Quit Being an Idea Hoarder!

The following quote by George Couros really made me think...

"What if every teacher tweeted one thing a day that they did in their classroom to a school hashtag, and they took five minutes out of their day to read each other's tweets?  What impact would that have on leaning and school culture? 

I am lucky and blessed to work with some amazing educators.  The ideas for activities and lessons that they come up with is inspiring.  Parents in our school district should rest well knowing that their children are being taught by some very passionate, enthusiastic educators.  

But....

I often compliment a teacher for an activity or lesson that they taught while I was in their classroom. I encourage them to blog about it or tweet about it. Just share it!  Too many times, I hear the response, "Oh, who would care about that anyway?" or "It's nothing fancy" maybe even a "It's really not that great of a lesson."  

My response?  "That was amazing!  Imagine if another teacher saw your tweet or blog post about that lesson or activity and did that same lesson with the children in their classroom!"

I think that we can sometimes look at the lessons/activities/ideas that we are using in our classrooms as just your average, run of the mill lesson.  Yet in the eyes of another teacher they are MAGNIFICENT!

Quit being an idea hoarder! 

Some of you are doing great things in your classrooms! We need to hear or read about it!  Get your blog set up if you haven't done so.  Don't know how to use Twitter?  Find someone to teach you how to harness the power of this amazing tool!

The world of Education needs your contribution!

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"I'm Just Not Very Good With Technology" Is No Longer an Acceptable Excuse.

We've all heard someone use the phrase.  Perhaps you've even used it at one time or another.  I've heard the phrase countless times during the five years that I have been an Integration Specialist.   

I'm tired of the excuse. It's 2015.  Now, if it were 1989, it might be an acceptable excuse, but not any longer.  There are some great ways to use the various technologies that we currently have available to us as educators to make our classrooms an even better place to work, play, collaborate and learn.  

When thinking of this whole issue, it makes me think of a teacher that just retired this year from our school district.   Her name is Ms. Breese.  She was an outstanding Family and Consumer Science teacher at Aurora Public Schools for 40 years.  Yes, 40 years!  That is simply amazing!  I was really bummed the day that she came into my room to personally tell me that she was planning on retiring at the end of the school year.    

You see, Ms. Breese was what I would consider a "pioneer teacher" in our district in regards to the use of educational technology.  She was a "pioneer" in the fact that she was a prominent teacher leader during our 1:1 iPad initiative.  Ms. Breese used the iPad in so many creative, practical and engaging ways in her FCS classroom.  She was always looking for ways to use the iPad and we had some great brainstorming and planning sessions together. Other teachers in our district could always count on Ms. Breese to have a great new idea on how to successfully use the iPad in the classroom.  She was truly an asset to me as an integration specialist.  I could count on her to share all of her great ideas with our other teachers!  I loved her creative spirit and willingness to change things up in her classroom.

Ms. Breese had 37 years of experience when I started.  When our school decided to proceed with our 1:1 iPad initiative three years ago, it would have been very easy for Ms. Breese to use the excuse, "I'm Just Not Very Good With Technology," yet she jumped on board the "tech train" from day one and was always looking for new and unique ways to better her classroom using educational technology. I vividly recall the day a couple of years ago that Ms. Breese came into my classroom and told me how using the iPad and other technologies in her classroom really had revitalized her passion for teaching.  “It’s so much more fun,and there are so many opportunities” she recalled.  I hated to see her retire, but really enjoy the fact that I was able to work with Ms. Breese for three years.

Thank you, Ms. Breese for being a "pioneer!" And, THANK YOU to all of the other "pioneer" teachers that are out there reading this!

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A Couple of Summer Learning Opportunities

Summer break brings a great opportunity for us as educators to recharge and refresh our batteries.  It also offers us TIME to learn and explore some new technology tools, apps, ideas that we can apply in our classrooms for the upcoming school year.

I have created a couple of summer learning activities for our teachers here at Aurora Public Schools. Check them out below.  Feel free to take any of the ideas that you see here and modify them to fit the needs of your teachers and administrators!

The Breakfast Club

I started The Breakfast Club three summers ago. It's tough to introduce new tech tools, concepts and ideas mid year, as teachers don't have a lot of time to dig in to what I show them.  The Breakfast Clubs generally run an hour (I am offering some two hour sessions this summer) and are all about having time to explore and play.  Generally, I will do a quick run down of the tool, then let teachers have time to play.  You can check out my Breakfast Club offerings for this summer here, 2014 here or 2013 here.

Summer Fun Book

The idea for my Summer Fun Book came about after noticing that our elementary teachers send home Summer Fun Books with all sorts of activities for their students to work on during the summer.  I thought that it would be a great idea to compile an activity book that my teachers could work on during the summer, at their own pace!  My Summer Fun Book is composed of eight challenges.  Four that I created specifically for the Summer Fun Book and four App Task Challenges that I had previously created.  If a teacher successfully completes all eight challenges, they get invited to a pizza party that our elementary Principal has graciously agreed to fund!  Check out my Summer Fun Book here.  Feel free to make a copy and use with your staff!

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