Teaching Toward Tomorrow
Jennie Magiera is the digital-learning coordinator for the Academy for Urban School Leadership, a network of 29 Chicago Public Schools. She previously taught math to 4th and 5th graders. As an Apple Distinguished Educator, Google Certified Teacher, and Chicago Public School’s 2012 Tech Innovator of the Year, Jennie has been working to redefine education through effective technology use. You can follow her on Twitter at @MsMagiera and at TeachingLikeIt’s2999. This blog is no longer being updated.
Professional Development
Opinion
Day 4 of Educators Who Inspire Educators
Welcome to Day 4 of our National Teacher Appreciation Week Series: Educators Who Inspire Educators. We have gotten to know three hardworking teachers throughout this week. Now we head to Orland Park, IL to meet high school teacher leader.
Professional Development
Opinion
Day 3 of Educators Who Inspire Educators
On to Day 3 of our National Teacher Appreciation Week Series: Educators Who Inspire Educators. We've already learned about two excellent teachers. Today, we'll go for lucky number three as we meet a first grade teacher from the land of 10,000 lakes.
Professional Development
Opinion
Day 2 of Educators Who Inspire Educators
Today is Day 2 of our National Teacher Appreciation Week Series: Educators Who Inspire Educators. It is also the official Teacher Appreciation Day! Yesterday Jason Markey honored Frank Holthouse, today we head to the land down under to meet an eLearning Teacher!
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Dear Teachers: Please Also Appreciate Yourselves
I want to send a wish out to our teachers on this Teacher Appreciation Day. Please also appreciate yourselves. Teachers are so good at pumping up their students, their school and even each other. However, they aren't always the best at giving themselves props. So teachers, moving forward: don't say "I'm just a teacher". Don't feed into this negativity. Don't downplay your hard work, sweat, tears and heart. Don't be humble. Take today to brag.
Professional Development
Opinion
Teacher Appreciation Week Series: Educators who Inspire Educators
In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, I am honoring my colleagues with a week-long series called "Educators who Inspire Educators." I reached out to my PLN and asked them to spotlight an amazing teacher. Thanks to the enthusiastic responses, each day this week we'll be learning more about educators from around the world who are creating #EduWins in their classrooms everyday.
Education
Opinion
3 Google Apps that Deserve More Love
Google Apps for Education is an incredibly popular ecosystem for students, teachers and everyone in between. From Google Docs to YouTube, this suite of resources and tools is becoming more of a central fixture in our schools. However, there are some lesser-used Google Apps that have great potential to impact teaching and learning. Here are three Google Apps that I think deserve a little more love...
IT Infrastructure & Management
Opinion
A Higher APPtitude: 7 Favorite Apps / Programs
What makes me stop and listen are apps and programs that offer new opportunities for my students. Tools that amplify students' ideas, thinking, or access to the global learning community. I also perk up at tools that work collaboratively with other great tools. Open APIs, shared platforms or a willingness to adapt to support multiple systems are incredibly helpful as a teacher who needs to think about reconciling multiple apps, operating systems and workflow systems. So with this in mind, here are a seven of my favorite new (and not so new) apps, tools and programs that have me digging in deeper.
Professional Development
Opinion
Be a Shark: Getting Better at Getting Better
Today I'm so honored to have a dear friend and respected colleague, Sue Gorman, guest blog on TTT! An incredibly generous professional and thoughtful educator, Sue brings experience and insight into educational technology and professional learning. Today she's here to talk about her own growth and the tools she uses to do so!
Classroom Technology
Opinion
Tech Is Not a Treat: Responding to Device Misuse
As more and more of our classrooms go 1:1 with technology, they are being faced with new challenges. One that looms over many teachers' heads is what to do when students misuse the devices? That is, what is the appropriate response when a student is on the wrong app at the wrong time, downloads games to their device when they're supposed to be building a website, writes four-lettered words on a class discussion board, or worse - engages in cyberbullying?
Education
Opinion
7 Ideas for Going Digital Without Devices
Hopefully last week's digital learning day brought more awareness to how technology can transform teaching and learning. In our network, we had dozens of new and veteran teachers realizing how they could harness the power of tech to create new opportunities for their students. However, no matter your level of buy-in or awareness, if you don't have devices it doesn't matter since you can't "go digital", right? Not necessarily! Here are seven ideas for how you can go digital - even without devices.
Teaching
Opinion
Digging into Digital Learning Day!
While the goal is celebrating digital learning every day in schools, February 5th is a day to bring special awareness to those educators who might not feel as comfortable infusing tech to teaching. So what can you do to support digital learning (day) and increase digital learning opportunities this Wednesday (and every day)? Here are some quick wins and easy ideas.
Teaching
Opinion
Gold-Medal Learning: Teaching With the Winter Olympics
Will you be watching the Winter Olympics with your students? Even more - will you use this as a teaching opportunity?
Professional Development
Opinion
What Makes Me Open my Wallet to PD
When I first became a teacher, I spent incredible amounts of money on my classroom, but was incredibly wary of spending money on professional learning. Attending a stale Saturday "workshop" where I left without any inspiration or real learning didn't seem worth dollars I could be spending on my classroom library. Now, 10 years later, I'm gleefully shelling out hundreds of dollars for conferences. What changed? As I reflected on this mindshift, I kept coming back to the following three factors that make me want to attend a professional learning event.
Professional Development
Opinion
My New Year's EdTech Resolutions
As 2013 comes to a close, it's a great time to reflect on where we've been and where we're heading. Although December 31st isn't the end of our school year, we can still make new year's resolutions about how we'll return to our schools and effect change. In some ways, these resolutions are even more powerful than goals set in August. After all, now we've had several months with students and colleagues. We've gotten a taste for this year's challenges and experienced some successes and failures. As a result, we can make more informed resolutions for the second half of our 2013-2014 year. So with this in mind, I made a few new year's #EdTech resolutions: