Hello, Wonderful Listeners! Thanks for tuning in for another episode of #dcsdtransforms – the best 10-minute edtech conversation you’ll hear all week! This week we are highlighting Know Recorder (click here to learn more). It’s a great white board app for your iPad to record, annotate, and share lessons with your students and colleagues. Our shout-out this week goes to Janet Davis at Thornwell School for the Arts because she is blogging with her SECOND GRADERS!!! Wow! And in the out-takes, you’ll learn all about Carla getting bifocals and Rhett’s “Dad of the Year” award. Hope you enjoy this week’s episode, and thanks for listening!
Author Archives: Mrs. Jeff
#dcsdtransforms episode 50: The Fantastic Fifty!
OH NO! So sorry, loyal listeners! We were doing really well with getting our episode lengths so close to 10 minutes, and then poof! We went and shattered the longest episode mark by 15 minutes! But we have good news for you – while it may be long, we think you are really going to enjoy this episode. This week, Carla and I have the privilege of sitting down with some amazing people in DCSD so that they could share their thoughts with us. We have Mr. Josh Bastean, one of the instructional technology specialists, Mrs. Diane Sigmon, the director of technology, and Dr. Eddie Ingram, our superintendent. Together, they will be sharing their thoughts with where we have been over the last year and a half (the time it took us to reach 50 episodes) and where we are going with regard to technology in the district. We also have a shoutout to Heather Dyar at DHS. Please join us this week for a great conversation!
#dcsdtransforms episode 42: The Second Annual Thank-tacular Edition!
Welcome back to another fun and exciting episode of #dcsdtransforms! For the second year in a row, we are doing an episode discussing all the many ways we have to be thankful to be DCSD employees! And of course, we have a few thanksgiving apps to make your Thanksgiving a little more manageable. Thanks for joining us this week and hope you enjoy the show!
#dcsdtransforms episode 41: Back on track…sorda
Hello and welcome to another episode of #dcsdtransforms! We are back on track…well, sorda. We at least cut the episode to 17 minutes, so it won’t destroy your planning period! This week we are upping your GAME by highlighting ClassCraft, which steals some components from the RPG genre of video games to help you manage your student’s behaviors. We are also giving a shoutout to Danielle Scanlan from SMS. Please join us for the best *10 minute* edtech conversation you’ll hear all week!
#dcsdtransforms episode 40: Podcasting about Podcasting!
Welcome back for another edition of #dcsdtransforms! This week, we are podcasting about podcasting! Say what? What does that even mean? Does that have anything to do with Inception? Carla and Rhett traveled to South Carolina EdTech and presented our podcast at a workshop. We actually recorded the whole thing. So here we are, podcasting about podcasting. So it’s long, real long. Longest one ever! But it is our workshop. Would love for you to listen! The cover art is courtesy of our workshop attendees! Next week, we’ll return to our regularly scheduled program and get it down to 15 minutes or less (that’s not a promise or a guarantee, by the way!). To all of you who attended the workshop, we are grateful! Thank you for exploring the world of podcasting with us – please give us feedback and let us know what we can do to help you get your own podcast off the ground! Cheers!
#dcsdtransforms episode 39: ‘Tis but a bit!
Hello and welcome back for another episode of #dcsdtransforms! This week, we have a really cool tool called Toonytool (visit it at Tooytool.com). The cover art this week’s episode was done by Rhett in about 3 minutes using Toonytool. Check it out – it’s easy and the students will love it! The teacher shout out goes to Brittany Adams at HHS for some really great things she is doing with flipped learning! And of course you don’t want to miss our upcoming events and reminders for you, our loyal listeners!
#dcsdtransforms episode 38: Carla is a Google Certified Innovator!
Greetings and salutations, loyal listeners! First, we apologize for skipping a week – the hurricane here really threw us off with lack of power and internet and being out of school for 7 days. But never fear! We have come back with a SUPER special episode for you this week. One of our very own has become a Google Certified Innovator! So we have that celebrity in the studio (aka, conference room 6) to share her thoughts on this outstanding accomplishment and program. Who is this Titan of Teaching? This Enormity of Education? This Caped Crusader of the Classroom? Well, it is none other than our very own, CARLA JEFFERSON!!!! Please don’t be put off by the length of this podcast – it is 30 minutes well spent hearing about Carla’s experience in Toronto as a Google Certified Innovator. There are currently less than 1500 in the world! Carla will also share her thoughts with regard to what this means for DCSD. Please join us this week, and as always, thanks for listening!
Sweet Innovation – My Google Innovator Experience
The Big Daddy of Google for Education – Google Certified Innovator. An elite group of educators who have a passion for innovative teaching and learning. And now a title that I can proudly add to my resume.
It’s so hard to believe that just 2 days ago I was in the room full of amazingly brilliant people who are just as passionate about transforming teaching and learning. People who I now call my friends….my family.
Google Innovator #TOR16 Cohort
What IS a Google Innovator?
Google for Education Innovators are ambassadors for change and empower other educators and students. They want to change the world of education by tackling complex opportunities to develop new-to-the-world solutions and already foster a thriving innovation culture within their own classrooms, schools and organizations. (via the Google for Education EduTraining Center)
As part of the program, Certified Innovators receive 12 months of ongoing support for an Innovation Project that you’re passionate about, participation in an Innovation Academy, rich programming and ongoing opportunities for growth and collaboration, and access to a global community of other Innovators. The goal of the Innovation Academy is to build community and trust, create connections with Coaches and Advisors, get inspired by Googley culture, and prepare to complete their Innovation Project within 12 months. The foundation of the Innovator Program are the tenets of Transform, Advocate, and Grow.
At the Academy
The Academy is designed as a workshop to inspire and build capacity for Innovators, while giving us the opportunity to spend a great deal of time delving into our projects.
My project focused around this question:
How might we create an easily searchable space for classrooms and kids to list, find, and connect with each other through their blogs.
Check out my application here and my Vision Video and Slide Deck below:
Day 1
I arrived into Toronto around noon. Luckily, I was not alone (my mom was seriously worried about that) as #TOR16 Coach, Donnie Piercey and #TOR16 colleague David Lockhart were on the flight with me. We met up with #TOR16 coach, Rafranz Davis and #TOR16 colleague James Allen, took the train to Union Station, and had a 10 minute walk to the hotel.
After we checked in, we were able to experience the famous Canadian dish, poutine, and then prepared for our opening session.
We were welcomed by the amazing organizers, Becky Evans and Justin LeCap in addition our coaches and the many Canadians who were a part of our cohort.
We were then broken into groups and by the end of the night we had to come up with a team name, chant, and theme song for graduation. We decided on the name GSweet7. Rafranz was our coach and this is the group we completed in the challenges with.
GSweet7 #TOR16
Our graduation theme song was Macklamore and Ryan Lewis’s “Can’t Hold Us”.
Before we arrived to the academy, we’d received mini BreakoutEDU boxes that the group needed to collaborate with in order to figure out our next steps. After that we had to create our own Breakout to be used to introduce ourselves to our group.
Days 2 & 3: Sparks & Sprints
The Innovation Academy was framed by a series of Sparks and Sprints. I’m going to highlight the other two days of my experience through these two concepts.
Sparks were the sessions designed to build capacity, influence development of new projects, and otherwise “spark“ a new thought or idea.
Throughout the two days, we were treated to short sparks by our outstanding coaches: Michelle Armstrong, Sandra Chow, Rafranz Davis, Sylvia Duckworth, Jeffrey Humphries, Donnie Piercey, Afzal Shaikh – in addition to Google employees Liz Anderson (Google EDU), Prachie Banthia (Product Manager, G Suite for Education), Aaron Brindle (Head of Public Affairs, Google Canada), Becky Evans (Global Program Manager), Wendy Gorton (Program Manager), and Mark Wagner (CEO of EdTechTeam).
We created a light bulb with the use of a mason jar, pencil lead, batteries, tape, electric connectors, and a toilet paper roll. We learned (kinda….well not really) how to juggle with Donnie. Rafranz guided us along as we created our signature story. Sylvia gave us a mini Sketchnoting Bootcamp while Sandra talked to us about perspective and focus. Afzal allowed us to use his students’ littleBits kits in order to complete a mini maker challenge. Mark talked to us about passion while Michelle, Becky, Wendy, and Justin kept everything moving smoothly along.
Each of the Sparks gave us something to think about ourselves as innovators and some really neat collaborative activities. As a matter of fact, I’m very excited to implement a few of these ideas with my DCSD Digital Transformation Academy!
In addition, we even had a Spark Camp where members of our cohort shared. I shared how music and movement helps to engage learners.
Spark Camp #TOR16
Sprints were 30-minute intense and flexible work periods sprinkled throughout the two days. These work periods are specifically designed for us to push our projects forward.
We were so fortunate to have the amazing Les McBeth with us to help with the mapping out of our vision projects. We used the IDEO’s Design Thinking for Educators as the philosophical foundation to guide us through shipping our project.
Next Steps
Now I continue the work. I will choose a mentor who will assist me on my journey along with my coach. I will work to make my vision a reality. It is my goal to begin the process with teachers in my district, staring with my academy, and then growing from there. I’m looking forward to the journey ahead!
Until the next time,
#dcsdtransforms episode 37: Carla and Rhett eat a carolina reaper pepper (ok, not really)
Hey Everyone! Welcome to another episode of #dcsdtransforms. In this episode, we do NOT eat a carolina reaper live on air. In fact, this is the 37th episode in a row where we have not done that. But we do have some awesome edtech for you. Our shout out this week goes to Casey Sanders and all the cool things she is doing with her young students! The tool this week is a web resource for teaching children with Autism. With the new statistics out this year (1:68 children born with ASD), inevitably, regular ed teacher will have a student on the spectrum every year. Click here to check this site out to give you some tools for helping children with Autism.
#dcsdtransforms episode 36: Highlights from the second annual digital transformation conference!
Hello everyone! Boy, do we have an episode for you! All 47 minutes of it! While we know this is a long episode, we just barely scratched the surface with all the amazing things happening at this year’s conference. We encourage you to listen to it if you didn’t go because you’ll get a sampling of all the cool stuff going on. And if you went to the conference, well, there was only 4 sessions you had time to go to, but we spotlight about 14 different sessions so you hopefully will have an opportunity to hear about some other neat things going on. Each session spotlighted follows the same format: Carla and Rhett will talk about what is coming up, you’ll hear a sound bite from the presenter, and finally a brief interview with an attendee of that session. Lots of great info in here! Thanks for joining us!