GRAND RAPIDS, Mich - While kids were away on summer break, Heather Gauck was hard at work building a professional development website meant to help teachers integrate tech in the classroom.
The Harrison Park Resource Teacher works with students who need extra help, but when it came to extra resources to help her, she wasn’t finding much. Most online platforms were either too boring or too long.
"As a teacher, we don't have a lot of time, so I wanted to focus on having 10 minutes or shorter videos that would actually be in the classroom, so you could see those classes, see classes that have 25-30 students not just the small groups." Gauck said.
Gauck then came up with the idea to take those 10 minute videos and put them all online, free for teachers around the world.
A little more than a year ago, she received a $40,000 grant from the Zuckerberg Foundation to create Innovationclassroom.com
The site will feature a series of interactive videos showing how tech can be used in any classroom, whether the kids are learning algebra or reading comprehension.
The teachers can then chat live with the very same teachers featured in those lessons.
Gauck said, "That's going to be done via social media, so Twitter, Facebook, we will have a Facebook connection, we will have Voxer which is awesome it's an audio app and all of these are free apps."
The project is in the filming stages right now and Gauck's goal is to have the site live by the new year.
Gauck is also the creator of the school's lunchtime robotics club.
Check out what students are learning below.
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