POWER Zone Innovators

Students are always eager to make connections with school and teachers outside of school, but there is a spotlight on keeping those connections appropriate.                                                     This year, I've incorporated social media into my classroom to allow students to make those connections outside of school. I have a class Instagram page and Twitter hashtag that I've been using. Students can share with me or see what's new by following the hashtag. It took me almost the entire school year to relinquish some of my control a bit and allow students to post to the class social media outlets, but it was worth it.  My job tags. The coffee cups are seat numbers. Jobs are assigned by seat locations. Job assignments change daily. Allowing students to somewhat "run" these accounts were always the plan but sometimes it is h...

Last weekend I had the privilege of presenting at my third EdtechTeam Summit.  As an educator, you may know of these as GAFE Summits ( #gafesummit ). GAFE stands for Google Apps For Education. Since Google has rebranded their apps as the GSuite for Education there's not a sweet acronym that can be used anymore. The Edtech team has had to rebrand their summit name as well ( #edtechteam ). I attended my first summit in the fall of 2015 at Monarch High School in Boulder, CO. This is where I learned about OrangeSlice , ActivelyLearn , Symbaloo , and so much more.  I also learned, I had a wealth of knowledge to share myself.  There are things I have learned in my classroom from trial and error.  I am able to share these ideas with others via my blog , Twitter , TeacherspayTeachers , and at summits. How does one become a presenter? First, if you've never attended a summit, I would recommend attending one.  Get to know the format of the sessions and enjoy a weeke...

Hello, colleagues! I read an excellent  blog post from Bill Ferriter . It really made me think about my curriculum; what is worthwhile and what is mindless.  "Inane tasks are the norm rather than the exception to the rule in the lives of students. It’s reading truncated excerpts of obscure non-fiction works and answering multiple choice question after multiple choice question. It’s solving questions 14-33 on page 86 of the textbook and showing your work. It’s making YET another PowerPoint for YET another class — and then delivering YET another five minute presentation to your peers on some topic that you are going to forget before the end of the month. Worse yet, inspiring tasks are like white rhinoceroses: Oddities that are rarely seen, long remembered, and hunted by darn near everyone." I have to say - no one is complete at perfecting their curriculum. No one "has it down" and no one is doing it right all the time. Every teacher knows that at some point, ...

The POWER Zone is thrilled to introduce our Innovator Blog, which will serve as a platform for educators within our Zone to find their voice, share ideas, resources, successes and first attempts.   Follow along as teachers from around the POWER Zone take over each week with a new and exciting post.  Want to contribute? Fill out this FORM .