if you were inspired by the creativity recently featured of  Ms. Callahan, Ms. Joseph, or any of the teachers around here, but need a kick start to creativity here at the end of the year,  check out these 29 Ways to Get and Stay Creative from Vince Favila.

If you've visited the Celebrating Piedmont blog lately (or seen my Twitter feed)  you know that I've been trying to showcase what greatness happens here at Piedmont every day. I think the best way to learn is from each other.

I want to know what you'd like me to cover and share- I want to film and photograph your work, and I also want to help you if you want to try something new or "deep".

Finally, I want to give you a "badge" for your Personalized learning via Credly so you can recognize and advertise your strongest skills and tech tool proficiencies. ( I can't give you a pay raise so I do what I can!)  

A badge is a virtual sticker but I can also make you a hard copy for display in the "real" world. You can place it on your wiki, weebly or other, or just post it with pride) for the areas you excel in. Now is not a time to be modest. What tools of our craft are you good at? Tell me and I will badge you and we can all learn from and celbrate your hard work.

Students as well as you teachers can take part in this so if you have a student who's done something amazing, send them to me or to this page: Toot horn here

If you are interested in using badging within your own class for student skills (a big movement in standards based education and authentic mastery based learning) I can also set you up with your own classroom based system.

PS regarding showcasing your greatness- I want to say I know I am only capturing the tip of the iceberg and I wish I could keep up! No wonder I'm behind on posting the photos to Celbrating Piedmont- I can't walk into your rooms without seeing something worth showing off. I'm filling up my storage! 

Still not sure about this badging thing? It's the latest trend! Here is one principal's take on it at his school.

CMS' Aubrey Harrison and David Cassaveccia share this weekly video segments about tech useful to teachers. 

This week's guest is Mindra Wise who taught me so much about tech. She is fearless and quick and super clear. She's the one who introduced me to Nearpod.

Here are the blurbs: Click the titles to watch

Cloud Storage
In this episode of ITW Mindra Wise joins David to discuss cloud storage. They will explain what cloud storage is, why you need to consider using it and what options are available inside CMS. At the end of the show they will announce the winners of the giveaway.

App of the Week
Create and share presentations using the Teach app.

Bracket fans, vote in CMS' Tech-themed March Madness!

Vote for your favorite tech tools (and learn which ones other love) by clicking the computer basketball iimage!

How to help your students be more motivated and grow more!

Carol Dweck has shown that believing that intelligence is fixed makes students unmotivated.

Click the image to be taken to an article from KQED (one of my favorite Education news sites!)  with suggestions on how to help  your students understand that intelligence is not fixed and watch them grow!

This post was dual authored by Tonya McGhee, PD Facilitator at Ridge Road Middle School and Lisa Gurthie, PD Facilitator at Piedmont Middle School.

Trying to decide how to integrate technology while keeping students engaged with authentic learning activities can sometimes be a daunting task. Where do I begin? Which tools do I use? Will all my students be able to access technology? Where can I seek guidance from teachers who have successfully implemented programs that work?

Usually teachers find support within their own PLC's in their schools, but there is great value in working with other schools as well. Ridge Road Middle School and Piedmont Middle School recently collaborated to tackle some of these questions together.  What started as an informal visit turned into a rich, impromptu conversation about the real ins and outs of a successful tech program using tools such as flipped learning and electronic notebooks.

There was so much wisdom being shared that we decided to film the conversation to share with other CMS teachers. Whether you are a tech sailboat (early adopter) tugboat (who will get there eventually) or an anchor (not even reading this blog right now)*, we educators are all in the same boat: ferrying our students to the lighthouse of academic achievement!

Tech integration can take many forms. You can personalize it just as you do other aspects of your classroom.  You don't have to be an expert to give it a try. How it looks for you will look like something different for your students and for other teachers at your school.

Tools and 21st century methods mentioned in the video:

• Electronic Portfolios
• Google Drive
• Gaggle
  
• BlendSpace
• Evernote
• AudioNotebook
• High-engagement via student-driven assignments
• Personalized Learning
• Visual Literacy
• Wikis as Portals
• Flipped and Blended Classrooms
• BYOT
• Remind 101
  
• 1:1
• Chromebook and Google Drive Add-ons
• Data-driven re-looping
• and more

*Boat metaphor courtesy of Travis Allen, iSchool Initiative. Thanks to Candice Simmons for the notes and to Katherine Ruffalo for the copy editing.

To watch the video in full screen, please click the box icon at the bottom right next to "YouTube." Direct YouTube link is http://youtu.be/4LvrLo7fNho