Professional Development

During the past school year me and my students did a lot of collaboration with school classes from abroad (United States, Turkey, Russia, Czech Republic and others) using tech tools as SMART Bridgit, Skype, FaceTime and LogMeIn. We also used Facebook at school for learning purposes and especially during intern of the students. I was at BETT 2013 and met a few SEEs from Canada, Spain, the UK and Finland at the SMART Booth and did a Learn Live session about the use of social media in the curriculum.

The past school year I did the post-university study IT-coordinator at ICT+E and graduated last June. So from the next school year on I will be the IT-coordinator for SMART Showcase School Ashram College as well. Lots of things to do the next school year in getting ourselves and the students 21st century ready. ;)

In order to take the next step in becoming a Guerrilla Geography Tech Ninja teaching like a Pirate (thanks to Danesa Jepson, Rafranz Davis and Daniel Raven-Ellison for the inspiration) I need to do some professional development this summer to transform a little more the way I teach. I know I'm good with educational technology from SMART Technologies such as the SMART Board and Response system and Apple technology such as iPad, but I am looking for more and new stuff to add to the way I teach (and learn). Especially this summer, because next school year we will have WiFi for all students and will start with BYOD. So besides the common used mobile applications such as SMART Response VE, eXtreme Collaboration, Twitter, Socrative etc. which could be used even more often while there's WiFi for every student I will need to get out more of my comfort zone and start to look more into these 'tools' mentioned, because I really want to use them the next school year. I also will need to work on the list of Twitter favorites, because I've got a 1000+. :)

	Nearpod: Presentations enriched with short movies, polls, questions, animations and other digital content created by the teacher can be followed by the students on their iPad in their own time or by following the preset order of the teacher.
	Edmodo: It's the Facebook of education and seems to work as an Learning Manegement System (or in Dutch elo: electronische leeromgeving) which includes assignments, polls, quizzes, agenda etc. Kinda cool and could be used for students during their intern or a special environment for projects etc.
	iBooks Author: Have been creating content on the SMART Notebook platform and want to take the next step and create content for the students or their personal device ... I know it should be on the iPad, but we'll work on that. Perhaps for all the teachers at my school at first, because they'll have an iPad next shool year.
	Sophia: Professional development organisation with free subscription. Teacher tools and resources for free. All in English, in that case not really an option for my students, but nice for teachers like me.
	ForAllBadges: As a great fan of the badges one could gain or earn using Foursquare I really like this badge rewarding system for students. Earning badges for special tasks, tests, assignments and other even group things could be helpful to boost their motivation. I've already created 40 different badges for the next school year for my students and there's even a 'badge developer-badge' for great ideas of students themselves. And also great fact that there's an app for different devices.

I surley will keep you posted about my development and the outcome and use of these tools the next school year. It's a pity there was no SEE Summit in North-America nor in EMEA. I do like conferences and will be present at Kennisnet Summerschool at 27th and 28th of August, which I will attend with other SEEs from Ashram College Henk-Jan van Mierlo and Sander van der Zwaan. I will also go on a study trip 'Finland Calling' to Helsinki, Finland from September 22nd till 28th with the headmaster of my school to study the Finnish education system and to collaborate with the other attendees. And this next year I will be looking more into mobile learning (and teaching) especially using the iPad, because all teachers at SMART Showcase School Ashram College will get an iPad! How awesome is that.

Click to see full infographic

This video I created is about me teaching Guerrilla Geography like Pirate with Tech Tools at SMART Showcase School Ashram College in Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands.

Year II at SMART Showcase School 'Ashram College'