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Showing posts from December, 2011

Raising the Bar--Coaching for Excellence

Raising the Bar "As leaders, you have countless opportunities every day to either raise or lower "the bar." Allowing mediocrity lowers the bar. You can raise the bar by reminding people of standards and by guiding and coaching. This program includes a simple seven-step process for coaching toward excellence." On November 30th I attended Pam Chambers' workshop "Raising the Bar--Coaching for Excellence."  Coaching is a prime opportunity for improving skills and developing better employees.  One of the least liked aspects of coaching, however, is what Pam refers to as "The Difficult Conversation." As both supervisors and supervisees, I think we can take something away from her seven-step process. An important point to remember is that a "difficult conversation" is stemming from a difficult situation; something is not going right and it needs to be dealt with.  We all have areas where we could improve, so as employees it is im

Three Trends That Define the Future of Teaching and Learning

Classrooms today are dynamic and teachers are feeling the need to become innovative.  An article posted by Mind/Shift presents three trends that define the future of teaching and learning.  Collaborative:  Students are collaborating in and out of school; however, it is through their form of communication like social media.  But, school districts are challenged by teachers crossing the line of accepting students on social media sites like Facebook.  Tech-Powered: The pencil and paper have moved to the obsolete status, while cursive is next on the chopping block.  Teachers are finding innovative ways to use technology to engage students in learning.  These teachers are looking for the free tools to present or share their stories. Blended: Blended learning combines face-to-face and classroom learning together.  This allows teachers to use teaching strategies and techniques in different ways.  Whether offline or online, teachers are moving toward this paradigm shift to grab the atten

Nice flipped classroom article

Having read several "flipped" classroom articles, I am very pleased with how cleanly this one describes what makes a "flip." Enjoy! http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/five-ways-to-flip-your-classroom-with-the-new-york-times/?scp=3&sq=online%20course&st=cse

Small Team Article

Aloha Kākou, Here's an interesting article on small teams.  Good food for thought. I like this graphic: And this one is kind of thought-provoking:

Urtak - Find out what your viewers are thinking

Urtak is a free and simple polling service that can be used on any blog or website. The polls you create can have multiple questions, but they must be "yes or no" questions. But Urtak isn't that limited because visitors to your poll also have the option of writing in their own questions. You can get started using Urtak in seconds by registering with your Twitter or Facebook account. You can also use your email address to create an account with Urtak . As you can see above, Urtak polls can be embedded into your blog or you can direct people to your poll by sharing the unique url Urtak assigns to your poll. This would be a great idea for marketing on our KSDL website.  We just need to identify what we would like to know from our viewers.  One idea could be to find out what course they would like to take for FREE so we know what would be a hot item for our next marketing campaign.

Should we use twitter?

We are using twitter, but many ask why, for what, and how are we using it?  This infographic provides a way for you to decide if twitter should be used or continue to be used for your business or organization.  Click on image to view larger version.

The Shift Happens

Social Media Revolution 2011 is a three minute video highlighting some updated statistics about current levels of social media and mobile technologies in 2011. If  you've seen the Did You Know? videos, most of Social Media Revolution 2011 won't be anything new to you. One part that stands out in Social Media Revolution 2011 is, "we don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it?"