A recent article by Jennifer LaGarde and Todd Nesloney, both Texas educators, on the Scholastic Book Fair site emphasized that "It Takes A Reader to Grow a Reader." Take the opportunity to grow your own reading life this summer next to some of our students.
Some of the BHS teachers are reading Outliers:The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. Recommended by our very own Coach Hamilton, high school students are reading the book for extra credit along with their teachers. The BHS teachers have set up a book club in Classroom. See the high school link on the Summer Learning webpage for more information.
The BMS page on the Summer Learning site has a #Caught Reading Padlet for students to share selfies of where they're reading this summer and a #BulldogReader Flipgrid to make book recommendations to other students. Teachers on all campuses are invited to post book selfies and book talks on the middle school page. (Both tools are moderated, so it may take up to 24 hours for your post to appear in the feed.)
Want to learn some new Google-y tricks?
Finally have a few minutes to think about what you want to learn in G-Suite? There are tons of free resources including the following:- Richard Byrne's YouTube channel It's chock full of playlists to learn all kinds of new tricks.
- Teacher Tribe Podcast for learning on-the-go
- BISD Digital Learning website has links to all the Tuesday Tech Tips, tutorials for All Things Google, and tutorials for products we need to start the school year.
Need some individual assistance over the summer? Email sgroff.
Looking to do something a little bit different this summer?
- Participate in a Twitter chat (ISTE published a list in January list of 40 chats) I like to use Tweetdeck on a computer to help me keep up with a particular Twitter hashtag.
- Connect with a professional group on Facebook. (I belong to a Middle School Librarians group and a Future Ready Librarians group.)
- Attend an EdCamp. Visit the EdCamp website for upcoming events.
If you learn something awesome this summer, share it with the rest of us using #ITeachBlueGrit or #BISDTweechers on Twitter.
