Sunday, June 16, 2013

Ludmila Smirnova's Vizify Bio | Overview

Every day I learn something new and immediately try it out.

Today I learned about Vizify and Twitter video tools. It took me seconds to create a graphic bio and a Twitter video. It was fun!


 Ludmila Smirnova's Vizify Bio | Overview:

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Friday, May 31, 2013

IC4LE about Rigor, Relevance, Relationships





I came across this research article that discusses three Rs of current situation in education. I plan to discuss it with my fall Social Studies methods classes. This is a DIIGO link that will allow to highlight, add sticky notes, and more..

International Center for Leadership in Education - Rigor, Relevance, Relationships


Monday, May 20, 2013

Teachers Love Freebies

This is a very informative and generous blog. It has a lot of creative ideas and useful tools.

Bokmark and subscribe to this blog.

Teacher Trap: freebies:

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Friday, May 10, 2013

Creativity Course in Creativity - Reframing the Problem by Amin Saberi

Our college is promoting a creativity initiative on campus. A group of faculty got together to discuss what creativity means and how to encourage professors stimulate creative efforts of students in their courses and in extra-curricular activities. In April we had a week of creative projects shared with the college community within a Library week. The students from my classes contributed a lot to the events during this week. I am sharing this video to ponder more on what creativity means and how design my courses to encourage creative efforts of pre-service teachers.



Friday, May 3, 2013

Teacher, Teach Your students so that You Would Be Able to Learn From!

 There is a saying in Russia, "Teacher, teach your students so that later on you would be able to learn from them!"  I have just experienced a moment of bliss when Rebecca, my former student (graduated in 2005), came to my current graduate class and shared her phenomenal teaching experience in her second grade classroom.
The teacher candidates were blown away by what Rebecca had to say. She designed a prezi with the fragments of her teaching philosophy and her approach to educating, as she said not just students, but Human Beings! "Yes, Rebecca continued, there is a Common Core standards initiative you have to implement, the guidelines to follow...but there is also the CORE in you, who you are; do not loose it, apply your talents and skills to teaching your little human beings about life, instill in them a spirit of discovery, curiosity, sense of community, belonging, ownership and a sense of WONDER!" It was an amazing talk!
Below is the prezi  of Rebecca's talk with the pictures of her second graders and her WONDER-full classroom.



It was such a pleasure to see Rebecca and hear her creative ideas about teaching! She shared a lot to learn from! She was so inspirational and wise! It was an unforgettable experience!

This was a great finale for the course.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Global Education in Action

Global Education, global classrooms, global citizenship, global thinking -- these are new concepts of the current world we live. World is really becoming small with the new technologies and Internet. My Literacy and Technology class is participating in the global project, called Flat Classroom with July Lindsay, Vicki Davis and Lisa Durff. In the previous semesters I engaged my classes in the projects with Russia via Skype and WiziQ ("It's a Small world" The Moscow Institute of The International Relations); with Japan, China, Germany, France and Israel in IWE (International Writing Exchange Project), etc. It is exciting to open the doors to the world and expose students to different cultures, traditions, life styles and world view. Below is an example of a global collaboration between schools and students. Wikispaces and Glogster are used for students' interaction and project exchange.




PenPals2012 - home:

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About Me

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I was born, grew up, got education and built my own family, personal world in Russia. I was Dean of School of foreign languages, Ph.D professor, Master's & Ph.D programs supervisor, innovator and school educational initiatives consultant. In 2000 I came to the USA as an exchange professor and stayed over here for good. I am married to the most intelligent, caring and smartest American husband, Michael. I am happy!