If You Are Happy and You Know It, Show Your Badge!

Think back to March 2020 when life changed overnight. You went to bed on a Thursday evening like normal, but woke up on Friday the 13th to find out that school had been cancelled or moved to remote learning. As the days continued, anxious feelings about the health of others, and the daily struggle of engaging and empowering students remotely became the new normal. To overcome these struggles, you unleashed your superhero powers by learning more about resources, methods, and strategies to ensure continued learning for your students.

You watched everything from YouTube videos on how to schedule a post in Google Classroom to Instagram Reels on how to manipulate objects in Google Slides. You pushed through long and tiring nights of learning new methods, so that your students can succeed through these hard times.

Boring to Brilliant: How to Enhance Your Webinars

Are people really burning out from too many webinars or are they burning out from boring webinars? This question was the focus of a webinar I recently attended called “Seven Secrets to Avoiding a Boring Webinar” hosted by the American Marketing Association.

One of the first topics the presenter discussed was human interaction. Our old style of face-to-face professional learning worked well because we could interact with our audience. If we noticed they were not engaged, we could adjust our presentation accordingly. Unfortunately, right now, many of us are missing the many benefits of human interaction.

Top 10 Posts from 2020, You May Have Missed!

What a year! Although it may have seemed like the longest and worst year yet…I think we can all agree that some good has come out of it. Yes, you might have to dig hard to find the good, but it is there. 

In my personal life it has been great getting to spend time with my kids. We explored Michigan and spent countless hours doing puzzles. In your classroom, I am sure that there are some things that you cannot wait to return to normal, but I think we have all learned new and interesting ways to teach to students remotely. Although we are still learning and navigating this new world we live in, we can all still take time to reflect on all that we can be thankful for.

Remote Learning Resources

This past spring, Kent ISD assembled a Remote Learning Implementation Support Team to assist districts in implementing the many components of their Continuity of Learning Plans. The following weeks, the team put together several blog posts on the following topics: Communication, Digital Access, Feedback, and Engagement.

At the time we had no idea that we would continue to face the pandemic at the start of the 2020/2021 school year. Now many of us are back to school, in a face to face atmosphere  preparing for the possibility of remote learning, or already in a remote learning environment. With this in mind, I wanted to make sure that the tools created last spring to support you were not lost. The information shared last spring is just as valuable now as it was during that time.

Reinventing Your Classroom with Professional Learning Maps and Modules

GELN (General Education Leadership Network) Continuity of Learning Task Force has created an Asynchronous Professional Learning Map. These maps are specifically designed to support schools and districts for the 2020-21 school year – as we reinvent ourselves during the COVID-19 global pandemic.