Getting organized and getting more engaged
Yesterday I was online and I could follow some interesting sections about the new school year and how to approach it. There were some interesting webminars with SimpleK12 - this is the link where you can have access to the many webminars which they run for CPD and PLN :
http://community.simplek12.com/scripts/student/webinars/
The day was centred on presentations by great educators who provided ideas about the best ways for approaching the first day at school with students and the best ways for getting in touch with families and parents. It was a great experience. I particularly liked the ideas expressed by Sally Sanchez who made a presentation about Teacher Zen, which I have now embedded and I think I will have to think more about her great ideas.
Her ideas were inspiring as she suggested some key points to bear in mind when starting school again:
1) try to organize your way of working so that you can manage the beginning of a new school year in the best ways. She also
suggested some tools for better organizing the activities and getting in touch with other teachers and developing a PLN
2)find a way to be connected with your students and develop nice activities and more creative ways of teaching.
The ideas were presented in a 30minute presentation on line but I think that these documents should be read twice or more times because she has created a list of tools and documents to help all teachers. She made me realize that the first thing we do need to have is enthusiasm and love for what we do need to do.
Teacher Zen! Ways to Prepare Yourself for Your Best Year Yet from Shelly Sanchez Terrell
This is her work on line, there are plenty of useful links:
Teacher Zen, by shellyterrell
This is another presentation by Shelly which is worth checking:
Finally, there is a great source which Shelly Sanchez left us:
A Teacher's Survival Kit:
Goal: Build a Teacher's Survival Kit, by shellyterrell
Another interesting webminar by a great teacher was about GETTING CONNECTED WITH STUDENTS: the presenter was TIA SIMMONS https://twitter.com/TechTia
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DMgB_tF2rZonWWTZNxyJf-hXl5PmeAJSstsW7K1HLbI/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000#slide=id.gd4288a07_0218
This is a list of the tools we should use to get in touch with students and establish relationships with students and families:
- google docs and google spreadsheets
- Padlet
- TitanPad
- Today'sMeet
All these tools can help us to " break the walls" and try to communicate with our students, they can post their presentations with Padlet or they can collaborate and discuss with the teacher. Google docs is a great suite as we can work online and share documents. Google spreadsheets can help us to collect information like emails, data from the parents so that the teacher can work better.
Some teachers provided this interesting link about the best ways for using Padlet : https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mAQJRu1aODAiBslDxNoliCARyAVrVX6hiK4nc_JdghA/present?slide=id.i0#slide=id.gf9f60697_10
Matt Bergmann - this is great blog with some tips
http://bergman-udl.blogspot.it/2015/08/3-ways-you-can-creatively-engage.html -
provided an interesting presentation for teachers who need to work without technology but do need to work with students:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BEJPcG3Ng_oLKmTGJG_e0yUs_OaMaJjOZFqoYPUX0pU/present?slide=id.p#slide=id.gc62a45ef1_0_3
I liked the approach: we can use any materials for getting organized and work with our students! Never give up!!!
Matt introduced also a new webtool which is useful in education: audioboom.com
https://audioboom.com/about/education
This is a great use of the tool, especially for students with special needs:
But the tool can be used to give voice to students too: it seems to be a " cool " tool, you just need to follow the link and you will learn more.
https://audioboom.com/Mattbergman14
Here are Matt's suggestions for teachers who can use social media to get engaged with other teachers by using this tool:
Finally, there were some engaging sessions by Catlin Tucker:
http://catlintucker.com/2012/09/back-to-school-night-2-0/
She made a great presentation by providing links to her website
and I am sharing this with you:
http://catlintucker.com/2015/08/dont-waste-the-first-day-of-school/
I found her ideas were new to me: less teacher-centred activities and more engagement from the students.She suggested using a learning style quiz on the first day:
http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles-quiz.shtml
Catlin has also provided us with two new web tools:
http://piktochart.com/ to create infographics , but it is not free
http://www.easel.ly/ to create templates and infographics
easel.ly
Some great webminars that have helped me become a better
" learner" and now it is time to get started with the new school year.
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