Today we had New Teacher Academy at Hermitage High School. We shared a quick summary of the technology resources available in Henrico and gave the new teachers some ideas for using technology in their classrooms. You can see our slideshow presentation here. Besides hiring many new teachers, there are several other changes in Henrico this year. Our ITRT team got three new trainers, Jim, Ryan, and Julie. They have fresh, exciting ideas, and I’ve linked to their blogs on the right. One of the newbies, Ryan, taught 4th grade last year, so we presented together today at New Teacher Academy since I also taught 4th grade (you can watch our intro video here). A cool thing we used for our presentation was a new app I discovered at last week’s technology conference called Nearpod (thanks Ms. Waggoner & Ms. Lizotte). It provides a way to make your presentation interactive. You can try it out here. Since our team has changed, we all have some new schools this year. My schools are Varina (Mondays), Holladay (Tuesdays), Laburnum (Wednesdays), and Davis (Thursdays). Fridays are a flexible day where we go wherever we are needed. I also have a new way to sign up for lessons. I am using Setmore. You are welcome to click the link and start signing up for lessons now, but I am also going to sign each teacher up for 4 lessons in advance. I found out too late about Calendly, but I’ll use that scheduling program next year since it is free and integrates with Google Calendar. I hope everyone has a great 2013-2014 school year!
