Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work!

This is my 28th year in education.  I've been a classroom teacher, a K-5 media coordinator, a district level Instructional Technologist and am back in my happy place again as a media coordinator in a middle school.

One of the things I've struggled with the most as a media coordinator and Instructional Technologist over the years is collaborating with staff.  The higher the grade level, the harder it was because teachers at middle school and high school have such tight constraints on the time they have to cover their standards.  

When the stars align and you have a staff that works well together, you fall into every media coordinator's dream of collaboration nirvana.  Collaborating isn't a chore nor does it require a formal planning session.  All it takes is a simple conversation about what's being studied or a quick email and within a few minutes you've got a killer plan that will boost student engagement and actually make them want to complete their work.

So what kind of things can a media coordinator do with a dream team? Instead of traditional projects like presentations, we've worked together to:
- have students create historical artifacts on the 3D printer
- used the green screen to tell stories and present information
- explored the life of prehistoric man where all they had was the resources the land provided
- re-created historic scenes in Minecraft
- programmed spheros 
- made tshirts for clubs and events
- plan a STEM day for a grade level
-created circuits and programmed Arduinos

The Makerspace tools have really helped with collaboration beyond just Language Arts classes this year.  I love seeing just how creative our students are.  The collaborations I've taken part in so far have been phenomenal.  I can't want to see what the rest of the year brings. 

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