The IT Teachers’ Podcast: Recent Episodes
theiteachers
The IT Teachers are educators who share their knowledge of integrating technology into the classroom. With almost 30 years of combined service in the teaching trenches, Alicia and Haley tell it how it is and keep you up-to-date with not only the latest trends but with what actually works! They’re not just talking heads. Alicia and Haley are in their schools every day and want to help YOU put the A in TECH!
In Season 3️⃣ Episode 1️⃣: Back At I.T. Again, Alicia and Haley chat - I.T.- Up and discuss how the year is going so far, remind all listeners about Digital Citizenship Week, and give some helpful pointers about getting your Student Learning Objectives / GOALS ready to rock using some Tech Tools.
😊 We're so glad to be back for season three and we're so glad you're here with us! 💥
👀 Check us out: The IT Teachers dot Com
🎶 by Hartzmann: Paradise Island
🔗 Links we Promised: 🔗
✅ Common Sense dot Org: Digital Citizenship Week Lesson Plans! 2022
✅ Harvard Graduate School of Education: Project Zero
✅ CASEL
✅ The Hero Code: Lessons Learned from Lives Well Lived by Admiral William H. McRaven (U.S. Navy Retired)
- Online Voice Recorder
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💻Find us on the World Wide Web
Contact the IT TEACHERS! theitteachers@gmail.com
💙 Follow the IT TEACHERS on TWITTER! @TheITTeachers
📖 Follow the IT Teachers on Facebook! @TheITTeachers
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🎵 by Infraction: Uppbeat
🎙 In Summer 🌞 2022🌞 Episode 4: 🌴🌴FINAL SUMMER EPISODE🌴🌴, Alicia and Haley talk about the upcoming 2022-2023 school year. 🎙
🥳 Happy Birthday to Haley's Mom! 🥳
💪 You've got this! Do not be Overwhelmed! 💪
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- Take it one day at a time Balance your tech with your non tech
- Balance tech usage
- Keep track of your new students and their individual needs
- Help our your support staff (shortages with paraprofessionals)
😊 Enjoy Every Minute! 😊
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- Make your classroom an open learning community
- Encourage questions
- Be organized and ready for questions consider a FAQ
💻 Use: Parlay Ideas, Nearpod, Flip 💻
Remember the importance of good digital citizenship and the dangers of oversharing online!
Good Luck and Have a Great 2022-2023 School Year!
We Need YOU to Share your stories! We want to hear your favorite teaching story. It doesn't have to be tech based! We would love to share your story with others! Email us: Theiteachers@gmail.com
Today's Special Guest: Roxy 🐶
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📚 Summer Reading Books that Make us Think: 📚
The Every- Dave Eggers
The 57 Bus- Dashka Slater
The Hero Code- Admiral William H. McRaven
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💻Find us on the World Wide Web
Contact the IT TEACHERS! theitteachers@gmail.com
💙 Follow the IT TEACHERS on TWITTER! @TheITTeachers
📖 Follow the IT Teachers on Facebook! @TheITTeachers
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🎵 by Infraction: Uppbeat
In Summer 🌞 2022🌞 Episode 3:⛱ Easing into the 2022-2023 School Year:
🎙Alicia and Haley discuss some new ideas about how to get ready for the next school year. Whether you'll be teaching in your first year or your 25th year, you'll be sure to get some refreshing inspiration to make this the best year yet!
🪞 👀 Reflecting and Setting Goals: What do you want to do for the upcoming year?
👩💻 Reminders:
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- ✅ There are a lot of great programs out there, however, you must make sure that your district approves of the application or programs you use with your students. It’s important to maintain student data privacy from third parties. Ask your district what is approved for student use.
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- 🗣 Collaborate! Your Grade Level Partners and or Department Members will be a big help with this especially when planning for productive vertical alignment. What areas were students struggling (as a whole) in the year before and what do they typically need in the year after they will have you?
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- 💻Take Google for Education Refresher Course/s - John Sowash- YouTube Tutorials, Tips and Tricks
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- 💻 Check out the Google for Education Teacher Center
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💻 Use Google’s Back to School 2022 to find new ideas
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💻 Use Google’s Templates to introduce families to the applications you’ll be using in the classroom. This is a great way to get parents involved early on.
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💻 Use Tech to Blend the learning in your classroom. Remember that Technology is a great way to enhance learning, but should never take the focus away from learning the content. Learning First!
📧 Email Questions! 📧
- 📈Google Forms 📈
- Gathering Student information
- Gathering Benchmark Student Data
- Creating a Strategy for Tracking Student Learning
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💻Find us on the World Wide Web
Contact the IT TEACHERS! theitteachers@gmail.com
💙 Follow the IT TEACHERS on TWITTER! @TheITTeachers
📖 Follow the IT Teachers on Facebook! @TheITTeachers
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🎵 by Infraction: Uppbeat
In the Summer Season Episode 2: Alicia and Haley talk with TESOL Specialist, Themi, Reading and Language Arts Consultant, Angie, and Reading Specialist, Kim, and hear their philosophies, perspectives, tips, and tricks about... SUMMER READING!
📍 Major Topics Include:
☀️ Encouraging the use of technology students are familiar with such as phones to take notes
☀️ Philosophy: It's better to read something than nothing at all
☀️ Parental involvement
☀️ Calendar for reading/ setting up a schedule for reading
☀️ Giving students strategies for breaking down the reading and setting goals
☀️ Modeling good reading strategies during the school year to get students ready for independent reading during the summer
☀️ Make it a fun: have a reading "night out"
☀️ Visit the public library
☀️ Many public libraries have reading challenges or activities to engage students
☀️ Parents: don't worry so much about what peaks your child's reading interests as long as their reading and its holding their attention (and it's appropriate!)
☀️ Change how we feel about listening to books- best listen and follow along better to know the book .. audio apps: hear the story local library : library card free apps:
☀️ Encourage all ESL parents to have students read even if it is in their native language: reading and enjoyment is always paramount
☀️ Let the students guide the reading choices and make suggestions for their peers
☀️ Consider a more holistic approach to assessment/ expectations
☀️ Reading graphic novels COUNTS!
☀️ Is summer reading a sign of a bigger, systemic problem?
☀️ Consider: What's the most important outcome? Hopefully that students see themselves in the literature and are able to make connections
💻 Technology Resources:
✅ Overdrive, Hoopla, Libby, Sora
✅ ESL students:
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Glossaries from Steinhardt NYU school of EDU
- Key terms for subject matters
- Multiple languages: free resources
- Built in dictionary for content language
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Textcompactor.com
- Takes dense text and lessens density
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Google Translate
- Translate for multi copies for native languages
- Might not be 100 % accurate (use with caution)
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Esl-bits.net
- Different texts
- Change lexicon
- Students can listen or view: video, speeches, stories, etc. listening comprehension
💻Find us on the World Wide Web
Contact the IT TEACHERS! theitteachers@gmail.com
💙 Follow the IT TEACHERS on TWITTER! @TheITTeachers
📖 Follow the IT Teachers on Facebook! @TheITTeachers
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🎵 by Infraction: Uppbeat
In the first 🌞 Summer 2022 🌞 episode, Alicia and Haley discuss how to get organized and offer some powerful tools and ideas to get you ready for an exciting year of integrating technology in the 2022-2023 school year.
🎙 Topics from this episode include: 🎙
- Getting organized with planning: Common Curriculum
- Creating a Website for incoming students and parents
- Creating Google Classrooms and getting them organized!
- ISTE Standard integration into next year's plans
- Setting up course materials
- Creating "Beginning of the School Year" Google Folders and Docs
- Social Emotional Learning
🔗 Links from this episode: 🔗
Common Curriculum
Common Sense Media
Casel
🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞Happy Summer Vacation!🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞
💻Find us on the World Wide Web
Contact the IT TEACHERS! theitteachers@gmail.com
💙 Follow the IT TEACHERS on TWITTER! @TheITTeachers
📖 Follow the IT Teachers on Facebook! @TheITTeachers
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🎵 by Infraction: Uppbeat
🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Season 2 Episode 8: The IT Teacher's Podcast A Summer Send-Off, Alicia and Haley:
🚀 Discuss the importance of giving yourself credit for finishing yet another difficult year.
🚀 Give you ideas about how to integrate technology into your classroom next year
🚀 Remind you to have a good summer break and look forward to a successful year to come!
👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 Happy End of the School YEAR 2022! 👏 👏 👏 👏👏
Thank you for listening!
Catch our Summer Podcast Season ... coming soon!
💻Find us on the World Wide Web
Contact the IT TEACHERS! theitteachers@gmail.com
💙 Follow the IT TEACHERS on TWITTER! @TheITTeachers
📖 Follow the IT Teachers on Facebook! @TheITTeachers
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🎵 by Infraction: Uppbeat
In Season 2 Episode 7 of The IT Teachers' Podcast:
🎙Alicia and Haley take a moment to remember and pay tribute to their former professor, Dr. Susan Clarke, a woman who inspired so many educators and students past and present. We love you, Dr. Clarke! 💛📚💙
🎉 Alicia and Haley discuss teacher Appreciation week 2022, share some special moments from the week and eventually add a little tech:
👩💻 How to integrate Google Classroom from an administrative perspective to use in the aide of organizing information for teachers and staff.
🥳 Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! 👏
🗣Shout out to: Taylor Mali- you're an inspiration thank you for lending your words to us tonight!
💻Find us on the World Wide Web
Contact the IT TEACHERS! theitteachers@gmail.com
💙 Follow the IT TEACHERS on TWITTER! @TheITTeachers
📖 Follow the IT Teachers on Facebook! @TheITTeachers
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🎵 by Infraction: Uppbeat
In Season 2 Episode 6 The IT Teachers' Podcast, Alicia and Haley discuss the the new additions to Google Docs and give some shout-outs to oldies but goodies.
🎙Alicia and Haley Discuss:🎙
- Pageless Docs
- Citations
- WaterMark
- Emoji Reaction
- Building Blocks
- Meeting Notes
- Email Draft
- Voice Typing
- Viewing Equation Tool Bar
💻Find us on the World Wide Web
Contact the IT TEACHERS! theitteachers@gmail.com
💙 Follow the IT TEACHERS on TWITTER! @TheITTeachers
📖 Follow the IT Teachers on Facebook! @TheITTeachers
In Season 2 Episode 5 of The IT Teachers' Podcast, Alicia and Haley take the proverbial trip down memory lane 🛣 and reflect🪞on how they got to be teachers of technology.
Get to know Alicia and Haley during their chat-session! 🙋🏻♀️ 🗣
🎙 Join Alicia and Haley in their next Podcast, when they offer you some useful tech tools to use in your classroom, right away!
💻Find us on the World Wide Web
Contact the IT TEACHERS! theitteachers@gmail.com
💙 Follow the IT TEACHERS on TWITTER! @TheITTeachers
📖 Follow the IT Teachers on Facebook! @TheITTeachers
In Episode 4 of Season 2, Alicia and Haley talk to Christie, a special educator with nearly two decades of experience at the secondary level, to gain valuable insights about how to best support all students with forward thinking and an emphasis on positive outcomes. Along with her excellent, expert advice about the importance of building and maintaining relationships and what to do if a student has a behavioral break-down, Christie shares with the IT Teachers some excellent tech tools she uses with great success.
👷♀️ Build Relationships
- Listen more than you talk
- Collaborative Problem Solving technique by Dr. Ross Greene (Lost at School)
- Every kid is different! Drop preconceived notions at the door and figure out what each kid needs
- Be Genuine
🚨 Managing Meltdowns
- Follow any and all Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs)
- Consider a whole class phone break every 20-25 minutes for 5 minutes
- Be FAIR and OPEN to what the kids need
- REMAIN CALM
- Collaborative Problem Solving
💻 Technology for Special Education
- 🚀 Transition planning
- Free Sites to support students taking steps after high school (links below)
- Using Google Slides for a student progress portfolio
- 📈 For Data Collection!
- Google Forms!
- Check-in / Check-Out Form
- General Education Feedback
- Maintain records to support positive outcomes
- Smart Goals and Reflections
- Student-Created Self-Checks
- Google Forms!
👏 Special Thanks to Christie! We enjoyed having you on our show! 👏 ----more----
Resources Mentioned in Episode:
- Dr. Ross Greene Text: Lost at School (Collaborative Problem Solving)
- O Net Online: Interest survey to find out what jobs match your interests
- Education Planner: Learning styles surveys
- Career One Stop
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🎉 Thank you to all our special educators who work with our students every day to promote positive change! 🎉
💻 Visit the IT Teachers
💙 Follow us on Twitter @TheITTeachers
🎶 Theme Music: Infraction- Uppbeat
During Season 2 Episode 3 of The IT Teachers' Podcast, Alicia and Haley explore the Education Management Platform: Go Guardian Join Alicia and Haley as they discuss: ✅ Convenience 🏪
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- Setting Scenes (allow only sites that you use daily and those you want to allow or disallow students to use during your class time with them each day)
- Easily change class times in the event of an assembly OR shortened day
- Configure your calendar and your classes will start automagically!
- Easily check which websites are blocked for students in your district to be sure your lessons or activities will work on student devices
- Easily block sites in the moment
✅ Classroom Communication ☎️
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- Chat feature a great perk: 1:1 facilitation or personal student needs kept private
- YOU CAN SEND A BLAST to the whole class at the same time!
- Sharing your screen! You can share your screen using Go Guardian without having to be on a Google meet!
- Can use the chat for online after school sessions and keep a record of your interactions with students
✅ Data 💻
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- Email Report- GoGuardian will email you and any recipient(s) below with an attached PDF of the report, along with an optional message from you.
- Reports include: sites used, time spent on task, etc. Great for data collection concerning student engagement
- Screen Shot student screens
✅ Tips and Tricks 💁♀️
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- Districts can offer parents/ guardians the options to monitor and set parameters regarding their student's device use
- Inquire about limiting the time frame for teachers to view screens
- Go Guardian has an excellent Help Center
- Go Guardian is always improving their platform and actively seek feedback
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🎵 by Infraction: Uppbeat
👩💻 Go Guardian
👀 The IT Teachers' Website
With its boundless applications in any classroom, Google Sites is one of the most versatile and valuable offerings within the google apps for education suite; yet, it is one of the least used by educators.
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In episode 10, Alicia and Haley talk about some of the ways they use Google sites in their classrooms and offer advice to teachers who are considering its use.
Google Sites!!
- Student portfolios are the epitome of blended learning
- Integration with other Google apps- easily embed other Google Drive files such as presentations.
- Google Sites are great for teacher websites, student projects, and e-portfolios. All files are stored in Google Drive.
- Sites is MUCH more user friendly than the old website building tools/ software… and it’s free!
- As with all Google Apps… it’s built with easy collaboration in mind
- How Google Sites differs from Google Classroom
- Packaging units and including online texts
- Easier to organize materials than in Google Classroom
- Share common materials among grade level teams
- Teacher communication with home
- Students use as portfolio throughout the year can continue to add throughout their educational career
- Students can the platform for project based learning
- Sites has TEMPLATES!
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Alicia and Haley are excited to welcome a guest speaker next week on the IT Teachers' Podcast. Christie will join us and explore what technology integration offers for special education students.
Thanks for joining The IT Teachers!
Check out the IT Teachers' website: www.theitteachers.com
Be a Guest Speaker on the IT Teachers' Podcast!
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🎵 credit: Uppbeat by Infraction
Alicia and Haley are back in the swing of things for Season TWO!
After a year and a half of distance, remote, and blended learning, schools are back in person.
Alicia and Haley review some of the tools that made the cut- working perfectly for whole-class in person teaching and learning.
In this episode Alicia and Haley will review:
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Google Classroom
- communication strategies
- organization
- consist expectations
- Mote
- Jamboard
- digital citizenship
- collaboration
- YouTube
- ScreenCastify
- Google Sites
- More to come in Season 2 Episode 2
Connect with us: Join our PLN
Visit us: WWW.THEITTEACHERS.COM
🎶 Theme Music Shout-Out: Uppbeat by Infraction
Happy Digital Citizenship Week from The IT Teachers!
In this podcast Alicia and Haley talk about some ways you can incorporate Digital Citizenship into your classroom and give you a few tools and sites to check out.
Digital Citizenship is Standard 2 of the ISTE standards. It's important! Contact the IT Teachers if you have any questions about how to make Digital Citizenship part of your classroom.
Theiteachers@gmail.com
Visit our Website: The IT Teachers' Website
In Episode 7 of The IT Teacher's Podcast- Tech Toolbox: The PlyWood, Alicia and Haley explore a useful tool called CLASSROOMSCREEN.COM
Classroomscreen.com is simple and easy-to-use - just like plywood. Although we may not necessarily consider "plywood" to be a tool, plywood is versatile and can be used for all kinds of structural, interior, and exterior applications. Just like plywood, classroomscreen.com can be used throughout your lesson from start to finish. You can prepare up to three screens to "pre-set" the screen OR you can easily pull up the turn-key widgets.
It's Free. (With an option to upgrade to PRO) It's great for all grades and subjects.
ALL SUBJECT AREAS ALL GRADES Whether you're IN school or REMOTE You can project the screen if you're in school
Specifics: Grab students' attention and engage them with a dynamic photo that connects to your lesson Time management with the clock, calendar, timer, stopwatch, and traffic light Ease of transitions with the timer, stopwatch, and traffic light Create random groups using dice or name sorter Provide cues that students become familiar with Keep students on track
Try it out for yourself or watch our video for specific support with how to use this tool and ideas for how you can use the different widgets that are available with this tool. We are excited about this tool and we are using it!
Visit the IT Teachers' Website For More Information! TheITteachers.com
This Episode is also available on our YouTube Channel:
The IT Teachers' YouTube Channel!
In Episode 6 of the IT Teachers' Podcast: CommonCurriculum.com, Alicia and Haley discuss Commoncurriculum.com as a great tool for teachers to lesson plan. Alicia and Haley review how to get started and discuss some of the key components of Commoncurriculum.com and why it's such a great tool to "Tighten your Teaching!"
- Lesson Planning
- Lesson Plan templates
- Searching Lessons for Keywords
- Common Core Standards
- ISTE Standards
- Flexible Templates
- Flexible Scheduling
- Bumping Classes
- Hiding Classes
- Snow Days
- Hybrid
- Collaborating
- with Instructional Leaders/ Administrators/Department Heads
- Co-Teachers
- Students
- Families
- And more!
Visit the IT Teachers' Website For More Information! Click Here.
This Episode is also available on our YouTube Channel:
The IT Teachers' YouTube Channel!
In Episode 5 The IT Teachers' Podcast: Book Review: Don't Ditch That Tech, Alicia and Haley review Don't Ditch That Tech, Differentiated Instruction in a Digital World- an instructional technology go-to written by Matt Miller, Angelia Ridgway, PHD, and Nate Ridgway. Alicia and Haley talk about what makes this text so awesome and what they like about the way the book helps educators to think outside the box and urges them to differentiate... not ditch... their tech!
Check-out The IT Teachers' Website!
This Episode is also available on:
The IT Teachers' YouTube Channel!
In Episode 4 The IT Teachers' Podcast: The Glue- debrief of Google For Education's Anywhere School, Alicia and Haley outline their major "take-aways" from Google for Education's Anywhere School Virtual Conference held on 8.11.2020.
The IT Teachers discuss:
- Problem Driven Learning
- Inquiry Based Learning
- Voice and Choice
- Accessibility
- Google Docs updates
- Google Classroom updates
- Google Lens
- Google's Tech Toolkit for Families and Guardians
- Chrome OS
- Google Chromebook App Hub
- Learning First
- Teaching as a Journey
- Growth Mindset
- Process over Product
- Using Google Search as a tool
- & some more awesome tidbits
Visit the IT Teachers' Website For More Information! Click Here.
In Episode 3,Tech Toolbox: The Hammer Fall(s) 2020, Alicia and Haley get down to business and talk about a gem of a tool, Voicethread.com.
This Episode is also available on our YouTube Channel:
The IT Teachers' YouTube Channel!
Among some other enlightening ideas, Alicia and Haley discuss how Voice Thread can be used in the classroom from both teaching and learning vantage points.
Alicia and Haley discuss:
- Voice, video, and images in Voice Thread
- Comments have a bunch of options- share it and it is a living space you can make it public or keep it private
- Helps to differentiate for students to give their own findings
- You can use it to create a dynamic explanation video
- Jigsawing for students
- Can read a story (students OR teachers- OR guests!)
- Compiling - like a gallery walk
- Asynchronous learning
- Type or talk
- Call in guests to comment
- Good for health, art, math science- heck… it’s good for everything!- story plot diagram- the possibilities are endless
USE what the kids like or are used to- to create lessons and assignments that will make it easier for them to be engaged!
Watch a Voicethread.com Tutorial by the IT Teachers: Click Here
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Would you like to join our PLN? Click here.
Visit the IT Teachers’ Website for all the latest ways to integrate technology into your classroom.
In Episode 2 of The IT Teachers' Podcast: Be the Solution! Clarity, Transparency, Collaboration, & Setting Expectations, Alicia and Haley discuss how to plan using big ideas for the return to school in the fall of 2020.
Next, Alicia and Haley discuss the following big ideas:
- Clarity, Boundaries, and Expectations
- How to be part of the solution?
- How to deal with CHAOS!
- Collaborating with colleagues- and getting on the same page with administrators and technology departments.
- Following laws and being mindful of digital citizenship
- Use Google Forms to start!
- Get in touch with your administration to figure out how to best help your learners use technology
- Propose a “Technology PotLuck!”
- Remember to start with the why and what.
- Flexible Seating- being mindful of the physical set-up and safety for all.
- Have Tech Drive!
- Clarity- how to be sure that our expectations are clear- get on the same page.
- Use UDL!
- Learning First, Technology Second
- Homework: VoiceThread
Would you like to be a guest on our podcast? Click HERE!
Click here to join our PLN
Visit the IT Teachers' Website for ways to integrate
technology into your classroom.
In Episode 1 of the IT Teachers' 2020 Summer Edition, Alicia and Haley reflect and discuss the spring of 2020 and offer some insight surrounding the future of education and technology's role moving forward. Alicia and Haley remind students, parents, educators, and administrators to BE KIND to themselves and each other. We can do it!
Next, Alicia and Haley offer some words of wisdom and suggestions concerning how to organize your class for online instruction in the fall of 2020. They include some tricks to break the ice, call upon teachers to reflect, prepare, organize, and check-in with students. Throughout this episode, Alicia and Haley suggest programs to facilitate a smooth integration of technology into your classroom, and project a reminder to BE KIND!
The final part of Episode 1 of The IT Teachers' Podcast: Back to School or not Back To School? That is the Question, discusses how to use different tools in your classroom. These tools can be used while distance learning and/or while back in the building.
Alicia and Haley remind you to collaborate with your coworkers and administration and always be kind to yourself.
We can do I.T.!
Would you like to be a guest on our podcast? CLICK HERE!
Click here to join our PLN