Tuesday, November 27, 2012

PINTEREST FOR TEACHERS


This week’s TECH TIP is brought to you by Edudemic
Dozens Of Ways Teachers Can Use Pinterest, added by Katie Lepi on 2012-11-27
 
If you haven’t discovered Pinterest yet, I highly suggest checking it out at Pinterest.com. Pinterest is a virtual pinboard, that lets you collect, organize and share the things you find on the web. Pinterest is a valuable and powerful teacher tool to discover new ideas and to find inspiration from people who share your interests. The Edudemic article by Jeff Dunn lists over 30 ways teachers can use Pinterest for inspiration, lesson planning and professional development. I have compiled a few of what I think are the best ides below, but I encourage you to check out the full article.

 

INSPIRATION

Organize your ideas. Do you find yourself jotting down ideas or bookmarking websites and then forgetting about them? Pinterest can help you keep these ideas organized and easy-to-find when you need them.
Get fun ideas for new projects.Whether you’re looking for holiday fun for students or something to relate to your lessons, you’ll find some really amazing ideas when you look through educational pins on the site

 

LESSONS

Make group work visual. Whether you’re working with your colleagues or helping students to work on a group project, Pinterest can be a great place to collaborate. Share images for presentations or links to papers, resources, and research.
Find loads of printables. If you’re in the market for some printable games and lessons for your students, you’ll find tons of great stuff on Pinterest.
Get ideas on how to make learning more hands-on. There are pages and pages worth of pins all about hands-on projects for students. Take advantage of some to make your lessons more interesting and memorable for your students.
Find great books to use in the classroom. It can be tough to choose books for young readers that are both fresh and age appropriate. Luckily, you’ll find some help on that when you look through Pinterest.

 

PROFESSIONAL

Collaborate with other teachers and educators. Through Pinterest, teachers can create collaborative boards. This makes it simple to work together on projects, build better lessons, or just connect over shared ideas.
Start a conversation. Inspired by a lesson plan or image posted by another educator? Tell them! You can comment on their pins, offering you a chance to learn more and connect.
Share what you’re doing in the classroom. While it’s great to sit back and take in all the images other people have shared, you shouldn’t be afraid to share your own as well. Pin your favorite classroom projects so that other teachers and students can make use of them as well.


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

WHAT CAN YOUR TECHNOLOGY COORDINATOR DO FOR YOU?

Happy Tuesday!
Today I am posting a quick reminder of some of the ways that I can help you. As always please let me know if there is anything I can do to help effectively use technology to enhance student learning.

RESEARCH

Find technology resources that meet specific goals.

BRAINSTORMING

Bounce innovative project ideas off one another.

CO-PLANNING

Collaboratively plan a lesson or series of lessons that effectively use technology.

TEAM TEACHING

After planning collaboratively, teach a lesson involving technology together – you present the content and I present the technology piece.

DEMONSTRATION

Demonstrate a software or technology skill in your classroom while you observe.

DIFFERENTIATION

Help design technology choice assignments or tiered activities.

TEACHER ASSISTANT

Serve as an extra pair of hands (or even moral support) for a lesson involving technology.

INDIVIDUAL HELP

Before school, after school, during your planning time – you name the time and topic.