National Geographic Educator Certification

The National Geographic Educator Certification presents ideas, methodologies, and resources for teachers to share the work of National Geographic and scientists in the field and bring that to the classroom.  This "course" is broken into 3 parts and takes 20 hours to complete over the span of 3 months.

Phase 1 - Through the online coursework, you learn more about the resources and ideas that National Geographic has to support K-12 education.  It also speaks to the belief system of National Geographic and what they believe science and social studies education could look like in 2018.

Phase 2 - With the assistance of a mentor, develop and implement two lessons that apply the skills from Phase 1, and reflect with the community on how it went.

Phase 3 - Develop a capstone project that shares your journey through the process.

Since working through this training, I have learned about a few resources, such as the ones listed below:

• National Geographic Explorers - have students research and learn about scientists in the field and the work that they are doing which is supported by National Geographic
• Fieldwork Map that shows where and what research is funded by National Geographic
• GeoBee Geography competition
• Explorer Classroom connects your classroom with a National Geographic Explorer in the field

If you are interested in any of these ideas and want help getting them under way for your classroom or you want to know more about the National Geographic Educator Certification, please let me know!

Unconferencing

A conference is defined as, "a meeting of two or more person to discuss matters of a common concern." So what, then, would an "unconference" be?

If you have ever attended a professional conference, you would know there is usually the same structure at all of them: keynote speaker, breakout sessions, common meals, vendor sponsors, and closing. An unconference throws away the formality and invites the best parts of the conference to remain - networking and sharing ideas.

EdCamps are becoming more and more popular throughout the United States for this reason. People who attend learn that there are three principles that drive the event:


1. It's free and open to everyone

2. It's participant-driven because the topics are determined that day based on what the participants want to discuss

3. Emphasizes conversations and experience over presentations and experts

4. Vote with your feet; if a session doesn't work for you, go to a different one, no questions asked


The edcamp format can be used by anyone, anywhere. Official events sponsored by the website will be in PA on the following upcoming dates:


Sat, 09/15/2018 - 09:00 .    Edcamp Carlisle      Carlisle Pennsylvania, United States

Sat, 09/22/2018 - 09:00      EdCamp Adams      New Oxford Pennsylvania, United States

Sat, 10/27/2018 - 08:30 .    IHM Edcamp           Immaculata Pennsylvania, United States

If you are interested in taking advantage of such a training, please let me know so we can make it happen!  They are great for obtaining some more Act 48 hours as well.

Digital Presentation Tools

Storytelling, multimedia and digital presentation is just one way that technology can be meaningfully integrated into instruction.  Technology becomes powerful when students are doing the creating.  This blog post will be a refresher on some great digital tools for presentation creation.  Some of them may be new to you, so check them out!

Tool	Video Tutorial	Example
Adobe Spark	Tutorial	Santorini
Flipgrid	Overview	Green Screens at Drexel
Sutori	General Walkthrough	Great Books of 2018
Prezi	Prezi Basics	Hun Sen
Google Slides	2018 Overview	Seesaw
PowToon	Powtoon Tricks	Easy ESL Games (made with PowToon)

All of these have single sign-on with Google, so use your Google account to test them!