Life of a Virtual School Teacher: July 2014

Digital Literacy

What is literacy? Nichole Pickard hits the nail on the head in her video I'm sharing below when she states, "Literacy has always been defined by the technology." After hearing this statement it was like a whole new thought process started developing in my mind. Of course, as an ELA/Reading teacher I have known what literacy is but sometimes when I hear thoughts I begin to be able to look at subjects with new and refreshing insight. This video on DYN in the Chicago community did that for me and I hope that it will also get your mind churning too.

Please do share some of the thoughts you had or now have on digital literacy. Does you city have a program similar to DYN?

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Getting Organized...

One of the biggest challenges I face as a teacher virtual or otherwise has always been being organized. I have noted though that there are thousands of solutions to help organize a brick and mortar school teacher but not as much out there for us virtual ones...or at least not as much marketed toward us and/or shared. My hope is to start changing this!

One of the newest items in my organization arsenal is the program OneNote from Microsoft. This program is any teachers (or person's for that matter) dream solution. It is very user friendly and easy to start using. As a person who has grown up using Microsoft programs the interface is familiar and reassuring. Even if you have never used anything Microsoft though you will find this program easy and hopefully life saving like I have! The below video tutorial from GroupTrailsvids on Youtube will show some of the basic awesomeness of this program.