Impactful Integration With Amy

Choice boards have been around for awhile, however I have noticed they are really trending lately.  When I was an elementary teacher and librarian, I did use choice boards in a low tech way.  I gave students options in how they might respond to a lesson. Now that our campus is one to one with devices, I realized I hadn't tried digital choice boards with my high school students.  I decided to go with combination of stations and choice boards to flip my instruction with my 11th graders last week.  I knew I wanted to structure their library visit in a way that we could cover four areas: finding a good book, researching colleges, exploring test prep materials and checking out a book.    So how do we start using choice board in way that works for teachers and students. Tip 1: Use a template I'm always so inspired by what Mrs. Howell is doing with Gold Edu and I decided to use a template she shared with our group.  Here is the template I used: Inspiration/ t...

Hi friends!  As the return to school quickly approaches, I am preparing materials to share with my staff.  One of the items on my to do list is to put together a list of tools that would be the tools I'd recommend to any teacher to try out.  During the school year, I made a list of all the technology tools I am familiar with and I categorized them by how I would use them, for example- collaboration, video editing, creative response, screen casting, etc.  It started out as a Google Doc that you can check out here.  Since then it has evolved.  I knew I wanted to take this to the next level and make it more visually appealing.  So I did a thing... I made an ebook using Canva!  I put together some tips on lesson planning with technology integration and some tools I'd recommend based on the 4 C's.  I wanted to make sure it was not too overwhelming.  So you will find a few tools for each category.   Can I ask for your help?  Wil...

This post is week 6 of 8 in the #8WeeksofSummer Blog Challenge for educators.   This time I'm looking into what I will keep, lose or try in the upcoming school year.  I really liked this question posed by the Hot Lunch Tray blog: "What makes educational technology a keeper?"  To me this is an essential question to address because as we come back to completely in person instruction my goal is to help teachers feel empowered to continue using technology in impactful ways with students and not just say well we are back let get out the worksheets.  In order for educational technology to be a keeper for me it has to address the 4 C's- creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration and it needs to be simple enough that we aren't wasting too much time explaining how to use the tool over and over again.   Which Tools Will I Keep? Canva - 100% yes!  This year I attended a session by Kristina Holzweiss, author of Hacking School Libraries and @li...