Apple Academy in Cupertino

I will be attending Apple Foundations Academy in Cupertino, California this upcoming February!

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The Academy will cover train-the-trainer training on all of the Apple apps for the MacBook and iPad. Following the training, I will be an authorized Apple Foundations Trainer for my school district.

Blog Love or Neglect?

I was re-evaluating my performance as a Connected Educator today and decided I need to refocus some of my effort on keeping up with my own blog and reflecting on my practices as a digital leader and technology integrationist.

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Lately I have found myself sharing ideas via Voxer and Twitter much more than through this blog. I was prompted to compare my blog, Twitter, and Voxer by John Spencer's blog post Five Reasons The Conversations Have Moved From Twitter To Voxer.

I think the purpose of why I use each is very different. For me, Voxer is more of a tool for a conversational dialogue with a small group of educators from Minnesota, Iowa, and Canada where we share the educational endeavors that we're currently engaged with in our respective positions. Twitter is much more of a consumption-based tool for me as I connect with and learn from a broader group of colleagues, friends, educators, and like-minded individuals who represent a variety of careers and interests as well as geographic locations. Blogger is my content sharing tool of choice as well as a forum for reflective thought around improving my own practice as well as sharing resources with others.

As a Connected Educator, I don't think that one tool is better than the others as they are all different and allow me to connect with and reach different groups and audiences for different purposes.

So while I may have been sharing and connecting more via Twitter and Voxer lately, Blogger is still a critical tool for me as it allows me to tie together not only my thinking but resources that I would like to share with others.

ISTE2015 Speaker

Proposal selections for ISTE2015 were announced today, and I'm honored to be able to say that I will be a speaker at the next ISTE conference in Philadelphia this June.

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In fact, I received a triple honor of having three proposals selected and a fourth selected but on a waiting list for now!

I will be presenting on:

• 30 Plus Ways To Use Your iPad For Personalized Professional Development
• Bridging The Digital Divide With A Racial Equity Lens

I will also be doing a three hour workshop on:

• Publishing Amazing Interactive Books With iBooks Author

The fourth session that is currently waitlisted until space becomes available is a BYOD session:

• Easy Formative Assessment Options For Mobile Devices