Last night, I was lucky enough to run a Twitter Space for the ISTE Community Leaders Twitter account with Erin Dowd. Erin had just finished her Expert Webinar on Creativity earlier in the day and it was so great to just sit and talk about creativity and how to share it with students in our classrooms. If you are unfamiliar with Twitter Spaces it works almost like a call-in radio show allowing a host to add speakers to talk and share their ideas with whoever is in the room. Shout out to Greg Bagby for jumping in last night with some great questions.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to be able to fund a trip to Chicago for ISTE. I was so excited to speak to new people, learn about everything I possibly could, and just explore EVERYTHING. Throughout the week I was able to meet up with a few new people including a bunch through the Global PLN. Erin, or her pen name E.E., led a lot of the excellent activities that week. Flash forward a few years and she has just released a new young adult novel and I was lucky enough to pull her into recording with Dani and me for UEN Homeroom. The episode explores how and why to write for students, exploring difficult topics with students, and how to be a global participant in your classroom.

Welcome to week three of #30daysofCanvas 2022! This week I am trying to incorporate some personal elements into each design. All five of these designs feature my photographs from the last few years. Join me for a tour around the world with the photos that I love to share with the larger community. As always, check them out below, click the gifs to head to Canvas Commons (login to Canvas first), and then download the design into your Canvas course. Remember that each of these designs is completely customizable by using Google Drawings or Canva, so feel free to edit them, but I would also love to see them. Share them back with me either via matt@teacherwinters.net or @TeacherWinters on Twitter. Enjoy!

Welcome back for week two of #30daysofCanvasHompages! This week I am digging into some diamonds and building some connections with the larger world through these designs. As promised there are five new designs below that will link you to a Canvas Commons page to upload the design into your course. Remember from there, you can either make a customized copy of the image using Google Drawings or there is a link to the Canva design to make your own copy of the gif version of the design for your classroom.

I love collages. Not just amazing collage art a la punk zines, but any collages that create new art and movement out of existing art. As a teenager I used to make collages on the walls of my room; I would cut up music magazine, old copies of National Geographic, and newspapers. These collages were often funny, serious, and irreverent all at the same time. I would sneak in jokes just for me and be amazed when friends recognized my jokes. I took a required art course in college and had the option to make my own final project in the course.

If you ever spend time with me, I will probably wax poetic about the phrase, “Becoming”. I love the idea that no matter how good we are at our jobs or naturally talented at anything, we are constantly in the state of ‘becoming’, or trying to continually push ourselves and learn everything we can to be consistently better at what we do. That is why this weekly post is called “Developing Educator”. I don’t think anyone is perfect at teaching or the myriad works happening to support educators and students worldwide, so we all are developing, or becoming, educators as we work, build, connect, fail, and grow. It takes time and effort to build what we want to be, even if we may never get to perfection. We still strive to be better.

In my last school, there were two science teachers that both had open play chess boards available to all students when they came into the class. They marked each day who made moves and when it was the teacher’s turn to move. It was a great way of exchanging with students and engaging them in the classroom beyond content. However, I always worried about those chess boards being moved, pieces tumbling to the ground, and losing their place. It happened on occasion and it was always an issue. So, why not move this online, and make it a customizable board.

First off, like many teachers, I know that distance learning is not always a suitable replacement for in class learning, particularly in the elementary and secondary settings. It does not give teachers and students the same level of communication and relationship building.