Padlet to the Rescue

Back in September, some of my classmates gave a presentation on a technology tool called Padlet.  Launching back into our Teaching with Technology was at first daunting for me - the idea of having to teach and learn about a whole new group of technology tools stressed me out.  The thought of it still stresses me out...  This is pretty much how I was feeling on our second day of class going into this presentation on the first of many new tech tools in use in education.  So it would be an understatement to say I was pleasantly surprised to find myself totally into Padlet.  Pretty much ever since that day, when my classmates taught me the nuts and bolts of the tool, I have been using Padlet for all my lesson and unit planning and it has become one of my primary tools for organization.

Padlet is so great for teachers, especially a budding teacher like me who isn't so great staying organized, or at least keeping everything in one place.  I am constantly finding things all over the Internet that I could use for lessons.  It's addicting and gets to the point where I will have 20 tabs open on my computer at one time because I just don't know what to do with it or where to put it all, and the thought of accidentally closing one tab makes me cringe.  I have also been experiencing these epiphanies in the shower where the perfect essential question or big idea for a unit will come to me and just which text to use for it.  And so, what to do with all these floating bits and pieces of lessons?  This is where Padlet comes in.  I can just throw it all right on there.  Webpages, pictures, videos, documents, presentations, notes, whatever.  It's like a digital bulletin board.  I am able to drag everything I want onto this board, and then, what I've found, is that instead of looking like complete chaos, it actually all starts to come together and make more sense, seeing everything at once like that.  And the best part: no more tab anxiety (most of the time).

It was super helpful seeing the various Padlets the presenters created to demonstrate how the tool can be used.  One of the presenters used Padlet to create a historical timeline, while another used it to create a collage of images.  I appreciated seeing their passions and personalities come through in what they designed, which made me think about how mine would look in comparison, according to my own style.  "Oh, well I would do it this way" or "What if I tried this?" kind of thing.  Aside from learning how to use Padlet, the biggest takeaway of this presentation for me was this idea of doing the assignment you are asking your students to do.  I felt more compelled to try out Padlet after seeing that my classmates, who were teaching me about it, had already tried it out and were able to show me how they used it to suit their interests and needs.  I think it says a lot about a teacher if she is able to put herself out there and say, "Hey I did this, and this is how I did it, and this is what's cool about it, and now you can do it too."

Lifelong Learners

Over the past couple days, I've come across the blogs of some really awesome edubloggers.  Exploring the world of edublogging has been pretty mind-blowing for me.  It's like there is this whole underground network of professionals who are doing these amazing things both inside and outside of their classrooms and then talking about it!  All the time!  And I'm like...how do they even have the time?  Really, this network of teaching professionals probably isn't so "underground."  I just had no idea that so many teachers were blogging, and some even being awarded for it.  

Blogging has undoubtedly exponentially increased opportunities for teachers to learn from each other.  I remember having to read an article, a piece of "summer" reading for this program, about the importance of professional development and collaboration with colleagues in the teaching profession.  You really can't be a teacher and not be committed to also being a lifelong learner.  I think this class makes that very transparent.  The sheer number of technology tools available for educational purposes today speaks to the ways in which how we teach and how our students learn is constantly changing.  I see blogging as a tool that serves teachers needs as lifelong learners and collaborative professionals.  

There is evidence of this in the various blogs I have been flipping through lately.  Yesterday, I spent some time reading English teacher Dana Huff's blog.  She has a fascinating post titled "Tales from Writing Workshop," in which she shares stories about her students workshopping their first essay of the school year.  From reading her post, I learned that she uses Google Docs in her classroom as a workshop tool.  She is able to check her students' revision histories to see not only the number of edits a student makes, but the substance of those edits.  As a future English teacher, I think it is so cool that she is able to see so much of her students' writing process.  In this post, she also mentions how some of her students took it upon themselves, without her asking, to make suggested edits on their classmates essays.  To me, that kind of classroom is a true human learning collective.  I am interested in hearing more from her about how she integrates writing workshops into her classroom and so I commented on that post, and in doing so have opened up a conversation among professionals!

I did something similar in response to a post on Nick Provenzano's teaching blog.  Nick recently wrote a post about something called #20 Time that happens at his school.  From what I gathered from reading his post, #20 Time involves students planning individual projects that they will work on for the school year.  He included the list of this year's student project ideas and I was instantly so excited.  The ideas ranged from taking pictures all over Grosse Pointe to capture the high points to writing a musical.  Project-based learning is something I can see working well with my students at TCEC, though I am not sure how I would implement this approach in that setting or any school setting.  I commented on Nick's post asking him about how he implements project-based learning into his classroom.  I am looking forward to his response and learning more about the #20 Time project.