Diary of a Digital Learning Coach

The  Digital Learning Coaches are pleased to offer a variety of learning experiences in the month of October.  Not only will we hosting our first global webinar, but we will also be celebrating Digital Citizenship Week with the launch a curated course of digital experiences for classroom use, CISD Empowered Citizens.  Check out the graphic below or click here for more details!

A core belief my team has about digital learning is that little kids can and will do amazing things when given the opportunity.  If we are being truly honest, this also applies to even the biggest kids...us.   During the Apple a Week series last year, we learned not just how easy and functional the programs like Keynote, Pages and Numbers can be but also how Apple’s Education resources can help us when designing quality learning. It’s about to get even better. Apple just rolled out a collection of multi-touch books as part of their Everyone Can Create curriculum .  These resources provide a scaffold for fostering digital creativity in the classroom for any age of learner. Want to help learners understand the basics of creating quality videos ? Wondering how photography and drawing can be best used to make thinking visible? Thinking about spicing up a lesson by having learners compose original music or find patterns? Let’s learn more about the Eve...

Once of my favorite articles I read last year was about the concept of innerput.  We all need time to digest and process information that we are learning.  That thinking time that happens between input and output is where the learning magic happens...the innerput. Read more about the concept in the article below. Less Input and More Innerput: Take Time to Internalize Information As with the input and output stage of a lesson design, innerput doesn't have to involve digital tools.  There are many ways for learners to make their thinking visible without technology at all.  What technology can do, however, is provide our learners with another outlet to interact with and apply information. So in today's post, we will take a digital spin on thinking maps, a great way for our learners to process the information that they are learning and make connections between concepts. Keynote  Share this Keynote template that my teammate, Kelly Skillingberg , mad...

Several years ago, I was lucky enough to coach one of our district's first elementary schools to pilot 1:1 in 4th and 5th grade. I've been thinking of that small group of educators a lot lately now that our district has gone 1:1 in all grades. As we learned together that year, we dreamed of an aligned way that learners could show their growth by self selecting items and reflecting digitally on them - a digital portfolio that could travel with them along their educational path beyond elementary school. That time has come.  After much thought and consideration, a focus group of our CISD educators worked together to adopt our districtwide portfolio tool, Bulb.  To help get you started, the DLCs have created a guide with resources that will help you introduce Bulb to your classroom using our district template.   Getting Started with Bulb Portfolios in CISD I  am excited to support you and your team on this journey.  Let me know if you'd like to set...

This post originally appeared on megankozar.weebly.com and was written by my teammate,    Megan Kozar   I am so excited to share a new creative collaboration tool from Google called Jamboard! The Jamboard app works like a digital whiteboard BUT it allows multiple people to work on the same "Jam" at one time and gives you the ability to insert content from the web and/or Google Drive.  You can create a new jam or join an existing one to take collaborative notes, share project ideas, or teach a new idea live. Users do not have to be in the same room together to work inside of a Jam! https://jamboard.google.com/   Note: Google has made a physical board called a Jamboard that works with the Jamboard app. The Jamboard app can be used as a stand alone tool without the physical board.      Learn how to use some of the features in the Jamboard app by watching the quick 5 minute video! ...

This week, I have been thinking a lot about workflow and how it can make or break a learning experience.  It is no educator's dream to have a beautifully designed lesson stall because the learners are unable to show their thinking digitally in an efficient way.  I've seen this time and again...many times because in my own rush and excitement of content, I take for granted helping my learners practice the process of work on their iPads. It makes me think of all the procedures and expectations I used to have my learners practice at the beginning of the year.  Though that practice was an investment in time, it consistently paid me back with prepared learners throughout the year. That's why taking time to help learners with digital workflow is so important.  I'll be visiting this topic frequently on this blog this year, but for today, let's consider my top 3 tips for helping learners with the process of work. Tip 1 - The more you use your iPad as an educat...

iPad rollout is finally complete and hopefully you are starting to dive into some digital learning. You might be asking yourself, "Ok, iPads are enrolled but NOW WHAT?"  My teammate, Megan Kozar recently compiled some awesome resources to help as we all begin working within digital classroom environments. Because we are #bettertogether, I wanted to share them with you too! 1. UTILIZE LEARNER EXPERTS Kinder "Ask an Expert" wall -Jennifer Pettit, @pettit73 As you have started working with your digital tools, I am sure a couple of students have stood out as "tech-perts". Take some of the load off of yourself and allow learners to lead when using a new app, troubleshooting a problem, or choosing a creative tool. To help learners see who to reach out to when they need help, you can build an Expert Wall like this one! 2. TAKE TIME TO TEACH TROUBLESHOOTING        Before your students have to miss class time to find help to fix minor ...