Sunday, July 27, 2014

Lisa's Lingo: Keystones Technology Innovators STARS Summit

One of the people that transformed the way I think about differentiated instruction, Lisa Parisi, was one of the presenters at the Keystone Technology Innovation Summit this year.  I have know Lisa for a long time. We first met at an Educon at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, and again at ISTE 2011, the last time it was in Philadelphia. I attended her session and was blown away by some of things I heard. It changed the way I think of my classroom and lessons. I don't have to expect less from a child because they have an IEP, it just means that they think differently and if I give them a way to express themself differently they can learn and do amazing things. After that encounter I stopped using so many worksheets... but I digress. Lisa came to the Keystone Summit and we had lunch together one day and boom... she changed my life again. She said I was embarassing her with all the flattery I was giving her on Facebook and Twitter. But I myself was twitterpated... THE Lisa Parisi was having lunch with me! And you know what, she changed my life again! She told me that she is just a teacher like I tell everyone, I am just a librarian. And I realized that when we do our jobs well, no matter who we are... our kids are the stars. And I was humbled again by what Lisa wrote on her blog... how much she learned and took away from the summit too. Lisa's Lingo: Keystones Technology Innovators STARS Summit. I am so grateful to the Summit organizers and sponsors that gave us this opportunity. And Lisa, it was so good to see you again!

Keystone Technology Innovators Summit Part 1

I spent an incredible week at the Keystone Technology Innovators Summit. Like the others I was nominated by my school principal to be a Keystone. This year it was held at Kutztown University. And it really was a celebration of teaching and learning. Almost if not every morning when we showed up for our morning keynote sessions we walked into thunderous applause celebrating us, the newest Keystones… and who was celebrating us? The alumni-Keystones… the very people we want to be… they were celebrating us!!! One morning one of the newest member of my PLN, Zee Poerio, the PAECT Teacher of the Year, captured it!
 Stay tuned for more reflections on this transforming learning experience.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

How to resize multiple images in Photoshop in the matter of seconds

Did you know that you can now use PhotoShop to re-size a batch of photos at the same time? Last week my daughter had to re-size all of the pictures for her company's newsletter and I had no idea how to help her except to re-size each image one by one. Then today someone in my PLN posted this very helpful video which I will now be sharing with her. And it is so easy! Enjoy. This will come in very handy when I have to re-size photos for the web!