Collaboration and communication are critical life skills used at home, school, and work. Teach students how to use these skills to succeed at home and in school. Improve classroom management as students take ownership of learning in partnership with teachers. The course is designed to promote positive change in instructional practice and support teamwork.

Get ready to utilize free, online formative assessment resources in your classroom. Explore how technology and formative assessment methodologies can provide teachers with the tools to adapt to the changing needs of learners. Learn how online and paper/pencil tasks can uncover misconceptions, provide mastery of content, and support the learning process. Investigate research-based approaches to improve instruction and guide students to success.

In a digitally connected world, students need guidance to navigate the world safely and professionally. Learn the ISTE indicators for Digital Citizenship to build a knowledge foundation. Present practical applications for students. Guide students in developing plans to navigate high speed communication, job opportunities, social media, personal security and more.

Learn best practices for using a variety of presentation applications. Gain dynamic performance insights.  Build your presentation confidence! Learn about the different presentation programs available for FREE to educators and students. By the time the course is done the participant will have either enhanced a presentation created beforehand or create a new presentation to share with students or colleagues. Learn how to connect with your audience by using polling, interactives, video and images from the public domain.

Become more productive, efficient and organized in your professional and personal life. Increase and improve productivity using apps and other simple technology.  In this independent learning unit, we introduce applications that are tried and true. Learn how to use them with students and in classrooms.  Tech Tip: When selecting an app, learn to use it regularly. For example, update and check a calendar each day. Or create tasks in a list app, then complete and check them off.  Tech Tip: Don’t try using everything at once. Start with one or two applications and then add more as needed.

Explore the essential needs of Leadership and Culture. This course is designed for school, district, and teacher leaders who wish to implement a change effort in their school or schools. Leaders is a broad category, and can include coaches, teachers, technology specialists, aspiring leaders, or other interested in supporting school change.  This course will focus on technology initiatives and other ideas that incorporate change.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are free, high quality, openly licensed educational tools that can be retained, reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed. Explore processes for engaging students in designing resources within the OER format to meet the needs of educators and their students through innovative practices such as Project Based Learning and Authentic Learning Experiences. This practice supports students' growth in the MITECS

Open Educational Resources (OER) are free, openly licensed, high-quality tools that allow users to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute them for educational purposes. In this course, participants will:

• Build an understanding of OERs.   

• Discover ways to use OER to differentiate instruction.

• Learn where to find free image and audio resources, online books, videos, audiobooks, interactive simulations, game-based learning, lesson plans, textbooks, online courses, and much more.

• Explore how to use OER to develop or enhance a unit, lesson, or project to meet the diverse needs of learners.

• Share resources and collaborate across geographic boundaries to ensure learners have equitable access to up-to-date and innovative materials.

Participants create an authentic lesson, unit, or project that uses an OER to enhance student learning. Participants also develop a plan for creating an OER that fills an unmet need in their professional practice.

It has become essential for teachers and students to know how to search safely and efficiently to retrieve reliable information. The course provides educational database links to safe, accurate sites. Participants will also learn to evaluate information from the internet to determine its authenticity. Participants will also leave with a good grasp of what is available in Michigan eLibrary; FREE resources for every resident in Michigan.

Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager write, in Invent to Learn, a book that some call the "maker in education bible" "Maker classrooms are active classrooms. In active classrooms one will find engaged students, often working on multiple projects simultaneously, and teachers unafraid of relinquishing their authoritarian role. The best way to activate your classroom is for your classroom to make something."
In this introduction to the Maker Movement you will learn about the resources and techniques that teachers are using in the classroom to transform their classrooms and educational environments so that they emphasize making, inventing and creativity.

In this course participants will explore the eResources (databases) in the Michigan eLibrary available for elementary and secondary students with a keen eye toward all things related to the United States military. With rich content in PebbleGo, Britannica, eBook K-8 Collection, eBook High School Collection, Primary Search, MasterFILE Complete and LearningExpress Library, students at all levels can read, listen and view resources to give them a better understanding of what it takes to enter each branch of the military and what the expectations are once they are accepted.

5 SCECHs available upon successful completion of:

• 2 hours - participants will participate in two webinars covering the eResources available in MeL that can support K-12 Military Awareness & Preparation:
  February 8, 2022 7:00-8:00pm (Webinar)
  February 15, 2022 7:00-8:00pm (Webinar)
• 1 hour - participants will participate in an online discussion
• 2 hours - participants will apply what they have explored/learned by creating an activity that uses at least one of the eResources in MeL