This is yet another week of lots of PD opportunities. The district has a PD day on Friday; today is the first of 3 days of FETC, and today also features NewsLit Camp with CNN. Leslie Fisher is offering 3 webinars this week. Edweb is offering 6 webinars, ranging from STEM to equity, diversity and reading complex texts. So, having one Zoom link open in the background seems to be the way this week is going to roll. But, I wanted to focus on a three really good professional development opportunities I had last week and today. I attended Leslie Fisher's Friday night webinar on notetaking, featuring Knowt and attended quite a few math Fun Factor webinars as well. Media Literacy is something I firmly believe we all need more of, and NewsLitCamps are always informative. Fun Factor MathFirst, Fun Factor Math. I read about Fun Factor in my newsfeed from Smithsonian Tween Tribune. Essentially, they are offering free math PD to K-5 educators, using hands-on materials to teach and reinforce math concepts. The really cool part is that they are also willing to send you the materials to use in your class. The 3 main tenets are: Make it hands-on. Make it engaging. Make it memorable. You can read more about it here. This link will bring you to the current schedule with various webinars listed by grade bands/topics. What I liked about it was the ability to take these lessons and be able to use them whether you are in person, hybrid or remotely. Teaching these concepts in a hands-on manner really helps so many children. One other thing that you will notice if you sign up for any of these webinars, is that they also sprinkle the research findings throughout, as well as offer you a slide deck, and complete directions along with the demo and the materials. Fun Factor is well worth checking out, offering various days and times to suit most. In addition to the Fun Factor math lessons, they also have a Crazy Eights math club with more activities. Oh, and they have an app! Bedtime Math is free. Check it out here. You can also contact them to run a family math night. KnowtI really enjoyed the latest Friday night webinar with Leslie Fisher. This was on tools for note-taking, with a deep dive on Knowt. There are so many tools to help students take notes. I learn something new every time. I had read Richard Byrne's post on Knowt, and talked about it briefly here, back in November, but having the creator of Knowt talk about and show his product...wow! You can see the webinar on demand through the end of the week, here , but only thru 1/29/21-Friday morning 7 am PST. This tool has great possibilities for both educators and students. Teachers can take their notes, or even copy from a website and automatically generate flashcards, quizzes and more. The data you can get is so helpful, showing you how much time your students spend on the quiz question, enabling you to immediately use the data to help re-teach or clarify topics that your students need help on. You can use premade assignments, reconfigure assignments, differentiate assignments and so much more. It is integrated with Google Classroom. It is free. It is being developed every day by students who are still in college as well as Abheek Pandoh, the CEO, who recently graduated from Rutgers. This will link you to the Knowt Team YouTube channel, where you will find full hour webinars, but also a host of short and sweet FAQ tutorials to quickly answer questions. Just need a little help setting up your class- check this quick tutorial link. Finally, a quick repeat of Richard Byrne's video. Newslit Camp with CNNThis is the second NewsLit Camp I have attended. The events of the last several months have reinforced the need for media literacy to be taught in schools. If you need to learn more, click here for the Playlist of Professional Development videos from News Literacy Project. The video featured below is just one of 8 sessions. John Silva and Shaelynn Farnsworth will be presenting tomorrow- 1/27/21 on edweb about conspiracy theories. Resource Folder: bit.ly/NLCResources Highlites of/links from sessions I attended:
Ideas to ShareChristine Dixon over at Make, Design, Innovate has recently offered some fantastic STEAM choice boards on her site. From K/1 thru Grade 5, she and Marla @teachseuss have created Choice Boards to help students- Watch, Make, Create, Learn and Play. You can read all about them and download your own copies here.
1 Comment
Erin Beckett
1/28/2021 08:00:18 am
So great, as always.
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AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
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