May 2022

Congratulations on making it to the end of another school year! Whether this has been your first year in education or your thirty-first, we are so grateful and proud of the work that you do in classrooms and offices across the state. We're sharing a few great options for summer PD, bite-size training in the form of podcasts, plus a summer activity calendar that you can share with students or your own children and grandchildren!

Summer is a great time for social media awareness

While kids are out of school for the summer, they are likely to spend even more time online and on social media. We recently released our 2022 Summer SMACtalk Calendar. This calendar features the best-of-the-best from our parent, teacher, and student groups all in one place. Download the eight-week, two-page calendar as a PDF with clickable links, and consider printing a copy for the fridge!

P.S. If you want to get alerts from the Social Media Awareness Campaign directly in your inbox, you can update your subscription settings and become a SMACtalk Insider today! #SMACtalkAR

It's also time to register for the ADE Summit conference

Registration is open for the 2022 ADE Summit conference through June 24. There are so many great sessions to choose from this year, but here are some sessions filtered by a few Subjects that we'd like to highlight:

• Data | Digital Learning | EdTech | Privacy & Security

Upcoming Training Opportunities

The Hot Springs Technology Institute (HSTI) is hosting its 29th conference on June 15-16 with multiple options for pre-conference workshops on June 13-14. The theme is “HSTI Live - Plug In To Recharge!" and registration is now open.

Now is also the time to sign up for summer professional development from the DESE Digital Learning Unit. Check out Memo RT-117 for descriptions of each session with links to register on escWorks.

New Additions to Website

Even though our Drop Everything And Learn (DEAL) Days webinar series is on hiatus for the summer, you can go back and watch any of this year's sessions on demand on the DESE Digital Learning Unit webpage.

Recent Commissioner's Memos

RT-22-017   Digital Learning Unit 2022 Summer PD

RT-22-016   ADE Summit 2022

OIT-22-015   My School Info SIS Cycle 6 data updates completed

Featured Podcast Episodes

Arkansas A.W.A.R.E.   AWARE Trainings and the Enneagram
This month Stacy and Nicole are talking about the professional development courses they have planned for this summer. Today we talk about Teacher Wellbeing and the Enneagram. Our thoughts about it have shifted and refined as we have tried different things and heard from educators. Even if “self-care” seems like a dirty word to you at this point, we still need it… so what do we do about that? (09:33)

G.U.I.D.E. for Life   BX3 Project yields positive results for Conway SD
Join us for a conversation with Dr. Shelia Smith and Kelly Davis, of Arkansas Behavior Support Specialists (AR BSS), in the third - of a three-part series. Kelli Gordon and Matt Kelly of Conway Public Schools join us to share their experiences as the Conway BX3 Team. (18:31)

Living in Beta Mode   Origin of Ideas
Today we are going to be chatting with guest, Dr. Jason Trumble. Jason Trumble Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Central Arkansas where he teaches preservice and in-service teachers to effectively integrate technology, content, and pedagogy. He is the program coordinator for the UCA education specialist degree in digital age teaching and learning. (38:24)

SMACtalk for Teachers   SMACtalk at the AAIM Conference
In this episode we highlight some conversations we had with library media specialists at the 2022 AAIM (Arkansas Association of Instructional Media) conference. We got to hear some wonderful stories from the attendees of the conference and gained some valuable insight on how school library media specialists are using social media and helping keep our teachers and students safe on the internet. (29:59)