“Teachers are so lucky! They get to teach wonderful children all day long, have good job security, are paid well, and then they take every summer off for paid vacation. It’s, like, the best job in the world!” (A nearly word-for-word paraphrase from a child who shall remain anonymous, for her own safety.)

I’m sure that if you are a teacher you have heard a similar statement at one point in time. Or maybe before you actually started training for the job, you thought that way yourself! But it takes only one day in a classroom to understand that those summers are hard-earned, too short, and too filled with activities and the paychecks are far too small to accurately compensate for what you do all day during the school year!

So we salute you brave souls who have entered into that most honorable profession! Thank you for what you do each day to make the world a better place, despite policies, parents, and pains that consistently conspire to thwart your best efforts.

That’s why we decided this summer to bring you FREE resources and ideas that we hope will help you to remember why you were in this profession in the first place, and to do it to the best of your abilities when the summer finds its inevitable end.

The MSU Alumni Association hosts free webcasts every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month from 12:30pm to 1:30pm EST, and is consistently offering personal and professional enrichment opportunities which can be found at www.alumni.msu/lens.

We are proud to present two free webcasts for teachers/by teachers this summer:

Topic: Technology in the Classroom       

Free Webcast: Thursday 07/24 from 12:30 – 1:30.Dr. Jessica Knott, Instructional Designer at MSU, and Mary Wever, Fourth Grade Teacher and Content Curator for MSU’s MAET program, and Heather Dufner, Teacher in East Lansing Schools, will present on the use of technology in the classroom.

Some of the ideas Mrs. Wever will present can be found here.

Webcasts are free and open to the public. To register in July, go to www.alumni.msu.edu/professionalseries

Topic: Creative Cross-Curricular Inquiry Through the Maker Movement

Free Webcast: Thursday 07/31 from 12:30-1:30. Dr. Michelle Schira Hagerman, Director of Graduate Certificate programs in Educational Technology and Online Teaching and Learning, and Terence O’Neill, the Entrepreneurship Librarian at the Gast Business Library at MSU, will lead an interactive discussion via webcast on insights gained from this summer’s Maker Faire experience. They will facilitate a discussion her colleagues and students as they share resources that teachers and parents can use to think about the Maker Movement, broadly, as a way to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills across disciplines.

For some of Dr. Hagerman’s ideas regarding the maker movement, go here and here.

Webcasts are free and open to the public. To register in July, go to www.alumni.msu.edu/professionalseries

For Information about attending the Maker Faire: The Master’s in Educational Technology Program at MSU [http://edutech.msu.edu] prepares educators to integrate technologies in thoughtful, innovative ways that support student learning. This summer, first year MAET students will collaborate with MSU librarians to offer the first ever MAET Maker Faire — a creative, tech-infused, crafting extravaganza for the whole MSU community [Save the date: Wed., July 2, from 11-1 pm in the Main MSU Library].

To access our library of recorded “Professional Series” webcasts (featuring a host of career-related topics; including everything from the art of creating comic books to the science of chickens) visit our recorded webcasts page here.

Also, don’t forget about our FREE Livestream events as well as our LENS courses. 

Upcoming Blog/Webcast topics (Subject to Change: see www.alumni.msu.edu/professionalseries for current offerings):

06/12: Developing Meaningful Apps in a Sea of Millions

06/26: Hire the Best, Forget the Rest

07/10: Growing Your Professional Network With Linkedin

07/24: Technology In The Classroom: Best Practices

07/31: Creative Cross-Curricular Inquiry Through the Maker Movement

08/14: MSU’s 60/50 Celebration: Why Civil Rights Still Matter

08/28: How to Treat College as a Four Year Job Search

09/11: Landing Your First Job After College

09/25: Your Time Perspective as a Key to Well-Being

10/09: Onboarding for Employers

10/23: Interviewing for Job Seekers

11/13: Employee Engagement via Career Development

12/11: The Holiday Blues: How to Stay in the Game When All You Want is Rest

01/15: New Year, New You: Living Beyond Resolutions

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