Hello Everyone!
My name is Sue and I wear many hats in both my job and my life. A common theme that I see running throughout all aspects of what I do, whether it is for work or play: technology.
As an educator in the role of Director of Supervision and Training for Learning Exchange, technology has been and continues to be a critical tool for me to use on a daily basis. In terms of supervision, I rely on Outlook to facilitate communication with my staff via email and shared calendars. When it comes to delivering training for new staff and staff development throughout the year I have used presentation tools, such as Power Point and an interactive whiteboard technology called mimio, to create visual as well as hands on support. While I believe these tools have been useful and effective in the past, I find that I want to expand my repertoire and freshen things up for my staff and for my own professional development. It is time for me to take it to the next level! I look forward to gaining experience and fluency in the use of blogs, vrooms and continued integration of whiteboard technologies to keep my staff supported, engaged and excited about the work they do with our Title I students.
Learning Exchnage, the company I work for, advocates 21st century learning for both the teachers we employ and the students who participate in our programs. Technological literacy is one of many 21st century skills we integrate into our lessons, but we are still in the learning process of figuring out the most effective application in our supplemental program. I hope that through my coursework in the MEIT program I will be able to help guide and support our company's mission of devloping 21st century learners, as well as help our teachers toward continued professional growth in this area.
Although we are just getting started in this journey, I can already see the benefits of what I have learned--in the matter of a week I have created my first vroom, used Google Docs for the first time in a collaborative manner and I am now making my initial post on a the first blog I've ever created! Talk about exploring new territory. I look forward to all of the "firsts" to come over the course of the next two years or so, and I anticipate that I will be pushed out of my comfort zone regularly; but I welcome the challenge! Stay tuned...
Sue -
ReplyDeleteI think that there are quite a few of us who will have "firsts" in this program. I am happy to see that you have a Mimio. We just ordered one for this year. I am interested to see how you like it. I was excited because we (the other librarian and I) wanted to keep our whiteboard to write on. You can't, or rather shouldn't, do that with a SmartBoard. We also liked the fact that the Mimio was cheaper and still used the SmartBoard notebook tools. Since I haven't been in the classroom yet this year, I don't know how it is working. I hope to hear that you have had much success with it!
Hopefully much of this program will have you excited with ways to engage the learners you work with. How familiar are you with 21st Century Skills?
ReplyDeleteSarah, the company I work for is actually an authorized reseller of mimio. I am not part of the sales team, but I have been using it for a while now in my trainings and presentations that I do with my staff and I like it a lot and can see the benefits of using it in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteLouis, I am quite familiar with 21st century skills and believe that as educators it is so important to teach students these skills that are so critical for their success in the classroom and beyond. We have started the new school year with an organization-wide effort to integrate 21st century skills into all lesson plans for all ages and subject areas. Each month we will choose a main skill to work on and then the teachers will apply the theme in a way that is appropriate for their students (age, ability, etc.).
Sue, great first post. I'm here to comment on your blog and the only thing that I can think of saying is maybe you could add a hyperlink to the Learning Exchange so that we can find out more about that Organization. Other than that I believe that your post is perfect!
ReplyDeleteWill
Sue, I'm with you on firsts! Hopefully we will be able to manage them all well!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious as to what mimo is. Is it similar to the SmartBoard and Promethan Board Technology? What requirements do you need to use it?
Allie,
ReplyDeleteYes, mimio is comparable to Smart or Promethian. It is a portable interactive whiteboard technology that basically can make any flat surface interactive as long as you have the bar, a projector and a computer/laptop. It uses a stylus, instead of your finger to manipulate images on the screen and you can also use styli with dry erase markers for a way to capture notes made on the whiteboard--they can then be posted on a classroom blog as a reference to the lesson taught that day (for example). I could go on :) if you are interested in seeing what it looks like, you could check it out at www.mimio.com