Promethean Users Group

Anyone who has visited recently knows very well that Promethean Planet’s site can be painfully slow at times.  It is frustrating to sit and watch your computer spin while you’re trying to get resources to use in your classroom, but it is always well worth the wait.

Along those lines, do yourself a favor when you’re on the site and visit the Promethean Planet’s blog.  It’s full of great teaching ideas, online resources, the latest and greatest when it comes to Promethean use, and much more.  Those of you that frequent the forum will notice some names that are familiar as well.

I’ve really enjoyed my visits to their blog and I hope that you do too!

If you are a proud user of the newest Promethean +2 version 2 units you are going to be very happy to hear this.  Promethean has now officially warranteed the lamps for the PRM-10 units for three full years or 3,000 hours, whichever comes first.  What a great move on their part.  We have had our issues with this projector’s cousin, the Sanyo XE-40, in the past here in APS.  The lamps seem to go out fairly regularly which can be a pain when you deal with it all of the time.  This plan will hopefully take care of a little of that frustration and keep Promethean users up and running and happy.

So…Promethean is doing their part to make sure things will stay running like they should in your classroom.  What are you doing to take advantage of that?  Just something to think about.  Take care and see you around.

If you have any questions about anything Promethean contact your nearest APS Instructional Technology representative.  We’re always happy to help out in any way that we can.

Welcome back everyone. I hope you had a restful and fun summer. It’s hard to believe that we’re back so soon, but it is what it is. Here’s to a successful and inspiring 2008-2009 school year.

A group of us from IT just returned from Boston. Ivan and I were invited to be part of another Promethean U.S. Education Summit. The company invited us to present again. It was another great chance to connect with other Promethean users from throughout the region while showing off what we do in APS. People continue to appreciate the message we convey when it comes to our Promethean planning and training. And we’re always more than happy to present to whoever will listen! It’s very clear that APS is getting known for all of the right reasons and that’s a very good thing.

We also attended Alan November’s “Building Learning Communities” otherwise known as “BLC08.” Plenty more reflections on that conference on my blog here. Just look in the categories under “BLC08.”

I left feeling inspired by all of the great things that I heard throughout the sessions and the keynotes. The conference helped me to look forward to returning to work so quickly. It was also one of the few conferences that I stayed for the entire duration and was very willing to stay for more. That doesn’t happen often enough when it comes to conferences.

Among other things I picked up was the importance of sharing. The keynotes were amazing and there were some sessions that were powerful as well, and everything is available if you want it: audio, video, PowerPoints, etc. Everything. So, I knew I needed to make a change in what I do and start sharing myself.

Here is a flipchart that I presented to all of the new teachers to start the 2007-2008 school year. I also was chosen to be a presenter at Promethean’s Sarasota User Group Conference in February of 2008. My goal was to inspire and show what’s possible in 21st Century Classrooms. Showing off Promethean’s software was a secondary goal of this flipchart. Any tricks to the flips are contained in the page notes and it might be easiest to just copy and paste the URLs into your browser to view the videos. If you have any issues or questions please let me know. You know where to find me! =) Enjoy!

user-conference-08.zip

Promethean’s U.S. Education Summit was held in Tucson, Arizona on April 27th-29th, 2008. This is an event that Promethean holds after each User Group throughout the year. The attendees include representatives from Promethean and their partners, IT directors and technology coaches from around the nation, building technology facilitators, information technology coordinators, and the list goes on and on. The main focus during the User Group is teaching and learning, the focus during the Summit shifts just a bit, but not too much. Promethean takes this chance to promote their products through presentations from their best users during this time. The audience also includes potential customers. It gives a chance for districts like ours to tell people exactly how we’ve chosen to implement Promethean’s technology in our district and how it has worked for us so far.

After the conference I have come to a few conclusions regarding APS. One is that we are definitely on the right track. It’s no secret that we are having some financial difficulties right now, but that’s doesn’t necessarily need to be labeled as a bad thing. That keeps us focused on making sure we are getting the absolute most out of what we choose to spend. Our audience appreciated that message.  I’m not sure if that’s what Promethean wants us to say because they obviously want everyone to spend as much as possible, but it was our presentation and we’ll do what we want!  =)  We received a lot of positive feedback from the people that signed up to see our presentation. In fact, our session had the most people sign up for it out of all the other sessions during the day. That says something about how we light the flame of learning in our district.

Our visit included a short “field trip” to a local high school the next morning. We didn’t learn much from the visit, and I’m not saying that in a bad way at all. Every school and district needs to start somewhere. I always know we can learn something from watching other people do their best to infuse technology into their classroom instruction. This visit definitely allowed us to celebrate what we have done so far in APS. At times it feels like we are pretty far behind and are going nowhere fast, but this trip allowed us to appreciate where we are as a district and motivated us to continue the things we all do on a day to day basis. Are we done working and satisfied with where we are? Never. Can we take a moment to celebrate what we have accomplished so far in our instructional technology journey? I can confidently and without any hesitation say…absolutely.

I posted this to let everyone know that we are doing really well. Keep up the good work. Your commitment to our department, your schools, and more importantly the students of APS is being recognized, with Promethean’s help, throughout the nation. We continue to be a leader in how we choose to use the technology in our school district.

Keep up all of the outstanding work you do and keep that flame burning in Aurora Public Schools!

This flipchart follows the 5th Block lesson Splitting Arrays from Navigating through Number and Operations in Grades 3-5. If you’re teaching fourth or fifth grade math during 5th Block this flipchart is for you!

Splitting Arrays

The Workmats flipchart replicates the workmats and recording sheets for many of the blackline masters used in 5th Block.

Workmats

At the conference in Sarasota and through the forum (check it out!) I have learned so many fun tricks that make my life easier and the lessons more interactive and fun! This is the first health and human body lesson with some exciting and engaging tricks. Each page is equipped with page notes detailing how to recreate each page.

human-body-systems-1.zip

Enjoy,

Meaghan

Interaction is key if you want to get the most out of your ACTIVboard and creating time to find useful websites is definitely a challenge. Jimmy Bostock is a name you’ll see come up from time to time in Promethean World. He has done all the research for you so all you need to do is see which sites would be most useful to you and your class. Whether you choose to use the resources in his list for whole group demonstrations, small group or center work, or anywhere in between, I am going to go out on a limb and say that you’ll be able to find something you’ll be able to use right away in his collection of sites.

The link is here.

Jimmy updates the site consistently so make sure you visit it often to see (and experience) what great new things he has found for us. Have fun!

I have so many things to share, but I will start with one :-)  I have attached a flipchart made by Mike Evans, a presenter at Activ08 in Sarasota.  He has some great tips for making fun, interactive and practical flipcharts.  I also attached a number talk that I did with one of the template he provided.

mastering_math_-_mike_evans.zip

Graphing Example

 There is a similar template in the Shared Resources as well.  Go to:

-Shared Resources

- Shared Flipchart Pages

- Then, it is called, ‘Bar Graph Maker, 5 column’

Enjoy!

Meaghan Whitney

helens-dilemma.zipHere is an example of how to incorporate the Mondo shared reading transparencies and lesson plans into a flipchart. Take a look at the page notes for tips!

Do you have a Promethean board in your classroom? Do you have activstudio installed on your computer? Have you thought to yourself, “What else can I do with this?”

Well this is the class for you! The Technology Trainers from the Department of Instructional Technology have teamed up to provide you a class that will help you “light the flame of learning.”

Here is the REGISTRATION page.