It seems hard to believe that we are entering the second week of October. I am super excited about this upcoming week. This coming Wednesday, I will be traveling to Austin, Texas for TCEA's Conference for Educational Coaches to present 2 of my favorite sessions: Tech Up The Math and Creating Artifacts of Learning: Amplifying Thinking Routines using Technology Tools. Then, I will be traveling up to Dallas where I will be attending ASCD's Leadership Summit in Grapevine, Texas on Friday and then on Saturday, I will be attending the ASCD Emerging Leader's Orientation and presenting about thinking routines at ASCD's Leadership Summit at a social garden.
TransformED: Amplifying Learning Using Tech Tools
Two weeks ago, I shared a blog post called TransformED Goal Setting. In this week's blog post, I am going to begin focusing on ways that technology tools can amplify our learning as learners. Often, as educators, we forget that we are learners first and learners always. One of the best ways that we can serve our students is by continually improving our practice and modeling risk taking, So how can technology tools help us with this pursuit?
This week, I will focus on TransformED Networking. Much like we can use technology to help us with goal setting, we can also use technology tools can help us to better connect with local, state, and national networks. As educators, it is easy to feel siloed, but you don't need to be. There are so many ways that you can use technology tools to transform your professional networks.
How can technology tools help us transform our networks?
We don't often think about how technology tools can help us to better connect and network with other educators. Many times as educators, we feel like it's just easier to close our classroom doors and do things like we have always done. But in today's educational landscape, if we just do that, we are truly missing out. Today's technology offers us so many ways to transform our connections and to build networks of like minded educators and every educator benefits from that.
Participate in Local Learning Networks in Your School or District
The first way that you can start transforming your connections is by getting connected with others in your school or district. When we open up the doors of our classroom, we give ourselves the opportunity to not only share our best ideas, but also to learn from others. When we collaborate with each other, we make the smartest person in the room the room.
Do you participate in CLTs at your school? Collaborative Learning Teams or CLTs are a great example of how you can make the room the smartest person in the room. This year at my school, the Advanced Academics Resource Teacher and I are helping to facilitate math CLTs. At each math CLT, we work with teams to unpack math tasks as a team.
What about in your district? As a School Based Technology Specialist, I am a singleton in my building- there is no one else in my position in my school. That can get very lonely. Luckily, we have support circles for each of our six regions. We meet on a monthly basis to support each other and also have both an email list and a Zoom chat to help each other. In addition, we have district-wide meetings and Zoom chats to support each other.
Participate in National/International or State Networks
But the connecting doesn't need to stop there. There are so many national/international networks that you can connect with. These vary in focus and scope, but chances are if you are an educator, there is a larger network than your school district that you can connect with. Here are two of my favorites!
ISTE and ASCD have merged and are currently under the same umbrella with these two different focuses.
ISTE The International Society of Technology in Education is a great network to connect to if you want to learn more about integrating technology. ISTE is so much more than just a conference that happens in June. You can be involved in ISTE all year long. ISTE publishes books, offers courses, and even offers opportunities for ISTE Certification, which in my opinion is the best PD ever.
ASCD: The Association of Supervision for Curriculum and Development is the network just right for you if you want to promote teaching the whole child. ASCD works hard to promote innovative teaching practices and also supports more than just their conference in March. They host meetups, virtual webinars and much more. I am so proud to be part of ASCD and their Emerging Leaders' program.
Consider how you use technology tools to transform your network. What technology tools do you use? Are there any that I should add to my toolbox or maybe I shared one that sparked your interest? I would love for you to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Next Steps
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