Coppell ISD is hosting their iDesign conference this week, and I am so excited to be sharing why I think we should all get off our Educator Islands, đ
ahoy mate’s,
Amber
Coppell ISD is hosting their iDesign conference this week, and I am so excited to be sharing why I think we should all get off our Educator Islands, đ
ahoy mate’s,
Amber
by Amber 2 Comments
I am in charge of our campus Christmnas card each year. I consider it my badge of honor (albeit, a badge  made up in my head) that I’ve not done the same style of card in 4 years. (It’s the little things.)
When I started thinking about something for this year, I remembered a tool that I had heard of from my favorite lil’ol podcast, Techlandia.
Jon, Curt, & Allison had talked about VideoScribe HD a few weeks ago and it was the perfect solution! The app was less than $5, even when I paid a little bit more to get the branding removed when it was rendered.
The result? A unique greeting that looks like it took me forever…but didn’t.
Clever, eh? Also appreciate @ipadsammy being at my beck and literal, call! đ This is an easy tool that turns any presentation into something fancy…and we all know power point is very 1997. (**quote from Grey’s Anatomy**)
If you don’t listen to Techlandia, I highly suggest you do so, it genuinely provides me so many resources that benefit me, my campus, and ultimately, our students.
Jingle bellN,
Amber
Never under estimate a team of creative teachers who want to show off their creative students. Â Our kinder team hosted a lunch and learn for their parents last week. Â With November being a month of family engagement, this just tied right in! Â After 30 minutes in classrooms, parents also got to enjoy lunch wit their child. Despite having packed classrooms and 22 five year olds, I was so impressed with the calm & collected manner in which our teachers worked the room, making sure each and every child had someone to share with.
They sent home invites asking parents to come in for thirty minutes before their lunch time. As they walked in, their student greeted them with an iPad and they went and found somewhere to sit. Sharing a set of headphones, the student showed the parent how to get to the iBooks page. On that page, they were greeted by this, over a dozen student created iBooks showing off the culmination of their animal unit.
After a field trip to the petting zoo, our kinder kiddos came back and created these iBooks. They took pictures and videos of their chosen animals in small groups. They came back and were asked different facts and fun questions by their teacher. It was all then compiled into a presentation that they were so proud to share. The beaming smiles on ALL of the faces reminded me that yes, school can be FUN, and accomplish its curricular goals. Students worked together, had tasks to complete, and had to learn facts about their chosen animal. Sounds like a typical kindergarten activity…but what made this different? The opportunity for their voice to be heard by their family. The opportunity to make an artifact that showcased their pictures and their videos in a format that excited them. Moms, dads, and even grandparents, got to share the excitement of pigs, sheep, and cows through a 5 year olds eyes.
A principal colleague recently asked if school should be fun. This day full of smiles and a much more authentic version of “what I learned on my field trip” reassures me that yes, yes it should.
engagement proud,
Amber
ps: That lunch and learn concept? Imagine the possibilities. PD. Any grade level can do it with parents. A google hangout with other administrators. A principal’s roundtable on any number of topics. Everyone likes food and a 30 minute commitment isn’t too much to ask…
by Amber 2 Comments
I know that sounds a lil’extreme, but seriously, it did.
Dropbox is a storing/sharing place in the cloud that allows you to keep up with all of your files,where ever you are, even across platforms. I love this blurb I came across:
“This program acts as a âmagic pocketâ which is always with you and contains whatever you place in it. Put a file into your Dropbox and itâs on all of your computers and mobile devices.”
Who doesn’t want a magic pocket?  The genius of this for me is that I use a number of different devices for a number of different things. I take pictures on my phone, I take notes on  my iPad, I do appraisals on my Mac, and then will write a blog post on my home PC that needs ALL of those things. Having a place that I can easily access ALL of my “stuff” is crucial for the efficacy of what I do throughout the day.
How to get started/going?
It’s a very intuitive tool to use and following through some of the getting started tasks easily explains it as well as earns you more “free” space, đ Nothing to lose there!
More Dropbox links to help ya out:
Everybody loves a good LiveBinder, đ
File saveN,
AmDrop
I was listening to a webinar last week discussing the benefit of effective teachers in the classroom and was blown away by what was being shared. The average effect of one teacher on a single student is modest. All else the same, a student with one excellent teacher for one year between fourth and eighth grade would gain about $4,600 in lifetime income. The student with the excellent teacher would also be 0.5 percent more likely to attend college.
That’s not too shocking, right?
What about this? Replacing a poor teacher with an average one would raise a single classroomâs lifetime earnings by about $266,000. Multiply that by a careerâs worth of classrooms.
Students with top teachers are less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, more likely to enroll in college, and more likely to earn more money as adults, the study found.
How can you ever doubt the importance of what you do, every single day?
The webinar really solidified for me that teachers are the most important part of a child’s education. Not a program, a strategy, or a test. Great teachers make a great difference; poor teachers hurt a child’s life chances. LIFE chances.
You. Matter.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7FHdHUzRnms
Remindingly,
Amber