We’re working on a lot of fun things this year at my school. I’m most excited about our professional development plan. Our staff book study is Will Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. We’re not necessarily going in order, but using it as the outline for our professional development his year.
We decided to start out with podcasts. I spent a week training teachers. Each created a short recording about their favorite children’s books. Hopefully we’ll get them posted soon. I loved how we decided to do the trainings this week. Rather than a large group, I went to each of their Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) meetings this week. We worked in a small group and could focus on their grade level. It was perfect. Now we’re working on integrating a project with podcasts into their curriculum. The plan is to have a staff meeting at the end of October where everyone will share what they’ve done with their students.
We’ll repeat this model a couple of times the rest of the year as we explore these tools and how we can best use them with our students. Should make for a busy and exciting year!