Little Miss Geek

... without leaving your classroom Back in September Google Launched the Expeditions Pioneer Road Show in our district, Des Plaines. Since that time we have been accepted in to the Expeditions Beta program and have put together a couple of Expedition kits throughout the district. The kits are composed of an Android tablet, 6 refurbished Android phones, and 6 View-Master VR goggles. Teachers around the district have been (virtually) traveling the world with their students. They are asking big questions, planning interesting lessons, and sharing their learning in a Google+ Community. Two weeks ago a music teacher who has been studying opera with her fifth graders was able to put her students on stage during the opera. They used a YouTube 360 video of "Lohengrin" that was recorded in São Paulo in 2015. Then they were able to explore through the Royal Opera House in London using Google Streetview. Last week I worked with a second grade teacher to plan a Flat Stanley ...

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in the GEG Chicago Leadership Day at the new Goggle offices. We kicked off the day with some networking and team building -- it's always great to get to meet new people. Then we jumped right in working in teams to craft a mission statement for the GEG that would guide our work for the rest of the day. After several iterations we landed on "Empowering Educators to Innovate, Collaborate, and Inspire." From there we started the design thinking process around professional development and events that we could organize for the members of the GEG. Event ideas were voted on and people broke in to teams based on interest to begin planning. Overall the day was a huge success and I can't wait to see all of these plans come to fruition!

At the beginning of March I attended the +EdTechTeam 's Future Ready Summit at Leyden. It was probably one of the best professional development experiences I have ever had. The energy and excitement was palatable, but it was more than that. Everyone was focused on possibilities. The "could bes" and "should bes" but most importantly how to make those things actually happen. It wasn't a magically fairyland devoid of challenges, but the focus was on advancement and there was problem solving in the air. I left the summit excited about the possibilities, about being in education, and about life in general. I wish I could bottle that up and take a dose everyday. There were times this past year that I could have used a double dose. Heck there were times I would have passed that bottle of positivity and problem solving around.  The truth is that not everyone has that focus. There are certain people that actually take away from that focus and energy. They are th...

This summer I taught Video Game Design and Crazy for Coding classes to fourth and fifth graders. As I was helping some of my Coding students create in Scratch I had the crazy idea of creating a Google Teacher Academy video game. I spent some time playing with the idea. I found some images online (that were Creative Commons licensed of course) and started to piece them together in Scratch. I hated it and decided to scratch the idea of creating a GTA game all together.  A little known fact about me ... I LOVE Google Draw! I use it on pretty much a daily basis for a wide variety of things. To me the possibilities are nearly endless. Right before leaving for Atlanta in ISTE I even used Google Draw to create my business cards. Later in the summer I was at the CPS Googlepalooza sitting in a Google Draw session led by the very awesome Jennie Magiera, and like a ton of bricks it hit me ... why was I looking for images online when I could create my own!  I started with making t...

I spend a lot of my time and energy volunteering in different roles for the Illinois Computing Educators organization. Attending the ICE Conference and volunteering for the organization has helped me to grow as a professional in so many ways it's almost too hard to separate it from everything else. One of the things that ICE has been talking about doing for awhile now is hosting a twitter chat to engage it's members. After lots of conversations and planning the ICE Professional Development team,  +Mike McGowan  and  +Nicole Zumpano , and the ICE Communications team,  +Jennifer Smith ,  +Carrie Baughcum , and myself, along with the Executive Director of ICE,  +Margaret Johnson , and  +Paul Solarz  finally got the ICE twitter chats ball rolling. We marketed through social media and email campaigns working hard to get the word out. Our first #ICEilchat took place on September 25th, and the chat was centered around being a connected educator. W...

#EdCampIL was one of the best EdCamps I have ever been to, and I'm not just saying that because I helped organize it. There were a ton of EdCamp newbies there, which was very exciting. I remember my first EdCamp I was a little scared to jump in. I didn't know very many people and I wasn't sure that I had much to contribute to the conversation. Needless to say my hesitance has been quelled, learning and sharing at EdCamps, on Social Media, on this blog, and in the world has become my heartsong. Anyway, enough about me and back to the point, all of the EdCamp newbies last weekend were not hesitant, they jumped in and asked questions. It was awesome! I loved getting to meet all of these new people.  One of the best sessions I went to was the Collaborative Coaching session. I was overwhelmed by the number of instructional and technology coaches there were. Sometimes I think it is easy to feel like an island when you're the only coach in your building or in many cases...

Companies come out with new products all the time, but that doesn't mean they stop working on and developing those products. The newly released product is the best version at that time. When companies stop developing and improving on it, that is when that product begins to get outdate and lose value. Life doesn't get better by chance, it gets better by change. No one can go back and make a new beginning but anyone can change and make a new ending.  - Jim Rohn I believe that today I am the best version of myself. But, tomorrow, tomorrow I will work to be an even better version of myself. Never will I be a finished product, because there is always something I can improve on. That doesn't mean that I'm not happy with where I am right now in this moment. I take time on a daily basis to reflect. By reflecting I have an opportunity to celebrate my successes and the growth that I have already made, and also find things that I can do better in the future - opportunities ...

This week I had the fortunate experience of attending and presenting at the CPS Googlepalooza event. Chicago Public Schools partnered with Google to put on what turned out to be a great event. On Monday all of the presenters were invited to the Chicago Google offices for a Power-Up event. I was super excited to get to go to the Google offices, and I loved the idea of having a special event to get the presenters "powered-up." Often times as a presenter you have little time to attend sessions and I loved getting the opportunity to learn, share, and get excited before heading off to present a couple days later. The day started with some presentations from David Tess, James Sanders, Jen Holland, and Jennie Mageria. I was able to learn about the Learning to Code with Google Apps Scripts course that +James Eichmiller and +David Tess created as a part of their Google Certified Teacher action plan. I found it very intriguing and I hope that in the future I can attend on...

I spent some time this afternoon with some friends from the area that had also gone to ISTE this year. We got together with the intent of sharing what we had learned while in Atlanta and reflecting on our time there. One thing that that we all said was that there really wasn't anything new and flashy for us.  +Nicole Zumpano  said that she was looking for some reinforcement for some ideas like Genius Hour that she had been toying with. +Charlene Chausis  found that she didn't really spend a whole lot of time in sessions but spent more time volunteering at the conference. For me, like I blogged about earlier, it was all about creating and building on connections with other educators because I can learn from them throughout the year, not just the week of ISTE. As we were discussing the different sessions that we did attend I was reminded of a conversation that I had with  +Steve Dembo  at the airport waiting for our flight which was delayed, just enough for us...

Hi, I'm Amanda and I am not a sit-and-getter. (Hi Amanda) I have not slowed down this summer, it has been a summer of learning. I have attended, participated, and presented at several different conferences this summer including the EngagEDnwi, ISTE2014, and EdcampHome. I have plans for a few more before the school year starts like the Leyden 1:1 Symposium , District 207 Summit , and the CPS Googlepalooza . Call me crazy, but I love learning! As I was driving back from my most recent learning experience at SAMRi Summer Camp, a conference run by a group of classroom teachers from Downers Grove 58, I started to reflect on the morning there. I was able to attend four great sessions, and the reason they were so great was because I was able to participate in all of them. I realized that I am not good at a sit-and-get style of learning. I need to be an active participant. I need to be able to ask questions, make connections to my life and experiences, and share things that I h...