Coaches Corner
Fun facts and finds from the world of education...
Technologyyyy!!! It's a REVOLUTION...
1:1 is coming!
This week our technology team went on a field trip to visit a middle school in Coppell - they are big time techies. (A Title 1 School I might add) We saw tons of great ideas and wanted to share a few of them with you.
First of all, they are a 1:1 iPad campus and their students get their very own for the whole year. (We will most likely be 1:1 in each classroom) They have a hard core training session at the beginning of the year where the students get a VERY CLEAR picture of the expectations regarding their device. Definitely works for them and they only have a few knuckleheads that don't follow through - those kiddos get a consequence and then they seem to figure it out. (Most of the time)
Because they are 1:1, many of the teachers have gone paperless in their classrooms. Some of the ways they are communicating with their students is through iTunes U and Schoology. The teacher we spoke with likes both of those because iTunes U has tons of stuff from other teachers she can use and it gives her kids a place to download assignments from. Schoology has more functions than Google Classroom, which is why she chose that learning management system instead. We did talk to other teachers who use Google Classroom - it's pretty awesome itself. Check out the links to explore and learn more.
A few things we saw and heard about that sounded pretty cool are:
Animated Maps for Social Studies (American History)
Gilder Lehrman for Social Studies - great resource!
Ted Ed - Education videos for every subject
EO Wilson - Life on Earth for Science- awesome iBook with really cool animations on all things science!
Notability - App for annotating and highlighting articles. I use it, it's awesome!!
Virtual Field Trips - This links to an article about taking virtual field trips and has some pretty great links as well. Check it out.
They shared with us that they are a work in progress. It has taken them about 3 years to really get rolling, but they are all on board and even the non-techie teachers are getting into it. Their professional development is all geared towards technology integration and those have been super effective with their staff.
If you would like to be inspired further with technology here are a few good techies to follow on twitter:
Okay, so really there are a million people who you could follow. Like, a million! But this is a good place to start - let the inspiration begin!!
On the non technology side of observations I really liked how they had music during the passing period. (Mr. Eason?) (Mr. Eason?!) They cut off the music one minute before the bell. Also, they have Honors classes and GT classes only. When it comes to honors classes think of Advisory minus the GT kids. Pretty cool idea! What do you think?
These are a few of my take away's from our visit. Hopefully my tech team buddies will add a few of theirs in the comment section. (!!!)
Have a great weekend everyone!