Going Digital

I've been spending a hefty portion of this week creating my digital persona online and gathering some info on educational technology. On Monday, I created my first video using iMovie and uploaded it to YouTube.

Oscar nods won't be coming in the near future, but last week at this time, I thought I was ages away from creating and publishing videos. Now I've joined an elite club that contains both Quentin Tarantino and my neighbors' twelve-year-old daughter. I am a movie maker.

I also joined the ranks of Twitter as a professional. My amateur twitter feed was already bogged down from commentary by @pattonoswalt and @pooptweets, so I opted for a whole new @MrGartin feed for professional and educational networking. The results have been transformative! I have connected with my colleagues at Concordia, some wonderful educational blogs, professionals from the districts I'm involved with, and educational leaders from central Ohio and around the world.

My pinterest boards grew a bit this week, too. Having instant access to all of these resources gives me plenty to consider as I try to transform myself and my classroom. If you'd like to check out my boards, scan the code below.

Speaking of QR codes, I've explored these a lot this week as well. While inserting one into a blog post doesn't do much (I could've easily just inserted a link and saved you the time of pulling out your phone), there are plenty of ways to utilize QR codes to transform your classroom (Burns, 2016; Miller, 2011). In particular, I'm thinking of a few ideas:

1) Posting them alongside math warm ups to link to helpful resources for working through them.

2) Letting kids put them on their displayed work so viewers can hear a little more about it.

3) Marketing: Get the word out about what we're doing in our classroom. Codes placed at convenient places around the building can link to a designed website, or a voice recording of how the class is impacting them.

The first of these to be implemented will likely be #1, since I have been searching for a way to help my kids along in their warm ups. Rather than individually working through the first steps of the math problems amidst signing planners and checking work, a well-placed QR code should work as a nifty way to direct these guys on how to get started.

Going forward, I have grand plans for marketing WISE for next year, as evidenced by #3, and once I have the ELA classroom I want, I can start working in #2. Most importantly, my tech integration won't stop at QR codes, because of the bevvy of constantly evolving resources I have at my disposal. I'm tweeting, pinning, and blogging, and I intend to continue such tech actions until the internet is dead. The connected status of this teacher will keep the ideas coming forward, and my classroom of tomorrow will be much different than the one today.

References:

Burns, M. (2016). QR codes: Pushing the narrative on scannables. Retrieved

from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/qr-codes-pushing-narrative-scannables-monica-burns

Miller, A. (2011). Twelve ideas for teaching with QR codes. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/QR-codes-teaching-andrew-miller