"Video killed the radio Star"--The Buggles circa 1980 If there's one thing that's constant it's change.  As teachers this has been a big year for change. Many of us have made more youtube videos than we ever thought we would, or wanted to, ha!  I know that I personally did.   The main way that I made videos for students was through Screencastify to record myself, while drawing on my Surface Pro to explain a concept.  I would then publish those videos to YouTube , after which I could embed them in other sites for the students to access.  I know many teachers used similar methods.  These videos helped us to survive distance learning, and were the best option that many of us had to provide instruction to our students.  For example: I put the homework assignments on Edulastic and would embed video instructions, going through the steps of how to complete them. The video below came from the Math 2, 2.8 Set, from the Open Up Resources High Schoo...

  When I went to college I didn't have to take a traditional foreign language class.  My College Calculus class met that requirement, because Math has a language of its own, and I was fluent in Math.   I tell my students all the time that Math is a Language, and that in order to understand it, they have to understand what I am saying.  There is a big emphasis in my class on vocabulary.  I break it down: we look at prefixes, suffixes, and root words; we think of the meaning of those same words in different contexts or subjects; we study math content in context.   To reinforce what we do in class, I have my students study on Quizlet  regularly.  Typically I create the study set for them, based on the definitions and connections that we will be using in our specific course and text.  Then I have them engage with the vocabulary in various ways throughout the Module of Study, culminating with an assessment at the end.  Quizlet LIVE ...

  I have always loved teaching with technology.  My district rolled out Chromebooks in the Spring of t he very first year that I taught.  So, I don't really know what it is like to teach without technology. I have attended multiple Google Summits, as well as presented at a Google Summit and at a technology conference put on by my district.  In addition to those experiences, Twitter and Facebook have been some of my best resources for Professional Development.  That is how I stay up on what's new.   I was even the TTL (Team Technology Lead) for my school site, in which my duties included training and assisting teachers on my site with the implementation of technology in their classrooms. So, what that means, is that I had already experimented with technology in the classroom before distance learning happened.  That helped me when it came to planning and implementing my synchronous and asynchronous curriculum.  Prior to the 2020-21 school year,...