Adventures in Innovation, BoostEDU, EdTech PD, GSuite

BoostEDU: The SAMR Database

It’s been a little over a month since I shared any updates on BoostEDU. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, it’s not that I wasn’t working on anything for BoostEDU – it’s just that I wanted to truly finish something that I am really excited to share. It’s the completely neurotic, OCD part of me! While I have quite a few more updates coming, I am super excited to share today’s update with you!

As a quick reminder, BoostEDU is a program that supports teachers in transforming their traditional lessons into 21st-century lessons through an inquiry-based self-assessment and lesson design process. If you’re curious about the four parts of the BoostEDU program, watch THIS video.

What’s Changed?

While I am excited about the progress I have made for BoostEDU, there is one part of the program that just hasn’t felt very clear or organized to me. I designed a “resource” page for educators to use to find lesson ideas specifically aligned to the SAMR model. See what it looked like before by clicking on the image:

It’s not terrible but it’s definitely not clean or easy to navigate. All of the resources are in different Google Docs – which is great. However, it’s kind of messy and all over the place. I think it takes away from all of the (hopefully) great resources and lesson ideas that are within those documents.

So, with the inspiration from my good friend Dee Lanier (founder of SmashboardEDU), I decided to create an Awesome Table to organize all of these resources into one, simple table that is easy to navigate via filters. Check it out by clicking on the image below:

Much better, right? I have to admit – it took wayyyy more time than I anticipated to build this awesome table. However, I think that this is a much better resource and solved one of my biggest problems. Many educators have been asking if I could add links to the tech tools on the self-assessment form. While Google Forms does not allow me to do that, I was able to add links within this resource.

How Does This Support Educators?

This resource will support educators by:

  • Helping them lesson ideas for a variety of instructional strategies, such as assessments, note-taking, reading, writing, research, and presentations.
  • Allowing them to sort by SAMR depth, tech tool, and instructional type.
  • Helping them to reach deeper levels of SAMR.

As always, this resource is just recently released and I would love some feedback. Share your thoughts about the SAMR Database in the comments below!

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