It seems like today we and our students are faced with SO many choices for technology. As teachers we must consider not only does the tool help us teach the concept, but we must also research if it is on an approved software list, affordable (usually meaning free), and is it worth the teacher's time learning how to use it for just one or two lessons before it will be put back on the "shelf" until that lesson rolls around next year. Is there one tool that you can use across many units for multiple classes? Of course there is. Unfortunately, that tool may not be the same one for each teacher.
The first consideration should always be if the technology can make your lesson more accessible, effective and help present the content in a way that makes it meaningful to your students. That is not something new, but it's very true. I love adding new technologies, but others may feel reluctant to jump in and swim in the deep end of the tech pool. I also have the advantage of tech being what I'm actually paid to teach.
If you have an idea of what you want to use but don't know if it actually exists, talk to your school librarian. They are always a good starting point because if they don't know, they will try to help you find out. Look for a colleague who seems pretty technologically connected. Ask them for some ideas. Have them show you what they are using. Never be afraid to ask questions about resources. They are constantly changing.
If you need a software, check the district approved software listing. Just browsing through you may see lots of things you didn't know existed and were readily available to you just for the asking.
If you are just beginning your journey into actually encouraging your students to investigate on their own and harness the power of having a computer in their hands, don't be afraid to let them take the lead sometimes. Our students aren't shy about jumping in and trying something new, usually much braver than their teachers.
Once you have a solid idea, actually take a few minutes and think about the possibilities that tool might provide for your students. Will they be more engaged in your Social Studies review if it is a Kahoot game where they compete against their classmates? Would a virtual field trip make a concept or connection seem more real?
Google has so many extensions that do so many things that you could spend a very long time just scratching the surface. Look at what interests you. Learn how to use it. The opportunities for integration will present themselves to you once you take the plunge for yourself.
Start simple. Pick one tool and try it out yourself. If you understand the basics, give it a shot with your students if it is appropriate. If you don't understand it, try a different tool. Once you begin to explore the freedom of breaking old habits and patterns of teaching and letting students take ownership of their own learning, you will find it addictive watching the light bulbs go off. You may just find you are way more experienced and knowledgeable than you ever thought you were.
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Monday, October 28, 2019
Saturday, April 13, 2019
The G- Slides Trap
First, before you read any further, I am a Google fanatic. In my experience of teaching Google's tools have been my go-to. I have always been big on "student's creating" and collaborating but have recently found myself trying to escape the G-Slides trap.
The G- Slides Trap goes something like this: Students research information, slap their text on the slides with some pictures and say "all done". I have also caught students "researching" by typing a question into google, "What was the goal of Apollo 13" and then copying and pasting an image of a "slide" on to their own slide.
It has become really important to me to have students research and present information and while doing so push their efforts to design a final original product.
Connect this idea to Instagram. It's traditionally used by users posting a series of single, isolated posts disjointedly documenting their day to day on one profile. There are some creative users who are using this tool where posts are cleverly strung together to tell a story.
Take the example of Hannah Lehmann who created an original film series on her instagram, a series of 1 minute episodes you could see on TV- except accessible for free to the masses.
Consider the Netflix Series Ozark who for Season 1, turned their entire instagram profile into a map of the Ozarks with hidden eggs as clues from the dramatic story line. Netflix has since deleted the entire map and for Season 2 posted a new themed series of images and videos to engage and tease viewers. (I googled and could not find a visual of Season 1.)
Taylor Swift, the queen of hidden messages, foreshadowing and symbolism has figured this out a long time ago. In 2017, after hiatus from performing and social media Swift deleted every post on her Instagram to post three clips of a hissing snake which we now know was hinting at her and next album release, Reputation. Its 2019, and Swift has mastered the art of calculated posts, simple, creative, and delicately just puzzling enough to get her fans buzzing with the exciting drama and anticipation and for whatever she releases next.
I feel like all of these people have figured out that social media is the secret key to what will advance their careers and are marketings themselves effectively. Any person, in any career, can market themselves professionally through social media networking but to be effective you have to stand out- take ordinary products and give it a twist.
This theme of creativity has been repeated over and over in the work of people like The Tech Rabbi and David Eagleman. I promise I'll connect all of the dots, just but hang with me a little longer.
Fun fact- I love to take children and family portraits. I have been a family photographer for almost seven years and have been able to photograph the real story of couples becoming engaged, sharing birth announcements, and taking their children's photos. I used Facebook as my main platform for sharing and business, Instagram was around but not really a thing yet. Most of my editing and posting I predominately did on my desktop. I even posted to Facebook directly from my desktop.
Inspired by these three creative Instagram profiles I decided I wanted to create a business profile on Instagram that was a portfolio and also artistically told the story of all of these families growing over the past seven years. My motive was not to gain customers but to satisfy a creative itch and try something new.
I quickly realized the tools I knew how to use on a desktop were null. I needed to figure out which apps would allow me to resize images so they would post correctly. I also needed access to a digital canvas with layering, for images, pngs, and videos to design. I wanted to figure out how to split images into a collage for posting, and I also needed an app that I could use for just video editing to create short gifs or animations. There were a lot of things I wanted to create but I didn't know which tools to use.
Experiencing that pain point and wanting original student products guided my pedagogy for our current 6th grade research project.
We have done a project several years in a row wheres students research a mission from NASA and then create a news report on video. In the past I would mandate which app or website students would have to use for the sake of keeping students work together, and consistency. Now that we use itslearning, there is an assignment feature where students (or groups) can submit their work to their teachers from anywhere. It doesn't matter where they make their product.
This year, I approached the assignment differently. When it came to creating the final product, I told students it was simple. Whatever they made had to have be in a video format. They did not have to show their face but I there had to be audio of them speaking about their information.
Our classroom has a set of Chromebooks that all students use. We talked about their how their phones have apps for photos, editing, and then I showed students the "Chrome Web Store" and explained what extensions were. We created an area in our class for students to post their ideas of Apps to use.
The response was bipolar. So many students were vocal, "Miss why can't we just do a Google Slide. I don't want to make a video," or "I hate how I sound, why do we have to record our voice," and "I don't want to do this." There were also many students jumped into the freedom and were really excited about all of their options.
There was also paralysis. Some students stared at me and their screens waiting to be told explicitly what to do. Luckily they had to gather research and complete and outline first so those students had a few days to digest and think about their product. Everyday I started class showing samples of what students had started working on and slowly their confidence gained some traction.
There also had to be compromise. The makeup of my classes are so different and unique, there needed to be accommodations. Some students needed a place to anchor their research and images. I allowed them to use Google Slides as a base and then use the extension Screencastify to record a voiceover of themselves narrating their videos.
Students created scripts, their own animated backgrounds out of custom gifs, they worked collaboratively, negotiated, found editing sites such as WeVideo and Pixlr. I set up a greenscreen in the classroom for students to use DoInk. Some students even made two different version of their videos.
Not only had they collected research, finally, FINALLY they were creating original products. I know I spent a lot of time talking about the product, and so frequently I am reminded it's not about the app but more about the learning, I am not trying to minimize the academic importance or content.
I love this project as a whole because students practiced many skills: reading expository text, gathering research, writing an outline and turning that into a product where they had to articulate what they learned. They had to problem solve on what tools they needed to use and were challenged on going beyond Slides.
All of those skills need to be practiced, and we're making progress together. I will write another post about how all of this was implemented in the classroom and share student samples. There are some really exciting and freeing features through the platform of itslearning and it's Google Integration that teachers NEED to know about! I have another project I have to finish first, more to come.
This is a Student Sample from an academic class. It is not perfect but I have never heard one of these students actually speak in class: Slides 1-4 are includes their base info, slide 5 has their screencast vide inserted.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1G2UHCC_G2YvValJMXvgv055taGDsjWJwstV92S6GSWc/edit#slide=id.p
Smiles,
Christine
The G- Slides Trap goes something like this: Students research information, slap their text on the slides with some pictures and say "all done". I have also caught students "researching" by typing a question into google, "What was the goal of Apollo 13" and then copying and pasting an image of a "slide" on to their own slide.
It has become really important to me to have students research and present information and while doing so push their efforts to design a final original product.
Connect this idea to Instagram. It's traditionally used by users posting a series of single, isolated posts disjointedly documenting their day to day on one profile. There are some creative users who are using this tool where posts are cleverly strung together to tell a story.
Consider the Netflix Series Ozark who for Season 1, turned their entire instagram profile into a map of the Ozarks with hidden eggs as clues from the dramatic story line. Netflix has since deleted the entire map and for Season 2 posted a new themed series of images and videos to engage and tease viewers. (I googled and could not find a visual of Season 1.)
Taylor Swift, the queen of hidden messages, foreshadowing and symbolism has figured this out a long time ago. In 2017, after hiatus from performing and social media Swift deleted every post on her Instagram to post three clips of a hissing snake which we now know was hinting at her and next album release, Reputation. Its 2019, and Swift has mastered the art of calculated posts, simple, creative, and delicately just puzzling enough to get her fans buzzing with the exciting drama and anticipation and for whatever she releases next.
I feel like all of these people have figured out that social media is the secret key to what will advance their careers and are marketings themselves effectively. Any person, in any career, can market themselves professionally through social media networking but to be effective you have to stand out- take ordinary products and give it a twist.
This theme of creativity has been repeated over and over in the work of people like The Tech Rabbi and David Eagleman. I promise I'll connect all of the dots, just but hang with me a little longer.
Fun fact- I love to take children and family portraits. I have been a family photographer for almost seven years and have been able to photograph the real story of couples becoming engaged, sharing birth announcements, and taking their children's photos. I used Facebook as my main platform for sharing and business, Instagram was around but not really a thing yet. Most of my editing and posting I predominately did on my desktop. I even posted to Facebook directly from my desktop.Inspired by these three creative Instagram profiles I decided I wanted to create a business profile on Instagram that was a portfolio and also artistically told the story of all of these families growing over the past seven years. My motive was not to gain customers but to satisfy a creative itch and try something new.
I quickly realized the tools I knew how to use on a desktop were null. I needed to figure out which apps would allow me to resize images so they would post correctly. I also needed access to a digital canvas with layering, for images, pngs, and videos to design. I wanted to figure out how to split images into a collage for posting, and I also needed an app that I could use for just video editing to create short gifs or animations. There were a lot of things I wanted to create but I didn't know which tools to use.
Experiencing that pain point and wanting original student products guided my pedagogy for our current 6th grade research project.
We have done a project several years in a row wheres students research a mission from NASA and then create a news report on video. In the past I would mandate which app or website students would have to use for the sake of keeping students work together, and consistency. Now that we use itslearning, there is an assignment feature where students (or groups) can submit their work to their teachers from anywhere. It doesn't matter where they make their product.
This year, I approached the assignment differently. When it came to creating the final product, I told students it was simple. Whatever they made had to have be in a video format. They did not have to show their face but I there had to be audio of them speaking about their information.
Our classroom has a set of Chromebooks that all students use. We talked about their how their phones have apps for photos, editing, and then I showed students the "Chrome Web Store" and explained what extensions were. We created an area in our class for students to post their ideas of Apps to use.
The response was bipolar. So many students were vocal, "Miss why can't we just do a Google Slide. I don't want to make a video," or "I hate how I sound, why do we have to record our voice," and "I don't want to do this." There were also many students jumped into the freedom and were really excited about all of their options.
There was also paralysis. Some students stared at me and their screens waiting to be told explicitly what to do. Luckily they had to gather research and complete and outline first so those students had a few days to digest and think about their product. Everyday I started class showing samples of what students had started working on and slowly their confidence gained some traction.
There also had to be compromise. The makeup of my classes are so different and unique, there needed to be accommodations. Some students needed a place to anchor their research and images. I allowed them to use Google Slides as a base and then use the extension Screencastify to record a voiceover of themselves narrating their videos.
Students created scripts, their own animated backgrounds out of custom gifs, they worked collaboratively, negotiated, found editing sites such as WeVideo and Pixlr. I set up a greenscreen in the classroom for students to use DoInk. Some students even made two different version of their videos.
Not only had they collected research, finally, FINALLY they were creating original products. I know I spent a lot of time talking about the product, and so frequently I am reminded it's not about the app but more about the learning, I am not trying to minimize the academic importance or content.
I love this project as a whole because students practiced many skills: reading expository text, gathering research, writing an outline and turning that into a product where they had to articulate what they learned. They had to problem solve on what tools they needed to use and were challenged on going beyond Slides.
All of those skills need to be practiced, and we're making progress together. I will write another post about how all of this was implemented in the classroom and share student samples. There are some really exciting and freeing features through the platform of itslearning and it's Google Integration that teachers NEED to know about! I have another project I have to finish first, more to come.
This is a Student Sample from an academic class. It is not perfect but I have never heard one of these students actually speak in class: Slides 1-4 are includes their base info, slide 5 has their screencast vide inserted.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1G2UHCC_G2YvValJMXvgv055taGDsjWJwstV92S6GSWc/edit#slide=id.p
Smiles,
Christine
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Nearpod in the classroom
SO.... I am a little slow to blogging, however I would like to sing the praises of Youtube and Nearpod. I have used nearpod religiously for test corrections and at least twice per unit for lessons and responses. What I have done is recorded my exampled on our document camera using a usb and then upload the video to youtube. Once I have the youtube video link, I can search for it on the nearpod and link it to the slide. Our students are able to work on an assignment whole group or even at their own pace. Students can also use their own devices to participate.
The use of nearpod has been beneficial for our entire campus especially for our current 7th grade level. I have used this for our campus to survey our students on their 5 love languages. The data report that was produced was so insightful and useful for our teachers to better understand and connect with our students.
I am far from an expert, but I did want to share how grateful I am and how useful this tool is.
The use of nearpod has been beneficial for our entire campus especially for our current 7th grade level. I have used this for our campus to survey our students on their 5 love languages. The data report that was produced was so insightful and useful for our teachers to better understand and connect with our students.
I am far from an expert, but I did want to share how grateful I am and how useful this tool is.
Monday, March 11, 2019
Spot Check using Google Form
I was having a nightmare. Literally. It was that I was doing a whole group review for an upcoming test with unruly students and an OF COURSE an unplanned observation happened.
I woke up to this idea that students would "spot check" a test review sheet on their own using a Google Form, while I pulled a small group for review/interventions. Then some magic would happen at the end of class. (Keep reading for the magic.)
Also- I realize that this is a review sheet, but it had an intentional purpose and served it. 😏
Background: The review sheet was over "Speed and Motion." Students should have finished the review sheet before completing the "spot check". With their review sheet in hand they would access the "Spot Check Google Form." The form would ask students about some of the questions on the review sheet.
How it works: Google Form's have a feature called, "response validate." When you make an open response question, click the ellipses in the bottom right corner, then set the desired response. If the student answers incorrectly the form will flash red. You can designate a "custom error text". (For example: "Reread the Y axis. Try again.")
Custom error text example:
But the BEST part! This is where things went right. The last question on the google from is open ended and reads:
Closure: Instead of tediously going through every single question on the review sheet the last ten minutes were reserved for specific questions asked through the google form. The magic was that students who usually DO NOT ask questions ASKED! They were able to talk to me privately through the google form and I could address their questions with some anonymity.
My quiet babies used their voice & I was able to provide custom feedback specifically to what they wanted. Students were also more engaged at the end because I think they were partly a little excited to see if their question was chosen, but also they knew it was not going to be a long process. Short, sweet and to their chosen points.
The feedback from students was mixed. Most students liked that they were able to check their work on their own and then have the whole group closure at the end. Some students said that they preferred the traditional whole group review. I liked that it allowed me to reach mores students for intervention and I was able to put some ownership onto students.
I woke up to this idea that students would "spot check" a test review sheet on their own using a Google Form, while I pulled a small group for review/interventions. Then some magic would happen at the end of class. (Keep reading for the magic.)
Also- I realize that this is a review sheet, but it had an intentional purpose and served it. 😏
Background: The review sheet was over "Speed and Motion." Students should have finished the review sheet before completing the "spot check". With their review sheet in hand they would access the "Spot Check Google Form." The form would ask students about some of the questions on the review sheet.
-If the answer is correct, no message will appear. Continue checking answers.
-If the answer is incorrect, an "error" message will appear. Read the hint, and try again.
How it works: Google Form's have a feature called, "response validate." When you make an open response question, click the ellipses in the bottom right corner, then set the desired response. If the student answers incorrectly the form will flash red. You can designate a "custom error text". (For example: "Reread the Y axis. Try again.")
Custom error text example:
Closure: Instead of tediously going through every single question on the review sheet the last ten minutes were reserved for specific questions asked through the google form. The magic was that students who usually DO NOT ask questions ASKED! They were able to talk to me privately through the google form and I could address their questions with some anonymity.
My quiet babies used their voice & I was able to provide custom feedback specifically to what they wanted. Students were also more engaged at the end because I think they were partly a little excited to see if their question was chosen, but also they knew it was not going to be a long process. Short, sweet and to their chosen points.
The feedback from students was mixed. Most students liked that they were able to check their work on their own and then have the whole group closure at the end. Some students said that they preferred the traditional whole group review. I liked that it allowed me to reach mores students for intervention and I was able to put some ownership onto students.
Monday, March 4, 2019
Adding Choice of Product
Station rotation has been a great way for me to incorporate blended learning in my classroom ... but after listening to a fellow vanguard, I realized that I wasn't giving my students much of a choice when it came to the products that they were creating.
My students normally have a BrainPop station and I recently added these three product choices. I added the pictures to my itslearning class. I hope you can use them in your classroom.
Friday, March 1, 2019
Back on the grind
Back to work today!!! Knocking out a lot of work plans may have to wait til this weekend! My students are begging to stay. Sorry guys this is not a regular school. Our job is to house you, help you and release you. We pray you have learned some quality skills to help you on your return to campus. It amazes me every time.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
It's One Hour a Week! What about STAAR?
(The picture above is my students working on their passion projects. This round of projects is learning something you always wanted to know how to do.)
My students have been doing passion projects every week from 10 to 11 am on Wednesdays throughout the year. We are now heading toward STAAR time, and I will continue to do passion projects, from 10 to 11 am on Wednesdays, each week until the day of the STAAR. It is a non movable piece of my schedule.
Some students are learning to make a cake from scratch, learning a language, drawing the anime character they love, building a shelf, and I am sure I am leaving some others out. This can be deemed unimportant or a waste of time to some, but I have found it to be essential. My students have begun to learn some very important life lessons through passion projects that they otherwise would not have been exposed to.
Within this passion project my students have been tasked with building a plan, and executing on that plan to learn something new during this 6 week time frame. My students are beginning to assess what is important to them, and how to develop a plan to get there.
Something that I realized this week doing passion projects, my students needed to take time to reflect on their practice and whether it was effective. I was so surprised what I heard from my students. One: I need help from experts in the area I am studying. In previous passion projects I had guided students to contact outside experts. Yesterday when reflecting multiple students adjusted their plan to reach out to different experts. Two: I may need to dedicate more time then the hour a week to reach my goal by the end of the six weeks. Those students made adjustments to their plans to include time outside school.
Not having a way to end this blog without feeling I am preaching. Yes I will be dedicating 1 hour of time to passion projects, so my students can build on their capacity to be self guided learner.
Using All In Learning Clickers in First Grade.
In my class, we use the All In Learning Clickers program. It is a quick and hands-on program that helps me to monitor students progress. All In program allows me to collect the data we need to incorporate into our lessons to meet the needs of all students. I use the clickers before a lesson as a pre-assessment to see what students know about the topic that we are about to learn, during the lesson I would give short exit ticket to understand what they are learning and then at end of the lesson to see what did the students learned. The program also helps breaks down the percentage of the class based on how the students did and how they answer each question. Based on the data that I get from the clickers I will then decide whether I need to modify to reteach the lesson, reteach in a small group or move on to the next lesson. The program is fun and the kids love using the clickers. Students said it's like playing a game.
Powerful Humans
When Gutenberg invented the printing press people waited every 6 months for new material. Now we have the world wide web where new pages pop up every 10 seconds, yet still we decide to use our time playing video games and watching meaningless videos online. "Why do we need to know this? This is not something I will need as an adult." We have all heard this before at sometime or another. Is the student right? Is there a purpose for learning scientific notation or fundamental theorems of calculus? Is it the teachers job to make sure that the student knows how to solve the problems according to the steps? Could be. Or maybe its bigger than that. Maybe our job is teaching the students how to self advocate. Teaching the learners how to take control. Teaching the students that what matters is not how to follow the steps to get the right answer, but showing them how to build tools in order to analyze, be strategic, and work smarter - in all aspects of life. You can't teach common sense, but you can teach a kid how to become a responsible learner. As teachers we must always remember that students will come and go. Many of them will most likely forget the things they learned as they get older. Those fine details in the classroom fade, but impressions will last forever. I want to give my students the impression that they can figure anything out. They will know that its OK to forget things, get answers wrong, or not even know where to begin. They will also know that nothing will be handed to them. If you want an answer, you have the world wide web at your fingertips. Let's teach our students how to learn.
Vanguard - The Beginnings
As I am in my first year of Vanguard, I ponder how I want to change my teaching and help my students go to the next level in the their learning. What risks will I take?
This year, I have started to mentor a few of my students to learn the process of mentoring through Itslearning. I am taking it slow, so that I can learn the ins and outs of the process. Looking forward to next year, I would like to be able to mentor all of my students and help them to become more aware of their strengths and weaknesses. Every child deserves a mentor who can help them to grow.
I also believe that every child can learn, but may need other resources/choices to help with the learning. I would like to create choice in my classroom and allow the students to use different tools to show their learning. This year, I have been using itslearning more to give some choice in their learning. I have dabbled with flipgrid as a tool for my students to share their learning and to connect with classes in other states.
In the past, I have attempted to have a class blog and it has not been very successful. I would love to attempt to have my student blog about their learning and have a authentic audience for them to receive feedback from. I feel that blogging would be away for the students to have a voice and help them become more aware of their learning and growth.
Let the journey begin!
This year, I have started to mentor a few of my students to learn the process of mentoring through Itslearning. I am taking it slow, so that I can learn the ins and outs of the process. Looking forward to next year, I would like to be able to mentor all of my students and help them to become more aware of their strengths and weaknesses. Every child deserves a mentor who can help them to grow.
I also believe that every child can learn, but may need other resources/choices to help with the learning. I would like to create choice in my classroom and allow the students to use different tools to show their learning. This year, I have been using itslearning more to give some choice in their learning. I have dabbled with flipgrid as a tool for my students to share their learning and to connect with classes in other states.
In the past, I have attempted to have a class blog and it has not been very successful. I would love to attempt to have my student blog about their learning and have a authentic audience for them to receive feedback from. I feel that blogging would be away for the students to have a voice and help them become more aware of their learning and growth.
Let the journey begin!
Back to Basics
Integrating technology into the classroom this year has been a bit of a struggle for me.
I was excited to begin the school year with all the ideas in my head of the amazing work my students were going to be introduced to and produce. With the kiddos being labeled as 'tech-savvy,' I was ready to hit the ground running with Google Classroom and itsLearning.
To my surprise, my students were able to use computers/iPads when it was something they wanted to do, but when it came to fundamentals on the computer, they were lost looked at me so confused. I was flooded with questions:
- How do I turn the computer on? Why isn't it turning on?
- Where is the browser?
- How do I refresh the page?
- Okay, now where do I go?
- Is it not in Clever? Do I have to type?
This was EYE.OPENING. In order for us to use devices meaningfully in class, I have had to teach a small snippet of computer fundamentals with each computer time. Instead of having everything available at the touch of a button, my students have had to learn how to type, the keyboard shortcuts, and how to navigate appropriately.
Though this is still not perfect, I believe as a class we have improved and it's a continuous work in progress! :)
Learning Paths for the First Time
A few weeks ago, my team was presented with the challenge to shift our instruction to personalized learning and flexible grouping to hit the big rocks our kids are having trouble with. We got great help from our ELA lead and an initial example of how the new process should look like. Immediately my mind went straight to Itslearning. Over the years I've realized that I am not the most gifted person when it comes to filing and organizing paper, very often I find myself swamped in towers of never-ending ungraded assignments, I feel overwhelmed and quit. So when this challenge came to us, it was easy for me to think that the best way to manage their learning paths and the different options for each of my kids was ItsLearning. I was very excited and ready to start. In my mind, I had a vision of what it should look like and I started to draft and jot ideas for their assignments. We collected materials, made sure they were in digital form, we created graphic organizers in Google, and then here we go. The next step was creating the pathways, they needed to be a combination of online and offline resources. We were responding to our students needs to still have a book or a reading selection on paper. I sat down for a couple of hours with a sketch of the pathways beside my computer, went to Itslearning, created the new plan and started adding resources, soon I noticed that my paths had some resources that needed to be duplicated. I went the long route and created copies for each of those resources. I was ready for the pathways! That was the part that was exciting me the most, I knew I needed three and so I did. About 30 minutes later my paths were ready and the troubleshooting began: How do we copy them into my teammate's courses? After a few trials, we realized that we were ignoring one of the best resources Itslearning has: The library. I copied the path into our library and five minutes later everyone had access. My kids came in, I explained to them what they were about to do and I could see the excitement on their faces. We had a few bumps on the road that first day and we still do, but we keep working through them and little by little they are getting more used to this new way of working... Learning pathways are on their way.
MIA
MIA
I've been out of my classroom for PD and personal stuff four times over the last nine days. Being out of the classroom sucks. I missed maybe three days all of last semester. Between meetings, being dad and working another job, it feels like I will never get caught up.
I know I will, but it has been a very long time since I have felt this way.
I've been out of my classroom for PD and personal stuff four times over the last nine days. Being out of the classroom sucks. I missed maybe three days all of last semester. Between meetings, being dad and working another job, it feels like I will never get caught up.
I know I will, but it has been a very long time since I have felt this way.
Student Goal Setting in Kindergarten
As I was completing Mid Year Testing with my kinder babies, I noticed that kids were getting frustrated because they didn't know all the answers and couldn't do everything they thought they should be able to do. I never told them what they should be able to do, but as we all do, they have this idea that they should be able to answer any question that I ask them correctly. I started showing these kids where they were at the beginning of the year so they could see their growth. This really helped my kids to feel successful and realize that they are learning and growing like they should be. This got me thinking, I really need to do this with all my kids. We are starting small and just creating reading goals, but I would like to add this to math and writing as well. Taking the time to meet with them and talk with them about what they already know and what our next goal is helps them to feel successful and gives them ownership over their goals.
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