True Confessions of a Connected (Math) Teacher

I had the opportunity to connect with another Connected Educator, Mark James (@mdjames67), at the Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo & Conference in  2015. He gave a session on using Google Apps with Math. What struck me the most about Mark was not the math instruction techniques or cool tools. I was impressed and extremely interested in the other math teachers he mentioned during the presentation.  One that figured prominently was Dan Meir. Look him up if you don't follow him. He was a Math teacher, now the Chief Academic Officer of Desmos.

Educators are trying their best to do one main thing: Help Kids Learn™. We each take a different role whether it be that of a classroom teacher, an administrator that keeps the school running smoothly or an educational coach that helps teachers get better at this one thing. We are part of a team.

Connecting to other educators that are doing things differently or better is one of the most important thing a teacher can do. While their classroom is their domain, it is a challenge to maintain the stamina of Help(ing) Kids Learn™ in a vacuum.

Yesterday, Mark came to one of my high schools to talk about how he has made connections through Twitter to help him through discouragement and this amazing time where there is so much to play with but so little time.

Using Angela Watson's blog post to guide the presentation (and a really cool demo of Pear Deck!), he walked us through the top 4 reasons why educators do not connect (but how they can overcome them).

1. I don’t want to spend my free time thinking about school. (But do you have time to think about what made you excited about teaching in the first place?)
2. I don’t think it’s necessary/I didn’t know I needed a PLC. (The way to breathe new life into your teaching is to tap into your inner motivation and connect with the things, people, and ideas that matter to you). Yeah, I quoted that from Angela Watson but it was so good that I had to include it.
3. I don’t have time. (How much time do we spend on things that are time wasters? Why not make your job easier by connecting for a few minutes instead?)
4. I don’t know how. (No worries, the Twitter Educator community has your back.  If not, Jerry Blumengarten, self-appointed Cybrarian).

Interested in Mark's talk? 

We have a recording of the first session here. Please check it out but please pardon our sweatshirts and sweatpants as we had PD from home on a snow day!

Interested in getting Connected or learning more about it? 

Well, we can help you with this! 

• On March 1 (Liberty High School) and 2 (Freedom High School) I will be hosting Growing Professionally with Twitter workshops. These can be completed online as well.
• On March 7, we will begin a 15 Day Twitter Challenge (including our own #BASDChallenge Twitter Chat)! 
• On March 8, we will have our first Connected Educator Book Club Meeting. Our first book will be Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach's The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age. We'll set the parameters for the club and the first 8 lucky people will get a book on loan to use during the book club.

For Bethlehem Area School District teachers, please sign up on CPE Tracker for these sessions. If you are from outside the district but are interested, please contact me if any of these topics interest you! 

GAFE (weekly)

• Music - Technology Resources for Teachers

  tags: music gafe

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Snowy Day Professional Development

If you live or were visiting the East Coast of the United States on January 23, 2016, you were caught in a historic snow storm that crippled transportation, closed schools and provided enough snow for kids to play with for days and days.

I had planned a special Connected Educator event at one of the schools where I work entitled, "True Confessions of a Connected Educator". I asked Mark James, a Broughal Math teacher, to share his experiences of being a connected teacher as has been featured on the Connected Educator website in the past (www.connectededucators.org) . We were scheduled to have the event in person at Liberty High School and online three days after the storm. Since our district's schools were closed on the day Mark was to speak, it was evident that we'd have to cancel the in person event.

However, meeting online from the comfort of our own homes was still possible so we decided to hold the event online.  We used Google Hangouts -- it was a blast! Five Bethlehem Area School District staff gathered online to learn on a snow day!  Two classroom teachers, one counselor, one administrator and one Tech Integration Specialist were in attendance.

In many ways this was not remarkable at all. Thousands of teachers have access to PD anytime and anywhere each day as they use social media tools to connect to one another. However, it was noteworthy in that our school district has not had many professional development events occur on a snow day!

We have rescheduled Mark to come to Liberty High School in person on February 24, 2016 from 3:45-4:45PM.   I'm crossing my fingers that we do not have any more snow, but know that we can always meet again online if the circumstance allows!