I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Now that it appears that Winter may be upon us with the first snow of the season I thought that it would be a good time to mention some of the professional development opportunities that are being offered in the school district during December.

Advanced Blackboard
On December 7th from 2:45 - 4:45 a session on the more advanced features of Blackboard will be offered in the WWT 406 lab. We will discuss adding assignments, using the journal as a dropbox for students, using message boards, and more.

Universal Design for Assistive Technologies
On December 8th from 4:15 - 6:15 Pam Ansell, Michelle Minturn, and Terry Lange-Winkel will be presenting some Universal Design principals and technologies that can easily be used in the general education classroom.

Blackboard Training
On December 8th from 4:30 - 6:30 the MISD will be offering some basic Blackboard training at the MISD campus on Garfield. If you are looking to start a new Blackboard course in the 2nd semester this would be a great session.

United Streaming
On December 14th from 2:45 - 4:45 we will be holding a session on using United Streaming with your class in the WWT 406 Lab. We will spend time finding media, developing writing prompts, and the creation/implementation of tests and quizzes.

Elementary Science PD
On December 16th from 4:15 - 6:15 Paul Drummond from the MISD will be returning to Warren Woods to present some additional science lessons and a website that the MISD is developing as a resource for elementary science.

Finally, we are still working on the Martin Luther King professional development day and a schedule of sessions and a registration form will be out very soon. So far we will be offering sessions in ELA and Social Studies curriculum work, Using Pearson Inform/Benchmark, Balanced assessment systems, FERPA guidelines, Everything Google, and more. If you still have suggestions for PD or are interested in presenting something to the staff please contact me asap so that we can discuss it.

Thanks,

John