This has been my first whole school year working as a District Instructional Technologist for the Winston-Salem, Forsyth County school district. I enjoy learning about and sharing instructional resources with teachers on a regular basis. There are times when my excitement about learning something new can be a bit overwhelming for those around me. I write blog posts for several blogs sharing what I learn and when I figure out how to do different things with the tools/sites I learned about previously. I like to share tidbits of information in tweets on Twitter (I like to retweet great ideas and opportunities for learning as well). Talking to teachers in groups and even one-on-one conversations (using Skype or face-to-face) are also ways that I enjoy sharing the things I have learned.
Steven W. Anderson (@web20classroom on twitter) and I have been recording a weekly podcast (WSFCS DIT Unplugged) this school year sharing things we have learned about instructional technology, sites we like, things we have found on twitter, and having special guests speak about their individual projects. Since the schools in our school system get out for the summer this week, we are going to move to a summer schedule for our podcasts (maybe every other week instead of each week).
In Episode 20 of our Instructional Technology Podcast, all the members of the WSFCS Instructional Technology Department shared the best thing we learned this year.(We post the podcasts on a podcast page from our SchoolWires Website that all WSFCS teachers could do too) Now several of us had a difficult time picking just one. I challenge you to listen to what we have learned and think about what you have learned. If you hear something you would like to know more about, we would be glad to help you learn more about it. You could even go check it out yourself.
Please leave a comment about what you think is the best thing you have learned about this year ... I will even let you choose more than one thing!
Just remember, you don't have to stop learning just because it is summer. If you have heard about something that you would like to know more about, use some time this summer to go out and learn more about it!
image created using Wordle.net with words from this blog post
