Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Holiday Countdown - Sharing the Best of 2014

Last year as 2013 was winding down, all the awesome lists of of the "best" were announced. I was inspired to share them with my co-workers as an end of year holiday greeting formatted like the “12 Days of Christmas”. In addition as a Google school, there were many features that the instructional tech team had not shared.
Holiday Countdown 2013 - 15 days of Apps,  Websites & Tech Tools was the theme used to share tidbits with Marshall High School faculty and staff; a daily gift of some of the wonderful apps, web tools, etc.; a few things to experiment with, trying to tempt them with something new.
Aware that in all probability very few would try them, I did include all three items each day for variety. Surprisingly, several used one or more with their students to break the tension before the Christmas holiday.
Changing schools this year I have updated the chart with links that I will share with my teachers and staff in the emails for Henderson High School, including many new links and 2014 best lists. Added also this year are webinars, hashtags and bloggers since those have been a fabulous source for professional development. A screenshot below shows the format with the link to the table being shared in both this blog and in the chat tonight. Believing that all good ideas are only as good as are used... borrow anything you can use. So our #TxLChat moderators have worked with it for the December 2nd chat. On the 2014 table is included a link to those shared last year. Then, the final email contains a link to a shared Google presentation culminating all the email links.
If this is not the best time for your campus try sharing them at the beginning of the new year or for Valentine's Day as "Web We Love" or some theme. 


Example of the email content & format
      

Example of the chart - the ideas for it become an obsession!




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