The only annoying thing about Google Drive last year was the pain of getting students to turn their work in properly and to the right email and most of those issues are solved with Classroom. Here's how to get started:

How to Create a Class:

• go to classroom.google.com
  

• Sign in using your CMS email the same way you sign into Google Drive
  
• Folllow the prompts on the screen or to make a new class just click the + sign
  
  Suggestions:
• make a different classroom for each section you teach 
• name the class your Course name and include section number day or time as desired.
  
•  in the About section- paste your instructions and weblinks class links here. Also paste any rules you have for using the stream as social media (is it ok for them to post at will, or it only for "business" etc) or other directions specific to your classroom.
  

How to create an assignment and attach a file:
This video shows how to attach a file for students to complete. you can also attach it so students can just read it or edit it together:

More Resources for Understanding Google Classroom:

• Basic tour, including a Rollout Video herehttp://www.google.com/edu/classroom/
• Google Classroom Presentation Slides by Geeky Gafe Girl via Jacob Standish
• Online Traininghttps://www.google.com/edu/training/tools/classroom/level1.html
• IUsing Google Classroom with iPads:http://www.edudemic.com/ipads-with-the-new-google-classroom/
• Support for teachers  https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6020282?hl=en
  

How to Introduce it to Students: 
follow these instructions or share this link with them
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/lesson-ideas/student-introduction-to-google-classroom

 If you still need to join one of these groups or are making your own, please leave your name and book or group in the comments section of this post.  

The PD Book Clubs for 2014-2015 are formed!  Discussion Groups meet monthly on the third Wednesday at the location of your group's choosing. At this first September meeting next week, please decide your book group's norms and create a reading and assignment schedule. Please have one member of your group post it here in the comments so members can refer back to it.

So we have time for full staff discussions, please allow for time to create the presentation by April 1st. You can send me the link/links to it and I will post them here for the full staff if you are doing a flipped presentation. Take a look at this page get ideas of what your group might choose to do. Ideas included one pagers, videos, powerpoints and other slideshows, powtoons, etc. Other ideas are welcome.

Related links:
Our Summer Reading Book Information and Online Discussion Link
The 2013-2014 Piedmont PD Book Club Presentations and Summaries

Fatzinger
Adornato
Palgut
Peterson
Czerwinski
Clark
A. Davis
Egnot
Kennedy 
Kollar
George
Thornburg

Suckstorff
Winston
Lamb
Burick
Kay
Winegardner
Gorman
Macleod
Newburger

McCarthy
Lyttle
Tornfelt
C.Davis
Carpenter
Parkins
Miller
Benfield

Hanson
Bailey
Milligan
Grossman
Ashley
Whiting
Johnston
Alexander-Brown

 For some of us teachers, completing the yearly district PDP (professional development plan)  is  a source of  stress or frustration and for some it is just another hoop to jump through - but I have some great ideas to make it a more easy, meaningful and valuable process this year. Personally I love choosing my own PD, but  I also love hearing from others what's out there that they think might work for me that I might otherwise not have discovered. With that in mind, here are  3 easy steps to help you make your PDP this year more than just another form to fill out. 

Step 1 Choose Your Own Path 

Start with some questions at the link below (to prompt thinking about the direction you'd like your future teaching to move toward):

Reflection readings: What is important to you? Are you setting goals or just jumping through hoops?

• http://principalhowell.blogspot.com/2014/06/reflection-is-important-what-you-do.html?m=1
  
• http://principalhowell.blogspot.com/2014/08/are-you-setting-goals-or-jumping.html
  

 Here is the Alberta teachers' step-by-step guide to deciding PDP goals (Via Paul Pichurski ):

•  self assessments in case you would like some help deciding which areas to focus on this year
  
•  tools for developing your goals including ways to make them SMART (the research based acronym that is most likely to lead to goal achievement 

Step 2 Gather Personalized Resources

Once you've chosen the direction you'd like to travel in your personal growth this coming year, try these resources:

Besides a new round of our pd book discussion groups for the 2014 school year,  and a new series of online self paced IB training webinars (earn CMS Renewal Credits for Piedmont faculty -please note that only webinar 1 is currently ready for use at this time, but more will be added throughout the year. ), consider incorporating any of the following for professional growth this year:

• Your Friendly school-based PD Facilitator (me!)
• CMS' new personalized learning site created by talented superachiever Jill Thompson) - Great links to resources for PBL, Makerspaces, Flipping STEAM integration and all that good stuff we do here at Piedmont)
  
• Personalize a Challenge for yourself like this Badge Challenge http://adjustingcourse.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/digital-leadership-challenge-update/
• Twitter
  
• Atomic Learning
  
• 2Minute PD videos (search #2minPD on Twitter or Youtube)  or other video tutorials.
• And, Last but NOT LEAST .....  Each Other:

New for 2014-2015 "The Piedmont Rockstar World Tour" Classroom Visit Program - Is there a colleague you'd like to see in action but have no time to do so? Last year I blogged about many great teaching moments here in our building but nothing can compare to seeing a technique live in action. See me and I can cover your class while you pop in for half an hour at a time!

Step 3: Become More Awesome! 

Use the path, try the resources, and see what works. Some stuff will fail but that's ok! How we come back from those failures is a lesson for our students that will last much longer than curricular lessons will.

That's it! Go, Team and Have a Great 2014-2015

One of the biggest issues teachers have is not having time for PD. There is a movement to stop long whole group PD and start doing short peronalized PD's Click the image to learn about the 2 Minute PD movement. You can also follow @mpelochino on Twitter.

If  you would like to watch some 2 minute PD videos, just go to Youtube and search #2minPD and watch any of the choices that interest you. Here are some search results http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%232minPD
I noticed offerings in Thinglink, Augmented Reality, and more.

If you like what you see in 2 minutes, then you can try it out or learn more on your own. If you don't like it, you've not wasted much time.  See me if you would like to earn a badge for any PD you do.

Please consider making your own videos to share something you are good at! Piedmont has some amazing teachers and I can help. See me to hash out ideas or if you'd like me to film you and upload it.

Flipped Education is a term for the idea of automating the lecture/instruction part of your class so you are free during whole group time for discussion, practice and activities.

It's called flipped because in the old days homework was the practice done with out the teacher and kids would spend all their time in class just listening.  

But we've never been about learning like that at Piedmont: Ms. Bailey uses Blendspace, our teachers personalize (as seen here) , and here are two specific examples of Flipping at Piedmont:




Our World Language Teachers Flip

• They can can make their own lessons or use other language teachers' videos and videos native lands
• They embed the Educreations on their wikis websites and Google Classrooms as stand-alone or playlist assignments to play from Chromebooks, computers and ipads, at home or school.
• Students can go back to the videos and playlists and review for tests
• Students can learn anytime and can control it-pause, rewind, or fast forward if they know it.
• Students can learn from her modeling how to make their own Educreations for class presentations
• She also uses online flashcards at the site Quizlet for interactive practice
• She makes the wiki pretty using Glogster (also check out Weebly for a "pretty wiki)

Our Math Teachers FLIP

• Students have several ways to get the information-
• The 6th grade math team uses the best of basic, no-nonsense instruction like Khan academy (where it says this and this and this below)
• They also uses motivating Dan Meyer videos (where it says Nana's chocolate milk)
• They focus on real-world teaching of what students really need.
• They don't  have to actually blow up a bridge to motivate students to do their math to figure out how far away it was( read from a Piedmont Math teachers wiki here:

"You see the bridge explode 1.63 sec before you hear it. We wanted to know how far away was the camera man form the bridge. We talked about the speed of sound being about 340m/s which is about 1116 ft/sec. With this knowledge we were able to figure out that the camera man was about 1800 feet away. We talked about multiple ways that we could get the answer, and focused on making sure that our answers made sense an not just writing down what the calculator told us.
this is a youtube video of the demolition you just have to take my word about the 1.63 seconds."

Last Friday we talked about Nana's Chocolate milk and this is where last Friday's quiz can from, the egg problem at the bottom.

these are some things from Khan academy that may be helpful, this , and this, and some practice problems

Mr. Booth also makes his own videos, he reports that students loved seeing his own children in the video, this is motivating:

this is a clip of me playing the Product Game with my Daughter
Here are some practice problems, just push pause before I solve them and then check your answer against mine.Practice

The divisibility test is something to know. Here is Kahn's take on it, another look. I like to know why three works and 9 too. Here are some Practice Problems for the D. test
Some definitions that would be good to know:
Prime Number, Composite Number ,Perfect Number ,Abundant Number Deficient Number, Proper Factor

_________________
Intro to flipped PD (using the presentation below)
Flipping is a tool that is traditionally thought of as "class lecture at home, homework in class" the resources can be used in many ways: for whole group, for homework, or individually in class or as remediation or enrichment. In order to do a brief skype session about flipping at our faculty meeting, please view the following resources at your leisure so our session won't run long. Be thinking about how and if you can use these in class and come ready with questions and I'll share how and when we use it in our IB middle school.

I have cued the videos to begin at the minute I want you to start watching. You are welcome to watch the whole thing but you don't have to.
What is Flipping? - TV news segment on Flipping http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxJgPHM5NYI&feature=youtu.be&t=6m11s -watch minute 6:11-10:13

Benefits of Flipping for at-risk students (raised scores, lower dropouts, fewer failures) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3LGd88qrTA&feature=youtu.be&t=1m41s watch minute 1:41-2:08

Please also take a quick peek (don't have to watch whole video) at these sample flips:
An example of a literacy/social studies/character ed or library flip (watch the video then click "think" "dig deeper" and "discuss" to see how one teacher used it as a lesson. Teachers can modify these questions, add their own, use it as is or upload their own lesson from scratch) http://ed.ted.com/featured/3nnuEvPB

An example of a Math Flip on that same site : http://ed.ted.com/featured/7mw3qRSi


Want to know more?
Here is the Flipped and Blended PD I delivered to a principal's meeting based on the flipping and blending we do here at Piedmont. Including links to resources for making your own as well as ready-made lessons for you to take from sites like ted-Ed, Khan, etc.
A Flipped Lesson + Augmented Reality Bonus
This is the Flipped lesson the counselors and I presented using the ColAR Mix app

http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/3/post/2014/02/colar-mix-app-in-class.html

including more info about Augmented Reality and resources for  using it in apps like ColarMix and Aurasma.