eMedia: Explore, Create, Collaborate

Hi Katie,

I was just thinking about how summer is a perfect time to peruse eMedia to check out various lesson plans.  Remember:   Checking out Media, we can compensate for Professional Work Hours as allowed in HB 396 this summer for lesson planning.  

Natalie Johnson

I like getting ideas from others and being able to brainstorm ideas with people that face the same struggles that I do! I love having a network of people that I can reach out to when I am asked about something I don't know about and get great information!

eMedia groups are a great to find new ideas and talk with other educators from all over. It is a great place to share ideas and keep them organized. I love that it is easily accessed. It also allows opportunities to get your name out there and connect with others that might be able to help with your specific needs. 

I think one of the biggest benefits of eMedia groups will be connecting with educators all over and not just within my school and district.  I know some amazing teaching strategies and discovery based lessons are happening out there and I really want to learn more and get better at this.  It will be nice to have a group of individuals to turn to with questions and for support in becoming a better teacher.  I like that the groups can get really specific.  Currently I don't see a lot of math groups.  I hope that will change as eMedia grows and I can really utilize this to improve my teaching.

I can see two distinct benefits to using eMedia groups as a teacher. The first is that I created a group for the kindergarten teachers at my school. This will allow me to share the resources I find and the lesson plans I create with my whole team. We are each doing a deep dive into one science topic and then sharing what we find with the whole team. Using an eMedia group will allow us to store all the resources in one location. 
 

The second benefit to using eMedia groups is that it will allow me to expand my network of teachers and collaborators beyond my own school.

eMedia groups seem like they could be a great way of connecting with educators that teach your same student population, you can get ideas and resources to help engage your students in ways you haven't thought of.  Also, joining groups that specialize in areas where you struggle with ideas, can help give you new perspectives in more effectively teaching your students.  

I always enjoy collaborating with fellow educators that are teaching the same thing and age group as I am. I think that Emedia is not used as much as it could be and I am intrigued by the many features I am finding. I would love to have my first grade team make a group and add all of their lessons to it because we all teach the same content and we could benefit from not "reinveting the wheel" and using each others strengths. 

eMedia groups can be a great source of collaboration for many teacher in Utah. I know so many teachers who are singletons and say that they lack a group and lack resources. eMedia groups is perfect for them. For the rest of us, eMedia groups can add to what we already do for collaboration. Resources and discussions specific to my content can be found here, by teachers throughout the state and I feel like that is a very powerful thing!

I think that eMedia groups are an awesome way to connect teachers throughout the state. Like I am looking for a 4th grade eMedia group that I could join to help me find resources that will work with what I am teaching.

I think eMedia groups are great for collaboration. You can save resources and lessons in one spot to find later. Also the people in the group can be from anywhere. The members are not necessarily from your school or even your district. This means we are opening up the world of collaboration making it easier to share and connect with others.

The three main benefits of eMedia groups for me are the three C's. Conections, Collaboration and Content. First, it provides an easy to use platform to connect with other educator throughout the state. This gives access to ideas and information beyond our individidual schools. Second, it provides the opportunity to collaborate with a much wider and larger group of like minded educators. Finally, it provides access to shareable content that is from and vetted by fellow educators in our area. It will be exciting to see it grow in the future and have more content and participation in the group and resource areas.

As I looked at the lesson plans that were posted in this group I was excited. I saw things that I could use in my sixth grade class. This is a great way to collaborate with other educators about resources or standards that are difficult to teach. If I like one teachers lesson then I can look at that teacher's profile and find other resources they have added. 

What a great way to find and share resources with teachers throughout Utah. Now it is even easier to collaborate and share ideas. Using eMedia groups allows teachers to locate specific resources quickly. It is helpful that folders can be added to organize resources within each eMedia group.

I think that eMedia groups allow you to create a curriculum that can be used by others. This helps use work together so that we don't have to teach in isolation. We can also go on there and see what our peers are doing. This will help us learn new ways of teaching the same topic.

I hope it will give me a group that I can ask questions to as I start my new curriculum. As I am teaching 11honors this year, I will have new novels and topics. I would love to bounce ideas off of those who have been teaching these novels for years. 

I think the most benificial part of eMedia groups is getting to collaborate with educators from all over.  At my school our team is small, two of us for our grade which is great but opening up with other educators can help my team expand our learning ideas and lesson plans. I love that I can build my PLN my using discussions to learn more from others on eMedia. 

A huge benefit of the eMedia groups is helping find community on very specific interests or needs. I love that I also have the option to creat egroups, and other educators browsing might have interest as well which sparks good relevant conversation, diagloue, or even solutions. The group resources are so beneficial as well. I can see this as a great way to organize content by grade level or topic. 

I think eMedia groups give us a place to come together to share ideas, brainstorm, ask questions, and find potential materials for lessons. With so many learning tools having fees and costs associated with them it’s nice to find a free resource.

 It’s also a community where teachers from all over the state can easily connect with each other. We can usually easily connect with those we know or work with, but sometimes it’s nice to have a wider group of educators and content creators to network with, learn from, and share best practices and resources.

I believe there are several benefits in using eMedia for those who teach English, because there are so many awesome resources. I am an immersion teacher and unfortunately we do not have all of those resources available. However, during this course I have been thinking about creating a group here for the other Portuguese teachers to share online resources, we mainly use google drive, but I think it will be effective to have it on eMedia. 

I think this is a great idea, Melissa! Let me know if you need help getting the group started!

There's a big difference between cultivating your own supply of resources and having a group of people cultivating and organizing resources. I noticed there were a few groups that were hosted by different schools or districts, which would be a great way for teams to collaborate and share rersources.

Grouops also allow for educators from different areas to support and share ideas with each other, which means people that may nevere have had a chance to meet and collaborate would be able to do so through eMedia.

Travis Foster -

The major benefit of joining eMedia groups is being able to collaborate with teachers around the state of Utah and collect resources from them that can work in my classroom.  I feel like sometimes we limit our teaching network to just the teachers in our departments and school, however with eMedia groups, my teaching network expands to different schools, districts, and parts of the state.  Also, it gives me the ability to share my own resources with teachers around the state and help other teachers that need additional resources in their classrooms.  I think that it always important to increase and build your sphere of influence within the education world because there are so many great teachers out in the world doing amazing things and it is so cool when you can take those amazing lessons or practices into your own classroom to help our students.  

I think eMedia groups are a great way to find other educators that have the same classes, curriculum, and needs as I do.  It gives an easy platform to collaborate and find resources to expand your curriculum.  Looking through the resources and the discussions also facilitates new ideas for teaching and learning. 

I love that there is a place where educators from all over can come together and collaborate.  It's a great resource because often we feel like we can only collaborate with the people we work with, or those that are in our district.  There are so many people out there with great ideas and broadening our network can only help to make us better teachers.  Sometimes I am just flat out of ideas on what to do, so having a place where I can go to get new ones is a huge help.  

eMedia groups are a great way to be able to get all sorts of different ideas and lesson plans! As I was looking through various groups available to join, I was amazed with the amount of resources that are available through these different groups. Being able to access these groups and the resources within them is amazing. Using the groups and their discussions, is also a great way to be able to connect with educators around the state and see how they are doing things in their classroom! It's like a local teachers pay teachers and free! What a great way to build a PLN and get access to amazing ideas and lesson plans! 

I feel like this is one of the only avenues I've seen that allows me to connect with people outside of my district and even the state.  I'm sure it will benefit me by finding other teachers that share similar interests and teaching styles.  I can build my professional learning network this way, and we can give each other recommendations.

Mike McCullough

I really like that I can connect with other people in my state, but also that I can set up an easy way to share resources with the teachers in my school. I often want to find something someone has shared with me, but it's hidden away in an email somewhere. This way there is an easy way to keep track of the things I share and that have been shared with me. 

The benefits of eMedia groups are many.  First, by joining a group, I have decided that this group has similar interests to my own.  I can then save time by looking at the folders to narrow down my search for teaching resources.  Also many of the resources found in the folders of a group have been curated to serve the purpose of this particular group.  I can easily collaborate with like minded educators in the discussion section of the group.  

An additional benefit of groups within eMedia is that they can be more personalized.  Anyone who is a member of eMedia can create a group.  The creator can decide the purpose of the group and decide who can belong to the group.  In this way, collaboration can be more goal focused and limited to a smaller number of contributors if that is the direction you wish to take. 

I like that we are able to create and join groups that help to filter out some of the stuff that does not necessarily relate to us.  By joining a group, we are able to connect with other educators that are working in identical or related areas as we are so that we can share and use resources that are much more applicable to us without spending hours and hours searching.  Groups being able to communicate with one another can also be a huge advantage, because teachers can communicate to help with things like collaboration, asking for specific help, or for planning out how teams of teachers can help create materials together.  

It also is a great way for people to get started using eMedia, because they will not be so overwhelmed with the many thousands of materials that are available.  They will be able to focus in on what is going to be most beneficial to them, and they can see where there are gaps that they could help fill with some of the things that they have created already, or plan to create in the future. 

There are numerous benefits of groups within eMedia. It's such a great place to cultivate lesson plans and collaborate with others. I love that it widens our search options from just ourselves or those we teach with, to other teachers from all over the state. What a great tool! I love that we can all get ideas and inspiration from each other.

Sometimes as teachers we get stuck in a rut. This especially happens the longer we've been teaching. I feel like being part of different emedia groups helps combat teachers becoming stagnant in their teaching practices. It helps to give us fresh ideas and connect with other colleagues and open up a whole new network of possibilities. 

Using eMedia groups is a great way to find resources from educators outside of my own school or district. My grade level team consists of myself and one other teacher. Each year I wonder if we will have enough enrolled kindergarten students or if I will be teaching solo. This will be an even more valuable resource when I am not able to collaborate with a grade level team from my school.

I appreciate how easily resources (that are created or found) can be shared with grade level teams and that groups are organized and specific to different contents. 

The benefits of joining an emedia group are connecting to others with similar interests and shared resources. Having a group that can share ideas and support new learning. As iI was browsing the resources I noticed many individuals that are from the same organization and I can connect with them on a professional level as well. These emedia resources can help build a PLN in the same way allowing connection with others through shared interests. I also like that I am able to build my local PLN by sharing these resources with team members and seeing them get excited about what is available to them.

I'm actually really amazed by eMedia Groups. This would be such a huge resource for teachers who maybe can't find as much support as they'd like from their coworkers at their own schools. For example, being a German teacher in a junior high is pretty lonely--the Spanish teachers were great, but sometimes I was searching for resources or ideas that I didn't have to redo to fit my curriculum. It would be awesome to be able to connect with and share with German teachers from different areas who are feeling the same way! 

Hi,

I like eMedia groups. It is nice to know there is a place where I can reach out to other educators beyond my own school. I think teachers can learn so much from one another. I think the eMedia groups can empower teachers with a huge network of support.

I think that by having the access to groups, we will be able to focus our research, lessons, and sharing with teachers we choose.  I personally want to find teachers who teach Spanish 1 and 2.  Once I find a group that fits me, it will be easier to find and share material since we will be teaching the same things.

I like the idea of eMedia groups a lot! It's like the collaboration that is done in my school district but on a much larger scale. 

I'm a singleton in my building and have the ability to collaborate with others in my content in my district once, sometimes twice a month. Which is great, but still somewhat limited as I feel that we all start to think alike. These groups really allow us to share and collaborate with a lot of different people that we may have normally never had the chance to meet or collaborate with. Fresh ideas!

I see an eMedia group just like my collaboration team as a singleton at my school. I work independent from my group, but have people in my community to rely on for ideas and resources. It also reminds me of the best practices sharing sessions I have been to at national and state conferences. It is a place for people who teach the same thing to share their best lesson plans and ideas. Both of those platforms have made me a better teacher and hope that eMedia groups can have the same effect. I have made so many connections across the country and state and am excited about making more. 

The benefits I can see from joinging eMedia is groups is that you are able to find very specific interests and share information on that topic. You can share lesson plans, Nearpods, and many other resources. Once you have used or reviewed those resources you can have a discussion and ask questions. This is very beneficial if you are at a small school and have limited team members. You can collabrate with teachers across the state. This help you build your PLN by introducing you to many different teachers from many different schools. These teacher each have their own strengths and ideas, being able to collabrate in this way makes us all better teachers.

I think there are so many great benefits to eMedia groups. I can join or create a group specifically for my needs. If I want to collaborate with other teachers in my grade, I will be able to talk to so many other teachers and not just the teachers in my building.  This will give me access to a lot more ideas and resources, and help from more experienced teachers.  Also, I can discuss topics I’m interested in with other teachers like I never could before without having t schedule meetings.  Lastly, I can meet new people from around the state that I never would have met before! 

From the eMedia CANVAS course, "Groups allow you to collaborate with group members, tag and add resources to shared folders, and create your own collections, all within a public or private group." I like the benefit of being able to colloborate beyond your physical classroom and school or even district. It is a great way to build a PLN. I like the discussion feature as well as the organization within folders. In the past, I have collected sources but have not always had the best organization system in place for finding the resource again when the time comes for their use. Being able to organize by standard, unit, or any other category that can be imagined is a great tool. I'm not sure how notifications are for the discussion feature, but this could be a great way of receiving feedback or collaborating with other educators.