Think you know your geography?

Looking for a new way to help practice geography while helping others at the same time?  Look no further then the UNICEF website! Anyone with an email address can participate.  Students could always enter your email or a parents (with permission of course) to participate. If you get all the answers correct UNICEF will donate $2 to help child migrants around the world at no cost to you. Ready? 

Media Literacy Week 2019

"Inspired by Canada’s Media Literacy Week, the 5th annual U.S. Media Literacy Week, October 21-25, 2019, is hosted by the National Association for Media Literacy Education. The mission is to highlight the power of media literacy education and its essential role in education all across the country."
Resources:
Screen Savvy Kids "aims to maximize the benefits of media use and minimize potential risks through media literacy education. SSK offers workshops for kids, presentations for parents, and trainings for teachers to assist with the integration of media literacy tools into the curriculum based on national, state and district standards (including 21st Century Skills and Common Core State Standard Initiatives)."
Media Smarts Canada's centre for Digital and Media Literacy has a database of lessons for elementary and middle school teachers. Including games and tip sheets.
iSpeakMedia "Advancing media literacy education through an evolving series of outreach programs within the communities that need it most. 2019 is dedicated to strengthening the curriculum of each iSpeakMedia program, for implementation in diverse learning environments across the United States and abroad."
PBS Learning Media has a collection of lessons and activities for all ages.
Newseum Ed "is provided by the Newseum as a free resource to educators"
Project Look Sharp "outreach program at Ithaca College that provides training and materials for K-16 educators to integrate media literacy and critical thinking into their existing curriculum."
iCivics- for grade 4 and up has a simulations connected to media literacy, called Newsfeed Defenders, there's also some lesson extensions that go with it.
Mirco Credential in Media Literacy from KQED and PBS "Demonstrate your expertise in teaching PreK-12 students to think critically about their roles as media consumers and creators -- or in training teachers to do so."

Digital Citizenship Week 2019

Every year, the third week of October is designated as Digital Citizenship Week. A week where many teachers across the world take time to teaching good digital citizenship in hopes that all students will become safe and smart when using technology. So how can you take advantage of this yearly push to teach your students to become good digital citizens?
Common Sense Media has a wealth of resources.  Many of which I already teach to our students.
Applied Educational Systems breaks it down into key focus areas such: Teaching Empathy, The Internet, User Data, Digital Literacy, Digital Divide, Digital Wellness, and securing digital devices.
EdTech Update has a variety of resources around Digital citizenship.
CyberWise "At CyberWise we believe that Digital Citizenship is the first step to becoming digitally literate." They also have a video that could be useful to share with older students.
NetSmartz "provides age-appropriate videos and activities to help teach children be safer online with the goal of helping children to become more aware of potential online risks and empowering them to help prevent victimization by making safer choices on- and offline. "
InCtrl "is a series of free standards-based lessons that teach key digital citizenship concepts. These lessons, for students in grades 4-8, are designed to engage students through inquiry-based activities, and collaborative and creative opportunities."
iKeepSafe has a variety of resources for educators on Digital Citizenship.
Digizen Is a website that "provides information for educators, parents, carers, and young people. It is used to strengthen their awareness and understanding of what digital citizenship is and encourages users of technology to be and become responsible DIGItal citiZENS."

Professional Development October 2019 Update

October 16 - Changing from At-Risk to At-Promise, Webinar

October 16-18 AnchorNets, Crystal City, VA

October 18-19 - NEATE Danvers, MA

October 23-24 -MASSCue Foxborough, MA

October 24-26 - MaFLA Springfield, MA 

October 25 - Celebrate Education Entrepreneurship!  Boston, MA

October 30-November 20 - 21st-Century Citizenship, Online

November 2 - EdmodoCon 2019, webinars, Miami,FL

November 8 & 9 -Northeast Regional Media Literacy Conference, Providence, RI

November 9 &10 - MAEA Beverly, MA 

November 11- December 3 -The Research Behind Motivation, Performance & Well-Being, online course

November 18 &19 - Innovation in Education,  Roxbury, MA 

November 18-20 -2019 Global Education Conference, free, online around the clock

November 22-24 Learning How to Learn, Boston, MA

January 14-17 - Future of Education Technology, Miami, FL

January 30-31 - LearnLaunch, Boston, MA

March 6 - K-8: Exploring Character Through Play, Atlanta, Georgia 

Spring 2020 - STEM Summit, Boston, MA 

April 2-4 - Personalization 2020, Providence, RI

April 2-5 - National Conference on Science Education, Boston, MA

April 6-10 - SITE, New Orleans

April 16&17 - How Students Become Extraordinary Leaders, New York, NY

April 20 & 21- Educating Good Men for the 21st Century, Atlanta, Georgia

Summer 2020

June 23-25 - Serious Play, University of Central Florida

July 2020 -Building Learning Communities, Boston, MA

Fall of 2020

October 25-27, 2020 - Literacy for All Conference, Providence, RI

On-Going/On-Line

Getting Going With G Suite (On-demand) The lessons in the course contains video modules, handouts, and self-assessment quizzes. And at the end of the course you'll receive a PD certificate. Streamlining your workflow through Google Classroom. Topics addressed in this self paced course are:
*Streamlining your workflow through Google Classroom.
*Taking control of your inbox with Gmail hacks.
*Creating self-grading assessments in Google Forms.
*Developing a classroom website with Google Sites.
*Using Google Sheets to send personalized emails in bulk.
*Organizing meetings with Google Calendar.
*Keeping track of bookmarks and notes with Google Keep.
*Using Jamboard and Drawings to create diagrams.
*Making beautiful presentations in Google Slides.
*Creating guided reading activities in Google Docs.

EdCamp What began as an idea transformed into a movement! From Philadelphia to Portland, and in 41 countries around the globe, participant-driven professional learning is energizing + empowering educators! The first Edcamp was organized in 2010 by a group of teachers in Philadelphia who met up for a computer science "un-conference." At BarCamp, they collaborated with others to create discussion sessions based on the interests of the people in the room. There was no presenter; no boring slideshow. The entire day was personalized and learner driven with those in the room sharing their experience and expertise. At the end of the day, the teachers decided this model was too good to contain! They exchanged contact information, and within the next few months they used the "unconference" model of BarCamp to target educators.Common Sense Educator Learn about the common sense curriculum and how to implement it.

Digital Learning for the K-8 Classroom, From Columbia Teachers College, "Ongoing Enrollment: This course is offered in an online, self-paced format. Students are invited to enroll at any time. Digital Learning for the K-8 Classroom was developed in partnership with award-winning educator, Detra Price-Dennis and top professional development platform Teach Away, with the aim of delivering online digital literacy training that helps K-8 educators maximize student learning outcomes in the classroom."

PBS TeacherLine facilitated and self-paced PD courses are designed to benefit both beginning and experienced teachers. Topics include science, reading, social studies, math, instructional strategies, and instructional technology. Innovative: Acquire new strategies and tools you can use right away to enhance classroom instruction. Engaging: Interact with peers and experts in a virtual learning environment. Flexible: Discover anytime, anywhere learning that fits into your busy schedule. Choose from 15, 30, or 45-hour facilitated courses or enroll in a 1.5 or 3-hour self-paced course.

Learn Robotics Online is a hands-on online workshop series for STEM Teachers developed by the CoderZ Team at Intelitek. They are offering the workshop series for free to CSTA Members and we wanted to encourage you to sign up for this fantastic opportunity.

The lessons are a combination of short topical videos and hands-on exercises covering topics such as navigation, sensors and programming. The exercises will be done in the CoderZ virtual robotics learning environment which comes with a realistic simulator so you can see your robot execute your code. No need for any hardware! The series is self paced and online so you can watch the videos and practice the exercises wherever and whenever you want. Go to https://gocoderz.thinkific.com/courses/robotics-for-stem-teachers to view the full curriculum and sign up.

Computational Thinking for Educators What: A free online course helping educators integrate computational thinking into their curriculum. Who: Humanities, Math, Science, and Computing educators. When: All of the course materials are available as a self-study program.

Class Central’s collection page for Ivy League MOOCs. Here are 250 Ivy League courses you can take online right now for free. "The 8 Ivy League schools are among the most prestigious colleges in the world. They include Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, and Columbia universities, and the University of Pennsylvania.  All eight schools place in the top fifteen of the U.S. News and World Report 2017 national university rankings."

Harvard is offering a FREE Digital Photography "technology is continually changing, however, the principles behind good photography don't. ALISON's free online photo course gives you the opportunity to gain extensive knowledge and understanding of digital photography including topics such as exposure settings, how to read and use the histogram, how light affects a photograph, how the camera sensor and lenses work, and how to process a photograph using computer software. You will also learn tips and techniques on what not to do when taking a photograph."

Google Apps for Education, Certified Educator. "The Google for Education Training Center offers in-depth training for educators at every level. Courses are self-paced, guided, and designed to address real classroom needs.

BrainPOP PD

The Certified BrainPOP Educator (CBE) program recognizes teachers and other educators who effectively leverage BrainPOP in creative ways to support student learning.

To express interest in October 2019 or January 2020 online Certified BrainPOP Educator cohorts, please complete this application Courses take 4 weeks to complete.

BrainPOP 101 is another option. It is an interactive course that "provides a series of hands-on activities that invite you to play with BrainPOP features and tools–from Make-a-Movie and Challenges to Primary Sources, and more. Along the way, you’ll discover how best to leverage all of these rich, playful resources to support you and your students as they explore topics across the curriculum."