Teacher Workshops
by Joel Heffner

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Workshops
(1 to 2 hours for each workshop)

Blog Your Classroom

Blogs can help a teacher communicate with parents and students as well as showcase student work. It's easy, fast, free...and very effective!

Create a Classroom Website...in 5 minutes!

Teachers will be shown how a teacher site can provide instruction as well as an effective means of communicating with parents. Teachers will learn how to create a classroom website using a simple and easy to use online tool. The workshop will include ways of customizing it beyond the capability of the online service.

How to Write a Story

This workshop shows teachers four ways that they can encourage their students to write. They will be shown how to write a novel in 60 seconds, construct a mystery story for young children using seven key sentences, see how to get one of 248,832 ideas to start their own unusual (and very cool) story, and learn how to write a non-fiction story for a newspaper, newsletter or ezine. Teachers will also be shown a variety of ways to ≥publish≤ student work.

Email in ANY Classroom

Although email is the largest segment of the Internet, it has hardly scratched the service in most classrooms. At this workshop, teachers will be shown how to get free email accounts that can be used to provide instruction as well as a means of efficiently being in contact with parents. Projects involving ask-the-expert interviews, classroom-to-classroom exchanges, the creation and use of surveys and moreŠwill be discussed. Each project leads to a culminating activity where students create class newsletters that can be emailed to students, parents and others.

How to Write an Ebook

Teachers will be shown how teachers and/or students can create ebooks (electronic books) that can be viewed online or on any computer (from a disk or CD.) Teachers will be shown how to create the original material using standard text files and then compile them using a simple compiler.

Implementation Sessions
(Half-Day and Full-Day)

During half-day and full-day implementation sessions, teachers (and students) create websites, compile ebooks, organize  classroom email projects or write stories.

Please Note

1. The workshops apply best to social studies, language arts, science, and self-contained classrooms. Mathematics classrooms can use the Web making workshop, but would probably not benefit as much from the others.
2. For projects that require small expenses for teachers, Teachersπ Choice money may be applied or schools can provide per session (after school) workshops that can, in effect, pay for the costs involved.
3. Joel Heffner neither works for, nor profits from the sale of any software or online services that may be mentioned during one of his workshops. He suggests services because they benefit teachers and students...not him. :)