Educator Guest Blogger Series

ETV Education’s Educator Guest Blogger Series, featuring South Carolina educators recognized for innovation in the classroom, continue to provide interesting and relevant ideas for SC teachers! Our guest bloggers include additional PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator winners, educators who earn the new PBS Media Literacy Certification, and other educators recognized for their skilled use of technology in the classroom.

The blogger series serves as an additional platform to our Carolina Classrooms television and web series to elevate and share SC educators’ voices and the accomplished work they are doing.

The PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator program rewards tech-savvy K-12 educators from across the country who are serving as leaders in the education technology space and incorporating digital media in classrooms to promote student engagement and achievement. The annual program has recognized and honored 19 SC educators to date.

The PBS Media Literacy Educator Certification by KQED recognizes educators who excel in creating and implementing instruction with media, and provides support to help all teachers accelerate these skills. Educators who exemplify strong media literacy competencies are invited to submit a portfolio of work demonstrating their achievements. And, free media literacy courses are available on KQED Teach for educators who need support in building the competencies which include the ability to create original content using multiple media production techniques, share original media on a variety of online platforms designed to reach specific audiences, and implement lessons that help students foster media skills and more. Available courses: Finding & Validating Information Online; Understanding Copyright & Fair Use; Video Storytelling Essentials; Designing Presentations; Safety and Privacy in a Participatory Culture; How to Manage and Assess Media Projects; and more.

Our featured educator blogger for August 2019 is Albert Robertson.

Albert Robertson is the Coordinator of Social Studies for Lexington County School District One. Prior to serving as a district-level leader, Robertson was a middle school social studies teacher and teacher leader at Pleasant Hill Middle School and Meadow Glen Middle School.  In 2014, Robertson was selected as the Lexington One District Teacher of the Year, and was then named a SC Honor Roll Teacher the following year (2015-2016). He currently serves as Immediate Past-President of the South Carolina Social Studies Supervisors Association and President-Elect of the South Carolina Council for the Social Studies.  He is passionate about social studies, teacher leadership, and civic engagement of our students in South Carolina, the future leaders of our state, nation and world. arobertson@lexington1.net.  View Albert Robertson's blog here. 

Please check out Albert Robertson’s post entitled: Revving up your leadership engine for this year! 

•  June 2019 post by Dr. Jerry T. Mitchell, Coordinator of the South Carolina Geographic Alliance and a Research Professor of Geography at the USC- Columbia. His teaching includes courses in geography education, South Carolina, environmental hazards, and Latin America (taught in Chile and Costa Rica). Authored 50+ peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, with work appearing in the journals Natural Hazards Review, Social Science Quarterly, Cartography and GIS, and the Annals of the American Association of Geographers; Editor of the Journal of Geography and the Atlas of South Carolina and will serve as President of the National Council for Geographic Education in 2020: Geography: Educating South Carolina Students for the World

• May 2019 post by Megan McNinch, Technology Teacher, STEAM enthusiast, Teacher of the Year at Sugar Creek Elementary in Fort Mill, SC. She is a 2016 PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator, holds a B.A. in elementary education from UNC at Chapel Hill, a Master’s in special education from Western Governor’s University, and is pursuing a doctorate in curriculum and instruction and license in school administration from Liberty University:  STEAM Education: More Than Engineering Pinterest Challenge

•  April 2019 post by Emily Molin, a teacher at the high school level for 15 years. She taught Spanish for twelve years and has been a Media Specialist with Greenville County Schools for the past three years. She has served as Department Head, School Leadership Team member, and Discovery Education Digital Leader. She was nominated for Teacher of the Year at her high school for the 2020 school year: Better Together: Collaboration and Technology Integration

• March 2019 post by Kimberly Singletary, Early Learning Wi-Fi Manager in SCETV’s Education Division, managing the Educational Broadband Wi-Fi Access Project and providing PD to Pre-K-12 teachers.  Previously, she was an educator at R.E. Davis Elementary School in the Sumter and named Campus Teacher of the Year in 2016-17: Let’s Discuss the Importance of Social Emotional Learning

• February 2019 post by Laura Roberts Adair, Digital Integration Specialist for Harbison West Elementary, Irmo Elementary and Nursery Road Elementary Arts Magnet in School District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties, Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from USC, and  National Board Certified Teacher: Lights! Camera! Integrate! Impacting students and Your Curriculum Through Video/Green Screen Project Based Learning  

• January 2019 post by Brian Day, Instructional Technology Specialist, SCETV Education and former elementary teacher specializing in 5-6^th grade social studies: Enhancing Social Studies Instruction Through the Use of Technology: Interactive Webtools and Websites for the Classroom  

• November 2018 post by Karen Ogen, Magnet Program Lead, Bradley Elementary in Richland One, National Board Certified Teacher and a PBS Digital Innovator:  12 Ways Technology Can Support Authentic Learning   

• October 2018 post by Ashley Fort, Digital Learning Coach for Lexington School District 3 (Batesburg-Leesville) and 2017 Lead PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator for SC: We All Must Teach Digital Citizenship: Ideas for Teachers to Incorporate Digital Citizenship into Their Instruction

• September 2018 post by Carla Jefferson, Darlington County Schools and the 2016 Lead PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator for SC:  Successfully Starting Off the School Year with Classroom Technology

• August 2018 post by Adam Babcock, Spartanburg District 7 and 2014 PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator: Parenting Students with School-Assigned Devices