Three instructional practices that I have incorporated into my teaching strategies because of my professional development are:

• Google Docs
• Snagit
• Discovery Education.

These skills have enhanced my preparation and presentation of lessons and my interaction with students.

Google Docs is a free website that allows users to create, edit and save documents with students and colleagues.  The county has incorporated Google Docs into our Blackboard site for the convenience of students and staff.  My students who do not have Word on their home computer can work at home on documents they start in school.  After learning about Google docs, I set up a sharing site for the other seven Teacher Cadet instructors in the county.  I told them about my Google Docs in-service, shared a CTSO lesson I created, and invited them to join the site.  Since then I have added three other lesson ideas and others have posted ideas too.  This site will be a good resource for our group to use since budget cuts eliminated in-service time for the Teacher Cadet instructors to meet face-to-face.

Snagit can take a picture or make a video of anything on a computer screen.  It was purchased by the county and is available on all teacher computers.  I have used Snagit to capture a screen shot to put in a presentation.  By placing this information in a Word document or PowerPoint, I have guaranteed that the information is available during my instruction and I am able to post it to Blackboard for students to review.  Also, it is available for students who were absent.  If the internet connection is down when I plan to teach my lesson, I know that the needed information is ready to use.  Snagit has also been helpful to me as I have created documents for this Exemplary Standards project. 

Discovery Education from www.unitedstreaing.com provides thousands of digital resources.  It was purchased by the county for teachers.  I have used some of the clips to enrich my lessons.  Students have a wide variety of learning styles and anytime I can enhance the lesson, I am helping students learn. Some of the video clips are saved on my computer and some have been placed on Blackboard.  In this multimedia world, I need to expand the presentation of my lessons to capture and hold the attention of today’s tech-savvy students.