January Newsletter!
Events
1/20
Educator Design Sprint - Café & Children’s Area Barnes and Noble Ladue
Don’t miss this free opportunity to practice your space design skills! We’ve partnered with area design expert and Director of Innovative Learning at Unviersity City SD, Dr. Robert Dillon, as well as designers from Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design. Studies have shown that incorporating layout and space design into your education plan enhances student learning. We’ll practice these vital concepts here at our store so you can return to YOUR space with all the needed skills. Join the collaborative design fun! Complimentary coffee & light refreshments will be served.
Sat. Jan 20th 10:30 am to noon - R.S.V.P. or just show up! I'll be there!
Now - March 2nd
It’s time to put your students' imaginations to work, because the Doodle 4 Google contest is now open. This year’s contest is open to K-12 students until March 2 with the theme “What inspires you?" We’ll feature the winning doodle on the Google homepage! Prizes include college scholarships, a behind the scenes experience with the Google Doodle team, and a $50,000 Google for Education technology package for the winner’s school. Submit your doodles!
2/7
Blue Skies discussion group
Looking for thoughtful conversation? Interested in environmental issues and energy? Join our Blue Skies discussion group. Open to K-12 educators, particularly middle and high school science teachers. Learn more
2/10
Darwin Day
Celebrate Charles Darwin's birthday with a free evolution event for K-12 educators. Keynote speaker is Eugenie Scott - an internationally recognized expert on creationism/evolution controversy. Register now
2/9
EdcampSTL Tweet Up
Just before EdcampSTL get together and meet other conference goers and enjoy some light appetizers on us! It's a great time to meet new educators.
2/10
EdcampSTL
The world's largest UNconference. 500+ educators gathered ready to share the awesomeness going on in their schools. Breakfast and Lunch Provided
2/24
Learning and Leading the culture of IKEA
Educators around the globe are looking into other sectors to better understand how to create something special in our schools and classrooms. Come learn how IKEA makes your experience special and how you can bring that back to your school/classroom
2/26 - 27
Lee's Summit R-7 Schools would like to invite teachers and administrators to CONNECTMidwest. Participants will experience two full days of interactive, highly relevant professional learning opportunities
2/28 - 3/1
Embracing Diversity and Inclusion conference at Webster University a "Free-mium" conference with BOLD speakers, great insight and inspiring ideas.
3/1
Improv Skills for Educators
Come learn new Improv games, strategies and activities to build community with your colleagues and students! Improv is so much more than comedy. It's learning about discomfort, agreeing and running with an idea, it's truly listening to another person, it's empathy and putting yourself in another person's shoes. You know what else? It's FUN! It'll make you laugh, it'll change how you interact with students.
A multitude of learning around VR and AR and it's impact on society to come. Register for this FREE event and check out all the learning
4/14
The Missouri Botanical Garden has an awesome event focused on sustainability just for your school and your students. Check it out!
Resources
Check out the New Certification Platform
Our certification platform now includes an updated user interface and several new features for our Google Certified Educator Level 1 and 2 exams. Even if you’ve already taken the exams, you can revisit the exam platform to view your certification history, refer a friend, or download a letter from our team to your principal. Log in here.
Discover your Favorite new Educational YouTube Channel
Looking for a new educational channel for your students in 2018? This YouTube playlist from We Create Edu has videos from dozens of up-and-coming educators. The playlist includes videos on a variety of subjects including biology, pop culture, and history, so there’s something for every type of educator.
YOUTUBE Channel: Applied Digital Skills Youtube Channel . A google for education channel for learning and applying great skills in our schools.
PODCAST: Experiments in Happiness and creativity . A BOLD podcast with the amazing Gretchen Rubin on how to expand your Happiness and Creativity in 2018. A great focus on TEI 5.3
Articles
Google's 17 favorite moments of 2017
ARTICLE: A great article about the modern classroom authored by our very own Bob Dillon.
ARTICLE: What the research says about classroom layout and design.
ARTICLE: We are all math people
POLICY: Are Snow Days a thing of the past? Looks like something cool is happening in Illinois!
TWO ARTICLES: Two recent articles show what the firms have learned about why some employees quit and others stay — and about why some teams flourish and others flounder.
FINAL THOUGHT:
Many of us like to start our year with resolutions. What if we made it simpler than that? What if we chose just one word to guide us through the year? There are some terrific HyperDocs and other Google-related resources that you can use to motivate yourself and your students to stop, reflect, and move forward with intention. They can be used in January at the beginning of a new year - or anytime, really! More here
- Have you chosen a word for 2018?
- Have you tried doing a one word or vision boarding activity to start the new year with your students?
- Do you have any other great activities that you like to use to start a new month, year, term, semester, or season in your classroom?