Sharing Your Story

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We all have a story to tell. In fact, we all have a story to tell to inspire others. When I tell others that they should tweet or blog, I get a lot of…

  • I don’t do anything innovative.
  • What I do is nothing new.
  • Nobody is interested in what I have to say.

I completely disagree with those statements. We all do great things and the world can benefit from reading or seeing those great things. Just last week, I am reminded of this again.

It was brought to my attention that Wanda Terral gave a presentation in Texas a couple of weeks ago at TCEA on Google’s Data Studio tool. In Wanda’s presentation, she shared different ways in which people used Data Studio to help give attendees an idea of what is possible. My example happened to be one of those examples.

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Slide from Wanda’s Presentation

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Station Rotations

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(Excited that Jess Gilcreast is a co-blog post writer for this post)

Station Rotations: A way to move from teacher lead learning to student lead learning. Our high school has 77 minute blocks. Students don’t want to listen to teachers talk the entire time and teachers don’t necessarily want to deliver content to students for the entire time either. 

Jess Gilcreast, high school librarian, and I have been working with humanities teachers to re-think how to deliver introduction content for a particular unit. Below you will find resources and activities that were completed in a sophomore humanities course. We are both very proud of what was accomplished.

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Design Think with Computer Science Week

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As you probably already know, code.org puts on the Hour of Code week each December in hopes of students and teachers spending a bit a time during the week coding. While students and teachers at my school have participated to some degree for the past couple of years, it was not until the 19-20 school year where we truly highlighted Computer Science week – with big thanks to Stefan Fritz and his Computer Science students. Very proud with what they were able to put together. Below will highlight what was accomplished and the journey that it took to get to where we are.

Coming Up with the Idea

Back in May 2019, I attended a Forward: Massachusetts event at Google Cambridge. Google invited Leslie McBeth and Diane Rutherford, from Future Design Schools, to help school leaders and educators dive deep into ideas/concepts that they would like to see changed back at their own school buildings. Leslie and Diane walked us through their Design Thinking process. I absolutely loved the process. It was challenging, exciting, stressful, insightful and fun. What I appreciated about the process was the ability to come up with ideas and think things through. My take away? Empathy! In order to make positive change, you must fully empathize with those involved.

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PDFlix: Providing ‘On Your Time’ PD Opportunities

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Screen Shot 2020-01-21 at 6.42.02 AMOk, yes…the sound of Netflix went through my mind as I started typing. Each year, Jess Gilcreast (High School librarian), and I think of creative and different ways to provide professional development for the staff that we work with. We have tried it all, or at least seems that way. Whether it is providing ‘learning at your own time’ opportunities through Google Classroom, in person trainings, or online book chats through Twitter. We strive to keep things ‘fresh’ and continuously push the limits.

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Using Jamboard for Timeline Activities

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For the past year, we have been exploring different ways that we can thoughtfully implement Jamboard into lessons. To learn more about previous activities, click HERE and HERE. Our next thoughtful implementation you ask? How about creating a collaborative timeline?

Timeline Past History

Mrs. Devito and Mr. Woodhead teach a Freshmen Humanities course. During the Scientific Revolution unit, the teachers ask students to do some research on a scientist in pairs. Their goal is for students to visually see how one scientist has impacted another throughout the time period.

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