Professional Development Meme 2012 #pdmeme2012

I’m a big fan of goal setting. It can provide a road map for the short or long-term and can be an effective motivational strategy. I have set a few professional development goals for this summer and have challenged a few of my friends/colleagues to do the same thing. In 2008 I realized that I could set this up as a blog meme and hopefully encourage some of my online friends to achieve a few items from their To Do Lists as well. There are a myriad of ways to approach this, but I’ve opted to take the short-term, easy-to-assess approach, but I’ll leave wiggle room for you to customize it to meet your needs. The official information is below.

Image Source: http://dcrasyep09.files.wordpress.com

Directions

Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2012 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.

 

Guidelines

NOTE: You do NOT have to wait to be tagged to participate in this meme.

  1. Pick 1-3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
  2. For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/03/2012).
  3. Post the above directions and these guidelines along with your 1-3 goals on your blog or preferred social media platform (Facebook, Google+, Posterous, etc.).
  4. Link back/trackback to https://www.clifmims.com/blog/archives/5147.
  5. Use the following tag/ keyword/ category on your post: pdmeme2012.
  6. Tag 5 or more educators to participate in the meme.
  7. Achieve your goals and “develop professionally.”
  8. Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.

 

My Goals

  1. Become more proficient with Google+ and other Google services and integrate them into my graduate courses and professional development services.
  2. Read at least 2 of the books on my book wish list.
  3. Submit at least 1 of the articles currently in progress for review.

 

I Tag…

 

Easily Connect with Students, Parents, and Colleagues Online

Posterous Groups is the simplest way to communicate with your students, colleagues, family and friends. Posterous Groups may be the next evolution in email communication.

Messages and attachments submitted to the group will be emailed to everyone in the group. Send any type of file to your group and Posterous will convert it to the most web-friendly format available. Photos will be sent to your group members inline, and if you send multiple photos, Posterous will automatically create a photo gallery for you. Submit a YouTube URL to the group and Posterous will grab the embed code and automatically embed it in your site. Email replies can include photos, videos or any other rich media and will be automatically shared with the rest of the group via email and stored on the group website.

A Few Benefits

Most everyone has access to email and understands how to send and received messages and attachments.

No account required. Anyone can participate in your group simply by emailing your group address while receiving email updates without ever having to visit your site.

Your group can be public or private.

Posterous Groups have been optimized for viewing on mobile devices. Your students and their parents can access your Posterous materials from their cell phones and iPads.

Multiple people can have full control of your group. That means you can share administrative rights to the website/group with others if you choose to do so.

Worth Noting

Best I can tell (and I certainly hope I’m wrong) it isn’t possible to have a Posterous website and a Posterous Group integrated together in the same domain. This is disappointing because it means that we can’t connect blog posts and web pages with the group features in one site. This can be worked around by setting up a Posterous site and a Posterous Group and linking them together, but it means having to administrate two different instances. This isn’t difficult for teachers comfortable with technology, but will likely be a bit overwhelming to those entertaining the idea of developing their first class web presence. In this case, I’d suggest they simply stick with setting up a website (in most instances).

Get Started

Get started by creating a group for your classes, clubs, groups, teams, or students’ parents. You can also start groups for your family, friends, church, and more.

Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media (TAISTI)

I’m back in Nashville today for the TAIS Technology Institute. I’m excited about having opportunities to work with and learn from classroom teachers, media specialists, administrators, and more. I’ll be sharing a workshop on Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media. The PowerPoint presentation is below and the full workshop notes are available on my wiki. Note that the links and logos in the PowerPoint presentation are clickable.

Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media (NCTIES)

I’m enjoying the North Carolina Technology in Education Society’s 2010 Conference in Raleigh, NC. I’m excited about being one of the featured speakers and having opportunities to work with and learn from classroom teachers, media specialists, administrators, and more.

Today I’ll be sharing a pre-conference workshop on Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media. This energetic session will demonstrate that with freely available digital technologies students can demonstrate their understanding of course content in multiple ways (images, audio, video, presentations, artwork, and more). Each student’s end product (learning artifact) allows them to personally self-express their understanding/mastery of the content/skills. Although teachers may not be comfortable using all of today’s technology it is important to consider allowing students to use it to communicate their understanding as they are often more naturally able to more fully express themselves with digital media. The PowerPoint presentation is below and the full workshop notes are available on my wiki. Note that the links and logos in the PowerPoint presentation are clickable.