Editor’s Note: This guest blog post was written by Ryan Schaaf, Assistant Professor of Educational Technology at Notre Dame of Maryland University, and author of Reinventing Learning for the Always-On Generation. 

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The previous posts in the Wixie training series focused on:

1. ensuring that teachers know what students can do with Wixie, 
2. introducing teachers to Wixie's student authoring tools,
3. and using, creating, and assigning Wixie activities.

If you are training teachers who have already used Wixie in their classrooms, work with them to build skills and instructional expertise and develop curriculum materials to share with other educators in your school or district.

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The first two posts in the Wixie training series focused on ensuring that teachers have a clear idea of why to use Wixie and what students can do with it as well as introduced teachers to Wixie's student authoring tools..

The next step is to build awareness and confidence in using Wixie's teacher tools. A great place to start is with the curriculum library and assignment feature. 

Wixie’s Curriculum Library includes hundreds of standards-based activities. Teachers can customize and assign these activities to specific students in their classes and provide feedback as the students are working.

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The first post in the Wixie training series focuses on ensuring that teachers have a clear idea of why to use Wixie and what students can do with it. The next step is to make them comfortable with the tools in Wixie that allow students to create these projects.

While some teachers may be comfortable with a general idea of a product's features, most teachers prefer to know something about how to use the tools themselves before starting with their students. Empower teachers to become digital learners and multimedia communicators themselves by asking them to create their own Wixie project by:

• starting from a blank screen,
• opening one of the Templates available to students, 
• or using one of the tutorials in the training library.

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If you are responsible for getting teachers to use Wixie and are designing your summer training, your first task is to make teachers aware of what they and their students can do with Wixie. Teachers aren't going to use a new tool if they don't know how it will benefit their students!

Showing teachers what they can do with Wixie in the classroom creates a solid foundation for successful integration into classroom learning. It also helps teachers more quickly make connections between the resources and tools they are learning in Wixie and how they can be used in their specific classrooms with their individual learners.

Be sure to anticipate their questions and be ready to answer how Wixie can:

• engage their students in the curriculum and help improve understanding and thinking.
• make it easy to manage and share student digital work.

If you have used Wixie before, share a story about what you did, what students created, and how you managed the project. Be sure to share samples of students work as well as their response to working with Wixie.

Here are ideas and resources to help you help educators integrate Wixie for powerful student learning.

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