Okay Carrie!

Okay Carrie. I'll think about it Carrie, It seems like a lot of work Carrie, How bad is it Carrie?
Carrie is my friend and teammate she is also a part of Cohort II. Last year our enthusiastic Principal
asked us during a faculty meeting if anyone wanted to join Vanguard.
"You'll get technology for your rooms!" You will be the first ones to get the new Chromebooks!"
"You'll get 10 of them!" A buzz went through the room those of us who were tech minded lined
up afterward to get information. But sadly we were past the deadline and only one of us
was asked to apply. Enter Carrie... She went through the application process and was chosen.
From the outside looking in it seemed like A LOT of work. She had people visiting she needed to
record herself teaching! Record yourself?!?!? Nope no way that seems horrible seeing myself on
any recording. " I am glad it ended up being her and not me!"

Then it started she told us about all of the cool things she was learning
and all of the people she was meeting. But she was the only one from our school
so when it can to collaborating she needed someone to share ideas with, discuss how it would
work with our kids. “You should join Kim! I have to recruit people.” “Come one join!” Okay Carrie.
I'll think about it Carrie, It seems like a lot of work Carrie, How bad is it Carrie? Well she got to me.
I did it and now that I am here I am glad that I am. But now I need to find the next person.

“Okay Kim. I'll think about it Kim, It seems like a lot of work Kim, How bad is it Kim?”

Personalized Learning

Something I tried to implement in my class in a very unsuccessful manner was personalized it’s learning for my first graders. I took on way too much too soon. It was a huge flop. This is my first year in primary, and I was unprepared for the lack of independence, as well as how not user friendly it’s learning is on the IPads. I was frustrated and gave up. I recently learned of a quick log in for Clever, through Vanguard nonetheless, and it has changed the game! I am excited to tweak this and try to use it again in my classroom, as I am a huge advocate for personalized learning. Fingers crossed, this time is met with success!! 

Breathing...during the crazy storms

So some people don't really need this reminder, however...I do. If this reminder reaches and speaks to at least one other person....then I have done my job.

In the craziness of this year's weather setbacks, it has been stressful (to say the least) to maintain momentum for keeping on track with our curriculum. Students in my class had to test after a 5 day weekend. I can only hope that looking at the data will not frustrate me as much as grading them with allinlearning. - Which is a great tool, but can be confusing.

So breathe my beautiful people....breathe and relax this weekend.

Lucia

App Overload!

What's up my Vannies? Is that a word? Can we make it happen?

You know, I absolutely adore each of you, even if I don't know you personally. I love how open, honest, and giving we all are. We are all little golden nuggets of information, and let's be honest... we're all rockstars in the classroom!

Being informative nuggets is awesome. I've learned so much from our EdTech gals and other Fellows. Twitter is the bomb- for real, for real.

In an effort to be both open and honest, I must share something with you all. My brain cannot handle the app overload! I can't possibly try each app or program or software or whatever-you-wanna-call-it. Rather than even attempt this undeniably impossible task, I've taken a step back...

Reflection time, y'all! Stop, collaborate, and listen.

Stop- take a minute to learn from your Fellows. They'll share, I promise. Think about how you could use this tech in your classroom.

Collaborate- talk to your teammates about the tech. Are they willing to share the load??

Listen- you know your class, your content, and your teaching style. Is this tech really something you want to invest in? Are you going to commit to it OR is this going to be another app you test out on your kids? And, to be honest, I've totally done this a couple of times 🙋

We've got enough to do without trying to introduce something new ALL the time! I have determined that I love the following:

• itslearning: it's a blossoming kinda love, but at least it's not withering?
• masteryconnect: that data, tho
• nearpod.com: ohmygah this is awesome 
• kahoot: I actually had a kid break his arm this year while we were playing a kahoot. It's legit. 
• This last bullet point is empty. I feel that my kids and I could both handle one more app. What are your favorite apps/tech tools? What do you use them for? 

Quiz on Its' learning!!! or ....

I started the year thinking that having all (ok let's say 90%) of my students' quizzes online would be awesome. Students would get immediate feedback and my team and I made a bank of questions so students could even retake the quiz up to 3 times and get different questions each time! We thought there was NO way that students would "fail" any quizzes, because if they did poorly they could retake it, they could even come in and get help and then retake it again. Well that's not exactly how it all went down. The majority of students would only take the quiz once regardless of their score. Other students would bomb the quiz on their first attempt and then a minute or two later they would retake it, as if their score would magically improve from a 20 to an 80. A few students did do what we thought they would do and actually learned from their mistakes and it was great. We tried each unit to go over what they SHOULD be doing to improve their scores, but it was like we were talking to the wind.
Our goal this year is to have students taking responsibility for their learning. We wanted students to be able to predict the grade they would make on their test, based on the data (their HW and quiz grades) they had collected. We haven't had any online quizzes this semester so far since we need to fix their internal motivation somehow. How do you get kids to care. Failing doesn't affect them. I can force them to come to tutorials if they fail a quiz, but then they aren't taking responsibility for their own learning.

Student Choice

           I have done a lot of reading on flexible seating and I want to incorporate that into my learning space this year. I want my students to feel comfortable in their classroom every day. I personally know that I work better and learn more when I am comfortable in my surroundings. When I give them choice as to where they can sit and work they all choose different areas of our classroom.  I do not want to overwhelm myself or my kids, so I am going to start slow and introduce things a few at a time. I want my students to feel like they are a part of this journey and have ownership of not just their learning, but their classroom.  I am very excited to transform my classroom. 😃

Virtual Reality Here We Come

It's taken 6 months to get the software I found at ISTE last July approved by the district, get the vendor contract signed, and actually get the licenses I needed for my Fundamentals of Computer Science class to be able to truly get to work on my Design Thinking Project, creating Virtual Reality environments, to support core content lessons. So far we love CoSpaces! Kids develop the worlds and can actually walk through what they created with some VR glasses and the phone app.
Yesterday we finally got the class in on the correct license, and my kids are pumped to get started. They had been working in the trial version and have already developed a ship, an alphabet jungle for preschool, a plant cell, and several other topics. Now we will be able to collaborate and share these projects for others around the district to use to help make lessons more interactive for students. Pictures to come soon!