My Summer School Teachers

This summer I have spent a great deal of time reading blogs and attending webinars as I continue to grow as a teacher and a learner.  I am so grateful to other educators who are so willing to share their thoughts, learning, resources and ideas with me and others.  I feel blessed by my amazing Professional Learning Network.  I gather resources and ideas by following amazing educators on Twitter, reading well crafted blogs and attending inspiring and informative webinars.

As I get back into blogging, I thought a great series would be to introduce you to some of my favorite "Summer School" teachers.  These teachers seemed to be sharing just what I needed to learn at just the right time this summer.  With the thousands of blog posts, webinars and tweets this summer, there really are too many to list them all, but there are a few that have really caught my interest this summer and have added a lot of value to my summer learning.  In the next few weeks, I plan to write a blog post highlighting each of these amazing educators.

Matt B. Gomez:  Matt is a kindergarten teacher in Texas.  His blog caught my eye because I am working with our Kindergarten teachers who recently recieved shared ipad labs for our Kindergarten classrooms. Matt doesn't only talk ipads or tech, but talks Kindergarten in such an innovative and real way.  I am a former (and maybe future) Kindergarten teacher and it seems like everything I read from Matt makes me want to say AMEN!  In addition to Matt's blog, he also has some fantastic boards on Pinterest, he is active on Twitter and you can follow his Facebook page.

Susan Oxnevad:  Although I had previously encountered some of Susan's amazing work through her blogs and wikis, I was really introduced to her brilliance through a series on webinars on SimpleK12.  Susan has a lot to share about Digital Differentiation, Common Core Tech integration and using Google Apps for Education.  I will share more in a separate post, but her presentation of resources through the use of the tool Thinglink and her well thought out scaffolding and templates of Google Docs and Presentation provide great ideas for effectively using these tools in the classroom.  I can't wait to dive in and create some similar learning tools for my own teaching and professional development.

Catlin Tucker: Catlin is a high school English teacher in California.  She is well versed in the Common Core Standards and blended learning and has some really strong and practical ways to approach the standards through the use of technology.  Catlin is also a Google Certified Teacher so her ideas for using these tools in classrooms fits right in to our introduction to Google Apps for Education in our district.  One of the most powerful things for me is that Catlin teaches in a technology poor classroom and school but has found ways to make technology a daily part of her teaching.

Pernille Ripp: Pernille is an inspriring 5th grade teacher from Wisconsin.  Inspiration and passion for teaching are the gifts I have attained from Pernille this summer.  Pernille shared her inspiring story of developing the Global Read Aloud which in its 4th year now has over 30,000 students around the world reading and collaborating on the same read aloud books.  Her passion for connecting teachers and students to the world and all that we can learn from that has really inspired me to encourage this type of collaboration in our district.  I am excited to say, that I have already shared this with a few teachers and they are excited to begin.

I look forward to sharing more about what I have learned from these amazing teachers with you in the next few weeks.  So stay tuned to my blog which is up and running for another great year of learning, sharing, and celebrating.


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