We are so impressed by the level of participation and professionalism from our JD and WG teachers. The thoughtful discussions they have with each other about the resources and tools we share are incredible. Their use of the tools, lesson planning and post-instruction reflections are thorough and forward-thinking. Kudos to all of you! We are so glad you participated in NGN! Beyond Cool: Meaningful Technology Integration One and Two!

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The Sun Sets on a Successful Season of In-Services

We were able to offer three virtual in-service courses this summer:

• Next Gen Now! Course One
• Next Gen Now! Course Two
• Virtual Modules One

Source

We were very impressed with the level of participation and the quality of the work produced by those who joined us.  Summer seems like a time when teachers actually have the brain and schedule capacity to fully engage with new content as they prepare for the upcoming year. Discussions were rich with thoughtful collegiate conversation and feedback was extremely positive.  It has been a full two years since we began creating our online professional development offerings, and we continue to learn and grow in the process. We have finally created a system that allows us to keep up with the work course participants complete and offer feedback and support in a fair and consistent manner.  Of course, summer makes this easier for us as well.  Overall, these three courses are a success.  We will continue to tweak them to help participants get the most useful experience possible.

No Polish Needed!

Teacher Leadership Conference
Drumlins ~ May 2012

We were honored to present at the 2012 Teacher Leadership Conference last week.  We set the following goals for ourselves:

1. 100% Engagement of audience

2. 100% Understanding of the difference b/t a website and an ePortfolio

3. 100% Access to resources that will help you get started

4. 75% Implementation of at least one component of an ePortfolio

We once again learned that you should always bring your own technology when you present. Luckily we did!  We needed it.  Phew!

We received the most interesting feedback just after the presentation.  One participant shared with us how unpolished our presentation appeared.  Though not quite how to interpret such comment, we recalled this audience member being focused through the entire session.  We decided to take this commentary as a compliment!  We pride ourselves on our lack of "polish".  We are real people, real teachers, and we never want to appear stiff or bored with our content.  We enjoy working together, love what we do, and have a passion for sharing it with anyone who will listen.  So, to the gentleman in the audience, thank you!  And to the woman in the back row, yes!  We do have a ton of fun working together! We are indeed unpolished on purpose!

While it was pretty easy to look around and see that we met our first three goals, our fourth goal is a bit more difficult to assess.  With that said, we hope that you will reply to this post by clicking on the "comments" link below to let us know what you thought of our workshop, and what you have implemented since participating.  Better yet, share your ePortfolio link with us. You can also email us at:  nextgennow@nextgennowpd.com

NYLA SSL Conference Spring 2012

Thanks to NYLA/SSL for inviting us to present at the spring 2012 conference in Binghamton, NY last week.  We had a nice sized group for our Friday afternoon session - Professional ePortfolios: What, Why & How? 

Thank goodness we arrived a bit early.  We learned that changing the resolution on some computers is not as easy as on others.  It was a bit tricky getting our own computer on the Internet after the Thursday storms, but after a bit of perseverance, all worked out well.  We eagerly await feedback from the attendees so that we can continue to refine our practice and improve our offerings.  The group asked plenty of great questions, and truly seemed to engage with the idea of ePortfolios for themselves, their teachers and their students.  Don't forget you can link to the presentation via our website:  http://www.nextgennowpd.com/ and please feel free to add your comments to this post to offer any feedback or ask any questions that have surfaced since Friday.  You can also reach us by email:  nextgennow@nextgennowpd.com!  We look forward to hearing from you.

Eastern Upstate Teacher Center Consortium Spring 2012

A View from The Woods in Inlet

Thank you to the Eastern Upstate Teacher Center Directors for inviting us to join you at your Spring Consortium.  We enjoyed shifting to the Common Core with all of you and hope you were able to take away some ideas, strategies and tools for implementation in support of your teachers. The evening at The Woods was lovely. To the right is a picture we took from the shoreline just before dinner.  Absolutely breathtaking! 

As we all make the shifts to the Common Core, we begin to realize that we already have many things in place, and the "shifts" are not quite as daunting as we may have thought.  There is still plenty to learn, but if we can set aside some of the things that we already have in place, we realize we are not "reinventing the wheel," but rather adding a bit of air in hopes of creating more effective and efficient journey for our students and ourselves. 

APPR, Common Core, SLO.... It is all a bit overwhelming. Teachers will certainly need the safety and support zone that Teacher Centers can provide as they take on these new challenges to their already hectic professional lives.

A tool is just a tool until...

 We have titled our first two NGN courses Beyond Cool: Meaningful Technology Integration for a reason!  Our focus is not on the tools we share, but beyond them.  Our goal is to provide resources and initiate professional discussions that help educators learn the most effective ways to incorporate any technology in their instruction in a meaningful way.  Any Web 2.0 tool can be used as a gimmick. It is the pedagogy and planning that allows students to have fun and activate their critical thinking skills at the same time. Therefore, each of our sessions requires teachers to create and share a lesson they will teach in their classrooms based on the ideas we present and the discussion that follows.  Then, we ask our teacher-students to provide each other with meaningful feedback.  We have been so impressed with the level of discussion in which our class participants engage.  It is so great to see teachers collaborating to make their instruction the best that it can be for students.  Students and learning! That's what it is all about, right?