Training

Today's a snow day and I just wrapped two days of training with coaches from across the southeastern and northeastern part of PA. The group I worked with this time was main from the Pocono region. CFF brings together coaches from all other. I always find that it's a great opportunity to learn what's working and what's beyond your school walls. In a world of Skyping, it's still good to have that old fashion face-to-face human contact.

Over the past two days I picked up some new skills and brushed up on some old ones. I made a podcast with Audacity and Podbean and added to me wiki. So now when you go to www.strathhavencff.wikispaces.com you will hear my voice introducing my wiki. Of course I need to redo it because I did it on the fly and you can hear pause while thinking what to say next, but it was darn good for my first time. I can't wait to show teachers how to use. The experience also gave me an opportunity to reflect on our professional development in-service back in November. We offered a podcasting and Audacity workshop. At the time it was all so new to me I couldn't really make the connection and the workshops were offered in isolation. Next time I will recommend that teachers take them together as we did in order to fully implement the technology and see how it can be used.

We also created a Photostory project. This was a bit redundant, but the materials gave me all the info I need to create DIY page on my wiki - something I've been wanting to do. Now I just have to add Windows Movie Maker. My experience with Jing and Wink left little to be desired since I couldn't download it - no administrator's rights :(. Then my partner and quickly lost interest since it was after lunch and the fourth tool of the training. Brainmush!!!! Neither program was user-friendly so I figure it when I need to. Their in lies another lesson - every tool you learn isn't always immediately relevant! Oh, that and I learned that I'm addicted to my wiki. Now that's a relevant tool.