What do we hope you get out of the CRT Resource Challenge?

Last year, being the first year that we ran this one, I did get a head start on this one so I could provide some examples of the sort of things the challenge was about.   

My personal goal last year was pretty simple; to use the challenge to get better at making my own worksheets.  It's not something I was very good at (as my samples show) and it's an area of my teaching I really wanted to work on.  Sometimes I just couldn't find exactly what I wanted for a lesson and found myself having to make the sheets up myself.  I was always unhappy with the product and didn't really feel like I was helping in any way to make my students enthusiastic about their learning.  They were bare and minimal and not overly exciting to look at.

This surprised many of my CRT friends because, as a general rule, I preach non-reliance on worksheets.  I still do, as a matter of fact, for a whole bunch of reasons.  Still, sometimes work sheets are the best way to approach something and if you're going to use them they should be the best they can possibly be.  This made creating worksheets (and printable activities) something I truly wanted to get better at.

The challenge gave me a motivational tool to stick with it and get better.  Overcoming that initial hurdle has allowed me to progress quite a lot in the intervening months too...

I started here:

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=0d641ad8750d17a5#cid=0D641AD8750D17A5&id=D641AD8750D17A5!1757

 and 11 months or so later I'm here:

I feel like I've come a fair way ;).

So what am I going to use the challenge to tackle this year?  Working basic ICT into some of my lessons so I can take a little more advantage of the technology out there.

This is the sort of thing we want you to get out of it professionally.   The opportunity to shed the normal parameters of what we do when planning and just wander into other areas.  To take a journey where you can learn new things and discover what you are capable of that you never really considered before.  When I want to wander into a room with worksheets now, if I can't find exactly what I want online to buy, I can make it myself.  When this year's challenge is done?  I'm going to be able to walk in with this lesson in my Bag of Tricks and know that it's going to be unique to me as a CRT and I will be able to do it again when the opportunity presents itself. 

A year ago where was I?  I couldn't even make work sheets that you could call much more than "functional".  Where am I now?  In a happy place!

Regards,

Mel.