Warning: Professional Development Overload

The past six weeks have been a whirlwind of learning! I have attended my first EdCamp, first iPad Institute, first Literacy Institute and first ISTE...interspersed with on campus and online classes...and capped it off yesterday by presenting my first two sessions ever!

I have also been busy networking with fellow Graphite Educators, fellow PBS Media Digital Innovators as well as my invaluable PLN Tweeps (@megcurlteach).

As a learner, I have been challenged by the daunting task of archiving all the great resources I want to use as well as deciding which resources to bring to my classroom (lab) this year. I have been taking digital notes, photographs and videos as a way to remember great ideas shared by other educators.

Now comes the real fun, planning my beginning of the year learning activities along with the rituals and routines necessary to make the whole set function!

I plan to discard last year's lesson plans in Evernote, read through the hundreds of resources I have saved to Pocket, scan my Google Drive for examples of student work to retool, and reuse.

I hope my enthusiasm spreads to my students and colleagues as we launch another brave new beginning!

I will be posting specific activities from my work with students. I would love to know about some of your successes!

Planning with Evernote

Evernote is a free web-based tool that allows users to save, organize and then find almost anything. I am using it in these weeks before school starts to write and organize my lesson plans. I am able to create notebooks which store all my notes. I can tag my notes to help me find specific subjects later.

Some features that really impress me are the abilities to tag my notes and perform text searches of them.  This will enable me to find a resource even when I have forgotten which folder or note it is in.

Evernote syncs my notes to all my devices.  I used to think it was great to only have to carry my laptop home.  Now, I wouldn't even have to do that in many cases, as I can access Evernote anywhere.

Another great feature is the ability to clip websites, photographs, audio files, etc. The Evernote Web Clipper is installed on my computer and iPad.  When I come across a resource I want to keep, I click on the icon in my toolbar. A box appears which lets me choose which folder I want to put it in, along with tags and notes. The image and url are saved as a note.

There are ways to configure notes as you prefer to see them. I love the fact that I can put everything in one place.

I know I have a lot more to learn about this tool, but it was easy to begin using its awesome functions.

Visual lesson plans

Planning for a substitute teacher has never been easy for me.  It is difficult to plan activities that someone else will be able to carry out.  Teaching in a computer lab has made this a bit easier, but not foolproof.  I teach lessons with an interactive whiteboard which is not available to substitute teachers.  In order to make my plans clear to my students, I have begun using visual lesson plans.

I take screen shots of the activities I want my students to complete. I print out a Word document for each class and tape them onto my whiteboard for all to see.

Confusion is avoided about what students are to do.  I also spend much less time writing explanations to my substitute teachers.

Lesson Plans

Last year, I wrote all my lesson plans on my laptop. I've decided to do the same again because there are so many benefits!

The first advantage is the reason I started - sharing my plans with the ELL and Spec. Ed. teachers who support students in my classroom was very easy. I send my plans to them as an email attachment. Other teachers write their plans in a traditional lesson plan book, but then have to rewrite them in an email or make hard copies.

To make it easy for others to find what they needed to read, I color-code each subject and use a different font for each.








I usually have my laptop with me, so it is easy to quickly write a segment of my plans or make a quick change or addition as I think of something. My district provides unit guides that contain many sample lessons. These are available online, so I am able to download them, then cut, paste, and modify parts that I am going to use. It's also easy to refer to online resources and activities; I can copy and paste any URL or online text or image.




I can share charts, lists, or anything else I have included in my lesson plans with my students by connecting my laptop to a projector.








I also use my laptop in small group instruction to share vocabulary lists enlarged to a huge font. When I am done, I shrink the text again to save it in a smaller format.

I can write "to do" lists (in RED!) where I won't misplace them.
When planning for a guest teacher, I can email my plans to them or print a copy.

I really appreciate how easy it is to modify my plans without crossing things out or erasing. If my students don't complete an activity, or a lesson needs to get moved to another day, all I have to do is copy and paste!

tags: lesson plans