2009 Powering Up with Technology Conference

Dear LearningFront Colleagues:

Welcome to my session on “Advancing the Frontier of Learning through Online Communities!”

Description: Online learning communities help anyone who joins to access the collective intelligence of other dedicated educators. Never before have individuals had the power to connect through networks of peers to access, produce, and share standards, lessons, tests, data displays, graphic organizers, messages, training sessions, and other learning resources on demand.

Feedback: Please leave a comment about your involvement in this conference session.

Thank you.

Nick Hobar

Authentic Learning Projects!

Dear LearningFront Colleagues:

Networking on LinkedIn! Recently, I had the pleasure of connecting with Eric Sheninger on LinkedIn because of our mutual interests related to integrating technology and instruction. Eric is the principal of New Milford High School in New Jersey. After he explored and got comfortable with TaskBuilderOnline -- he is a very fast learner, he posted two of his teachers’ authentic learning projects as WikiTasks in LearningFront -- for economics and biology. I think they are quality examples of rigorous and relevant instructional experiences for today’s students. Please check them out in the WikiTask tool by searching on keywords: economics and biology.

I encourage you to invite visionary, dynamic, and productive leaders like Eric that you know to join the LearningFront online community.

Nick Hobar
President, LearningFront

Roller Clap!

Dear LearningFront Colleagues:

Steel-High Rollers -- Roller Clap! I completed three more days supporting teachers to develop data-driven lessons at Steelton-Highspire high school. It was another terrific experience to observe and engage with the teachers' in-depth thinking about students and teaching practices! And I like the way they are catching on to WikiTasks. It will be interesting to see how these teachers improve their lesson plan templates for next year as they think about the progress that’s been achieved this year. Roller Clap!!!

Nick Hobar
President, LearningFront

Navigating and Coaching at Maritime Industries Academy

Dear LearningFront Colleagues:

The Keel! In maritime terminology keel means the lowest longitudinal timber of a vessel, on which the framework of the whole is built up. Well, the teachers’ data-driven lessons I observed yesterday are beginning to establish the “keel” for building the “maritime” theme into the school’s daily instructional sea. Thanks to “clone-a-task” we were able to share and edit many lessons during the coaching sessions. Can’t wait until next month to see the results of the lessons that were designed!

Nick Hobar
President, LearningFront

LearningFront and Alternate Routes to Teacher Certification

Dear LearningFront Colleagues:

National Conference! I’m scheduled to present the following session at 11:00 AM on 6 April 2009 at the Renaissance Marriot Hotel in Washington, DC at the annual conference of the National Center for Alternative Certification:

Title of Presentation: "Advancing the Frontier of Teaching through Online Learning Communities"

Brief Summary: Online learning communities offer one of the most exciting ways to collaborate, share information, and support alternative routes to certification. Discover in this session how you can build or join a network of online colleagues or teams, use Web 2.0 professional tools to improve teaching and learning, and communicate worldwide.

Objectives of the Presentation: Participants attending this presentation will learn how to:

• Build or join an online learning community of colleagues and teams;
• Combine social and professional networking with Web 2.0 development tools to improve pathways to teaching;
• Overcome content, communication, time, and location barriers as colleagues collaborate, co-create, and share resources to expand their frontiers of learning.

My Thoughts: I think that LearningFront has much to offer candidates for initial teacher certification because it places the tools of teaching at their fingertips and provides ways to share and collaborate among peers, mentors, and school and program staff. Wow! When armed with WikiTasks, Clone-a-Task, IM, and Colleague and Team messages, prospective and their experienced supervising teachers and teacher educators can increase their communication and productivity at the speed of light!

Here is the link to learn more about the conference:

http://www.teach-now.org/tneventdisp.cfm?tneventid=18

I hope you can make the conference!

Nick Hobar
President, LearningFront

School-Based Coaching Sessions

Dear LearningFront Colleagues:

Steelton-Highspire High School! I just finished three days of one-to-one and small group coaching with teachers at Steelton-Highspire High School in Steelton, PA near the capital city of Harrisburg!

The teachers are engaged in a school-based instructional improvement strategy targeted at increasing student performance on the PSSA reading, mathematics, writing, and science assessments. Most of the teachers are using LearningFront and TaskBuilderOnline to plan, teach, score, and analyze the results of monthly data-driven lessons. One of the key parts of the process is the identification of best practices from the results of the lessons. The best practices are shared with all teachers in the school district through shared folders on the district server and as WikiTasks in LearningFront. 

Next time you login to LearningFront, check out the WikiTasks from Steelton-Highspire High School.

Nick Hobar
President, LearningFront

Teacher Workshop in Baltimore

Dear LearningFront Colleagues:

Maritime Industries Academy High School! Last week we completed a start-up workshop for teachers at the Maritime Industries Academy High School in Baltimore Maryland. 

Teachers, school improvement leaders, and curricular specialists from the Baltimore City Public School System were on hand to learn about LearningFront and to develop data-driven and standards-based lessons using TaskBuilderOnline. The teachers will develop similar lessons, teach them, and score and analyze the results each month as part of their school’s instructional improvement strategy.

The curriculum specialists are collaborating with the teachers and will be able to “Clone” lessons back and forth for feedback and support. Each teacher “cloned” a workshop lesson to the principal at the end of the workshop while the principal’s Task Folder was projected on a large screen -- a very cool way to measure the productivity of the workshop! I encourage you to consider making one of these LearningFront pioneers your colleague and to search their work using WikiTask on the tool bar in LearningFront.

Nick Hobar
President, LearningFront

LearningFront Online Learning Communities

Dear LearningFront Colleagues:

Welcome to the LearningFront blog! It's brand new and available for you to keep in touch with our efforts to launch and constantly improve our new and free online learning community, LearningFront™.

Why LearningFront? I created LearningFront™ to improve teaching and student learning worldwide. I wanted to build something that would help anyone who teaches -- parents, childcare providers, professionally certificated teachers, teacher educators, corporate trainers, home schoolteachers, professors, state department specialists, and so forth. And I wanted to connect all of these people so that they could help each other by developing and sharing new and better ways of teaching and learning.

Background! In 1997, my company launched a tool known as TaskBuilder. It was a floppy disk application that helped teachers to write performance-based lessons and assessment tasks to improve student achievement on classroom and high stakes tests. Over the years, we converted TaskBuilder into a web-based application know as TaskBuilderOnline™. In 2002, we launched eLearningTeacher. It's an online professional development application that's been used by individuals, schools, teacher education programs, and national organizations. As they emerged, I started using social and professional networking tools such as Facebook and LinkedIn and a variety of blogs and wikis to engage in new opportunities offered by the Web 2.0 collaborative environment.

Ah Hah! And then, I thought: "Why not build a free online learning community that integrates TaskBuilderOnline and eLearningTeacher with new networking and development tools for people dedicated to quality teaching and learning? This insight led me to collaborate with my colleague Mark Rosol to co-create and launch LearningFront -- a way to harness the knowledge, energy, and creativity of people throughout the world to advance the frontier of learning in a vast array of settings.

Getting Started! I invite you to sign-up for the free LearningFront™ online learning community to experience its power and potential. Please check back here from time to time to let us know your thoughts and suggestions for improvements.

Nick Hobar
President, LearningFront