My first guest blogger . . .

One of the people I have the pleasure to work with is Dawn Wakeley. She is creative, thoughtful, fun to be around, and an important part of my network. She has at times been an effective coach and consultant to me when I am struggling with an issue or a situation. One of her many job functions is to provide leadership in our technology work. It is because of this leadership and the support of many others that I believe has placed us in a good position to take advantage of new technology. In a short period of time she has become the person in our system with the most knowledge and expertise with Sharepoint, a tool that we believe will become an important resource for our teachers. Below she shares some information on this new tool.

Oh, Dawn is also a great cook and baker! I don't know where she finds the time, but on a regular basis there seems to be some treat that comes from her kitchen.

My thanks to Mike for inviting me to share with his readers a few of the exciting things happening in technology to support Classroom 10.

How often have you looked for something on the p:drive and been frustrated? There are multiple versions of the same document and which is the “right” one? Maybe the version you want is in a team member’s personal folder, which you can’t access. Have you e-mailed out a document to work on with your team and now there are 10 versions, each with different edits and now someone must synthesize that?

One of the new resources we are excited to unveil is SharePoint. SharePoint is a powerful system that gives us new options for teacher and student collaboration spaces, staff networking, and secure access to documents from inside, and eventually outside, the district. Our first phase of implementation takes advantage of SharePoint’s ability to organize and provide easy, manageable access for staff to documents and other resources like forms, slides, and videos.
We have so many wonderful resources that are sitting on a shelf in a binder – unused because they aren’t in a handy, easy-to-use format. How many of us spend hours creating a great strategy that works well but isn’t shared and made easily accessible to our team? As we implement Classroom 10 in our classrooms SharePoint supports easy quick access to all the curriculum materials in one spot with new versions immediately available, not waiting for the next time we republish the whole binder. SharePoint also gives us a vehicle for teachers to share with their colleagues – let everyone benefit from that powerful strategy or great visual.

Click in and see what we have been designing. Go to your web browser and type in the word “curriculum” in the address line and hit return. You have to do this from a district computer – right now the access is only internal. Making the access to SharePoint available from outside the district is an upcoming phase of the TSD SharePoint implementation.

Here are a few of the things Tahoma Staff will find NOW on SharePoint.
· All the curriculum units that have been developed or revised this year including unit overviews, lesson plans, student worksheets (everything!).
· A slide library with active learning strategies – teachers can see at a glance all the slides, select one and click it open, make a change if they wish, and use it for a lesson with students.
· A document library with thinking skills strategy charts and graphic organizers. · Habits of mind resources including slides with the habits, quotes connected to the habits, looks-like/sounds-like checklists.
· Planning resources to support teachers with Classroom 10 lesson design.
· Teacher facilitator resources including planning templates, a quote library, facilitation resources, and a team discussion board to share ideas.
· Principal resources with the Classroom 10 modules, a quote library, Presentation Zen slides, and collaborative team workspaces.
· Building assessment coordinators – all the up-to-the-minute resources needed for WASL and WLPT II testing.

Am I excited about the work– you bet! Take a peek at the site – let me know what ideas you have to make it better. Be a contributor to help build a resource that helps us support each other as we bring Classroom 10 to life every day in every classroom.