As you might know from past postings, I love Google Docs.  It has become a great way to collaborate down the hall or across the country.  But I just learned from the 43 Things blog that Google Docs now has templates.  Whoo-hoo! Now our Google Docs can have more flair.   Here’s a screen shot of just a few of the templates.

In the spring, I posted information inviting you to join our Exploring Elementary 2.0 self-paced tutorial.  The tutorial uses a constructivist approach to Web 2.0.  Participants visit sites, explore them, then reflect on how those tools might be used in their teaching and learning.

I’m rerunning this tutorial for the staff in my building, and I hope you’ll join us! We are a small building, so your perspectives mean a lot to us.  You can participate as an individual, or you can organize a group and use this for staff development in your district.  Check with your district and see if you can coordinate your staff’s participation so that they can earn PD credit in your district.  You monitor their progress and follow your district’ s reporting procedures, but the work is already done!  No handouts to make, no computer lab to supervise!

It is really fun to watch staff colleagues explore on their own and then chat with me or with each other.  I often learn that they see different uses or work patterns than I do, so even if it’s a tool I know, I gain a new perspective.

We’re rerunning this tutorial from now until the end of August.  (A third round will begin in September as we kick off SLMAM’s 25th anniversary year!)

To learn more, read over the information at http://exploringelementary2.edublogs.org and then email me at slmamblog@gmail.com to let me know that you’d like to participate.

Hope to hear from you!

Kristin

I’ve had it rolling in my head for a long time now that I wanted to modify Helene Blowers’ great public library Web 2.0 project, Learning 2.0, for the staff in my elementary school.  She set up a variety of Web 2.0 “things” for staff to explore and comment on.  Participants created a blog to track their thinking and give me the URL for the project’s blogroll.

My colleagues are busy, and I liked the idea of doing something where they could work at their own pace but still have a record of explorations.  I liked her sense of whimsy and letting folks play, and out of play, to make professional meaning.  And I wanted my colleagues to have that same sense of exploration and fun, and then to think about if and how those tools could fit into their classroom.  As I like to say, “Lead with the need.” 

Thanks to Helene’s Creative Commons license, I finally got around to putting it together and launched Exploring Elementary 2.0 with my staff today: a six-week self-paced exploration of Web 2.0 tools, with an eye on how to integrate those tools effectively in elementary school classrooms.  I pared down the initial 23 tasks to 17 so we could finish by our district’s June 1 cutoff for 07-08 PD and changed around a few of the tasks to better fit an elementary teacher’s needs.

And here’s what I think is really cool … let’s say you’re a media specialist out there and you know you want to be doing more PD and you know your staff wants to explore but neither of you have time to be in the same lab at the same time.

You can use this project, too!  The project can easily be adopted in your building with little effort on your part.  If you’re a media specialist, all you have to do is:

1. Arrange for your staff to receive PD credit for participating.  (My principal is giving 10 PD hours’ worth of credit.)
2. Sell the idea to your staff.
3. Collect their blog URLs and send them to me for the blogroll.
4. Track your staff’s progress via their blogs.
5. Turn in your district’s official paperwork when they’re done.

What’s in it for you? You get ready-made PD that’s all set to go.  Perfect if you need to announce one last initiative before the Board announces next year’s budget …

What’s in it for me? I work in a small building where the staff knows one another and quite well, so we get the benefit of a whole bunch of perspectives from which to draw inspiration.

So what do you say? Hope you’ll join me for this journey.  Drop me a line at slmamblog@gmail.com if you’re interested.

PS - Yes, this is similar to the California School Library Association’s project, though their tasks more closely mirror the original Learning 2.o project.