We are rapidly approaching the end of the current school year which means that summer vacation is right around the corner. For me, summer is when I have time to work on new ideas for my classes. I do not have papers to correct, meetings to attend or any of the other distractions that make focusing on bigger projects virtually impossible during the school year. I am confident that many of you also use at least part of the summer break to ponder, explore and develop new ideas for your own classrooms. With that spirit in mind, this week’s Friday 4 includes several items that I hope will inspire you to expand your repertoire as a teacher. Once the craziness of the spring subsides and you are in summer “big picture” mode, revisit one of the links from this post and develop a new lesson or update a current one to include a new idea or twist.
- The first item is actually a “two-fer” that inlcudes two blog posts by Jayme Linton. Jayme currently serves as Director of Teacher Education at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina. In her first post, she describes a teacher training course called “Technology in the Classroom” that explores the overlap of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge for teachers. The second is a follow-up post of her experiences and observations since February
- “Using Cell Phones to Increase Student Achievement and Engagement with Reading and Writing” comes from the Innovative Educator blog.
- Interesting blog post that showed up in my Google reader from one of the many in my online PLN. How are you going to start next year?
- Great post from a fellow teacher, Stacey Roshan (@buddyxo), who tried something new in her class after the AP Calc exam this year. Are you familiar with TED-Ed?