Welcome to the first blog posting of 2007!
It has been a crazy couple of weeks for me and I apologize for the drag on the news. The scary part of my job sometimes is the pace of time as it zips by, and as I got up this Saturday morning to enjoy a cup of coffee and some fresh news off the web, I realized we are all still suffering from the effects of the damaged fiber-optic cable from the earthquake near Taiwan in late December. The "powers-that-be" are working on it, but I don't think it can get fixed fast enough.
Some of you may have had a chance to read my article in this last Friday's ParentTalk about blogging. If you have not you can read it here.
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SAS TechFEST!!! 
The two staff development days prior to Chinese New Year and the week prior marks the FIRST EVER SAS Tech FEST! Thank you to Mr. David Gran, one of our amazing technology teachers who works on the Puxi campus for designing our Tech Fest Logo seen to the left.
I am especially excited about the upcoming visit of one of my fellow bloggers and educators to the SAS campuses in February. Mr. David Warlick will be working with our teachers and administrators during the week of February 12th. We are hosting a parent information night on February 13th on the Pudong Campus and 14th on the Puxi Campus. I encourage you to come out and listen to David and his ideas about technology education, computing and digital literacy. His blog is terrific and I also encourage you to read his work at "2 cents worth" blog.
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PODCAST CENTRAL!Since I didn't post for a couple of weeks, we have a couple weeks of Podcasts to enjoy. See below!
Elementary Podcast!
http://pudong.saspodcast.org/?p=41
http://pudong.saspodcast.org/?p=43
Middle School Podcast
http://pudong.saspodcast.org/?p=40
http://pudong.saspodcast.org/?p=4
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News from our Activities Department!
SAS Pudong Parents and Students,
You are invited to SAS Pudong on the following dates to participate some basketball fun. We would like to open up the gym from 9:00am - 11:00am for kids and parents to play some
basketball (parents with parent and kids with kids). We will be playing
some pick-up games of half court or full court depending of the
turnout. We hope to see you out having fun with other fellow Pudong
families.
- Saturday February 10th
- Saturday February 17th
- Saturday March 10th
How do you keep up with all this web-based reading Andy?
My good friend and colleague Jeff keeps teaching me stuff and I also am jumping to a bunch of really smart people's websites and blogs for more information. Places like "lifehacker.com" and Jeff's U-tech's Tips keep me well read and informed. Oh... I also pick up a paper-based book too!
Nonetheless, RSS or Really Simple Syndication has transformed the web and it’s about ready to transform you. What if you didn’t have to visit all those web
sites, but instead all those web sites came to you…to one location…just
waiting for you to view and read. Well, Mr. U comes though again with a great article on how to set it all up and make it work. Click here to learn more!
As promised, we WILL offer a parents afternoon in the computer lab to try this stuff out themselves and learn under the careful supervision of our top notch educational staff. That will most likely occur in late February or early March now that the administrative team is headed into the recruiting season.
Bloom's Taxonomy
Many of you may have heard of this, especially if you took any education courses, are an educator, or did the beginnings of psychology in college. This triangle...
...shows the basics of the idea where our "thinking" becomes more complex. As a person moves up the ladder of thought the more complex the thinking processes becomes and learning increases in depth and breadth. The American Psychological Association has now adopted what is being labeled as thinking skills for the 21st century in a new adoption/adaptation of the 1953 taxonomy defined by Bloom and his colleagues. (see graphic below)
The "NEW BLOOMS" as the folks at APA are calling it really hit home with me and made me wonder if it is true that we are evolving our thought patterns to address the new demands on our lives and helping us understand what we need to and how we need to teach our students for their future success.
Below is the Cognitive Taxonomy Circle. The APA explains How the Taxonomy Promotes Active Learning.
Clark (2002) provided an adaptation of Bloom's work to facilitate active learning.
Although originally the tool was developed by a class of teachers for use
in curriculum building in the high school level, the suggestions would work
for college level classes as well. The inner ring contains the original levels
of Bloom's taxonomy. The middle ring offers synonyms for the various academic
processes that comprise that taxonomic level. The outer ring links process
to product. For example, if you wanted to increase application skills, you
might ask students to construct diagrams of the key concepts involved in the
content of the class. If you wish to improve evaluation skills, you might
ask students to produce an editorial for the student newspaper in which they
discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a particular side of a controversial
issue. We have modernized the language of the original circle to reflect the
latest version of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Coming up on the Pudong Campus ...
- Jan. 25, PTSA General Coffee Talk will be 9:30 to 11:15 am at Seasons Villas Club House.
- Jan. 26, PTSA Eastern Carpets Carpet Auction, is scheduled for the Vizcaya Club House at 6:30 pm.
- Jan. 26, ES report cards go home with students.
- Jan. 27, SAT tests will be administered.
- Feb. 8, Pudong HS principal’s coffee, is scheduled from 11 am - 12:30 pm in the Library Lecture Hall.
- Feb. 8, Pudong HS Sports Winter Season Awards Banquet, is scheduled in the SAS Pudong Food Court (Awards will be hold in the Auditorium) from 5 - 7:30
- March 17, Shamrockin’ ... Vegas Style, a fundraising event, is scheduled from 6:30 pm - 12:30 am in Vizcaya Club. It’s sponsored by Pudong PTSA.
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