MRVED Business

Welcome back to a brand new school year!  We hope your summer was a time of relaxation and rejuvenation. It has been another busy summer at the MRVED.  Here is a recap of all the exciting things that went on this summer at the MRVED

• Summer professional development courses
• Internet Safety
• Chippewa County Family Services
• Language Development
• Web Tools
• Google Docs
• Social Networking
• Drug and Gang Trends
• Summer school at the ALC
• Karen and Brandon attended the National Learning Forward Conference in July
• MRVED was approved as an online learning provider and will be delivering 10 courses throughout this school year
• Chromebook and Web Tools training for a handful of Dawson/Boyd staff
• Hired a new Adult Basic Education coordinator, Katie Raymo

All summer professional development trainings were very well received and lots of learning occurred in the conference room of the MRVED.  If you missed a training and are curious as to what was handed out or taught, don't hesitate to contact Brandon.

We look forward to seeing all of you over the next school year and are excited to help you and your schools meet your goals.  As always, if you need anything, please let us know.  The candy dish is always full!


MRVED Email Change
The MRVED has changed email addresses, please update your email address book to reflect the change.

Mary:  mbrown@mrved.net

Karen: kjacobson@mrved.net

Brandon: braymo@mrved.net

Pam: pbruns@mrved.net








Best Practice Meeting Date Changes
There have been a couple meeting date changes since the list of dates was sent out last Spring.

Music Best Practice Meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 9, NOT Friday, September 27.  This is to accommodate the band instructors who have pep rally's and football games on Friday night.

Business Best Practice Meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 23 to accommodate Jean Kyle, MDE Specialist who could not make it on the previous meeting date.

Fall Conference Opportunities

Jim Knight- High Impact Instruction

Date: September 26, 2013
Topic: High Impact Instruction

Learning Forward Minnesota's Fall Forum will be with Jim Knight on September 26, 2013 at the TIES building in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. You can register by going to the Learning Forward Minnesota Website.

Jim Knight is a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning and the president of the Instructional Coaching Group. He has spent more than a decade studying instructional coaching and has written several books on the topic including Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction published by Corwin Press & NSDC (2007). Knight co-authored Coaching Classroom Management. He also edited Coaching: Approaches and Perspectives and his newest book, Unmistakable Impact: A Partnership Approach to Dramatically Improving Instruction is due for release in mid-November.

Minnesota ASCD Teacher Leader Institute

Date: October 2-4, 2013Location: Maddens Resort, Brainerd, MN
Topic: Motivating Reluctant and Resistant Learners

Information Link

Robyn Jackson will be the keynote presenter for these three great days of learning.

In this HIGHLY INTERACTIVE workshop, teacher leaders will learn how to:

• Motivate reluctant and resistant learners.
• Create a classroom environment worth investing in.
• Motivate 21st century learners.
• Identify what students’ currencies are and how to leverage those currencies in the classroom.
• Navigate the divide between your agenda and your students’ agenda and find a way to meet both in the classroom.
• Analyze your own practice and think through site-specific applications you can take back to your school.
• Develop an overall plan for motivating reluctant and resistant learners in your entire school.

Tech Tip of the Week

Feedly
Now that Google Reader is dead, do you need something to help you keep track of all the education blogs you follow? Try Feedly. Feedly is a news aggregator application for various web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android, also available as a cloud-based service. It compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize and share with others (Wikipedia).

New Look

We hope you will like the new look of the MRVED Update for 2013-2014.  It was time for a change in the way it looked, so we decided to try a blog format.  Any feedback would be appreciated on the new look.  What do you like?  What would you like to see?

Summer Update

June has flown by and four classes have been held at the MRVED thus far.  All four have been very well received!

The summer professional development started with Karina Berzins from the BCA talking about internet safety.  She once again handed out her Netsmartz binders with tons of great information!  It was also a great opportunity for people to ask questions of one of the experts on the front lines in internet crimes in Minnesota.  Be on the lookout for kids that are using the Snapchat and Vine apps on their phones or iPods.

The next day we had 2 wonderful ladies from Chippewa County Family Services in to talk about child abuse.  It was a very informative session, one any school could benefit from.  Again, it was nice to hear from the people that are on the front-lines living this every day.  We had the opportunity to hear what the latest trends are and what to be on the lookout for.

The following week, Miranda Schornack was with us to talk about language development in the classroom.  She was a very knowledgeable presenter and everyone walked away with at least one strategy they can use in their classroom this upcoming school year.  For those that were not in attendance, you missed out on a great opportunity.

Brandon also presented on using social networks to grow your professional network.  Twitter was the hot topic and the group spent a majority of the time learning how to use it as a professional development tool.  Other networks that were discussed, but not as in-depth were YouTube, Diigo, Pinterest, and Teachers Pay Teachers.

The MRVED offices will be running on limited staff next week due to the 4th of July schedule, if you need anything you can reach all of us by email, or leave a message on our phones.

Summer Professional Development June 17-21

The MRVED Summer Professional Development starts next week with Karina Berzins here from the BCA to discuss internet safety.  The class begins at 2:00 on Tuesday June 18.  There is still room for a couple more people if interested.  Call Mary at the MRVED office at 320-269-9297 to register.

Also next week, Chippewa County Family Services will be in house at 9:00 to present on "Life in the Day of a Child Protection Worker".  There are still seats available for this training as well.  A couple interesting topics from some very reputable people in their fields.  Should be a great week of learning.