One of our assignments was to collaborate with another teacher. I chose to collaborate with another 1st grade teacher (Ashley Rockey @ Rousseau) because I teach 1st grade computers. It seemed a natural fit. We chose to use a new website we learned about in this class-Story Jumper. What I like about Story Jumper is that it can be used in so many different ways (creative writing, how-to's, personal narrative). We chose to allow the students to write a creative story.
First we found a story map from TPT. Ashley introduced it to her class. They wrote down the characters, setting, and plotted out a beginning, middle and end. She then had them verbally share with a partner how their story was going to go. I really like this element in the process. I feel that it really helped the students to understand their story before they got to the computer. Next, I introduced Story Jumper to the students. I showed them how to turn the pages, add the text and add the props. We discussed the cover and dedication pages. They were really getting excited to start creating! I had them practice logging in and navigating the website. I had forgotten that they were going to have to change their passwords after the first time logging in. So when I told them they were all going to use a certain password and it didn't work, things got a little tricky. This group of students does a pretty good job of rolling with the punches, however they are not at the point to really begin problem solving on their own. They got a little flustered by not being able to log in. I was by myself and had to quickly think about how to fix this problem. I had them step-by-step follow my showing them how to change their passwords. That was pretty tricky. It easy to take these sort of things for granted as an adult, but this was their first experience! I had to slow down and be careful with my word choices-I didn't want to confuse them any further! Most were able to follow along but I still have to individually help a few students out. Ashley then spent some time in the lab and helped the students get started the following day. I think their log in process went much smoother ;) I also gave them some time in my computer class to write and create! Part of the perks of my job is that I am constantly thinking about how I can use technology with my students. Being the technology teacher and being apart of the technology PLC group has really opened my eyes to different skills we need to be teaching students about technology. One of these skills is digital citizenship.
Being a 1st grade teacher I am laying the groundwork as students begin to learn how to use the internet. In today's digital world, it is just as important to teach students how to be safe online as it is to teach them how to be safe in the real world. Young students need to know that the internet isn't monitored and that there are things that are not safe for them to look at. They also need to know that they should only be in contact with people that they know. As it is, I have already begun introducing this concept to my students and I did it using the resources found on commonsensemedia.org. They have two great videos that I used to introduce the concept of being safe online and some rules of the internet. One was about a little boy who is 7 years old. I really enjoyed this video because he was the same age as my students. He gave 3 simple rules for being online: ask for permission, only talk to people that you know and stick to "just right" websites. We talked about these rules after the video and related them to how similar they are to rules for being safe in real life. We also watched the video about how to listen to your body when online. It has a catchy tune that the students liked. I liked that it encouraged the students to use their heart and mind to decide if something is safe and to use their legs to walk away if something felt wrong to them. I have also done a version of the A-B-C search lesson plan. I had the students use Pebble Go to research animals that matched 3 letters they picked out. It was fun for the students to explore. We talked about why Pebble Go is a just right website. After the animal research, we spent several class periods exploring other "just right" websites such as: MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), Museum of Natural History, Starfall, ABCYa and the San Diego Zoo. I enjoyed showing the students different types of websites. I feel its important that they learn to appreciate more than just the "fun" websites. I will definitely continue teaching this concept throughout the rest of this year. Students need to know we feel it is important to stay safe online. I want to give them the skills and understanding they need to do so. Last Sunday evening I participated in my first twitter chat. I set up a Twitter account at the beginning of this school year but have rarely used it. My only intention for the account was to connect to other educators and to learn about new technologies which I might want to use. So when this assignment was announced I was a little nervous. Nervous because I still don't feel fully comfortable with the appropriate ways to communicate on Twitter. But being the good little student that I am, and after some tips from Guy in class the week before, I jumped in with both feet.
I consulted the list that Guy emailed out with the link to daily Twitter chats. I chose #21stedchat as I was hoping it would be the most relevant to me. Overall it was a good experience. I don't know that if I was interested in really learning about a topic deeply that this would be the format I would use. There were several people in the chat and it moved pretty quickly. So quickly that I'm not so sure people really paid attention to what other people used. It seemed that every time I read a group of tweets and refreshed there were 65 new tweets to read. I was able to answer most of the questions posted-but usually there were hard to find with all the answers being posted. The topic of the chat was about how we can help students learn more deeply. It is my belief that a more project-based approach is the way to accomplish this goal. After attending last years TechEdge conference at UNL and listening to the keynote speaker, I am all the most convinced. The speaker had these great videos showing proof of just how successful their approach is. There were a few others who agreed with me and posted similar comments-however it seemed that most of the comments were about building relationships. While I agree that building relationships is key, I'm not sure that is the essential key to deeper learning. So it frustrated me a little that there were not more thoughtful ideas that could actually be used to deepen learning. However, there were a few people who asked me a few questions-that I did my best to answer-and I left a few comments to individuals. I'm not sure I would do another one but it was definitely an interesting experience. I both liked and was a little frustrated with this weeks readings. I agreed with the authors of the article in that we need to be creative in how we incorporate technology into the classroom. It is all around us and even the statistics given in the articles are outdated. It changes so quickly and we rely on technology for so many things in our day-to-day life that it would be neglectful of the education system to not incorporate technology into the classroom. This isn't always easy for teachers. We have to stretch ourselves and work hard to stay up with the current trends and directions technology is going. This is hard! With everything else on our plate's-it's just one more thing. But it's so necessary!
What frustrated me about the second article was the date. The article was written in the early 2000's. So the example's they gave of teacher websites were no longer available. A few of the other examples were hard to find or didn't exist. While it's no fault of the author, I was excited to see what these teachers they were referencing did in order to be even mentioned in the article. But then I thought for a little while and realized that even though I didn't realize it, I have already had my computer students doing what I now know is an internet workshop. Using an activity developed by another teacher in my district, I had my students explore Pebble Go and find 3 animals that started with letters they choose at the beginning of the assignment. They then had to choose one of those animals, write 3 facts about the animal, draw a picture of it and then develop 1 question about what else they would like to learn about that animal. The question was the hardest for the students (1st graders). They are not used to thinking beyond what they just learned-so I really liked this part of the activity. It really stretched some of them. Going further I think I want to try a project I found on Global SchoolNet. I still need to investigate and work out any hiccups that I can foresee, but I want to try an online expedition with one of my groups. Then depending on how it goes I'd like to try it with the rest of the groups. That's the beauty of being a specialist. I have more than one opportunity to get a lesson right :) This week our assignment was to explore four different websites-all geared towards how different teachers have used technology, iPads in particular, to help students create versus just being consumers of technology. I have never thought of this before-the percentage of creating with technology compared to using it to consume information and time. I'm guilty of mainly using technology as a device for consumption. When I think about that-it feels very limiting and narrow-minded. I have used iPads and laptops to help students create (Story Creator is a great app for young students to write stories with) but overall I've only been consumed with finding activities for the students to do. This week's reading has helped to broaden my scope of what technology could and should look like in a classroom.
There were 4 apps in particular that I wrote down to further explore and try on. Some were for me and some were for the students. For myself I really think TeacherKit will provide some much needed organization. I actually don't have full access to Synergy. I think its because I have two different job titles and I work at two different schools. So I'm not able to make class lists, with pictures and use the seating chart option. With having 9 different sections, the seating chart function would actually come in pretty handy. I'm not great with names, in fact learning names is a weakness for me, but I'm great with faces. I see myself using this right away to help me learn those students names I have yet too. For my students I have been wanting to try Haiku Deck for a while now. Mainly because not only is it an app but also a website. I teach Technology to 1st graders at two different schools. I have one-to-one laptops but only one iPad. I have struggled all year with how to incorporate an iPad into my teaching environment. Haiku Deck is a presentation app/website. It allows the user to create a presentation on any topic. It has a large selection of high-quality pictures you can incorporate or you can import your own pictures. It doesn't allow for a lot of text-but I like that feature. It makes you think carefully about the important message you are trying to convey. The way I am envisioning using this app/website is pairing up my students and have them collaborate together on a poem about an animal of their choice using the different features of the website. I like to have my students collaborate because as the old saying goes "two heads are better than one". Navigating technology is still scary for them. Even though we live in an age of iphones, ipads and other such technology and we think they are experts-really they are just good at consuming. They haven't learned HOW the technology works, so when something happens that they weren't expecting, they tend to get anxious. I'm hoping between the two partners, they can problem-solve together. This is where I see TPACK coming into play. I will be using what I know about how students learn, what they already know about technology and applying it to how we will approach this new program. I am really excited to be taking a class that is focused on technology integration. For so many reasons technology is such an important part of our society and where our society is headed. As an educator, especially a technology teacher, it is imperative that I become fluent with technology.
With that in mind, my goals for this class are: 1. To learn about different apps or programs. I am looking for ideas to use with a whole class and also one-on-one. I have access to one-on-one laptop devices for my students but only have one ipad. I struggle with how to integrate the ipad with a whole group. 2. To collaborate with other educators from different teaching environments. 3. To become more aware of where to look and find quality resources about different types of technology (website, apps, tools, robots, ect). I'm sure there is more I want to learn but at the moment I can't think of them. :) |
About Me
I am a wife, mother and teacher. This year I work at two schools. I am a Gifted Facilitator and Technology teacher for 1st graders. I'm loving these new roles :) Archives
April 2015
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