When we first started iCreate – almost 2.5 years ago now, yikes! – we really prioritized running hands-on teacher workshops. Why? It was great exposure for the stop-motion concept into learning so we could identify what we needed to continue to work on to build out our business. Since then, we’ve been more interested in empowering other teachers and educationally-minded organizations to run workshops on their own, which we support 100% with any materials, free software / app downloads, etc that we can provide.

That being said, we rarely have the bandwidth to regularly run teacher workshops ourselves. However, this November, because of the recent iPad app launch, we have jumped in to facilitating more workshops than normal, and it’s been fabulous to be around the energy of teachers in action with our tools again! Here’s a quick review of the workshops we’ve run to-date and what we have on the radar. Sharing these hands-on experiences with teachers is always a learning opportunity for us, and always a blast for the teachers too!

November 7th, 2012
We jumped in with Dotty Corbiere from the Meadowbrook School in Weston, MA at the iPad Summit, which was an opportunity for teachers to drop into different sessions and learn about the innovative ways other teachers are integrating the iPad technology into their lessons. We had just over an hour, some crafts, over 40 teachers with iPads exhibiting the new myCreate app, and plenty of floor space where we could spread out and create!

November 10th, 2012
We had a double header in Providence, Rhode Island with a whirl-wind of a workshop hosted by the Highlander Institute, and then we jumped over to the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum with Boston Arts Academy for the afternoon. With just an hour for each workshop, the teachers had plenty of time to plan, create and share their animations!

November 28th, 2012
We’ll be stepping in to help out Jim Doherty of Hampton Academy at the Christa McAuliffe conference in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Nov 28th. This workshop will be 3-hours, and will give teachers a bit longer to not only make their creations on the iPad or computer, but also share ideas around specific methods of implementation into the common core. Looking forward to it!