From http://www.digitallearningday.org:
Digital Learning Day is a culminating event in a year-round national awareness campaign to improve teaching and learning for all children. On Digital Learning Day, we are asking everyone – no matter your comfort with technology - teachers, librarians, school leaders, afterschool programs, community groups, parents – to Sign up and be counted in this effort by
- Starting a conversation - at a PTA/PTO meeting, in your school, department, library, or community-based organization about your goals for your students and how digital learning can help meet their needs. Watch our National Town Hall meeting on 2.1.12 and participate virtually. Watch our daylong webcast and pass it on to others who care about student learning! Not sure where to start? Check out our Getting Started section (coming soon) and soon you'll be on your way!
- Trying one new thing - sample an online lesson, use mobile devices in class, start a wiki, use digital storytelling, start a project-based learning unit, but above all, challenge your teaching, learning, and pedagogy and see what digital technology can do for you and the students you serve! Check out our resources and toolkits and go digital!
- Showcase success - submit a video of how you are innovating to give the students you work with the best learning experience possible! Better yet, have your students take the lead and show us how digital learning works for them!
This is an exciting idea and I'm excited that we all have a chance to be apart of this. Here are some ideas of how you can take advantage of this day:
Technology Integrators: Host a model lesson that incorporates a technology that can increase student engagement in the classroom. Invite teachers, administrators, and school board members to the lesson. Not only should you model the use of the technology, but make sure that you model teaching strategies and classroom management skills that will help the technology work well. Choose a fun topic as well to model with the technology. Maybe make a history of your favorite tv show the topic of the lesson (as I will be doing with my lesson.) Also create your own Twitter Hashtag for your school corporation. For instance at Tri-Creek we will be using #TCSCDLD12.
"Techie" Teachers: Invite other teachers to be apart of the day. Share your experiences with these teachers and offer to help in planning lessons and share your successes and failures. Plan a high level Blooms lesson and invite all teachers in your building to stop in on your prep period and observe your class. Post signs around your building promoting #DLDay and get your students excited about it! Here is an example of a poster we will be using at Tri-Creek: http://db.tt/mFT0jFi9. Here is a handout that I am sending out to teachers as well: http://db.tt/RypvvQyz.
"Tech-Newbie" Teachers: Try something new in your class. There are a few things that you should not fear in this process!
1. Don't fear what you don't know. We were all beginners with this at one point in time. We all have stumbled, and if you can learn to laugh it off and move on to a backup plan, then your lesson will be a success! Which leads to number 2....
2. Don't be afraid of failure! We all have lessons that just utterly bomb, technology or no technology. We have all gone into lessons thinking this is going to be the best lesson I have ever taught and after 1st hour, we find ourselves frantically rewriting our lesson plans. When I first dove into using technology in the classroom this happened to me plus my Principal walked in while it crashed and burned! I tried doing a Moodle Wiki during class compiling different types of Narcotics and their side effects. The only downside I found out: Moodle Wiki's only allow one person to edit at a time. I could have just said no to using technology again because I ran into a speed bump along the road, but instead I just had students form groups of four and compile their lists on a group paper.
3. Don't be afraid to ask for help. There are a ton of teachers out there who are willing to help you through your first lessons or sit down and share with you their ups and downs.
Whatever any of you do, be sure to share what you do on #DLDay. Tweet about it, talk about it, and show off everything you do on February 1st!
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