Staff developers need to be/have:

• Organized
• Prepared
• Calm
• Give multiple ways to respond
• Personable

Staff developers make the content pertain to the guests.  So many times we go to a training and ask ourselves, "Why am I here?"  The developer of the PD was obviously not meeting your needs.  It is important to find out what a person needs out of a class and then work to achieve those goals.

Weebly and tagxedo are both really fun apps for students.They allow students to create while using other skills like critical thinking, brainstorming, etc.  In the activity we did, many teachers focused their word clusters on the basic idea of learning.  This goes to show that no matter what a teacher is teaching their main goal should be the idea of "Is my student learning what they should be learning?"

My favorite app that I learned about this week was app shopper.  I spent a lot of time figuring out how to use appshopper this weekend, and I have already told many people about it. It is a great app to use when you are looking for ideas of good apps.

One thing that I feel like is a strength in my leadership qualities is my patience.  Teachers tell me all the time that they can't believe how much patience I have. 
One thing I need to work on is my innovation.  I want to be better at being able to be more creative and contributing new ideas to the teachers. 

Leadership Essential Skills:
advocacy, empathy, questioning, vision creating, collaborating/networking
Essential Deposition: risk-taking, persistence

What are Students' Perceptions of School?
It's not fun.  They don't want to be there.  They think that what they are learning isn't worth their time.

What are some of the expectations for students?
Engagement, Attendance, Well behaved, good participation

What types of assessments are valued?
CFA, CRT, Formative, Summative

In what ways do the school culture recognize competition, collaboration and community?
Collaboration seems huge in elementary schools, but not as much in higher education.
Competition is huge no matter what grade

Leadership Next Steps?
1. Have a goal
2. Be Persistent
3. Enjoy incremental gains in desirable directions
4. Let go of need for total fulfillment

UTIPS:

Online Surveys (Poll Daddy and Google Forms):  Poll Daddy is very easy to use. It is also easy to set up.  

Clickers: Clickers are a great way to assess students, but there seems to be glitches with them once in a while.  There are different types of clickers for different grades.  They might be easier to use if they are more age appropriate

Kidspiration:It was a fun way to preassess the students.  The 1st grade students were able to click and drag the answers in the right place.  The seemed to like using a resource that wasn't paper and pencil.

Myaccess: For grades 6th and up

Arcademics: Basic Math Facts-Much Better than flash cards
    Students can be overly competitive
    Students can get left out of group games

Flubaroo: Easy to use online assessment tool

Successnet: Math testing for weekly, unit or CFA assessment.

UTIPS: Allows teachers to create and grade assessments

Skyward assessments:  Assessments can be created using skyward

Using Skyward Gradebook, teachers can create tests.  All you have to do is go to the subject where you want to add a test, click on other access, and go to Online Assignment templates.    From there you can build your test with multiple choice, matching, etc.  You can also assign a test to the students by creating an event.  When the student logs in under their skyward credentials, they can take the test.  If the test does not have any essay type questions, Skyward can grade the assignment automatically.  After the assignment is graded, it will put the assignment directly into the gradebook.

I love this idea for upper grades.  Most students in upper grades know their Skyward credentials, so this would be a really easy way to assign tests.  Unfortunately, this would not be as easy in lower grades.  Students in lower grades don't know their user names and passwords yet.  Maybe when they turn on the ability for students in lower grades to see their grades, then more students will know their user names and passwords, but for now, it is kind of pointless to give them one more set of credentials to memorize.

I liked that the test were fairly easy to make.  I also liked that they were graded and automatically put into your gradebook for you.  That saves time by cutting out a lot of work. Using Skyward to assess gives just one other way to test besides just a paper and pencil.  It allows a teacher save their tests for years to come as well.  This is nice.  So, all in all, I would give Skyward assessment a thumbs up in upper grades.