I meet weekly with a Mastermind group. We formed this in the summer of 2017 after two of us read THIS blog post by Jennifer Gonzalez. This group of school and district leaders meets via Zoom every Friday morning. In the first few minutes we share some wins, then we discuss a common text and end with one of us taking the "hotseat" as we share a struggle we are facing in our role and seek input from the group - some amazing things have come out of this! But I digress. Let's go back to the common text.
This school year, we opted to listen to podcasts and reflect on them during our weekly meetings. One of our favorites so far this year is the Teaching Keating podcast by Weston and Molly Kieschnick. In each episode, they connect movies and television shows to teaching and leading educators. If you haven't checked out this podcast, you must! Now, podcasting is not new. Eleven years ago when I was the Instructional Technology Facilitator at a middle school, I was trying to get folks on board with this as a teaching tool. They were not ready. Over these past few years in my role as a Digital Teaching & Learning Specialist at the district level, I have seen an uptick in teachers not only seeking out podcasts for professional learning, but exploring this as a way for students to share what they have learned. It makes my heart happy! This month, I had two very different requests for podcast assistance. The first one was from a teacher. Her students were working on an advocacy unit and she was looking for a way for them to share their works of heart with an authentic audience. We discussed tools to use for creation and hosting as well as planning strategies for the students as they began their work. I can't wait to see how it goes! The second request came in the form of an exclamation from a group of middle school students as they wrapped up their time in the school's library. Once again, we discussed tools - they shared some that they had experience with and asked some great questions! While the topics of both podcasts are different, some of the tools and methods shared were the same. I'll save that discussion for its own post as I left each school with the option to choose the tool that best fit their purpose - that is how technology in education should always be communicated. I also encouraged the educators in the conversations to let the students drive some of this - they have skills and talents to share! I hope to have an update to this post soon with more details and links to their creations!
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AuthorJeannie Timken Archives
March 2023
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