How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Written for Illinois Computing Educators' August Newsletter
Learn Some, Play Some
Do you get a summer
vacation? How did you spend it? Did you sip tropical drinks and
bask in the sun enjoying endless lazy days? After all, that’s how most of
society sees the summers of educators, right? What most folks outside of
education don’t realize is that an educator's mind never takes a vacation.
Even if we are not on a school campus it’s always in the background. We
constantly think about teaching, supplies that we need, how to reach that one
stubborn student. We can be on vacation in the middle of a store or in the
middle of a movie when an idea for our profession pops into our mind. It really
doesn’t end.
Most non-educators also
don’t realize how much of our summers are spent increasing our personal
knowledge to better our craft, reflecting on our previous lessons and prepping
for new school years (not to mention answering emails from parents and
completing tasks administrators ask us to address on our time off). This
summer I wasn’t at work; but I still ‘worked’; I expanded my own
knowledge by attending sessions at conferences both face to face and virtually.
Here’s how I spent my summer:
ISTE- I attended the ISTE affiliates summit, participated
in sessions on the new ISTE standards, coaching and more. I connected with
other educators (interestingly enough, many of these are colleagues from
Illinois), volunteered and also shared my knowledge by presenting in the EdTech
Coaches playground.
De-ICE- I focused on refreshing my understanding of
SeeSaw.me and ways to incorporate technology into daily 5 literacy routines.
Taste of Technology- During the one day I was able to attend this great
3-day event I participated in sessions on design thinking and exciting innovations
with technology in education. Thankfully, although not able to attend the other
two days I was able to follow the Twitter feed and still feel part of the
conversation.
GEG (Google) Teacher Camp- I had a chance to refine lessons that incorporate
the 4C’s with Google Apps for Education and bounce ideas off other enthusiastic
educators who shared their lessons as well.
Googlepalooza- I was lucky to attend lots of presentations on a
series of topics such as Memes in Education, Breakout Edu, spreadsheets,
Doctopus and Tour Builder during this two day conference.
ICE Twitter Chats- These
monthly PD experiences that I can participate in from my couch still allow me
to learn from amazing educators near and far.
Back to Work
My summer adventures are
about to come to an end. The beauty of being an educator means I get to
begin again. I go back to work with fresh enthusiasm, ideas to implement
and goals for a fresh start with coaching. With the new school year comes
new responsibilities, late nights planning and implementation of all of these
great ideas. Sound familiar? Take time to continue learning for the sake
of learning but also to expand your knowledge in topics that feed your passion
for being an educator. A great quote I heard this summer by TravisAllen is “the key to lifelong learning is to be uncomfortable”.
Learn something new. Get out of your comfort zone. Increase your
PLN (I’m at @nmzumpano).
Be generous and share your knowledge with colleagues and at conferences (submit a proposal for ICE!) or through a
website or blog (I blog here). Participate, even if you mostly lurk,
in one of our invigorating Twitter chats through #iceilchat (taking place the
last Thursday of each month at 8:00 pm), apply for a mini-grant
through ICE or a site like DonorsChoose to try something new or strengthen a
weakness in your curriculum. Stay in touch with your local ICE Chapter
for activities throughout the year- or visit several chapter events
throughout the state!
Take time
to try new things, share your knowledge and reflect on what you’ve learned.
Learn, Do, Iterate. Don’t forget to balance, and save some time for fun
with family and friends. Looking forward to hearing how it goes for you.
Happy new school year!
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