Back in 2010, Sarah was a member of a K-12 public school district Technology and Media Team.  Their team was looking at ways to provide on-going professional development throughout the year and used feedback from teachers to drive their professional learning opportunities forward.  One feedback item that always heard from teachers is that they would like to participate in more professional learning opportunities, but did not have the time do so with other teaching obligations.  So, Sarah decided to create a mid-school year asynchronous virtual professional development option - the 12 Days of EdTech Cheer!  This was designed for ALL K-12 teachers (not just teachers of my district at that time) to explore on their own, further explore resources they could use for teaching and student learning.  She chose to make this professional development available during the holidays - a time when many teachers have a little more flexibility.

In 2011, Sarah decided to continue the idea, but build upon it a little.  She really wanted to engage teachers in conversation about the ideas and resources presented.  In 2012 and beyond, she has worked to encourage participation, communication, and collaboration.  Sarah truly feels there is so much more that everyone can offer to the learning experience other than just my thoughts and collections of resources.  Each year she has tried to build on the experiences from the previous year, use teacher input, and research trends, resources, and methods for using technology as a supporting tool and resource for teaching and learning.

As Sarah has now joined the Kent Intermediate School District as an Educational Technology Consultant (2020), she has decided to bring back the 12 Days of EdTech Cheer with her teammates, Ron Houtman and Keith Tramper.   To spread the holiday cheer, we wanted to share some strategies, resources, tools, and techniques - 1 a day for 12 days .  The information listed here are presented to be a collection of strategies, tools, resources and techniques that you can use in your classroom for instruction, student projects or as collaboration and productivity tools.  Our goal is to push you a tiny bit outside your comfort zone and try a thing or two that will help you or your students.  I encourage you to share your thoughts, ideas, and links to resources each day through daily reflections.  This is where we can truly build our learning community!