#first4weeks

Over all the beginning of the year has been a great success!
Some highlights/events to note:

• Implementation of itsLearning- it has taken some getting used to but I feel as if my students have finally learned how to (mostly) navigate though the platform and find information as needed. Although I do not feel it is entirely user friendly for middle schoolers, I think it can serve as a great starting point for many things. I hope to receive more training and become more versed in this resource.
• First menu project for the year- I was really able to get a feel for the learning styles of many of my students by starting the year with a group project. I can see what type of projects they are more comfortable with, gravitate to, who is more tech savvy and who is more hands on. I feel like I will be ale to adjust and cater to kids who need more support in the future.  

• Flexible Seating- I have encouraged my students to embrace flexible seating but I am not sure if it is quite taking off. Some are eagerly grabbing a clip board and sprawling out on the ground where as others are still afraid to get up from their chair without asking. I do have a few that prefer to stand at the back table to complete their work. I think if I add a few more options or model myself, I may have a few more takers. :)
• Padlet- This was a fun resource we have used in our meetings and I wanted to try it out with my kiddos as an introduction activity. It was very user friendly and they immediately took to it!

• QR codes- I have played around with QR codes and my students seem to love them! I hope to find others fun uses for them soon. 

• Nearpod- After going to an informational during the summer, this looks like it could be very awesome! I would consider this like a presentation on steroids. If I had the resources for my students to each have a device, it would be a very interactive way to get immediate feedback and assessment of students. I plan to try this out in table groups to start but it will not have the same interactions as I would like the kids to have. 

Thanks for reading and I love all the ideas that I am able to get from everyone in this group.  Thank you again!

Life in PreK

With all the changes in PreK this year, life has been a little stressful. We have a completely new assessment system as well as the introduction of I-station (which I am completely excited about!). Even with testing going on, I really wanted to focus from the get-go on the driving goal at our campus this year, which is "Are our students doing all they can do independently?" Many times, people see 4-year-olds and think that they need help with everything. Their ability to learn and understand complex ideas are often times underestimated.

With this in mind, I think my biggest challenge this school year so far has been time. There is just not enough time... CIRCLE testing has taken 5 weeks to complete, and I am just now beginning a full day teaching cycle. There are so many ideas that I learned about in the summer that I want to try out this year, but right now I am just focusing on trying to get Seesaw up and running by mid-semester. I currently have my students inputted and am working on adding their pictures as icons. I have started working with them on documenting their learning with pictures and videos, which they have been practicing during centers.

One of my biggest successes so far this year has been with letting go the reigns a bit sooner and allowing students to take control of the technology in the classroom. At the beginning of the year, we learned about school and the people who worked there. People came to talk to our class about their jobs (principal, assistant principal, nurse, counselor, speech teacher, etc). As a conclusion to the project, students collectively wrote a thank you letter to each person. They also made a video (which I added captioning to in Camtasia) in which they talked about what they had learned about that person. We turned that into a QR code. 

  

I also enlisted the help of a "QR code expert", who taught the recipient of the letter what a QR code was and how it worked. 

Now my students have taken to finding whatever QR codes they can around the room and scanning them. They also make their own video about their name that I attach to a QR code for them. They love it. 

My next challenge is to get Seesaw up and running and start exploring some of the other apps, like Book Creator, which students can eventually use and submit to Seesaw. I have a feeling that this year is just going to fly right by!