Professional Development

As we near the end of our first year of 1:1 at the high school and look to move forward with 1:1 at the middle school, the areas in which we need more professional development become clearer. Personalizing PD has been part of this technology roll-out, but when we began we "didn't know what we didn't know"! Let's begin planning now how we want to end the school year, or even continue to develop our understanding and integration of technology, over the summer. One option is to consider the professional development modules and courses developed by the REMC Association of Michigan through the Michigan Learns Online Portal. If you are interested in completing a course, I can arrange for the courses to be uploaded to our ACS Moodle and facilitate. For most, you can access the information and material and use as needed, even if you don't complete assignments as a course. For a complete list of MLO Professional Development learning material, visit the website.

Featured iPad Apps

There are two professional development courses offered through REMC Michigan Learns Online. The first, iPad for Education, includes a section on built in Accessibilty features of the iPad. Other sections include setting up e-mail and how the iPad helps meet technology standards.

The second course, Integrating iPad in the Middle School Classroom, provides a more pedagogical approach to the iPad as a tool. While the emphasis, with lesson plans and examples, is middle school, the content is applicable to all grade level instructors.

Maximizing Google  

While many have integrated Google Drive into the classroom routine, Creating Student e-Portfolios with Google Sites focuses on reflective writing as a sustained process. Not just for English classes, the connected standards cover all content areas. As the Common Core requires student demonstration and application of learning, reflective portfolios deserve consideration. The course begins with this introduction to e-Portfolios in the K-12 classrooom, including what they are and why they should be used. The course then moves forward with instructions on how to use Google tools for e-portfolio creation. 

Getting the Most Out of Your Learning Platform   

In the Flipping Your Class With Moodle course, teachers are introduced to the flipped classroom model. Moving beyond the model, teachers are led through beginning steps to creating and using a Moodle classroom. Units includes course design, adding resources in Moodle, using discussions in Moodle and creating assessments. As a self-paced option, the course can provide real-time, when you need it support for your management system. Addressing varied learning styles of teachers, the course includes articles, documents, websites and videos for training support.

Twitter Friday Follow 

Integrating social media in the classroom can be seen as risky. What is the proper way to implement as well as which media and devices should be used are just the beginning of the questions most educators ponder. The Socially Networked Learning Course takes the educator from an introduction to social networking to applications in the classroom, including examples from teachers with different social network tools. Twitter is featured as one of the networks. 

For the #FF (Twitter Friday Follow) recommendation, the REMC Association of Michigan (@mi_remc) shares conferences, technology tips, resources and recommendations. While not prolific in number of tweets, the posts are consistent in topic and focus.