As we complete our opening three days of professional development in Burlington Public Schools today, I was thinking about all of the great resources that staff has shared with one another this week. In addition, I was wondering how we can continue to share resources throughout the school year when we will be off in our own schools, classrooms and offices. With this in mind, I decided that I would try to continue to riding on this wave of sharing and pass along three resources each Thursday (Three for Thursday) that I thought would be valuable for colleagues.
However, I will need some help on this endeavor if I am truly going to make it work. In addition, it will be a lot more fun if I am not the sole curator of useful websites and blogs. Therefore, I would like to harness the power of the amazing network of online educators and have you all share your favorite sites with me! Here is a link for you to share your suggestions for future Three for Thursday posts.
For my first Three for Thursday, I am going to get things rolling with three of my all-time favorites:
Richard Byrne’s Free Technology for Teachers blog has been on my must-read list for years. Richard, an educator from Maine, shares countless resources daily with reviews and quick explanations of how these resources can be used in classrooms. In addition, he is constantly providing updates on all of these digital tools as they are updated.
Cult of Pedagogy from Jennifer Gonzalez is another must read. Jennifer is a National Board Certified middle school teacher who is now teaching pre-service teachers at the university level. Whether you are a first-year teacher or a savvy veteran, you will find a tremendous amount of resources here on Jennifer’s blog. Before I move on to my third site for this week, I also want to throw a quick plug out for Jennifer’s latest book Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School (Hack Learning Series) (Volume 1). The book which was co-authored by Mark Barnes was one of my favorite summer reads.
My final site for this week is Alice Keeler’s Teacher Tech. There are many reasons to follow Alice’s blog, but one of the biggest for me is the fact that she is a Google ninja! She is constantly sharing updates on Google tools with clear explanations of how teachers can take advantage of the latest updates to the Google Apps for Education toolbox. She is a go-to person for anything related to Google Classroom and recently published 50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom.
So that’s it for this week! Now the ball is in your court to share your favorite websites/blogs for next week’s edition of Three for Thursday! Stay tuned for my next post which will discuss options for curating all of these great resources that we will be sharing this year…
