoaches tell us about. The best way for us to share is if everyone shares. Facebook is a social networking program that encourages people to connect. We have some of these features but ours are different.
San Diego County Office of Education’s Leadership Services continues to provide AB 430 training for California principals. Melissa Hunt, Director, with the support of eCoaches Cynthia Sistek-Chandler and Ward Smith, set up one leadership team for over 400 principals who have participated in the training.
Stanford University’s Bay Area Foreign Language Program (BAFLP) with support from their eCoach Marcelo Leal has set up five more teams including BAFLP Leaders, an ELD Strand, and Mandarin Strand. Example project from Kathleen Rooney: Ideas for Incorporating Technology in the Foreign Language Classroom.... more...
We are working tirelessly to meet your requests. The main request is to allow students into eCoach. We are setting up a program where teachers can become eTeachers and set up a class team with up to 40 spaces for your students. Students will have access to all of the features in eCoach as long as the class meets. Then students will become free members with limited access. We are reviewing costs, training, and coaching. We welcome your ideas and comments.
Left Navigation The left navigation has been changed and streamlined. My Community is where you can find Certificated eCoaches and other community resources. This is where you can find events, conversations, your teams if you are on any teams. The Message Center is the glue that connects all the features and people in eCoach.
My Locker is where all of your work is stored. We moved My Locker next because some eCoach members were going to My Toolkit that used to be in this area to start new blogs instead of adding posts to the blog they started. We encourage everyone to check their work first ... more...
Barbara was interviewed on EdTechTalk's Women of the Web (WOW) show on November 11th by Sharon Peters, Jennifer Wagner, and Cheri Toledo. There were several chat rooms going (one on WOW and one in eCoach). Barbara shared information about My eCoach, Web 2.0 tools, and the benefits of collaboration. Check out her interview and all the other exciting interviews by these wonderful women of the web.
There are many librarians in My eCoach who may not be aware of our Universal builder and how easy it is to create and maintain a website for their library. We started a library website template that can be cloned and customized to fit your needs. We added loads of resources and plan to keep working on it regularly.
We have been looking at different video capture tools and Web 2.0 tools to create mini-video tutorials. We also wanted to capture us talking to you via the webcam. I use the built-in iSight camera on my Macbook. I love the video chat that I use with my new granddaughter. Just found a great program that lets you record with the iSight camera: Conference Recorder v. 2.13.
So here’s a quick welcome in a corner of my living room. What was weird is the video was flipped so when I pointed to one side of the screen, it showed up pointing to the wrong side. Here’s a video without any pointing.
When others outside of the eCoach community comment on your public blog or Universal builder, they are asked to verify who they are with a captcha.
Once that you have set the blog to view by public, anyone inside or
outside of the My eCoach community will be able to read or comment on
your blog. If anyone wants to comment on your blog, he/she will be
required to type his/her name and the words (captcha). Captcha is a
verification that is used to determine whether or not the user is a
human. Each time there will be different numbers and letters. We changed to a new Captcha program that asks ... more...
We have made lots of changes in eCoach and realized it's time to update the FAQs on the inside and outside. We try to keep up with the questions people ask us and share the answers. One thing we didn't share was the 30 day trial account and new pricing for organizations so that's up now. Please check out the FAQs.
We set up a new program for eCoaches who wanted to market themselves, their programs, and any services they provide. You can check out who our Certificated eCoaches are and what they created in eCoach. Some of our eCoaches will be offering free teams for members. Keep checking back to see more examples of their work and ideas for new projects in eCoach.
We will be offering Certificated eCoach workshops in the near future. If you are interested, please add a comment below. more...
Comments: 2
Last Comment By Barbara Bray November 6, 2008 -- 07:15 AM
Any new members that sign up for a free account will now get a 30 day trial of all the features in My eCoach. We figured that if you were checking out eCoach, you really needed to be able to access all of the features. After the 30 days are up, then free members continue with their lifetime membership but with limited access. They can always join at any time.
Several large organizations have approached us to give their members access to all of the tools for at least one year so we came up with an annual subscription pricing structure. People are raving about all the tools in eCoach so we want ... more...
Comments: 2
Last Comment By Roxanne September 17, 2008 -- 12:15 PM
We figured it was time for a new look when you first come to My eCoach.
We needed new color schemes, sample projects, and pop-ups. The pop-ups give you an overview of some of the features. We have so many features now all in one place that you may not be aware of them. So click on some of these like how to create surveys. We’ll be making more including showing you how you can make pop-ups just like these.
more...
Comments: 2
Last Comment By Coach Cynthia September 18, 2008 -- 10:48 PM
Now you can ask anyone in the eCoach community a question or answer any question someone else asks using the Conversation Corner. When you login, the Conversation Corner is right on your home.
It is a mini-blog where all you have to do is click Ask Questions to bring up the text editor.
Just ask your question in the title field and add a message that gives more information, links, images, podcasts, or whatever helps you get your question across ... more...
Check out the Quiz builder in your Toolkit. You can set up a quiz and assign correct answers and score for each question. You can also add files including images or video to each question. Create a test with separate sections and even embed your quiz in the Universal builder or any blog or website if you know how to embed code.
The Quiz builder walks you through a wizard to create a quiz with a choice of questions:
Pinellas County Schools received the EETT grant again to expand the cross-age cross curriculum projects they started in 2006. Barbara spent a week with a fantastic group of eMentors from Kings Highway Elementary School and John F. Kennedy Middle School. The focus is on science where there will be six new cross-age projects. The 12 eMentors mapped the curriculum, looked for gaps in the standards and where their students needed more engaging projects. The topics so far include the Changing Earth, Forms of Energy, Habitats and Life Cycles, Force and Motion, Ecology and Ecosystems, and Space. This ... more...
The EduTone XchangeTM brings easy, convenient access to applications and information with a Single Sign-On Portal for all users, including administrators, teachers, parents and students. The EduTone area of the EduTone Passport will offer a single sign on access to My eCoach for free memberships or be able to join as full lifetime memberships.
We The Teachers (WTT) is a social network for teachers with forums, groups, tools, and lesson planning. My eCoach will provide the professional development solution for ... more...
You can share that you are a lifetime member of eCoach or post a widget from eCoach on any blog. Go to My Toolkit to Widgets
A widget is a logo or image of a site that your users can click to access that site quickly. We created four different widgets for you: the eCoach logo, I am a Lifetime Member of eCoach, one that goes to our free eLibrary, and a login to eCoach.
Choose one of the widgets to put on the sidebar of your blog. If you use another blog outside of eCoach, embed the code from the widget you would like to share with your readers.
The survey tool works with any program and can be shared with anyone on your team, specific members, and others outside of eCoach. We even have newspapers using eCoach for public only so they are the only ones seeing the results. We have received requests for some new features in the surveys.
You now have access to the text editor in the description and each question. What that means is that you can upload images, videos, podcasts, and most types of files.
Now you can add Web 2.0 tools like SlideShare or stream videos from Teacher Tube using our new Embed Code box in the Universal Builder. Under Contents either Add a New Page or Edit an existing page and now your will see an Embed Code box.
I went to TeacherTube and found a great presentation by Karl Fisch called "Did you Know?" and copied the embed code.
Comments: 1
Last Comment By Jayna June 5, 2011 -- 06:07 PM
We encourage our members to cite all of their sources. So now you can use the eCoach Citation Builder instead of going out to another site. We are listening to our members and basing our research and development on member requests. You can find the citation builder in your toolkit:
Fill in the form with the information from the website you wish to cite:
Create Citation
Save and add more
After you save your citations, they are available in your locker under My Citations. You can then copy and paste any citation into your work. We will eventually be creating a way for you to embed the ... more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By Charles Cummins June 25, 2008 -- 10:10 AM
Conversation
Corner is a new feature on your Home where you can ask questions to the
entire eCoach community. Everyone including Free members can share
ideas, ask questions, and provide answers or possible solutions to
questions. Conversation Corner works like the blog tool where each
question is a new post on the Conversaton Corner blog. You can also see
Conversation Corner in your Blog Home.
On
your Home, click Ask Questions to start a new question or thread. This
will open the text editor. Add your question in the title. You ... more...
When you click My Profile on the upper right or under My Locker, now you will find that it is really different.
My Profile is where others can learn about you, add you to their Friends list, and connect with tags. Now you can edit each section by clicking the pencil.
Members will be able to view all of your published work at the bottom of your profile. Published work includes your projects, surveys, and blogs.
Only you and your eCoach will be able to view your ILP, phone number, and street address. You can hide your email under settings so members or others viewing you as author of a project ... more...
Up to Standards Every state’s content standards are available in My eCoach. We add standards based on community requests. Some communities have asked us to add professional, technology, and even local standards. Check your standards from the left menu and add any resources to your standards. These will then go to our eLibrary for review and publishing.
Resources Galore! Look for thousands of new resources in our eLibrary. Along with your submissions, we have a group of interns and students who are finding rich resources for you ... more...
The
left navigation bar was changed based on much input from our
members. Since My eCoach tries to bring together all the tools you might need for your community, the left sidebar navigation was getting long and cumbersome. We asked for ideas from many of our members to come up with ways to make navigation easier.
By Charlotte McGovern February 12, 2008 -- 11:29 AM
Wondering what a Super Delegate is? Are presidential candidates really
chosen by the people who vote in the primaries? Check out The 2008 Presidential Campaign Project.
Help
your students become involved. See how the media is playing a role in
this historic election. Get the up-to-date delegate count and much
more! Take our survey "How Will You Vote?" .
Now you can share activities and projects using the Universal Builder and win prizes too! Enter today!
Help us continue sharing quality activities and projects within our community as we expand and enhance our eLibrary. Add your project to the thousands of resources already available to maximize our time, energy, and creativity.
eCoach members have access to the new Universal Builder. Entering the contest is as easy as moving a project you’ve already created with an old builder into the Universal Builder. We’d love to have you share your projects with the rest of our community! Contest details inside eCoach...... more...
We changed Team Up to Bulletins where you can ask for collaboration, promote events and new teams, and share new features. We combined Tips and Tricks, Featured Projects, and eLibrary Spotlight into one box that rotates along with the Bulletin box on its left.
Click Bulletins on the left and go to View All Posts to create a new bulletin to be approved and posted.
Check out the new personal space below just for you and only you. Use it as an aggregator for all of ... more...
We have been busy adding standards based on requests by our eCoaches and what they need for their communities.
Keep checking in, click on My Standards and edit them to add more standards to your list. We will be moving My Standards from your profile to where there already is My Standards on your left sidebar.
We will also be reworking how you update your standards and the look of the page where you choose your standards, so keep checking in.
We have over 45 states content standards listed and adding the rest soon. We also input professional standards for eCoaches states and local curriculum ... more...
The Universal builder keeps getting more features based on members' requests. Now you and your audience can print your project. From the view mode, you and your users will see Printable View on the sidebar. If you allowed cloning, then Printable view appears below Clone This.
When you click Printable view, your project appears in PDF on multiple pages. The Print dialog box appears so you can print all of the pages.
My eCoach is pleased to announce that the Center for Interactive
Learning and Collaboration (CILC) is a new partner. Established in
1994, CILC specializes in videoconferencing and collaboration
technologies to deliver all types of programs to K-12 students and
educators. As CILC continues to build their cadre of professional
development content providers, their subject matter experts will
utilize My eCoach to create online learnng communities to continue
dialogue and provide ongoing professional support and coaching. Go to http://www.cilc.org to find out more about CILC.
The East Bay BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support) Alameda BTSA program is designed for new teachers to be successful with their teaching practice with the guidance of their Support Providers. The Program Coordinators, Theresa Anderberg, Shirley Clem, and Teri Olsen with support from Diana Kenney, District Technology Instructional Specialist, designed an online learning environment in My eCoach that included communication, coaching, resources, project builders, induction standard 16, and a digital drop box. They set up one team for Support Providers with the Program Coordinators as eCoaches as the ... more...
Comments: 2
Last Comment By Laura Smith November 26, 2007 -- 07:55 PM
The Los Angeles Unified School District Arts Education Branch (AEB) has set up an eCoach program and communities for each elementary and secondary arts discipline: Theatre, Dance, Music, and Visual Arts. The AEB staff are the League eCoaches who were trained this June as part of the AEB staff team: Karen Coates, Robin Lithgow, Steven McCarthy (Theatre), Shana Habel (Dance), Luiz Sampaio (Visual Arts), Steve Venz (Music), Chris Gilman and Dain Olsen (Media Arts to be developed).
The Elementary AEB developed Arts Instructional Guides (AIG) for each discipline with modules for each ... more...
Comments: 3
Last Comment By Rachel Feldman July 1, 2010 -- 11:26 AM
Several new updates with the eCoach blogging tool:
New templates
Add categories to posts
Blog posts now appear in recent activities
New Templates Check out the extended list of templates for your public blog.
We adapted the new templates in the Universal builder so you could extend your collaborative projects using a similar template. Just put a link to your blog in the Universal builder.
Add Categories to your Posts Why would you do this? If you have multiple posts and people are having trouble finding a post on a particular topic, they can check your list of categories on the right sidebar.
Now you can see a list of all of your events on your calendar over as many months as you want. Go to My Calendar on the left sidebar. At the top of the calendar you will see a link to List:
Click List and you will see a list of current events.
You can choose the dates (from one date to another) to view your event list. more...
Go
ahead and check out the chat feature now. Some of you were concerned
about the jumping when you were chatting with others. We fixed that
because of your request, so now it is seamless. Just make sure you are
in the right chat room. The room that shows up is the All Community
Chat room and everyone can read what you are writing.
You
will also notice that your messages will stay in the room even after
you leave. We did this because many of you wanted to archive the chat.
So now the messages will last about 2 hours.
Also
one more thing - when people left the chat room, their name and profile
would ... more...
Thought I’d share a Voki welcome by embedding the code here. I’ll share how to do this in a tip. Try moving your cursor around and my eyes will follow it. Kind of eery! Then click play to actually hear my voice welcome you.
We thought you might want to change the look of your website that you create with the Universal builder. So we checked out some pictures from our eLibrary and played around with color schemes to come up with some interesting templates that we hope you will like. We have other ideas floating around in our heads on designs.
Since it’s almost Fall, Barbara took the picture in the banner when she was up at Tahoe and gave to Pearl to make a new Fall template:
To see the new templates, edit one of your Universal builders and go to Customize to Templates and scroll to the bottom rows.
Have you ever wanted to join a book club to discuss a book you just read, are reading, or want to read? Do you want to share ideas about a book that you would like to develop into a curriculum project?
We set up a book club with help from a few of our members and are determining focus. The book club is available to members of the eCoach community who have full access to all features. Here’s our ideas so far:
Use team forum to
discuss focus and direction of book club
submit books to discuss
determine how we will set up the forum
We also plan to use other team tools such as the team page to put up ... more...
Comments: 7
Last Comment By Elizabeth Oviedo August 14, 2007 -- 06:00 AM
Are you looking to create an online course, facilitate an existing course, or develop and sustain an online community? Ever have a problem keeping participants motivated or staying in your community? How about encouraging online participants to share and collaborate?
We developed this five week course to give you the skills, tips, and resources you need to become an effective online facilitator and to provide an online community for facilitators.
First Session begins August 1st and goes to September 4th, 2007 (30 hours). Course Content includes:
The Universal Builder is open-ended and so flexible that you can use it for presentations, websites, class sites, ePortfolios, or really anything you want to publish on the web. You can allow comments and cloning, add co-authors, upload any file, video, podcast, link. You can select your audience and provide options for what they can do.
Each project you build has RSS feed in ... more...
We decided to try a different format for our booth at NECC in Atlanta this year. We wanted to sit with each person and give a personal tour. This seemed to work much better. At least we think it was better than doing stand up and deliver presentations.
Each of us (Roxanne, Janice, Ken, Barbara, Sara, and Anne) listened to your needs and designed our personal tour around you. We will be sharing who won the iPod next week.
The poster session on Tuesday was a real hit. The teachers from Pinellas County Schools (Nancy Kuznicki, Phyllis Hand, and Susan Brown) along with Barbara and Ken shared the ... more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By George Reither June 29, 2007 -- 08:17 AM
My eCoach has a new look. The front page looks more like our online community and has links to new information. You can still login from this page and access our store and the community eLibrary with thousands of free resources. Some resources are archived and others will be repurposed and added to our eLibrary.
Please visit and let us know what you think! My eCoach
Starting in June, My eCoach will work with the Los Angeles USD Arts Education Program (AEB), CA.
My eCoach will support the AEB staff as they develop instructional guides for each discipline and grade level in eCoach: Dance, Theatre, Music, Visual Arts, and Media Arts. Teachers and community partners will develop lessons aligned to the guides. The online instructional guides will replace binders. Instead of binders with hundreds of pages of paper, there will be links, images, videos, and lesson aligned to standards and Arts big ideas.
Pinellas County Schools, in Largo, Florida is planning this coming year the Pinellas science project will be expanding to add more teachers. This past year 38 eMentors ... more...
The New Teacher Center (UCSC), CA: adding more principal candidates across seven regions using the customized Individual Development Plan (IDP) builder. This year some will be providing evidence on their ePortfolios.
San Diego County of Education Leadership Services, CA: adding another 200 administrators as part of the required AB 430 training required for their admin clear credential. The program is growing beyond their county.
eMINTS eCoach Program, MO: continuing into their fourth year with Veteran eMINTS teachers using eCoach. eMINTS just received funding for 100 new eMINTS classrooms ... more...
Now when you create a project for your students, add a link to a quiz that you create using the Quiz tool. Many of our members were creating their quizzes in word and uploading them so they weren’t interactive. You will be able to pull up each respondent’s quiz and find the percentages answering specific questions. This is data you can really use right away that will help you design the next quiz. It’s easy!
Title the quiz with a description.
Customize it with a logo.
Invite another eCoach member as a co-author.
Add as many questions as you would like before publishing. A comment box ... more...
As a teacher or administrator, you may be asking yourself: how do you know this lesson or new activity or program is working and really making a difference for kids. A simple method is to put together a survey and ask the questions that will help you find these answers.
What do you want to know?
How many of your 5th grade boys have Internet at home?
How many of your middle school girls are worried about bullying and chat online?
How many students are home after-school alone and have Internet access?
How many of your veteran teachers (5+ years in the profession) use email daily and blog?
Some of you love Moodle as your learning management system (LMS) and that’s great. My eCoach can complement Moodle or Bb but some are finding that eCoach does the same and much more. eCoach was not created to replace any LMS - it was created to support, supplement, and enhance face-to-face programs. We encourage blending f2f with online - that is not always possible - so some people are trying to find a solution for online only.
In my opinion - this is very difficult to do. You can set up a course in Moodle or Bb or even eCoach and find that maybe 50% participate.
CUE (Computer Using Educators)- A great conference where all of us are family. Great place for a conference: Palm Springs. It seemed like around every corner was an old friend I haven’t seen in a long time and then met so many new friends. Thursday I did a fun pop-up session called Feelin’ Googley where everyone followed along with me doing a karaoke. So glad I wasn’t the only one singing. Don’t have much of a voice even if I look like Bette.
Next session was Web 2.0 and Fun Tools. Both audiences jumped in and participated by sharing ideas and tips. I made these websites with the Universal ... more...
February is Black History month so we decided to pull together projects for a thematic collection for our commuity from members from our eLibrary, websites that many of you contributed, linkable original art, and several links to books as Featured Projects on our Home Field. Here are a few from that site - go ahead and login to see the full list. Use this blog post to share any websites, images, books, videos, podcasts, or any other type of resource you believe that will benefit others researching the topic of Black History.
The Universal Builder is an open-ended flexible builder that is like a project and blog combined. You can create a website and publish it as a class site, content site, lesson, unit, collaborative project, course, etc. in no time at all. Customize your Site Similar to a blog, you can customize your site choosing from a variety of templates.
You can even customize your site even more by adding an image to the template either as a small image on the left or as a banner to make your own look. Add links and embed code to the sidebar. You can add RSS feeds and all types of files including text, ... more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By Ken Bakken February 5, 2007 -- 08:48 PM
Clone This Our survey feature is becoming really popular. Now not only teachers, administrators, and schools are using it, but businesses and newspapers. Found out one thing that needed to work differently. When you create a survey and someone answers it, you could not go in and change the questions. Think all surveys are like that. Well, we fixed that - had to make it better than any other survey - right?. Now you can create a survey, test it, and then if you want to make changes, clone it.
A clone of that survey appears in your survey home with (clone) after the title. It is the survey with questions ... more...
I was reading the January Time magazine where the "Person of the Year" is You. Yes, you. You control the Information Age. With Web 2.0, everyone and anyone controls the media. The focus is on citizens of the new digital democracy: Harriet Klausner as one of the world’s most prolific and influential book reviewers (12,896 reviews on Amazon.com). Ali Khurshid shares 200 of his photos of the beauty of Pakistan on Flickr. Wordsmith at War, mil-blogger Captain Lee Kelley, writes about his experiences in Iraq. Simon Pulsifer has authored between 2-3,000 Wikipedia articles and edited 92,000 others. ... more...
We want to wish you and everyone in the eCoach community a wonderful holiday and a very Happy New Year!
This time off (if you have time off) is a good time to reflect on the year and what you plan to do next year. This is also a good time to read and maybe write a comment to a blog or blog yourself.
Just finished Small is the New Big by Seth Godin - an interesting compilation of his blogs about the new marketing strategies. The Internet has changed everything. Each chapter is short, on different subjects, but mainly why viral marketing may take over traditional sales and marketing strategies. ... more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By Donna Taylor December 26, 2006 -- 08:52 PM
Imagine what would happen if a terrorist organization and or pandemic outbreak disrupted an entire county or city school district, forcing schools and area college campuses to close indefinitely? Where would the teachers and professor go to teach and where would the students go to learn?
These questions are from an article from the Courier Post titled "Schools must learn to use Internet to quickly recover from disaster." They write "...that less than 1 percent of K-12 teachers have ever taught online or received any training on how to teach online, and most universities and colleges teach less ... more...
Comments: 2
Last Comment By Stephanie Pierce January 18, 2007 -- 10:18 AM
I am so lucky to be part of this exciting day at Google (November 7, 2006 at Google Headquarters in Mountain View) along with 50 other teachers and technology specialists. This morning went so fast: building teams, breakout sessions using the advanced search tools, Google Earth and United Streaming, and Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Cool! Now our job as Google Teacher Educators we need to come up with 3 professional development activities. Even more tools in the afternoon: Picasa and iPhoto, Blogger, Feedburner, Podcasts, and SketchUp. I learned so much so fast. Now I have to go ... more...
Comments: 1
Last Comment By Janice Friesen November 8, 2006 -- 07:33 PM
Congratulations to EWYL (Earn While You Learn) teachers Mary Howland, Beth Fensterwald and Steven Caringella who were awarded the $5000 Rambus/KCI Innovation Award for their Environmental Concerns in the Community Project. They asked their fourth, fifth, and eighth grade students to answer the essential question: How do we become aware of local environmental concerns and what can we do to make a difference?
In their collaborative project, each class contributed a key component to be shared by all. Fourth graders collected water quality data from a local creek while fifth and eighth graders ... more...
Comments: 3
Last Comment By Kelly Hudson October 31, 2006 -- 09:55 AM
Jeffrey Taylor from Oakland, CA who has been a member of eCoach since 1999 thought you’d be interested in "What do you mean Civil Rights is More than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks?" Jeff finds grants, contests, and giveaways for his classroom. He has won CTAP grants, CUE grants, presented at the Palm Springs CUE Conference with 5 of his students, goes to RAFT for supplies, and much more. We featured Jeff in 2004. He found Donors Choose on our Grants and Contests WRL and decided to apply - three times. He won and this is what he plans to do with the winnings:
In 2004, Microsoft agreed to a settlement with consumers and businesses in 14 states to resolve a class action suit that alleged it overcharged for its products. Now that the initial phase of the settlement is complete, some of the money that went unclaimed is available for schools in a "cy pres" fund. Every state is going to handle this money differently, and will have different criteria for how schools can claim it. The results of the Microsoft voucher settlements are currently in negotiation in many states.
Would you like a survey feature in My eCoach? Yes or No. Guess what? It’s here. We created a survey tool that can stand-alone or be part of a project. Just click Surveys on the left navigation bar to create your own.
You may be invited to take a survey. We would like to invite you to take our Fall 06 Survey to give us feedback on the direction of the My eCoach community. This way you can see how it looks. The survey is anonymous unless you share your name. The survey is for members and those who have used My eCoach. You can also get to this survey by going to your Survey Home to My eCoach Staff ... more...
Comments: 5
Last Comment By Barbara Bray November 6, 2006 -- 08:06 AM
Forest Hills School District in Cincinnati, Ohio, has a one-to-one laptop initiative with tablet PCs supported by a coaching and mentoring program for nine schools: 6 elementary, 1 middle, and 2 high schools. Twelve teachers and media specialists signed up as eCoaches and attended several workshops including a three day training end of August and September by Barbara. Cary Harrod as the League eCoach will provide support for each of ... more...
San Diego County Office of Education provides leadership training as part of the principal certification program. eCoach Cynthia Sistek-Chandler led Team A along with the support of Ward Smith as the "trailblazing team" for the NEW AB75 (now AB430) curriculum. Sheri Barker, Director of Leadership Services, provided direction while Cynthia adapted a comprehensive curriculum folded into a very full three days. All AB75/430 participants are required to complete all seat time (24 hours) and practicum hours (16-20 hours), totaling 40 hours for Module 3.
Meet a new league in the eCoach community: The Hornets from Chillicothe RII Schools in Chillicothe, Missouri. Anne Jeschke, participated last year with eMINTS and again this year with the Veterans eMINTS teachers. Anne won our raffle at NECC in San Diego - YEAH!! This gave Anne eCoach training at our site in California for two eCoaches and to set up 3 teams for a total ... more...
Comments: 2
Last Comment By Janice Friesen October 6, 2006 -- 04:29 PM
The Foothill College Krause Center for Innovation Earn While Your Learn and Earn (EWYL) While You Learn Fellows Institutes provide K-12 teachers with the opportunity to engage in yearlong technology integration staff development.
Participants for the Earn While You Learn Program are chosen through a competitive application from our LINC (Learning in New ... more...
Great times were had by all - presentations, fireworks, meeting new friends, hugging old friends, and will have wonderful stories to tell. Saw the fireworks with thousands of other NECC friends on a beautiful clear night. Lots of activities:
Wed workshop 12:30-3:30 on Learning Communities for some wonderful people.
Wed poster session 1:30-3:30 on Projects by Trena Noval with Ken Bakken’s help
Friday session 10-11 on Indigenous People and Culture with James Smith, Sylvester Robertson, and Michelle Williams - Room 29C
Ongoing presentations in our booths 2926 & 2928: Teachers and eCoaches ... more...
Comments: 3
Last Comment By James August 18, 2006 -- 10:22 AM
My eCoach is working with the New Teacher Center (NTC) at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) to develop a new online environment and toolkit for coaching school administrators.
My eCoach will work closely with NTC ’s School Leadership Development Division to plan, design, and develop an Individual Development Plan builder (IDP). The new IDP builder will allow NTC coaches to virtually coach individual new administrators. Administrators will take a Pre-Assessment Survey based on the California Professional Standards For Educational Leaders (CPSELS), and use survey results and ... more...
My eCoach is very lucky to be part of the EETT grant with Pinellas County Schools, Florida. We are working with up to 38 e-Mentors as they develop technology integrated, project-based curriculum with 109 teachers and administrators. Public Post
e-Mentors are part of six teams that include one or more representatives from Pinellas Park Elementary, Morgan Fitzgerald Middle and Pinellas Park High schools. Projects are around science-based themes where they develop real-world project-based learning activities: Ecology, Life Processes, Living Interactions, Weather, Habitats, Florida Environment ... more...
Why would you want to be an eCoach? eCoaches have online coaching tools to manage and coordinate their teams. They may be on-site coaches or mentors or even trainers who want to extend their face-to-face meetings and build an online learning community. Join us at the eCoach Certification Institute on July 24th through July 26th at the eCoach office in Oakland, California.
There are multiple ways to meet your learning goals. Most professional development involves workshops and coaching. Setting up a workshop takes lots of planning, at least three hours for every hour of a workshop. Workshops ... more...
Looking for a way to personalize your team information? How about creating a course announcement page? My eCoach offers the tools and features teams need to build their own learning community.
Now eCoaches can control and manage their teams using the new team management tools. For each team you are the eCoach, you can create a team page with announcements, links, list of courses, and whatever else you might want for your team
The Team Manager has a team content editor that allows you ... more...
Each time you log in to My eCoach, you will see different tips and resources on the Home Field. We are constantly looking for new ideas to help you or just to give you ideas or websites that are fun or will make your job easier.
The Welcome at the top will be different depending on your account. This area is from the eCoach staff. eCoaches get information for their team members or heads up on events. Players who are on one or more teams will get general information about My eCoach. Free Accounts have general information on what is My eCoach and links to more information. All accounts are lifetime ... more...
We have received many comments on updates people would like for our builders. From your suggestions, we created a modified and more flexible version of the custom builder (Custom Builder Version 1.2).
One suggestion was to make the Brainstorm connect with the rest of the features in ... more...
Welcome to the new Inside Ticket as a public blog! We thought that if we were going to do a newsletter - why not as a blog that we can broadcast as a RSS feed for the eCoach community or anyone on the Internet?
How does it work to create a public blog? If you are a member of My eCoach, you can create a public blog that is published as your own website. Login and click Blogs. Click create using the Blog wizard. Choose from a variety of templates: