ELT burnout revisited A little more than two years ago, I talked about burnout, particularly the path towards it that I and probably you were on. My ELT:Other ratio stared glaringly in my face, mocking my attempts at having a life outside of language teaching. It’s then that I realised I was definitely on the road to burnout. Now with Shelly Sanchez Terrell’s cycle 4 of the 30 Goals for Educators, and an upcoming Google Hangout I’ll be doing with her about them, it seems like an opportune time to revisit my path and see if things have changed. The gist of the ELT:Other ratio is looking at how you spend your time in language teaching areas vs all of your other interests. It’s a 3-step process: If your #2 & #3 shows over 50% of your time on ELT, you might be heading down that fiery path. One caveat that came out in discussion, however, was the blurry grey (or in this case red) overlap between social media and ELT. What’s there to be done about burnout? If you don’t feel like you’re burning out, go with that.
Avoid Burn-Out Posted by Shelly Terrell on Saturday, June 29th 2013 Goal 2: Avoid Burn-Out of The 30 Goals Challenge for Educators. Click the link to find out more about the 30 Goals Challenge for Educators. “Courage doesn’t always roar. This year with the 30 Goals Challenge for Educators, our 30 Goals Facebook community is voting on what some of the goals will be. My Take on the Goal Each year as a teacher I struggle with burn-out. Another important way I avoid burn-out is through taking time for myself everyday. For more ideas about this goal, check out the video I did in 2011. Goal Short-term-Take at least one hour for yourself where you don’t dwell on your role as an educator but instead give your time to relax and have some fun. We are pinning ideas on ways to avoid burn-out here. Long-term- Begin to schedule weekly even daily times where you leave your work as an educator behind and aim for balance. Educational Leadership Goal New Teacher Goal Take an hour for yourself each day for a week.
Install Bookmarklets / Extensions of Your Favorite Tools Posted by Shelly Terrell on Sunday, December 8th 2013 Included in the Digital Tips Advent Calendar and part of the Effective Technology Integration category The tools I choose to use habitually or recommend to teachers, usually meet most of these requirements, they provide: a free web versiona free mobile app (a plus if it works on multiple platforms)a bookmarklet or extension for your web browsera way to embed your work on your blog or platform There are many tools I think are beautifully designed, but I refuse to use them because without these features they take too much of my time. One of the ways I am able to collect, organize, curate, and share so many valuable resources is because I have installed the extensions or bookmarklets of my favorite web tools on my Chrome browser. These tiny icons, usually at the top of your browser, do magical things when clicked. Luckily, many of your favorite tools have an extension/ bookmarklet. Challenge:
Build Your Teacher’s Survival Kit The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. – John F. Kennedy When I first began teaching, I remember meeting a veteran teacher who carried a big bag with her everywhere. I forgot what the situation was but I remember her coming to the rescue with masking tape, scissors, and Post It notes. She told me she always carried those things among other items like dry erase markers, poster putty, and so forth as a teacher, because she had learnt that situations always arise when she needed these items. That left a huge impression on me and I kept thinking of this as a survival kit. More Resources If you enjoyed these ideas, you may want to get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachersor my $5.99 ebook, Learning to Go, which has digital/mobile activities for any device and editable/printable handouts and rubrics.
Not waving but drowning Coping with social media, professional development and information overload Meet Olga. Olga teaches English several hours a day. She accesses the online staffroom of her school to download material to use in some of her classes.She reads daily digests of e-mails from the five online professional development discussion groups belongs to. Olga is a teacher who knows how the Internet and social media can help her develop as a teacher. How many of the above things do you do? Web 2.0 has brought us many varied and wonderful opportunities for professional development. And worst of all, I worry that it’s just me. So let’s talk about it. 7 Tips for coping with social media: Tip 1: Accept the inevitable. Tip 2: Make a list of all your ongoing online professional development sources (Twitter, discussion groups, blogs, webinars…). Tip 3: Put your list on the wall above your desk (yes, on paper – I do!) Tip 5: Use personal management tools to help you organise incoming info.
Tips and Tools to Manage Your Twitter Time! Posted by Shelly Terrell on Saturday, July 10th 2010 Part of the Cool Sites series Photo from Brad Fitzpatrick a great flash animator and cartoonist! Do your friends or partner accuse you of being a Twitterholic? Define your purpose! Use a Browser! Tweetdeck- I love the several options to save you time in the free browser, Tweetdeck! Helpful Tools & Resources! Twitterfeed- I have several blogs that I read daily that provide me with some of the best resources consistently. Challenge:
Chrome Extensions for Educators