Skip to main content

Edutopia's New Teacher Bootcamp

This summer I signed up to participate in Edutopia's New Teacher Bootcamp - one of their Summer Professional Development offerings. Now I am not a new teacher but I knew I would be working with and coaching several new teachers this year. And that this "bootcamp" would provide me with ideas and resources to share with teachers.

The "bootcamp" was 5 weeks long and introduced a different Web 2.0 tool each week. The course facilitator provided learners with ideas, models, and links to resources about each tool. We could explore the links and then create a small project using each tool. We utilized a "wiki" during the course to create our portfolios for each tool. Here are the tools we explored:
  1. Wordle - create beautiful Word Clouds by simply pasting in some text - and you don't need an account. To learn more, check out the Week 1 Blog.
  2. Voicethread - Voicethread is a multimedia slideshow tool that allows viewers (students, parents, teachers) to make audio, video, or text comments. Here are some ideas for using Voicethread in the classroom from the Week 2 Blog.
  3. Storybird - a storytelling website that allows users to create art inspired digital stories. Take a look at some ideas for using Storybird on the Week 3 Blog.
  4. Wetoku - this was a tool that I had not used or heard about prior to the bootcamp. Wetoku allows users to to collaborate with each other through online interviews. It show a double screen with both the interviewer and interviewee. Check it out on the Week 4 Blog.
  5. Blogs -The word  blog is a combination of the words "web" and "log." Blogs are like journals on the web; a place to share thoughts and ideas pretty much like I am doing right here. There are a lot of blogging tools that can be incorporated into the classroom, such as EduBlogs, KidBlog, Blogger, or Gaggle Blogs. Learn more about blogging in the classroom on the Week 5 Blog.
Check out my New Teacher Bootcamp Portfolio:

Suzanne's NT Bootcamp Portfolio

The facilitator of the New Teacher Bootcamp was Lisa Dabbs from Edutopia. These are links to the blog and wiki Lisa created for participants to use.

New Teacher Bootcamp Blog


New Teacher Bootcamp Wiki

There were also a lot of discussions on Twitter: #ntbootcamp

It really was a great experience to deepen my knowledge of some web tools as well as learning new ones. I would definitely do this again!!






Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Science Fair Projects

At the end of the year, many of our schools hold school wide science fairs. Students plan Science fair project tri-fold display board and implement projects and then present the process and resulting data on tri-fold display boards much like this. One class decided to go green and do away with using display boards. They conducted their experiments and recorded the data but rather than create paper reports they used their iPads. Project Data Graphs The students took pictures and video and created graphs and other visual representations and imported those into the Explain Everything app. During the science fair, students brought their iPads to the school's multipurpose room and presented their projects to attendees right from the iPads. In addition to using digital tools, these students are also developing their listening, speaking, and presentation skills - all vital to college and career readiness.
Post a Comment
Read more

Flipped Training 2013, Day Four

Day Four: Putting It All Together Day 4 was focused on two things: creating videos and lesson planning. Two very important topics for flipped learning! Video Creation: While we encourage our teachers to create their own flipped learning videos, we also know that there are some great pre-made video resources available. We explored sites such as Khan Academy , Math Train , and Sophia . To help teachers understand why we encourage them to create their own videos, we showed the Katie Gimbar video entitled " Why It Has to Be Me ". Katie has been flipping for some time and has a great series of videos and we used several throughout the training. You can access them here . Teacher created videos help students feel more like they are right there with the teacher and extends their in class relationship. While video creating can get pretty complicated, we encourage teachers to just do "one take" videos without retakes or a lot of editing. If you m...
Post a Comment
Read more

T. A. G. Strategy

We want our students to reflect on their own work but also to be able to give effective feedback to each other. This is true for writing, conversations, or digital work. It's tough for us as adults and even more difficult for our students - no matter the grade level. As we have started using Seesaw ( https://web.seesaw.me/ ) and its student Comment feature, I've seen lots of "I like ..." and "That's cool" comments. Not very meaningful. I recently came across this simple strategy called T.A.G: Tell, Ask, Give. An easy to remember acronym and a good way to get students started in making effective comments.  I've seen several variations but like these descriptors for the acronym: Tell - something you learned or was meaningful ("like" if they are specific about what they like) Ask - a question Give - a compliment or recommendation (depending upon the purpose for the comment) Download a pdf here . Here are some additional ...
Post a Comment
Read more