Week 1 Reflection: Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
Vicki Davis is a teacher and IT director in Georgia. This site is her personal blog that focuses on helping all students succeed in the classroom, especially those that struggle, through effective teaching. She also helps teachers from grades K-12 to incorporate and utilize technology in the classroom. Vicki has 14 years of experience teaching high school.
Vicki's blog has been featured in Forbes, Washington Post, NPR, New York Times, Edutopia, and Mashable. Her blog has five categories of posts including "Teach better," "Master edtech," "Learn education trends," "Live a better life," and "Be productive." This is how she organizes her many blog posts. Vicki has many resources on her blog. One resource that I found would be very helpful is her free newsletter. She sends a short newsletter 2-3 times a week to anyone who signs up through email for free. Topics in the newsletter include tools to improve learning, tips to improving oneself as a teacher, tips to reduce unhealthy and unproductive habits, and ideas on saving time in the classroom. Another helpful resource that Vicki provides is her creation "design your day" which is an interactive planner that you make and customize yourself to best fit your own personal needs. Her idea for this came because normal, basic planners never worked for her, and she often found herself wanting, and needing, more. She includes 30 templates, ebooks, and tutorials in this system. |
While looking through Vicki's blog, I gained a lot of knowledge on ways to be a more effective teacher. Her website is very user-friendly and enjoyable to look through. She has many blog posts that any teacher could take great ideas from to use in a classroom. Vicki also includes fun elements to her blog. For example, she linked the viral video of a Kansas teacher greeting his students every day.
I really like that she focuses mainly on reaching children that struggle in school. Sometimes I think that this is something that is often overlooked as many teachers focus on students who easily succeed. Vicki's site will be something that I will definitely use in the future as I begin to teach. I think she has a lot of excellent ideas on effective, fun teaching. |