Roxi Thompson

Last week I accomplished an edtech goal that I have had for the past year - I was selected as a Google for Education Certified Educator! Yay! This was a really big goal of mine, and I'm really proud of myself for following through on it. The most challenging part for me was creating the video because it involved talking about myself. It felt SUPER awkward.  This seems like a great time to set some new edtech goals! Present at an EdTech Conference I really want to start presenting and sharing ideas at edtech conferences. I love going to edtech conferences because I always learn something new, and I think that I have some ideas to share that might help other teachers try new things in their own schools and classrooms. There is an EdTechTeam Summit coming to Phoenix in March. I think that would be a great opportunity to try submitting a session proposal! Become an ISTE Certified Educator In September, I began the process of becoming an ISTE Certified Educator . ...

One tool that helped me make the shift to creating a blended learning environment and personalizing learning for students is the screencasting tool Screencastify . I will be evaluating this tool as part of my learning through the ISTE Certification process. 1) How would you model this tool for colleagues? One way that I modeled how to use this for colleagues recently was to create a choice board that allowed them to explore different ways the tool could be used in the classroom and then apply that learning by making a video. The choice board included a "Start" space with an introductory video, and then educators could choose the resources that they wanted to explore. As they explored, they shared some of their favorite ideas on a Padlet board. Their final task was to choose how they wanted to apply their new knowledge by creating a video using Screencastify and sharing that on our Padlet board, also. As a follow up, I would also like to have the Tech Leaders use...

Yesterday I was feeling a little overwhelmed thinking about the new social studies standards and all the work that has to get done in order to create guides and assessments that will help support our teachers. Luckily, someone from my team came into my office and asked some really great questions that helped me start thinking about what my next steps should be. As I started brainstorming (complete with color-coded sticky notes), I kept coming back to three main thoughts. And, of course, these thoughts just brought up more questions to be answered... If we create a curriculum guide that looks like most have looked, then teachers will teach like they have been teaching. Whatever we create needs to have a structure that reflects and supports the shift to inquiry-based learning. How can we create guides that support both new teachers and veteran teachers? How can we give examples while avoiding some teachers and admin using those as step-by-step plans that do not take into ac...

Today was our first social studies PD, and it was awesome meeting all of our social studies educators! I was super nervous stepping out of my comfort zone, but I learned a lot and I’m super excited to take the feedback they gave me and work to improve our next PD session! Areas for celebration: Teachers learned how they could use a variety of digital tools to promote student learning  Teachers used the class comments feature in Google Classroom to share resources they use to build community and prompt student thinking Teachers shared really honest and useful thoughts on shifting to inquiry-based learning Areas for improvement: I have a tendency to rush when I’m nervous. Learners need time to process. I need to slow down and give teachers more time to think and talk about how they can use some of the learning strategies we talked about in their own classrooms.  Teachers have varying levels of comfort using tech. I need to find ways to better address and su...

Today I worked on putting together resources for my session at the DVUSD Tech Fest. I am presenting a session called, "Getting Started with Google Sites" to help teachers learn the basics of using the new Google Sites.  One of my goals for this session, and for my new role next year as an EdTech and Social Studies Specialist, is to help teachers learn how they can use Google Sites to have students create digital portfolios. Digital portfolios are a great way for students to demonstrate and reflect on their learning and growth. My hope is that by showing teachers the basics of how to use Sites, they will then be more likely to help their students create websites. I started a new Wakelet collection to share with the teachers in my session, and I hope others will find it helpful, also!  Click here for the link to my Wakelet collection! Do you have any other resources you would add to this collection? I would love to hear your suggestions!

This is the last week of school, but the next few weeks are going to be super busy! I'm presenting four different sessions at the DV Tech Fest (our district tech conference) this summer, so I'll be doing some research and preparing my materials.  This summer I will be presenting the following sessions: Unleash the Power of Google Slides Cultivating Collaboration with Google Getting started with Google Sites Elevate Your Learning: Twitter for Educators My session on Twitter for Educators is new this year, and I'm really excited about it! My experiences interacting with other educators on Twitter have really helped me grow professionally. I was able to learn from teachers who generously shared their ideas and resources, and I took those new ideas and tried them in my own classroom. Twitter also showed me the possibilities that exist when we stop assuming that we have to run schools the same way they were run when we were in school. It has been so inspiring to s...

Last year, I read a blog post by Kasey Bell titled " 4 Ways to Blend Learning with InsertLearning ." As Kasey describes it, "InsertLearning is an extension that lets you turn websites into interactive lessons, and it is the perfect companion to your blended learning lesson plans." I decided to try using InsertLearning this week with my students. In order to create lessons, you need to install the Chrome extension . (Students will also need to add the extension.) Once you have installed it, you can use the extension to create a learning activity using a website of your choice.  For this activity, I wanted students to learn some basic facts about the Roanoke Colony, and I also wanted them to explain their thinking as they read an informational text. I found an article on the website Ducksters . One cool feature of InsertLearning is that it allows you to add a video to the webpage, so I added a funny video from MrBettsClass . You can paste the embed code onto ...