Reflections in Tech

In an effort to get more and more of our teachers engaged in Twitter, our district has created many resources for teachers to utilize to get started.  These resources include a Twitter #pdchallenge , an ideas list , a 20 day challenge , and a Twitter drive .  We have also shared a resource created by  +Alice Keeler  which you can find here  which enables students to tweet from a teacher account with supervision. This sheet is awesome, and I've taken it a step further to be more manageable for students on mobile devices by attaching a simple Google form to the sheet and using the CopyDown Add-on.  See below for some instructions if you want to try it out! First, make a copy of this Google Form.   Click here , and then click "Copy" Rename the form if you'd like and then click on the 'Responses' tab and the spreadsheet icon to 'create a new spreadsheet' and click 'Create' Your spreadsheet is going to need just a few modificatio...

What do you see as the purpose of education?   Why might innovation be crucial in education? In my head it's hard to come up with the 'purpose' of education because it seems like such an enormous idea that encompasses so much more than classrooms, books, and tests.   I'll do my best, but forgive the run-on sentences that may follow.  I think the purpose of education is to help students reach their potential.  I think educators are required to challenge students to prepare themselves for both the known and unknown.  Learners must be provided a safe place to take risks, ask questions, search for answers, share opinions, fail, and try again.  The purpose of education is to empower those that feel powerless, to help them see that their circumstances don't define them, and that they can find a better way.  I think education should encourage problem, ideas, and solutions and embrace new ways to do things. Our job as educators is to provide an environ...

Our school system welcomed teachers back yesterday for a full week of work days to prep for our first student day on August 29th.   We are fortunate to have many new teachers, both brand new, and new to the profession.  I serve three middle schools so I have relationships with many teachers, media coordinators, and administrators.   As an Instructional Tech Facilitator I have taken on the roles of a Mrs. Fix-it, friend, co-teacher, and counselor.  With that in mind I felt the need to offer a short PSA for all of our teachers and those that love teachers. # notaboutyou Totally stealing this from my girl  +Abbey Futrell !  She was our awesome #bcpsdtlc Keynote speaker and she reminded us that we are are here for.   the.   kids ! When the going gets tough, remember you're here for those students in your room, focus on them and you can't go wrong! Take care of yourself!   Teaching is incredibly hard work!  It's draining, all-consuming, ...

We have an excellent public library in Hickory, North Carolina, the Patrick Beaver Memorial Library . My four year-old son, Lucas, has enjoyed many aspects of the children's wing of the library for some time.  The puppets, touch-screen computers, lego table, puzzles, and bead mazes have kept him entertained and begging to come back.  However, until recently, looking for books has been a combination of me pleading and him running around in the aisles playing peek-a-boo.  Last month we ( when I say we, I mean I) finally settled on three books to take home, great pictures, and decodable words and sight words.  We got the books home, and Lucas didn't care to look at them once.... I was discouraged to say the least.  My husband and I both love to read, and I Lucas enjoys being read to, but he didn't care to take a look at the three books we (I) got from the library at all. This week, we returned to the library, with baby brother, Griffin.  He too enjoyed ...

In the coming weeks the BCPS Digital Teaching and Learning team will open the application window for the 2nd annual BCGEC.  We have MacBooks to issue to any middle or high school teachers that get accepted.  We are also extending an open invitation to elementary teachers to apply with us as well.   The first BCGEC was great a great experience for the DTL team as well as the cohort members.  Our department worked diligently to provide professional development opportunities that were engaging, insightful, fun, and productive. We used Canvas to facilitate our course, and shared tools and resources like: Goosechase What's a PLN Copyright Policy Twitter GAFE (Google Apps for Education) Canvas & Google Classroom Skype & Google Hangouts Code.org BreakoutEDU Edcamp All members also attended our DTLC last fall, and will attend/present at the 2016 DTLC. We're looking forward to our next cohort group, and while we are growing our family, w...

Plan. Schedule. Print. Prep. Hide clues. Set locks. Test locks. Double-check clues.  Breathe. Engage. Breakout! I won't sugarcoat this, the process of preparing for my first BreakoutEDU session took me a long time!  (I used a pre-made game, Grammar Guru, it was great by-the-way!) However, every bit of time I spent printing, cutting, re-printing, scanning, and building was WORTH IT! Cyndi Childers, a 6th grade teacher at East Burke Middle School, was looking for something to get her students engaged, and I knew Breakout was just the trick. We ran two simultaneous games in two rooms, with Cyndi facilitating one room and myself in the other.  We had groups about about 12-15 students in each room.  The group size worked, it could have been smaller, but it really wasn't bad at all.   This game has a progression of clue finding, one leading to another, so they were all somewhat forced to be working together on 1-2 clues at once, which I liked.  This help...

I still remember, clearly, answering a phone call from Melanie Honeycutt in my kindergarten classroom back in September of 2012.  I remember crying as I happily accepted a job as an Instructional Technology Facilitator under her leadership.  I was crying because I was overwhelmed with joy at the chance to take on a role that I so excited to have.  Three weeks later I was in tears again, as I had packed up the last of my personal belongings and was ready to say goodbye my classroom and my students.  Tears, streaming down, as evidence of my fear of no longer making a meaningful impact on students.  Never being about to talk about "my kids." because I gave them up. Flash forward to NCTIES 2016 and the keynote speakers Brad Waid and Drew Minock share that relationships with our students are key , and that one may never know what we as teachers could do to help a student find his or her voice.  I gladly accepted the role as an ITF to share my passion of ed...