Technology Spotlight, Karen Brown, L W Conder Elementary School

Karen Brown has made teaching child development students her career for very good reasons - she understands 4-year olds and how to provide engaging and meaningful experiences for them! Karen has taught in the Clemson Road Child Development program for 10 years both on the Clemson Road campus and currently at L W Conder Elementary. Her love of nature led her to the Congaree National Forest where she was a teacher ranger for two summers and she continues to bring her students to the outdoors through grant funded projects and many recycled materials.

The name of Karen's classroom is the Terrific Turtles and her class has already learned a lot about sea turtles in particular, one of her favorite animals. In order to provide her students with the opportunity to meet a turtle expert and to learn more about their class mascot, Karen arranged a Skype session with a west coast authority on turtles. He presented lots of pictures and stories and the Terrific Turtles answered questions and shared their turtle school family song with him. The two-way exchange made possible by Skype was very helpful in keeping student engagement high!

Skype, Google Hangouts, Facetime and other video chat applications are a great way to bring experts to your classroom. How have you used applications like this in your classroom? 

Thank you to Debbie Brady for nominating Karen Brown. If you have a teacher or project on technology you want to showcase at your school in Richland School District Two, fill out the Spotlight Form .

October is Connected Educator Month!

Connected Educator month is October! Are you excited or what? "Or what?" You say. You don't even know what Connected Educator month is? So here is the skinny Connected Educator Month is brought to you by the U.S. Department of Education and it's partners to offer highly diverse and engaging professional development activities for all levels of educators. It is in it's third year. 

The goals of CEM include:

• Getting more educators proficient with social media to improve their practice
• Deepening and sustaining learning among those already enjoying connection’s benefits
• Helping schools credential/integrate connected learning into their formal professional development efforts
• Stimulating and supporting innovation in the field
   (http://connectededucators.org/about-connected-educators-mission-goals/)

Check out the web page to see all that is available for your to participate in ... Connected Educator Month. Don't forget to share what you learn. Be sure to hashtag it on Twitter with #CE14 and #RchlandTwo!

If you are new to Professional Learning Networks, Richland Two is offering a T for 2 online class - R2 Connected Educator - The goal of this course is to build a professional learning network, where you will build relationships and collaborate with other educators around the world, through various social networks. We will focus on 4 different social media types, Google+, Twitter, Blogging, and YouTube. This course is designed for you to work at your own pace, but collaboration is ongoing. Renewal Credit: 10

This class starts October 8 - Sign up in PDExpress today!

http://connectededucators.org/