TheOctober 2012

ConnectorOur focus is on serving you!

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

1

A Message from Dr. Bell

October

08 Introduction to High Functioning Autism

08 NSSRS Workday

11 Fall Analytical Scoring of Student Writing Samples (2 days)

16 iBooks Authoring

17 1:1 Schools Meeting

17 MANDT Workshop (3 days)

18 PowerSchool Sharing Session

23 NSSRS Workday

24 Advanced Windows 2008 File Services

24 Science Teachers Network Day

24 Title I Cooperative Fall Meeting

29 Continuous Improvement Process Support for YEAR 5 Schools

November

01Math Teachers Network Day

02 Special Education Quarterly Training

The school year has blasted off once again and all ESU 10 staff is once again in full stride offering service to all of our publics. Challenges seem to abound this year, but we are working diligently to provide efficient and effective services to meet your needs.

It might be good to remind you that this organization does have a continuous im-provement process in place as we “partner with our customers to meet changing needs through professional expertise, training, and support.” The ESU 10 Unit Improvement Team has asked me to remind all of you of the four priority areas where committees focus improvement efforts.

• To provide professional, knowledgeable, responsive staff• To strengthen and develop customized products and services.• To bridge gaps of time and distance through maximum utilization of resources.• To assist our customers in identifying and achieving their future goals.

Each priority area is working on surveys to help collect baseline data to move proj-ects forward. More information will be shared from each committee as they move through this process. Progress has been slow and steady as staff works to solidify a viable program of services that meets needs and promotes student achievement in the region. We thank you for your continued support and feedback.

This all reminds me of something I read a few years ago in Douglas B. Reeves’ book, Leading Change in Your School. He started a discussion of change by stating that one must pull the weeds before planting the garden. This stuck in my mind because at the time I had a house on a large corner lot that seemed to have more weeds than normal. No matter how hard I worked I never got ahead of that yard. The poor flowers always seemed to struggle.

We’re in that stage of growth now with the ESU 10 continuous improvement process. We need to keep pulling the weeds that pop up, but the bedding is get-ting in good enough shape to produce a bountiful harvest in the future. I hope to continue applying the appropriate resources, or fertilizer, to the mix to ensure solid growth for years to come.

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

2

ESU 10 Welcomes a New Intern

Stacey Romick-ImigSchool Psychologist Intern

My name is Stacey Romick-Imig. I am a recent transplant from western Nebraska where I worked for a number of years as a school counselor and parochial school administrator. Currently, I am finishing my Specialist in Education Degree in School Psychology through UNK. I am in my internship year and am working part time at Shelton with Jennifer Rumery and part time at Loup City with Patrice Feller. When I am not busily preparing for school psychology types of activities I like to spend time with my daughters, one of whom is a 7th grader this year and the other who is a freshman in college. I love to draw and paint with watercolors and have an interest in writing and illustrating children’s books. My daughters and I now live in Grand Island with our dog Snickers.

Parents who want to gain control must first give away a little control. This means giving their children choices instead of demands whenever possible.

One of the most-often asked questions about choices is, “At what age can I start giving choices instead of orders?” Foster W. Cline, M.D., psychiatrist and co-founder of the Cline/Fay Institute of Golden, Colorado, tells us we can start choices about the same time our little ones can sit in a high chair and spit beets. Even if you no longer have a baby, Dr. Cline’s advice may help you understand the need to offer choices.

A useful tip for parents to remember is that battles over food in the early years are usually fought again - in the subconscious mind – when the person becomes an adult. Therefore, it’s unwise to have countless rules and battles about eating – whatever the child’s age.

As soon as a baby spits food, the parent says, “Oh, goody. Meal’s over.” The child is put down, and the food is put away. Notice there are few words and no anger.

Some people object, “That’s too young. You can’t reason with a child at that age.” Dr. Cline says this objection as-sumes that the child is not as smart as the family dog. Isn’t it interesting that we expect the dog, which has no language skills, to understand but we want to wait until a child can talk before we think he or she can understand our actions?

Parents and teachers often try to reason with children instead of allowing them to learn from consequences. Have you ever seen anyone try to reason with family German

Shepherd? “Now, Duke. Give me some eye contact so I can tell you what you just learned.” We all know that would never work.

A child learns quickly that negative behavior doesn’t pay. In the case of violating table rules, it takes only a few times for a child to learn the choices: eat nicely and have all you want or act out and bring the meal to a halt.

To cap off this learning situation, the parent needs to hold his or her position that the next opportunity to eat will be the next meal time. This must be done with empathy: “That’s too bad. I get hungry too if I don’t eat enough when I have the chance. But don’t worry; we’ll be eating again soon.”

Parenting Solutions - Getting a head Start on Control

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

3

Safe with You Training

Safe With You is a curriculum for child care providers to meet the requirements of the Nebraska State Statute 43-2606. This bill, signed by the Governor would require licensed child care providers to complete training that will meet the health, safety and developmental needs of chil-dren. This bill however, is not part of the child care licens-ing regulations at this time. The Safe With You training cov-ers Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), and Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect. ESU 10 currently has two employees who are trained in the Safe With You program, Roxanne Vipond, Early Learn-ing Connection coordinator and myself, Kristine Frerichs, School Psychologist.

As a parent with a son who has suffered from Shaken Baby Syndrome, I have a passion for educating others about Shaken Baby Syndrome. My oldest son Ethen was shaken by his child care provider when he was eight months old.

At the time we were living in Bellevue, Nebraska. I re-ceived a phone call from the provider informing me that Ethen was not acting right and I may want to take him in to see the doctor. Ethen initially had swelling on his brain, subdural hematoma (bleeding on the brain), retinal hemor-rhaging (bleeding on the retinas), seizures, and paralysis

by Kristine Frerichs, School Psychologist

on the right side of his body. We spent 3 ½ weeks in Children’s Hospital in Omaha. While in the hospital Ethen had to relearn how to suck and swallow and he started occupational and physical therapy. Ethen also developed a blood infection and was given antibiotics which lead to kidney failure. He had surgery and was on dialysis for 2 ½ days.

A year and a half after his injury Ethen developed severe epilepsy. Ethen participated in a epileptic study at Children’s Hospital in St. Louis. One week after his study he went back to Children’s Hospital in St. Louis for brain surgery. The neurosurgeon performed a functional left hemispherectomy (disconnecting the left hemisphere from the right hemisphere). Ethen only uses the right side of his brain.

Today Ethen is in 4th grade. He continues to have paraly-sis in his right arm and right toes. He has been seizure free for seven years. Ethen does perform lower than his peers when it comes to academics, however, he is learning to read, does basic math facts and loves to sing. While he can’t always do what his peers are doing, he enjoys life and always has a smile on his face. That is what most all mothers want for their children, to lead a happy life.

Ethen, reading a book to Mom, Kristine Frerichs, brings smiles to both!

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

4

Early Learning Connection by Roxanne Vipond, Early Learning Coordinator

Lisa Murphy aka, “The Ooey Gooey Lady,” was the keynote speaker at the annual Raising the Stars of the Future Early Childhood Conference that was held at UNK September 15. Lisa is an early childhood specialist and highly sought after keynoter known for her ability to link hands-on activities to educational conferences. Lisa spoke with passion and enthusiasm as she emphasized the importance of early experiences. New brain research shows that how children learn to get along with others and control their feelings is greatly influenced by their earliest experiences.

She emphasized that play is school readiness. Environments that encour-age play are environments that are preparing children for kindergarten, future elementary school academics and a love of lifelong learning. This foundation then supports the house of higher learning. If we’re concentrating on academics and ignoring social/emo-tional skills, we’re not getting children ready for school. She identified the seven activities we need to do with children each day in order to encour-age love of lifelong learning and create

The Ooey Gooey Lady Makes a Mark on Early Childhood

the foundation which will support future school success: create, move, sing, discuss, observe, read and play.

Lisa also men-tioned the following framework can help identify and cre-ate child centered environments:

• Time - children are provided with

long periods of uninterrupted free time for exploration and interaction within their learning environment

• Outdoors - the outdoor environ-ment is not considered a separate space, but instead is seen as an exten-sion of indoor space.

• Rules - children have the freedom to explore this environment with few restrictions. We have one overarching rule: “People are not for hurting.”

• The Secret - the secret to good teaching is learning how to control the environment.

• Facilitating - teachers are serv-ing as facilitators within this space, deepening the child’s investigations and providing activities and materi-als that reflect the needs and interests of the children in the room.

• Articulation/Being Intentional - teachers are aware of their lan-guage and actions and can articu-late the intention behind what they are doing in the classroom.

• Theorists - teachers understand child development theory and know the history of their profession.

• Keeping It Real - we celebrate the concrete. Children are provided with engaging experiences that are (literally) REAL. If you want it in their head, it must first be in their hands. You will see children exploring real objects. Not color-ing dittos of them. Activities must engage all the senses!

Two other excellent presentations were made by UNL Extension – “I Am Moving I Am Learning” and “Fussy Eaters” presented by Family Service Child Care Food Program.

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

5

Technology Tips for Teachers by Jamey Boelhower, Remote Learning Specialist

School is in full swing. Students are writing papers, doing math homework, and searching the web for images to include in their projects. In their search for the perfect image they are probably using Google to find that picture. They type in their subject, see an image they like and save it to their computer to use in their project. Homework completed. But did they check the usage rights?

This month’s article is devoted to finding images and understanding image rights. I will not cover a complete lesson on Creative Commons, but will share sites and ways to find images with the right usage licenses for this digital age. Along the way I will cover a few copyright issues, but the goal is to provide useful ways to find that perfect photo for the class project.

Let’s start with the first tool students use, Google. Under the “Advance Search” option there is a “usage rights” filter at the bottom of the page

The most important option for the classroom is the “free to use or share.” These images are licensed to be used in different ways, Power Points, blogs, or a poster for the classroom. The first aspect you will notice is that the number of images is drastically reduced. In most cases this is not an issue, but when the options don’t work for the student there are other tools and sites that may provide better results.

I use Flickr to find images licensed under creative commons for presentations. Like Google, there is an advance search option to filter images by Creative Commons.

All online photo management sites have an option for users to set their licenses for their photos. I happen to use Flickr for my own photo-graphs (which are all licensed for use) so I tend to search for photos from Flickr, but you can find photos under creative commons at the site you like.

The Commons on Flickr is a project to create a public photo collection. Institutions like the Library of Congress and NASA (to name a few) have provided images under a new usage guideline “no known copyright restrictions.” Most of this collection is older photography, great for history classes.

Another great site for images of historical value is The Internet Archive. In fact it is a great site for music, video, documents, and other cultural items in digital form. A warning, this is a vast and unfiltered collection. It takes a

little work, but you can find great content for the classroom.

Finding or creating images for presentations is a crucial part of the classroom today. It is a great time to enhance digital citizenship by sharing with students these sites and options. To help I have started a Symbaloo webmix (CC Content) that has a collection of sites to help find or create images, music, clip art, and icons for the classroom. If you know of a great site I can add to the webmix, let me know by email or Twitter (jdog90).

Finding Images to use in the Classroom

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

6

Adolescent Literacy Project Year 2 by Denise O’Brien, Prof. Development Coordinator

The Professional Development Depart-ment kicked off year two of the Ado-lescent Literacy Project on September 4, 2012 at ESU 10. Dr. Kevin Feldman led 30 administrators and staff develop-ers through training on how to imple-ment the project. He discussed the key role of leadership in the project and gave participants tools to effectively lead the project in their schools.

Last year, we had seventeen ESU 10 schools involved in the project. In this year’s project, we have nineteen ESU 10 schools and eight schools from other ESUs across the state for a total of 27 school districts. On September 5, over 205 participants joined us for the first day of the Adolescent Literacy Project for New Participants Series.

The focus for the day was adolescent engagement. Participants were charged with taking part in a learning walk before their next training on vocabulary with Dr. Anita Archer on October 16. ESU 10 Professional Development Co-ordinators will once again be facilitat-ing these learning walks in our schools.

This year ESU 10 is working to have improved data collection methods to determine the effectiveness of the project on teachers and school districts. We are using three sources of data including: teacher self-as-sessment and reflection, evaluations, and classroom data collection. Our primary focus will be on classroom data collection. While on a school site, ESU Professional Development

Coordinators will observe teachers in their classroom implementing the strategies they have learned at the trainings. We will record which strategies the teachers are utilizing and which are not being implemented. This data tool, along with evaluation data and teacher self-assessment, will be discussed with school administra-tors at the end of the school year to determine the effectiveness of the project in their school district. These data collection methods will give us the opportunity to measure the Adolescent Literacy Project more effectively and will be able to provide school districts with useable data.

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

7

Secondary Tier II/III Reading Interventions

January 23, 2013at ESU 10 23, 2013

Dr. Kevin Feldman will provide an overview of the importance of TIER II and III reading interventions as well as how to use these interventions. The focus of our day long training will be on how to include reading strategies in the secondary setting for those students that are struggling readers (TIER II/III).

Participants will:• Explore the critical aspects of RtI 2 (Instruction and Intervention) &

how they relate to overall improved secondary achievement. • Learn practical strategies/resources to apply within your school setting to

ensure ALL students receive effective Tier 2/3 interventions. • Gain information/resources to investigate/inquire/explore beyond

today as you continue to refine your RtI 2 program.

Audience: A district administrator, director, or principal must attend for each building registering staff. Open to middle school and high school staff only. Open to reading teachers, literacy coaches, RtI coordinators, reading intervention-ists, curriculum directors, school psychologists, special education teachers, speech-language pathologists, and general education teachers with a focus on reading intervention beyond Tier I materials/strategies.

Register on ODIE

Presenter - Jen LethebyThese courses will actively engage participants in writing strategies and techniques designed to teach the arts of persuasive, descriptive and narrative writing. These important and unique genres of writing are included on district and state writing assessments. There will be a focus on the full writing process, as well as the organi-zation and essential elements of writing. These trainings will provide classroom teachers with instructional strategies to improve student performance.

November 13, 2012• Persuasive Writing• Register on ODIE

November 14, 2012• Descriptive Writing• Register on ODIE

November 15, 2012• Narrative Writing• Register on ODIE

The Write Tools Trainings

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

8

Nebraska Math Professional Development Series

During these workshops we will use our day together to learn and discuss technology integration, new instructional ideas, and other timely matters, such as state standards, for each group. Each meeting will have a different focus but will always have time set aside for sharing and collaborat-ing of new lessons, new websites, new tech tools, and new instructional ideas. Right now mobiles, 1:1, and Team Blue are hot topics, we are planning to include these in all our workshops as well.

Click on each specific network below to register. • Science Teachers Network - October 24• Technology Integration Specialists Meeting

- November 2, and February 1, 2013• Math Teachers Network - November 1• Social Studies Teachers Network - November 7• CTE Teachers Network - December 4• Art Teachers Network - December 12

by EmilyJameson, Prof. Development Coordinator

ESU 10 is proud to once again be a host site for both the Elementary Math Academy and the Middle/High School Math Project. Both are offered through the Nebraska Math Professional Development Series (NMPDS), which is now in its seventh year. NMPDS is funded through the Math-ematics Science Partnership Grant under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The purpose of NMPDS is to address the statewide need to equip K-12 math teachers by build-ing the required skills and knowledge they need in order to fully teach complex topics in number sense, algebra, geometry, and data analysis.

Both the Elementary Math Academy and the Middle/High Project include five days of training throughout the school year. This year’s theme for all trainings is, “Math Connections for the 21st Century Learner.” At the sessions, classroom math teachers from across the state engage in professional develop-ment of instructional strategies. Using research-based materi-als, each series is instructed by highly qualified, seasoned, Nebraska-based educational experts. The series sessions are implemented through direct instruction, exploratory experi-ences and interaction between the participants.

This is an opportunity for RtI teams to collaborate and share best practices with each other as well as receive assis-tance from staff developers and school psychologists. Prior to the training, identify 1-2 goals your team has developed for improvement this year. Participants will have time to discuss and create tools to enhance the effectiveness of the RtI process in their school.

Following the training, there will be an opportunity to schedule a half day of on-site support with ESU 10 staff based on goals identified at the training. Register today!

November 13, 2012 Choice of Sites 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. Register for Burwell Elementary School Register for ESU 10

RtI Team CollaborationTeacher Network Meetings

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

9

reVISION

76 Plaza Blvd • PO Box 850 • Kearney, NE 68848-0850 • Ph: 308.237.5927 • Fax: 308.237.5920 • www.esu10.org

10

reVISION

Sign Up on ODIE Now!Questions?

Please contact Kelly Clapp kelly.clapp@esu10.org or Bob Lungrin blungrin@esu10.org

February 12 9:00-3:00

at ESU 10

March 5 9:00-3:00

at ESU 10

December 13 9:00-3:00

at ESU 10