<-Return to ISTE 6 Content Knowledge and Professional Growth
b. Engage in continuous learning to deepen professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions in organizational change and leadership, project management, and adult learning to improve professional practice
Part of engaging in continuous learning includes working to share this learning with others. The following opportunities reflect my work to take my own learning to this next step.
Google Certification
Recently, I became a Level 1 Google Certified Educator, a certification designed for educators who are comfortable using Google tools and seek professional endorsement of this proficiency. While my school is not a Google Apps for Education school, I regularly implore the use of these tools for and with students. My goal is to help students and other educators to use these tools, either in the recurrent manner I use them now, or in a future opportunity with a comprehensive Google Apps for Education approach.
GCE1CertificateEd Tech Lead
My ability to engage in the practice of developing and facilitating professional learning has equipped me with skills to both project manage and think about various leadership roles. My role as an Ed Tech Lead in my school this year has challenged me to utilize my expanding professional knowledge as a leader. It is this role that I designed and implemented the Ed Tech Cafe that meets on a monthly basis at my school for teachers to collaborate about topics of interest in education technology.
School District Presentations
Technology Kickoff Day
This past fall I had the opportunity to teach four sessions during my district’s Technology Kickoff Day, a technology focused professional training day for teachers upon return to the school year. All of these sessions focused on the use of the iPad as a creativity tool. I gave interactive trainings demonstrating the photo and picture creation capabilities of the device, apps utilizing multimedia to create animations and screencasts, and the capability of the iPad as a portable production studio to create movies.
While this past year’s training topics were directed for me by the district, I have been asked to lead two training sessions this coming fall based upon my own work in the classroom. My first session will be focused on my work with the implementation of genius hour. My second session will be focused on my work with infographics.
August Secondary Conference Day
Finally, I have also been asked to lead a district training for two sessions based upon my work with student blogging during the secondary conference day, a day-long professional development requirement for teachers, during the back to school week. I look forward to sharing how I have used this practice to foster community in my classroom, teach communication and collaboration skills, and encourage metacognitive practices with my students in language arts, film and creative writing classes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L_O4ho97aA
Speaking About Infographics
Finally, I had the opportunity to give a talk about using infographics with students for an undergraduate education course at Seattle Pacific University over Google Hangout. I was excited to share my own lessons learned, after multiple attempts to utilize this practice with students. The recording of this session and the Infographics Session handout I created to go accompany it are linked here.
<-Return to ISTE 6 Content Knowledge and Professional Growth
