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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!!






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