The last month has been a time of celebration and love as many celebrated Valentine’s Day and the euphoria surrounding the ideal of love. During the month, I spent a lot of time reflecting…not about how much I love my husband (which I do) but how much I love education!
When I set out for college and my career of choice, I was determined to be a powerful accountant for a large company. After graduating with my BBA and getting a great accounting job, I soon found that I wanted to make a difference rather than make a lot of money for someone else. I knew that I loved kids and cherished my education. After losing my job, I entered a Master’s program in education and the rest is history! In the last 10 years, I have spent many hours/days learning and researching as much as I could about education. While I believe great educators have mastered an art, I do believe there is much science that can be used to benefit the art.
Why do I love education?
1. I LOVE the ability to make a difference in the lives of children!
2. I LOVE the ability to make a difference in the lives of educators!
3. I LOVE working with teachers passionate about teaching children and making them better people.
4. I LOVE sharing things I have learned with others and seeing the light bulb come on and excitement generated!
5. I LOVE engaging in conversations regarding the improvement of our education system and providing a richer learning environment for students.
I am currently at a mobile learning conference that I will blog about soon. I have been surrounded by passionate educators and people that want to make a difference in education. To move past the rhetoric of what why we need to change, perhaps we should first reflect on the reasons we work in education! I hope you will share with me and others regarding the reasons you LOVE education! I hope this will not only serve as an inspiration for your day-to-day passion, I hope it will lead to deeper discussions regarding how we can embrace the students that are entering our schools today and help prepare them for their world!
Posted in Random Tagged: education, learning, reform March 1, 2011
With looming budget shortfalls and an increase need for technology in the classroom, we must share opportunities to continue to put technology in the hands of our students. Below are two opportunities that I received today via email. Good luck!
The Win a Wireless Lab sweepstakes
Who: Public and private school teachers, administrators, school technology specialists and district employees
What: Ninth-annual sweepstakes awards three grand prizes of 21st-century classrooms from CDW-G and Discovery Education. Some of the prizes include a $5,000 digital media grant from Discovery Education, 20 notebook or tablet computers, and three wireless access points.
When: January 3 through May 6.
Where: Online
How: Applicants can enter the contest once a day online at http://www.discoveryeducation.com/cdwg or from the entry page, where they can post about the contest on Twitter. The Twitter method doubles their entry each day.
Why: “Educators today are challenged to create digital learning environments that mirror how students interact with the world outside the classroom,” said Mary Rollins, vice president of education partnerships at Discovery Education. “The Win a Wireless Lab sweepstakes gives schools the chance to win the hardware, content and training that empower educators to meet today’s 21st-century students in the digital world in which they live and learn.”
The Follett Challenge
Who: Private and public school librarians who actively champion an information literacy-based school program for students
What: A contest that awards prizes to school libraries that do the best job of applying technology, content and creativity in ways that engage students and foster literacy and critical thinking.
Five prizes, including a $35,000 first place prize and a sixth $10,000 prize will be awarded. Prizes will be good toward Follett products and services.
When: February 1 through June 1. Video voting begins June 23
Where: Online
How: Complete an application and submit a 3 to 5 minute video describing the program
Why: “A library’s ability to improve student performance depends in large part on the resources made available to them,” said Chuck Follett, President and CEO of Follett Corporation. “Through this challenge, we’re committed to drawing attention to the undeniable connection between well-run libraries and student performance to ensure that one of our most important educational resources receives the attention and funding it deserves.”
Posted in Uncategorized January 11, 2011
As we start a new year, I have been reflecting on what a great year 2010 was for me professionally! I have started a new job that I enjoy and am remaining challenged in work and school. I am so thankful for many things in my life! To express my thanks to my readers and the great educators that are creating content, I wanted to share my Top 10 for 2010:
Top Educational Videos:
1. I Need My Teachers to Learn – Great points!
2. A Vision of K-12 Students Today – Not new but still great!
Top Internet Tools:
3. Dropbox – Use it to store research for my doctoral program, share files with others and between computers.
4. Google Docs – Collaborate with others on office documents and share between computers.
Top Web 2.0 Tools:
5. Livebinders – Create a digital binder of your favorite resources or search for binders for use in your classroom.
6. Animoto – Create custom videos from photos in seconds!
Top Resource Sharing Blogs and Wikis:
7. Free Technology for Teachers – Excellent resource for teachers looking for new classroom technology.
8. Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day – Great websites and a must see Best Of series.
9. Cools Tools for Schools – A wiki full of websites to use in the classroom!
Best Place to Build Your PLN (Personal Learning Network):
10. The Educator’s PLN – Great place to connect with other educators and find great resources.
This is definitely not an all-inclusive list, but it does reflect the 10 places I go to regularly to gather or create resources. You can always visit http://kristastechtidbits.pbworks.com/ to find more sites that I have explored if you are interested. If you are new to technology in education, I do hope that you will take a few minutes and visit the sites you aren’t familiar with:)
Happy 2011! I hope it’s another great one!
Posted in Random ,Web 2.0 January 3, 2011
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