Year of eLearning/Start of LEAF
By: Phil Zellers

With this being my last Techy Tuesday post of the year, I want to take some time to reflect on my eLearning experiences from this year and talk about my excitement for next year.  It has been an exciting year full of learning.  Through conferences, book clubs, collaborating on projects, and working with other teachers and students, I have had the opportunity to learn about a variety of great technology tools to use in the classroom.  More importantly, I have learned about how to integrate technology into the classroom as a tool to enhance student engagment.  Along the way, I have been able to connect with a lot of other educators and have learned so much from them (follow #INeLearn on Twitter if you don't already).  Being a connected educator is so important.  It opens you up to a whole new world of seemingly endless resources.  I feel so fortunate to have been able to serve as an eLearning coach this year!

I'm very excited that I get to continue this work next year as an eLearning coach, keeping a similar schedule as this year's.  There are always new tools and ideas coming out about technology integration.  To me, this is one of the most exciting parts of our profession, that it is always evolving.
 
As a way to support passion based learning, we will be offering a new LEAF (Learning Experiences in Applied Fields) class next year that I will facilitate.  I really hesitate to call myself the "teacher" of that class because it will be mainly student driven.  I will be more of a facilitator and resource for them.  I had the pleasure of visiting the original LEAF group with Jody a couple of weeks ago at VUJC.  This group was completely organized by students.  They started because there were things they wanted to learn but couldn't in the regular school day.  They now meet several times a week to learn about topics they are interested in and share to their knowledge.  There are groups learning about architecture, computer programming and software, robotics, and other topics as well.  I had heard about this program from others but after meeting with this group, I came away completely inspired.  A group of our students went with us that day and are very excited about the opportunity as well.  

We want to offer our students a chance to do that learning during the traditional school day.  So, we are offering a LEAF class students can take as an elective.  There will also be a mini class for 7th graders that will operate similarly.  I think this is a great opportunity for our students and that they'll do some truly great things with it!  I can't wait to see what our students are passionate about.

I have truly enjoyed working with everyone this year in my role as an eLearning coach.  I always feel so fortunate to get to be a part of Perry Central.  Finally, I am grateful to have gotten to work as a team with Jamie and Kris.  We have attended a lot of conferences together, had many brainstorming sessions and I have learned so much from both of them.  I'm looking forward to another great year next year!