Passion Projects

What an amazing week!

This Wednesday I presented a session at the EdTech Conference held at VCU in Richmond, VA titled "Bring JOY to the Classroom with Passion Projects" where I showcased passion projects of first graders in my school. (For my presentation link, and more information about passion projects, click here.)

The session went well, with lots of laughter and joy scattered about (thanks to everyone who tweeted out comments on #edtechrva - you ROCK!) I loved learning more about the passions of the session participants (shown on this Padlet) then sharing the passions of our students. When the session ended, many participants stayed behind to continue the conversation and ask more questions which was great!

Just this week, I noticed another class diving into passion projects, with a random act of kindness theme:

Of COURSE, I wanted to sponsor a student! What a wonderful project that would have a direct impact on others! I contacted the teacher on Twitter for a mailing address, then stopped by Walmart to pick up a couple pair of socks. Today, after the conference I put passion projects into motion as I mailed off my contribution.

It brings such joy to my soul to know that young people are investing their time and creativity into helping others. What a divine purpose indeed! I'm also thankful for teachers like Mr. Leonard who recognize the power and potential of embracing young students' passions.

A shout-out to all the fantastic people who helped organize and facilitate this year's EdTech conference! Thanks to your hard work, educators such myself can learn, grow, and share the wonderful things we are doing in and out of the classroom! Kudos!

Leadership Conference

Welcome to my very first blog post in our district domain! I'm excited that my school district is moving forward with GAFE (Google Apps For Education) as this will allow the teachers, students, and district leaders the ability to collaborate on more projects and activities.

Understandably, much of my summer has been spent preparing professional development sessions for teachers and administrators. At the beginning of August, my ITRT team provided training for district leaders during their annual Leadership Conference. On Day 1, our team of 10 provided 2 hour training sessions on Google Drive, Docs, Slides, Calendar, Sheets and Forms. Administrators were given the opportunity to choose the content and level that best fit their needs and we split up into pairs to provide information and support.  Leaders could choose two sessions: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. When leaders were not in our sessions, they were receiving additional information about district policies and initiatives.

Day 2 expanded the learning with additional options of content integration, some of which used Google products and some that did not. I was thrilled to present my version of "Teach Like a Pirate" based on the best-selling book by Dave Burgess. As a hook to my presentation, I dressed like a pirate and offered participants colored beads that later became a sorting process for small group selection.

The session was a blast! Administrators left with smiles on their faces, many chatting about the things they learned in this session. It was only a 45 minute overview of Dave Burgess' book for elementary leaders, but WOW - it was inspiring in so many ways! Principals were engaged in conversation with one another and asking our district Library Media Specialist where they could purchase the book. (Even more exciting, several principals decided to use this as their school-wide theme next year!)

My afternoon sessions focused on blogging across content areas and was focused on secondary leaders. Those of you who follow my Random Act of Kindness blog know how much I enjoy sharing my stories for a global audience; you can only imagine how passionate I am about teachers and students doing the same!

I have two more PD days at the end of August, where I will support my ITRT team with more Google training and present on blogging as well as harnessing social media for professional development, then we dive right in to a brand new school year! I'm looking forward to blogging about all the adventures!