And with that, here comes the light bulb:
#TxGoo18 both started AND wrapped up yesterday and--as is my practice after attending any conference-- it's time for some reflecting! Like so many other participants, I tweeted several times as I was catching inspiration during different sessions. Usually, I like to use each tweet in a post-conference blog post and reflect on why that thought stuck out to me; however, this reflection is structured in a bit of a different way. Check out the graphic below to see how I'm summarizing my reflections in three main points from #TxGoo18! WOOOHOOO! I'm telling ya: if you haven't gone to a Google Summit before, you need to get yourself to the Texas Google Summit. Go ahead and follow @Techs4Tex on Twitter so you can find out when the next Google Summit will be. This year, it was in Kyle, TX. Last year, it was in Klein, TX. I have no idea where next year's Summit will be, but I do know that I will want to attend again! And with that, here comes the light bulb: I got to attend @mamaestes' session about how to use Google Maps to amplify instruction in any content area. The presentation was fantastic and the ideas presented were well thought out. What I'm most excited to try and figure out is how I could use a Google Map as a collection point for pins/locations where our teachers will be having fun this summer. I think it'd be really neat to create a map with several layers and share it with the staff so we can drop pins all summer long. Like a collaborative travel blog, in Google Maps form! I'd like to do layers like: A Place You Traveled; A Pool You Saw; A Meal You Loved; An Ultimate Relaxation Location; A Place You Wish You Could Travel. If I understood the session correctly, we'll have 10 layers to work with, so all we need to do now is come up with a few more layers and BOOM! Summer fun project. (Also: we need a way clever name for the map.) We did a twitter bingo challenge last summer and it was so fun to see how the staff members were having fun all summer long. Being a new staff member, it was super helpful to go ahead and start associating experiences and faces with all the new names I was learning. I hope I can figure out how to set up a map to do this! Thanks, @mamaestes for the inspiration! @jmattmiller (aka Matt Miller) presented the keynote address with @ShakeUpLearning (aka Kasey Bell) and he also presented a session on helping students to use their voice via podcasts. We spent a fair chunk of time in the session learning about how Flipgrid can be used to create opportunities to have students use their voices, and I was drawn to think about the ways we can connect with other schools via Flipgird. The school I serve is the first school that is a 3rd-5th grade campus in our district, and our PK-2nd grade campus is just across the street. Something that I've seen that's been super effective for developing positive peer relationships on my former campuses has been buddies between grade levels. There's something incredibly magical about students in kindergarten and 4th grade pairing up to unlock the magical elements of a book. I'd like to look into the way that we could pair up with a classroom on the PK-2nd campus to create a #gridpals experience. I am excited to look into this! @jdeek (aka Jim Deeken) is a middle school counselor and shared a session about tips for administrators, counselors, instructional coaches, paper managers, etc. to create a more productive day. Jim shared several tips that were incredibly helpful, but the one that I want to look into was something he mentioned about tracking RtI data. There's a series of columns and values assigned to different columns that all add up to a total score per student. The total score gives us an idea of how students should be grouped, how students are improving through their RtI experiences, how we can better serve students in need. (((MIND BLOWN))) In short, I have a lot of brainstorming to do! My partner AP and I are revamping how our campus handles the RtI process because we feel like there is an immense opportunity for growth and are not impressed with how we ran RtI this year. As I told my carpool mates on the way to the car at the end of the conference: it'd be one thing to know that we have some RtI needs and just sit on our hands--that wouldn't be okay; it's only okay that we know we have RtI growth opportunities BECAUSE we have a plan to improve our services. Bring on 2018-2019! @MsSNicks and I will be ready to ROCK the RtI! #TxGoo18 was fantastic! I learned way more than the three points I listed in the blog and was inspired by the relationships I made. I'm especially thankful to my new friends at Ault Elementary who welcomed me into their tribe for the weekend, since I was a lone Jaguar attending TxGoo. I can't wait to see who #teamjowell can welcome into our tribe at next year's TxGoo! Stout Nation is vast and there is plenty of room for so many to join!
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AuthorHi! I'm Virginia Stout, and I love education. *Hi Virginia* Welcome to Stout Nation; enjoy! Archives
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