Aim to Be Awesome, Not Perfect

In my role as an Instructional Technology Specialist, I try to provide professional development and helpful hints in a variety of ways. One way I reach my staff is a weekly Tech Treats newsletter. This method can take a while.  At first, very few people read it, partly because it was buried in a principal's weekly memo. But it is catching on - especially as teachers learned they could bookmark it like a website and refer back to it as needed. It isn't at 100% - I don't think it ever will be - but it is enough that I will keep doing it. Want to make one for your staff?  Here are my tips: It's a Google Slide, because  It's easy to format  I add the newest slide at the beginning  It's easy for teachers to search to find previous pages It can be bookmarked  Put "need to know" stuff in there, especially action items with deadlines Include information for a variety of technology comfort levels Include new fun things - for Thanksgiving and C...

One of the readings for my EDLD 5303 class is a site about Reflection for Learning .  I have found it to be a very useful site, one that I could refer to a lot when sharing ideas about e-portfolios. For example, the site has suggestions and examples of reflection with students, including sentence stems and bridging questions  to get students thinking, which I think is really useful. The author of Reflection of Learning references a book called "The Portfolio as a Learning Strategy" (Porter and Cleland, 1995), and includes this quote - "... in the power of reflection that helped us move beyond seeing about portfolio as a mere alternative to traditional assessment to appreciating its value as a learning strategy.  In this capacity, portfolios become vehicles for reflection in which learners examine where they have been, where they are now, how they got there, and where they need to go next." (p.34) This really got me thinking - is a portfolio a product? A strategy...

At the end of my first digital learning class in my Masters Program, we were asked to create our e-portfolio.  Since I already have my own site, since I am a Google Trainer, the assignment was pretty easy. I just had to add the class assignments, and turn it in.  Done! Easy Breezy! Got an A and moved on. Now, here in the second class, EDLD 5303, we have been asked to further add to the e-portfolio, especially using it as more than a digital container, but really as a place for reflection on our learning and for meta-cognition.  As I was reading the articles about e-portfolios, this quote stuck with me - “students are given the opportunity to move beyond dropping assignments into a digital container and are encouraged to start to consider and show how they plan to use technology to enhance their own learning and their learning environments.” My website, up until the start of this class, really was just a digital container for me to showcase my creations. Since starting...

As I shared in my previous post, I have gone back to school to get my Master's degree and I am finishing up my class on Educational Technology Concepts.  I was asked the question below.. and it got me thinking... How do I see the growth mindset, failing forward strategies, and the COVA Model impacting my learning as I continue in the program?     A few years ago, when I was a math teacher, I wanted to incorporate more technology into my classes, in order to make them more engaging and fun. No one on my campus was really using technology, so I turned to social media to find ways to reach my goals. My research led to many failures, but a few successes kept me going. During that period, I really learned how to embrace a growth mindset for my sake and the sake of my students.  None of us really enjoyed me being a "sage on the stage" for most of the class period.  When I would try something new, sometimes it worked - like Kahoot for review games or personalized...

This week I got the opportunity to present whole-group professional development to the teachers on my campus. I know that we have a lot of different levels of technology savvy, so I wanted to differentiate. My focus was on student creation (since we are working toward becoming a Fine Arts Academy) and my goal was for everyone to learn at least one new assessment idea for their class. In order to reach everyone, and give them something they could reference,  I created a Google Site.  For the beginners, I created a Google basics section. This group had their own space. It had stations with checklists for some of the basic productivity skills in Google Calendar, Drive, Gmail and Docs. Teachers would go to whichever station they felt they needed help with. There were instructional videos and step-by-step instructions, all of which was also included on the site. I was very fortunate that two of our campus instructional coaches offered to be the facilitators for those stations. I...

Regular professional development does not always reach everyone. Sometimes it covers material the learner already knows; other times it goes to fast and is too advanced; and may not even be applicable in the learner's classroom. When this happens to you, how can you learn and grow as an educator on your own? Reading:  There are several books that can help teachers learn new engagement or management strategies.  Here is my Amazon book list .  Some of the books, like Shift This , have weekly chats on Twitter (sign up for the #ShiftThis Remind to get notifications about the chat) Podcasts:  There are lots of educational podcasts that are available, based on what you want to learn.  I suggest checking out Google Teacher Tribe , Sustainable Teaching , The 10 Minute Teacher , and Kids Deserve It .  Conference Handouts:  After conferences, a lot of presenters will share their work, either on their personal website or on the conference website. ...