I completed the Transforming Instruction: Why Tech? course.  I really liked the course, in particular the first chunk about the growth mindset.  The need to instill hardwork and persistence in our students has always been recognized, but the TEDtalk video was great.  The video really distilled why it is important to teach the idea that hardwork leads to learning.  It made me think of the value of looking at pre and post tests with students so that they can see the learning that happened because of their effort over time.  The idea about praising process and effort was also a helpful reminder to me as well.

Transforming Teaching and Learning with Technology (a preview)

I'm using my summer to create, explore and learn new things.  One thing that I am working on is a series of online courses for our teachers for the next school year.  This course is designed to provide some foundational understanding of the why behind tech in teaching and learning.  I am also participating in the Thinglink Teacher Challenge, so I chose to create my introduction to the course using Thinglink.  This is a bit of a mashup.  I used Canva as my main canvas for creating my infographic.  As I started working, I realised that I couldn't find the copyright friendly images I needed, so I created my own using Google Drawings.

 (Note to readers, if you create something that you don't plan on using to make money, consider using a Creative Commons license so that other teachers may use, with attribution, to build other great tools that they too, can share.)

 When I started looking for short and sweet introductory videos to link to my image, I found some really nice explanations that teachers had created (and shared) using Powtoon.  I will be creating another class on creating a Tech Tool Box. It's great to have tools like Thinglink, Canva, Google Draw and Powtoon in my Tool Box.

So here is a preview of one of my upcoming classes.