Skip to main content

Awesome Projects for January!



This week has been super busy! But it's that awesome kind of busy where I am working on multiple projects for January that I am SUPER excited about! 


Kinders on Chromebooks


 We are preparing for our 3rd Quarter EdTech session, and we are planning to include resources specifically designed for our K-2 teachers. We want to create videos in which we model strategies that K-2 teachers can use to help their students learn how to login to Chromebooks. My EdTech teammate reached out to the Kindergarten team at one of our schools, and they were kind enough to open their doors to us! 

 We will be working with this team on the first day back from Winter Break in January. Our plan is for me to lead the first session while another EdTech team member records the lesson and assists students as needed. We will be sharing the video footage, along with other K-2 resources, with our teachers during our sessions throughout the 3rd Quarter.

 This week I am trying to build a Google Site that will house these resources. Here are some of my favorite sources for K-2 support:


Digital Citizenship PD


 In January, I am planning to lead my first PD session on Digital Citizenship. I am really excited about this because it is a topic that I feel like we need to be more proactive about discussing with our teachers and students. I recently watched a really great video called "Rethinking Digital Citizenship" with Richard Culatta from ISTE.


Part of the PD session will be helping teachers explore different resources that can help them get started with lessons in their own classrooms. Here are a few resources we will be exploring:


Social Studies PD Collaboration


 For our January PD sessions, our Academic Services department is trying to create a "choice" format so that teachers can select a session that will be meaningful for their own growth. In order to make this successful, we are trying to recruit instructional coaches and teacher leaders to lead sessions in their areas of strength.

 I reached out to a social studies teacher who also happens to be one of our talented Teacher Tech Leaders to see if she would lead a session on effective ways to integrate tech in the social studies classroom. Two areas she is really effective in are: 

  1. Using the site iCivics to engage students in civics topics 
  2. Using Google Classroom to manage digital assignments


 She was really excited about the opportunity, and I am super pumped to get to collaborate with her and support her in this leadership opportunity! 
January is going to be awesome! =)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Create an Instagram Story!

One day on Twitter, I came across a tweet from Ryan O'Donnell ( @creativeedtech ) in which he shared a Facebook template that could be used for students to demonstrate their learning. I clicked on the link to his website , and I was AMAZED at all the cool templates he had created for teachers to use for free!  I decided to try using an Instagram template during a unit on the planets in our solar system. I wanted students to demonstrate what they learned about the different planets, but I wanted them to do it in a creative way.  Here are the directions I gave to my students: Here are some student examples: Student Example #1 Student Example #2 Student Example #3 Student Example #4 I really enjoyed this activity, and I love how students familiar with hashtags were able to create and use them in clever ways! If I was to go back and do this again, I would spend some time working with students less familiar with social media and hashtags and give them some...
2 comments
Read more

First Week of School

We just wrapped up our first week of school! I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know our new 5th grade students! Here are some of the activities we did to start building our classroom culture and learn more about each other: "All About Me" Google Drawing Students learned how to use some of the basic features of Google Drawings by creating a Drawing about themselves. The basic requirements were that they include their name, a picture of themselves, and text/images that describe their personalities or interests. I created an example to give them an idea of what it could look like.  I used this activity last year, and I really enjoyed what my students created. However, I decided this year to give them more time to just play with and explore the tools in Google Drawing. I feel like this really paid off because students were able to discover how to use some of the tools and share with each other instead of just relying on me to show them how to use it.  ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Don't Use Coaches as "Fixers"

  "It is tempting to ask coaches to work only with teachers who seem to be having difficulties with instruction or classroom management. We discourage this "fixer" approach to coaching for several reasons. First, if coaches are perceived as working only with those who struggle, other teachers may not reach out to coaches for support. Second, the coaching relationship becomes less about providing support for all teachers and more about remediation, in which only "struggling" teachers are assigned to the coach." - Jacy Ippolito and Rita M. Bean Based on the conversations I've had with coaches, this seems to be a common challenge. Coaches often struggle to get teachers to volunteer for coaching cycles because teachers don't want to be viewed as someone who needs coaching - like it's a negative thing. However, the truth is that ALL educators can benefit from good coaching. I think this is why it is important to try to c reate a diverse coaching ros...
1 comment
Read more