Professional Development Meme Update

No surprise…I’m a bit behind in getting to this.  Nevertheless, here it is:

My Goals

• Rework my class websites (here and here) so that they better compliment one another, allow for a deeper understanding of class content, and create more opportunities for collaboration both in and beyond my school.  Look to the Maine Holocaust Education Network as an example of what can be done.

I am actually quite proud with how my iClassroom Wiki has shaped up.  It has a nice, clean look and allows students…and their parents…to access class materials and updates.  Students have even started building their own encyclopedia on the site.  The iClassroom Ning, however, has not been touched.  I can’t get past the fear that we will walk in one day and find it…and all of our materials…blocked by the District filters.  I have requested a hosted WordPress blog as a replacement (in May), but I’m still waiting for access to it.

• Learn more about Google Apps for Education and VoiceThread.

I am getting more and more comfortable with Google Apps and plan to introduce them to students as soon as they are officially trained to use District email, allowing them to register for their own Google accounts.  And students will use Voicethread to encourage discussion in their encyclopedia entries.

• Connect with other educators…
  • Online via Twitter, I Teach Social Studies (which I have seriously neglected lately), and all of the other Ning Networks that allow me to lurk in the shadows.
  • Face-to-Face via NECC

I continue to contribute to Twitter and a variety of Nings on a semi-regular basis.  And NECC was an incredible experience that has encouraged me to attend other conferences this year, including NCSS in November and EduCon (hopefully with my principal) in January.

• Read (at the very least) Outliers, Reinventing Project-Based Learning, Grown Up Digital, The Global Achievement Gap, and Disrupting Class.

I finished both Outliers and Tipping  Point, but got a bit stalled on the rest.

In my spare time, I also plan to add links to the various pages on this blog, annotate the bookmarks I’ve saved via Delicious and Diigo, and redesign my freshman social studies course in order to make more connections with the other teachers on my team.

I did start tagging my social studies bookmarks with Kentucky Core Content numbers, but never got around to properly annotating them all.  I guess it’s still a work in progress.

What are the chances of adding an extra couple of weeks to this summer so I can actually make it to the end of this list?

While I didn’t complete everything on the list, I am still proud of what I did accomplish this summer.

I am actually quite proud with how my iClassroom Wiki shaped up.  It has a nice, clean look and allows students –