Hey Reader
I’ve been missing in action for the last couple of months as I worked on 3 exciting changes.
The following update video explains these changes and how they will benefit you as a teacher and your school community.
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS:
0:40 What I am doing with the Using Technology Better Brand – How this will help your school
2:00 I am the only trainer endorsed by Google and Microsoft and what this means for you and your school
2:56 A new unlimited support program – how you can get access at a foundational price
TRANSCRIPTION:
Mike: Hey, Mike Reading here. I just wanted to make a quick update video for you and just to let you know a little bit about what I’ve been up to over the last couple of months. You might have noticed that I haven’t been as active blogging and on social media and so on. And I’ve just been taking some time out just to reorganize and restructure a few things to really benefit schools moving forward.
And so I’ve been working on three great changes and I want to just quickly share them with you.
So the first change that I’ve been working on is creating a new brand and with that, a new website. So the new brand is “Using Technology Better” and the new website is www.usingtechnologybetter.com. I really wanted to change the name of what I was doing for two reasons.
The first reason was that for those of you that have followed me on my journey of professional development, I really did start off teaching teachers how to better motivate and engage their students. And so I had a Teachers Training International website and always writing a lot about classroom management, student engagement, intrinsic motivation and so on.
Well over time that progressed that’s why I became a Google Certified Teacher and a Google Certified Trainer and I started to blend the two topics together of classroom management and student engagement and then blend that in with the technology use and especially around Google. And so over time I also build up a fair reputation as a Google trainer in schools and spent up most of my time on the road speaking in schools in New Zealand and in Australia and I had a great time with that.
But I wanted to just consolidate the two thoughts and really bring them together under one website. And so that new website is the www.usingtechnologybetter.com website. I’d love you to go over there, have a look and tell me what you think of it.
The second change that I’ve been working on for over the last couple of months is that I really wanted to be able to help schools not just with their Google use but with technology use in general. And so I’ve embarked on a bit of a journey of retraining myself, learning a lot more and have actually now come out as a Microsoft Master Education Trainer as well as a Google Certified Teacher and Trainer.
Now what that means for you as a school or for you as a teacher is that regardless of the platform of your choice, the platform that you want to use whether that’s Google or Microsoft, my team and I can now provide endorsed training on the best way to use that technology to engage and motivate your students.
And so I’m quite excited about this change, certainly I still love what Google is doing, I love what have happening around their particular brand and all the new additions that are coming out with that and we’ll still be very involved in that.
But also I’m quite excited about some of the new changes that are coming through Microsoft right now and they really are progressing in leaps and bounds and have some real great things to offer to teachers and students.
The third change that I’ve been working on and it’s nearly ready to be released is that I wanted to create a support option for schools, an online community where teachers and students can come and share ideas and resources, ask questions and so on. Now this is a concept I’ve been working on for over a year now just refining it, testing it with a few schools and a few teachers and then pulling it apart and retesting it. And I think I’ve got it to the point where I’m happy with it to be released out to the general public.
You know the one reason that I really wanted to create this community was that quite often, I’ll go and speak at a school and then a couple of weeks, a couple of months later, the teachers will want to come back and revisit what I’ve said but they just can’t connect the dots, they can’t remember the flow of how things happen or even why they happened. And so I wanted to create a 24-hour, seven-day a week online support option which supports your staff and your students in their technology use.
And so if you have a look at the www.usingtechnologybetter.com website, then you are more than welcome to have a look at the section that says “Community,” see a little bit about what’s coming, and then there will be an option for you to just raise your hand and say “Hey I’d be interested in joining this community at a foundational rate.”
So it is going to be a paid community but it will be at a – we’re going to release this at a very reduced price, so if you want to be one of the first schools or the first teachers to be involved in the community at this foundational rate then just raise your hand and say “Hey I’m interested” and as soon as it’s ready, we’ll let you know.
After about a month or so we will put that price up. So this will have a deadline on it. You will see a link either on the blog in this video. You might even see a link in an email in some way, wherever that link is, just click that link and say “Hey I’m interested” and we will add you to our list of first people to be notified.
And so I hope those three changes that I’ve been working on are really going to benefit you as a teacher, they’ll benefit your students. So head over to the www.usingtechnologybetter.com website, see a lot of the changes that are coming and then just shoot us an email or leave a comment in the comment section and let us know what you think.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Now that all these updates are pretty much over and done with, I’m going to get back into blogging, back into making how to and instructional videos for you, jumping back on social media, sharing ideas, resource and links and we’ll also be in the community helping people there as well. So I hope to see you in the next video or on the next blog post.
