Saturday, September 28, 2013

Session 3 - #nbcuemarin

Blogging has enhanced my classroom(s)/school in so many ways. Engaging families across the curriculum, opening doors that were formerly closed and motivating learning throughout the day.

- I blog for my staff!
- I blog for my students to have voice!
- I blog for college and career
- I blog for the Common Core and Arne Duncan
- I blog to learn from colleagues!

What else?

Podcast Mashup from @nbcuemarin #nbcuemarin

Empowering Student Voice - Week 8 #savmp

Podcasting is one of the most amazing ways I feel we can empower student voice on so many different levels. With so many different platforms available, I've had the most success with audioboo.fm! I was first exposed to Garage Band which I've always thought was not user friendly and I always struggled with 'what' to do with the podcast once it was finished.

We wanted to share the 'voice' with our classmates/parents/teachers/world and the whole 'export' process was cumbersome. This is when we found audioboo.fm, the audiboo app and our student voice took off!

Podcast with your class! Podcast to your parents! Podcast your message rather than over the school intercom! Podcast to your pen-pals rather than having them actually write!

What else, what else?

Check out our JSERoadrunners channel for some school wide examples!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Discover and Promote #savmp

'Discover and promote' has been my administrative mantra for building teacher leaders. I had my administrative credential for three years (while still a teacher) and my first principal didn't do anything with me. A new principal came on board and I was an Elementary Assistant Principal in one year, wow! Thanks to Jenise for 'discovering and promoting' me!

The only way to 'discover' is by being visible in classrooms and talking with kids about what they're doing in class. I'm not talking about the thirty second walk through at the end of each day, but spending fifteen to twenty minutes in a classroom learning with the students and 'discovering' their talents.

Then, you're able to 'promote' those skills on a school wide or district wide basis. We started something called Wired Wednesday's last year where we teach the staff a new concept around integrating technology into the classroom twice a month. After the first few sessions, I promoted a few teachers to present and the results were outstanding.

Very excited for the start of this year and so many of our teachers on Twitter!

          

Taking staff to professional development is also so powerful. Thanks to @EdcampMarin #edcampmarin for all the great ideas and building our PLN!

'Making It Happen on Team Kid'