TPTs | Expedition Pioneer Program | Shadow a Student Challenge
Wish #1 -Free Professional Development- I wish every teacher would enroll in this free online course from ASCD on (TPTs) Total Participation Techniques. I am currently working my way through the modules. The strategies and techniques for promoting complete engagement and full participation within a classroom are invaluable. This is the type of professional development that every teacher, whether they are new or a veteran, should have to grow their craft of teaching today's learners. Thanks to my friend, Naomi Harm, for directing me to this free PD course.
Wish #2 - Google Cardboard - I wish every student could have the opportunity to experience the Google Cardboard Expeditions Pioneer Program. I signed up our school and my fingers are crossed. Google Cardboard is a virtual reality viewer that allows a person to explore a location virtually through images, videos and sounds to make for a true virtual reality experience. The folks at Google will bring the Google Cardboard viewers, the android phones, with apps installed, right to your school and will help the teachers to discover how this technology can be used in the classroom.
Wish #3 - I wish our district and every district would participate in the Shadow a Student Challenge. Whether you are a new teacher / administrator or a veteran teacher / administrator, we all can benefit from walking in the shoes of our students for a day. Some of us may be fearful of being in another colleague's classroom or of having others in our classroom. My wish is that all educators would be willing to have other teachers and administrators visit their classroom. We should be confident and proud of what we do as educators rather than fearful or worried about what others may think about us. We should be willing to take on the Shadow a Student Challenge regardless of the risks or outcomes.
Wouldn't it be amazing if just one of my wishes would come true? There is always a chance.
Poetry Month is Right Around the Corner Are you getting ready for Poetry Month in April? If so, I have some resources to share with you for creating concrete poems. Concrete poems are words written in a shape to convey a poem. They look like this: Recently I went on a mission to search for a site to use with a fellow colleague and her students. They wanted to make concrete poetry on their Chromebooks. There aren't many sites that allow the user to actually write words into any shape. There is the Read, Write, Think interactive for Theme Poetry. Here is what it looks like. The words can be added inside of a shape. The interactive guides students through the writing process There is a site from WildAboutWoods.org where a person can choose a shape or draw one of their own and add words inside of the shape. There are word banks to choose from or a person can type in their own words to add to the shape. I like that adding words is as simple as click ...
What is Twine? Perhaps you have had fun playing with "choose your own adventure" type stories, games or surveys. Social media has been buzzing with such surveys like this one: Which Disney Character Would Play You In The Movie of Your Life? Recently I came across Twine ( twinery.org ) for creating your own interactive stories, surveys or games. Creating a story is a simple as generating a flow chart such as this one: What makes Twine so great is that you only need to type text into a box and then put brackets around the word or words that you wish to have the next part of your story linked to. Any words in brackets will automatically generate a new box on the flowchart. Watch this short video demo to see how a Twine is created: Click here to experience the Twine I created called, "What Kind of Teacher are You?" I took the information to create my Twine from this site. FYI, I'm not responsible for the type of teacher my Twin...
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