Summer Training Happened so Fast…
Written on June 14, 2009 – 5:22 pm | by Shelly Terrell
Photo adapted from Flickr by kevindooley licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
Lately, I have been reading about some exciting summer plans from my Personal Learning Network (PLN). The summer theme seems to be set in improving instructional techniques by learning to integrate technology effectively into the curriculum. Therefore, I will post a few of these ideas as well as a few that I will be doing this summer. Please share your summer development plans! These plans do not have to be focused on technology integration. These plans can also be focused on personal goals. For those who are still searching for some ideas on ways to be productive this summer, please enjoy these options!
Summer Programs
1. Webinars
My first goal is to attend several of the free webinars sponsored by Edublogs and Classroom 2.0. Attending a webinar is an interactive and fun process of learning how to use various technologies. So far, I have learned how to use html to improve my blog, met a famous author, and learned how to use other cool tools! Moreover, you meet some very wonderful people at the webinars. Below is a calendar of webinar events held by Edublogs and Classroom 2.0. For more information on the events, please visit the following sites:
Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the first session of this summer camp for educators, which starts June 22nd and lasts till July 21st. However, the camp looks like a lot of fun! The camp will show you how to set-up a wikipage and use wikis for educational purposes. Register for the free camp by clicking on the title.
In order to learn more about Web 2.0 tools, I decided to take this free Moodle course. The course can be downloaded from this website, just click on the title.
Edufire is offering several free and reasonably priced classes. I put this as a link because some like the one I am teaching on using Twitter are free and open to teachers. Another teacher development class is being offered by the E-Teacher’s Academy. The E-Teacher’s Academy is recommended by The English Teacher who provides all the details in her post, E-Teacher’s Academy.
Furthermore, you will find several classes on how to create great PowerPoint presentations, use various web tools, and more! Edufire is also great for personal development. I registered for free with Edufire just a few weeks ago and already I have learned how to conduct an online class, speak beginner Japanese phrases, and make a video tutorial. I plan on taking more language classes this summer and teaching some more classes as well!
5. Free e-books
I plan on taking advantage of this wonderful collection of free e-books. Already, I have downloaded Effective Teaching with Internet Technologies by Alan Pritchard.
Your boot camp challenge for this week:
Add your personal development ideas to this post. If you choose to use one of these ideas, please blog about the experience and I will connect this to my post. If you do not have a blog, then I would be happy to have you host your post here!
What are your summer development plans? Please, contact me to share these ideas on a future post!
Tags: blogging, classes, development, e-learning, edtech, educationtechnology, EFL, ESL, free, howto, moodle, pln, summerplans, teachertraining, technology, web2.0, webinars, wiki
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6 Responses to “Summer Training Happened so Fast…”
Dear Shelly, Thanks for the tips. If you feel like discussing Moodle drop me a line. I’ve taught a few classes with it and have my own site set up that you can look at if you like. But since I don’t market courses and my clients aren’t keen on logging in, I rarely use it. I wrote this up for MELTA in the Ask Auntie Web column/now blog: http://askauntieweb.blogspot.com/2009/04/moodle.html
!
Keep dry in this soppy weather
Anne
[Reply]
shellterrell Reply:
June 15th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Anne,
I will definitely be dropping you a line. I plan on blogging about all my experiences with these technologies and adding expert advice. I have played around with some of the features but haven’t put it into practice, yet. So far, my favorite Moodle feature is the ability to comment on writing errors!
[Reply]
For ideas about summer projects, there’s a Professional Development Meme that’s been going around, where teachers blog about their plans to beef up their skills over the summer. Here’s my response, and you can click on the links in the post to see some others:
http://siobhancurious.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/professional-development-meme-2009/
[Reply]
shellterrell Reply:
June 15th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
siobhan curious,
I read this today and really think your Meme is a great idea for motivating teachers to accomplish their professional development goals. I will definitely include this link and information about this Meme on an addendum to this post!
[Reply]
siobhan curious Reply:
June 16th, 2009 at 7:58 am
@shellterrell, Thanks! Note, though, that I didn’t develop this meme; I just responded to it. I provide a link at the beginning that tracks back to (I believe) the original creator. I think it’s a great initiative!
[Reply]