In May and June 2015, I'll be at the following events. Hope you'll join me at one or more of these!
- Attending the OPPI Festival in NYC on May 15 and 16
- Presenting at University School of Milwaukee's Summer Spark on Monday, June 15
- Keynoting and presenting at Kentucky Country Day School's Technology for Teaching and Learning Conference on June 18 and 19.
- Leading Global Education Day at ISTE 2-15 in Philadelphia on June 28.
Registration for Global Education Day at ISTE is filling up; we're at 50% capacity. Sign up soon for this free event if you'd like to attend. This is our fourth year of hosting this event, and many attendees have remarked that it's one of their favorite events at the ISTE conference!
Global Education Day is going to be our kickoff event for all activities related to the 2015 Global Education Conference. We're planning on announcing some additional events and changes at ISTE to our annual online conference, so stay tuned!
For more summer professional learning opportunities, check out the events I've curated and bookmarked in this Evernote notebook.
I've been also writing for the Ed Tech section of About.com along with Ken Royal. Here are our articles for April:
- Connecting Your Classroom to the World
- Digital Resources for Teaching about Earthquakes and Nepal (see the accompanying Evernote notebook with additional resources)
- 60+ Great Google+ Resources for Educators
- Innovative Summer Professional Development
- Flipping Research (Ken Royal)
- Tips for Educational Technology Coaches
- Teacher Apps and Student Privacy (Ken Royal)
- 10 Questions to Ask When Planning Tech Infused Units
In March, I took on a new project which was fun and enlightening. I virtually assisted with social media efforts for the 2015 Annual CUE Conference. Using a variety of tools, I kept tabs on CUE's social media streams, responding to queries from attendees and pointing to various resources. I also ran a badging pilot for this event, working closely with BadgeList and CUE Inc. to develop a learning group. (Note that BadgeList is also teaming up with the Global Education Conference to expand on badge offerings for the 2015-2016 conference year.) As many readers know, I enjoy social media and I think I've found a new aspect to my work, working with organizations to boost their social media productivity and presence. Thanks to Mike Lawrence at CUE Inc. for suggesting this role at his conference this year!
Also, in March, I spent about a week visiting 15 Chicago Public Schools to interview teachers for the CPS Ones to Watch award which is presented at the district's annual Tech Talk Conference. I've done this off and on for the past few years, and it's wonderful to see how this program has grown. There are many more tech-savvy teachers and administrators in CPS than when I initially did work with them, and much of this is fueled by the adoption of Google Apps and the CPS Computer Science for All program.
Finally, I'm wrapping up two long-term coaching projects this June. Along with design thinking expert Don Buckley, I've been working with a great international school in New York City this year to help them develop a road map for innovation. We conducted a comprehensive assessment for this school, wrote an extensive report detailing next steps and providing resources, held design thinking workshops with faculty and provided customized professional development. We see design thinking as an incredibly versatile tool for problem-solving within schools from strategic planning to re-thinking school policies to encouraging critical thinking with students. Our hope is that this school will continue to apply this strategy moving forward as they continue to cultivate a culture of innovation.
The other project has been a Kajeet mobile learning pilot with Chicago Public Schools; information about this project is available here. I've been coaching teachers at Falconer School for the past two years as part of this. With both projects, it's been wonderful to see growth in the ways innovation takes shape at each school.
I've found in the past few years that I deeply enjoy innovation coaching as described in the projects above. I've had several long-term projects where I've worked with schools, and I appreciate this process as it allows me to build productive relationships with administrators and faculty. If you know of any school or district that is looking for this type of solution, I would appreciate the referral!
Up next... a rebranding of GlobalEdCon and my professional website. Stay tuned for my next update!
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