Indian Hills teacher receives grant through Donors Choose

Congratulations to Indian Hills Spanish teacher Natalie Ries!

Natalie used the DonorsChoose.org  web site to post her classroom needs and desired project.  She was recently notified that Bank of the West in Clive funded her project.  She applied for 8 Sony ICD-PX312 digital recorders.

The recorders were recently received and she’s now excited to implement them in class.  The plan is to have students work in small groups of two or three people on speaking activities as well as individually on speaking goals.  They are able to record themselves, upload the recording to the computer, edit it, and then they will add them to their online Spanish portfolios.  The portfolios are arranged around Spanish “I can” statements and the recordings can be used as artifacts demonstrating their competency.

Congrats Natalie !

Choose your own tech adventure! A new style of technology PD.

Notice that all great technology PD courses involve Mountain Dew.

We have an idea to share and want your thoughts…..

Last Oct, we ran a mini-conference at Valley Southwoods related to technology and EEI.  The feedback was positive, especially because… A)sessions were taught by district teachers  and B) everyone had choice.   Some teachers loved the short introductory sessions, others wanted extended sessions to have time to dig into the topic.

 Here’s our idea:
Instead of a traditional PD course, with only one specific topic for the entire 15 hours, we are proposing a different approach.   A staff development course that is entirely made up of multiple topics that you can pick and choose the topics that are of interest to you!    Each topic would be 3 hours of time – so you would need 5 total blocks in order to meet the 15 hour requirement for staff dev credit and/or Drake credit. 

Here’s a specific example of what the schedule might look like:

	Mon June 4th	Tues June 5th	Wed June 6th	Thurs June 7th
AM Sessions 8:30am to 11:30am	Using Kidblog.org	ScreenCasts	Twitter	Google Docs
	Safari Montage	MovieMaker	Safari Montage	MovieMaker
	Animoto	Standards Based Grading in Infinite Campus (grades 7-12)	Animoto	Twitter
PM Sessions 12:30pm to 3:30pm	K-3 iPad apps	K-3 iPad apps	Classrooms Blogs	Gloogster
	Edmodo	Edmodo	MovieMaker	Classroom Blogs
	Google Docs	Standards Based Grading in Infinite Campus (grades 7-12)	Gloogster	ScreenCasts

 Here are some of the specific 3 hour topics that we think could be offered…..

1)      MovieMaker:   editing and producing short videos with Windows MovieMaker (most likely taught by Jackie)

2)      Standards Based Grading with Infinite Campus:  (grades 7-12) How to set up your grade book for standards based style grading in Campus

3)      KidBlog.org:  Using kidblog for student writing

4)      Safari Montage:  How to access, search, and build playlist in Safari Montage (replacement for DE Streaming).  Also how to use student accounts, how to make assignments, on-line quizzes, and use their iPad app. (most likely taught by Jackie)

5)      Google Docs:  an Introduction to Google docs

6)      K-3 iPad apps:  A session for teachers to share their favorite iPad apps, with time to dig into why and how the apps are used.

7)      Twitter:  an introduction to using twitter for your own professional development and/or classroom usage  (most likely taught by Brian)

8)      Edmodo: an introduction to using Edmodo, building courses, getting students setup, turning in assignments, discussions, grade book, and practice tests/quizzes

9)      Gloogster: Making on-line posters

10)   Animoto:  Creating on-line slideshows with pictures, text, and music

11)   Classroom Blogs:  Creating a classroom website/blog

NOTE:  some of these topic, depending on interest, might be expanded to a second level.  Example: we might have a Twitter level 2 for those who already have a twitter account, and a level 1 for those who do not or have one but haven’t used it much.  This could also apply to Edmodo or other topics as well.

Questions for you…………..

1) What do you think?  Will this be appealing to staff?

2)  What topics are we missing that might interest staff?

3)  Please contact Jackie Neuberger if you’re interested in being a trainer.  It’s $30/hour for any session – and we’re certainly open to adding new topics/ideas.