Boggling Blogging:
Doing Social Studies
https://doingsocialstudies.com/
This is a blog from the Kansas City Council for Social Studies. They select different blog posts from teachers from around the state of Kansas on Social Studies instruction and different, engaging ideas for the classroom. I like it because it includes a number of new ideas for my content area and teachers (usually very important ones) share insight into new apps they like and how they are using them to change their classroom.
World History Teachers Blog
http://worldhistoryeducatorsblog.blogspot.com/
This is a website maintained by history teachers, for history teachers, but it doesn't indicate where they hail from. Though it is designed for High School teachers, I love that it covers my content areas- there are way too many blogs about American history and so far I've had an incredibly difficult time finding blogs based on my topics. What particularly caught my eye were some great resources in the first few posts related to Eastern religions of the world and current event articles and lesson plan ideas around topics of interest in my classroom.
The History Channel This is Not
https://nkogan.wordpress.com/
Nate Kogan seems to have a great sense of humor, which makes his posts interesting and entertaining when I am digging the web for new content. He also offers a lot of great ideas that could be used to inspire me for assessments, I like the idea around designing a quick-grade rubric and activity around unit vocabulary and plan on using it in this coming week with my students.
Enter the Twitterverse:
Here are some new teachers that I am following on Twitter this week -
Wendy Kopp (@wendykopp)
Founder of Teach for America - I am curious to learn more about her views. Though I am vehemently against the concept of Teach for America, it is always good to have dissenting and alternative ideas in our media as well. Too many people today are guilty of only following/reading things they agree with.
PrincipalJ (@PrincipalJ)co-moderates #educoach chats on twitter, seems quirky and always discussing the latest trends in education.
Amy Mayer (@friEdTechnology)
Technologically innovative teacher from Texas who pushes innovation and creativity using technology.
Josh Stumpenhorst (@stumpteacher)
2012 Illinois teacher of the year- tweets very frequently and teaches about the same subjects and grade levels that I do! Basically a better version of myself.
Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby)
He started the #edchat hashtag! Interesting and creative personality, veteran teacher of over 40 years who asks really great questions on Twitter to inspire debate and discussion. Recently good stuff on bias in the media and good critical thinking skills.
Overall, in my hunt to make my social media apps great again, I did find some really fun and interesting people to follow today to pique my interest in both social technology mediums. However, I definitely find myself using Twitter on a more frequent basis- primarily because the blurbs are fast, change constantly, and it is far easier to follow someone on Twitter in my opinion than to seek out their blog through a search engine. Great leaders don't just write about the latest trends and ideas, they find materials and share them with others. Twitter is an awesome resource which I find myself pulling 5-6 articles daily about relevant topics. That being said however, today I did a better job at narrowing beyond edtech into my actual curriculum coverage as well. Hopefully this, too, will pay off in the long run.
It's awesome that there are so many resources available on Twitter! It goes to show that, for those who are willing to look, there are a bevy of ideas out there for integrating technology. I wonder how Teach for America can be used as an inspiration for future tech integrations. After all, in those communities, you either adapt or die (or leave the profession).
ReplyDeleteThat's a great point! Teach for America does not retain people long term, so there would be an impetus to adapt or fail at your post and get replaced.
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