Professional Development

Now that I have been bitten by the technology bug I am having a hard time with my own professional development. I want meetings to be flipped, my classroom to be blended and most of all I want to learn more. Most of the sessions that I went to at OETC were amazing, there were a few that did nothing for me and then there were few that made me think about presenting. Problem is that I become very nervous in front of my peers. What happens is that my NY accent comes out along with the NY speed. That being said, I only typically present to my peers within the building. The last time I presented in a larger group was at the Ohio Special Education Conference but I had a couple of co-presenters with me.

But being at OETC has me seriously thinking about presenting. My students are doing some amazing things in my classroom (I can take partial credit for that) and the world (or at least the state of Ohio) needs to be shown what they can do. I shared my desire to present with my educational cheerleader (thanks Laura @mrs._ldavis ) and she sends me the information for Bowling Green's M-Learning Symposium in May. Last night I submitted a proposal to present a 45 minute session on one to one in the resource room.

I have the opportunity to share what I have found out about schoology (@schoology) to the elementary technology committee on Tuesday morning. I am excited about it as one of my students said "if you can have us use it, then anyone can use it." I told him it was not entirely true but I understood where he was coming from. I guess this can be the stepping stone I need.

On the classroom front, I designed a new interactive bulletin board for the hallway. It will have an app of the week, with a QR code to get to it, plus reviews and hopefully a summary from the kids that use it. In addition, I am hoping to have guest bloggers on my school blog about technology. As we grow I would love to turn over those responsibilities to students. Being in middle school with some digital natives, I have started to plan and ask for a "genius hour". Having the students take more responsibility in teaching their peers, supporting the teachers and furthering the technology goals we have. Allowing some of the unconventional students a time to shine.