Collaboration Project

This semester I learned so much about how I can integrate technology into a classroom. As I start my first teaching job in August in a third grade classroom, I am very eager to take many of the activities/ideas and the knowledge I learned and use them in my own classroom! I was very fortunate to be able to work with many great teachers this semester that have prepared me and shared many great things I can do in my classroom. I am very thankful for the teachers who invited me into their classrooms for me to observe and help out with the technology aspect of their lesson. From these opportunities, I gained confidence as a new educator. Below you will find some of the projects that I got to be apart of throughout the semester! 

I was very fortunate to help two different resource teachers use Shadow Puppet with their students. Shadow Puppet is a great app to use with all students. Shadow Puppet brings out the creativeness of students as they make videos, slideshows and presentations. Students are able to use their own pictures from a camera roll/album or they can search for pictures or clip art within the app. A cool feature that students can do with their videos, slideshows, and presentations is that they can add music, narrate their project, add text to their slides. To me the most exciting feature of Shadow Puppet is how easy it is to share the student's project with friends, family members, and staff by the having many options of sending it. This includes a link, email, Facebook, Twitter, and so much more! 

The first hour I worked with Susan and her students (2nd graders!) who were working on their animal research projects. Before using Shadow Puppet the students had their project written out on paper and then pictures to go along with each slide. The students could choose to add their picture they drew or find pictures on the app. Once we had the pictures ready to go the students narrated their project for each slide. Each student had a cover slide, habitat slide, description of animal, what the animal eats, interesting facts, and then a closing slide. Students read from their paper for each slide. The projects turned out amazing. The best part of using Shadow Puppet is how excited the students were to use it and how proud they were of their project!! 

The next hour I worked with Paula, a student teacher, and the students (4th Grade!) who were working on their persuasion essays. Each student had a different topic. The student who I worked with had the topic of "Why Don't Teachers Let Us Use More Technology in the Classroom." These students had the same concept of having a layout already made of their topic and reasons. Student had to find pictures within the app to connect to their topic. Students would be using less pictures for their presentation but doing more talking to persuade the audience. The students did a fantastic job finding pictures to connect to their topic to make their audience engaged!

Another project that I helped with was in Annie Leaf's classroom where the students are preparing for the NESA test. Students were assigned partners and each group had an assigned chapter to take questions from. Before coming up to the table students had four questions that that they wrote out. These questions ranged from true/false, multiple choice, and finally questions to solve and show work. Before entering these questions into Socrative, Mrs. Leaf checked over their work and talked through the problem to make sure it was the correct answer. On Tuesday, when I was there students were taking turns using the laptops to enter their questions on Socrative. There was a time limit to make sure all students were able to come up to the table to enter their questions. The students really enjoyed this because they were the ones make the quiz for one another. This was a great activity to be apart of because it was the students hard work of finding the questions for each chapter and then entering it into Socrative. Students will now be practicing taking the quiz until the NESA as a good review resource for them.

Another activity that I helped out with in Mrs. Leaf's room was helping students make screen casts using Educreations. Once they were done entering their questions into Socrative, I worked with each group on picking a problem that could make a screen cast of. Before students would start the screen cast, I had them practice on a whiteboard talking through the problem. During this time we also decided how we would divide the problem up between the two or three students. Having them practice work got their jitters out and they were very successful at making a screen cast. Once all groups were done making a screen cast, the link to the video was linked on their class website so they can watch these videos during work stations and even at home for another review resource. Below is the link the the Educreation the students made with me.

https://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/mrs-leaf-s-math/30607269/?s=OPyZ7y

Using Educreations and Socrative in the Classroom

This week I helped in Annie Leaf's classroom where the students are preparing for the NESA test. Students were assigned partners and each group had an assigned chapter to take questions from. Before coming up to the table students had four questions that that they wrote out. These questions ranged from true/false, multiple choice, and finally questions to solve and show work. Before entering these questions into Socrative, Mrs. Leaf checked over their work and talked through the problem to make sure it was the correct answer. On Tuesday, when I was there students were taking turns using the laptops to enter their questions on Socrative. There was a time limit to make sure all students were able to come up to the table to enter their questions. The students really enjoyed this because they were the ones make the quiz for one another. This was a great activity to be apart of because it was the students hard work of finding the questions for each chapter and then entering it into Socrative. Students will now be practicing taking the quiz until the NESA as a good review resource for them.

Another activity that I helped out with in Mrs. Leaf's room was helping students make screen casts using Educreations. Once they were done entering their questions into Socrative, I worked with each group on picking a problem that could make a screen cast of. Before students would start the screen cast, I had them practice on a whiteboard talking through the problem. During this time we also decided how we would divide the problem up between the two or three students. Having them practice work got their jitters out and they were very successful at making a screen cast. Once all groups were done making a screen cast, the link to the video was linked on their class website so they can watch these videos during work stations and even at home for another review resource. Below is the link the the Educreation the students made with me.

https://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/mrs-leaf-s-math/30607269/?s=OPyZ7y

ISTE Standards and Creativity

International of Society for Technology for Education defines creativity by students apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products or processes, to create original works as a means of personal of group expression, to use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues and to identify trends and forecast possibilities. As teachers we can "facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity" by promoting, supporting, and modeling creative and innovative thinking & inventiveness, engaging students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools & resources, promoting student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking planning, & creative processes, and modeling collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues and others in face-to-face and virtual environments. 

A technology project that I have worked on with third graders is that the students used simulations and graphical organizers to explore and depict patterns of growth such as the life cycle of the butterfly. Students worked with three other students and they got to decide on their they of presentation they would use to present the information to the class. They were able to use digital tools and resources to develop a presentation that would show their creativeness. Each group got to pick a butterfly and share facts about the butterfly. Overall, students were able to use graphic organizers to organize their information and having face-to-face conversations with their group to decide what information would be put in their presentation. 

Using a Digital Graphic Organizer as a Pre-writing Strategy

A digital graphic organizer that is very beneficial for elementary students as a pre-writing strategy is Popplet lite. I used popplet lite to create a concept map about a personal narrative. The main idea of the concept map is Disney World. Then it had 5 ideas branching out of Disney World describing my summer vacation. I then listed my favorite ride, food, characters and then the ocean. Having this concept map can help the students be creative when writing. By students making the concept map it will help them with their ideas as they are putting these ideas down with pictures and text. 

Popplet Lite is a great app to make a concept map. Students are able to have as many boxes as they want. Inside the boxes they can can add text, draw their own picture, or access pictures from the library or even take a picture of a drawing they already did. However, with the free version of Popplet Lite you can not get pictures from the web. If necessary, you can buy Popplet Lite for $4.99 and then get pictures from the web. Once the popplet (concept map) is finished you can share the popplet by exporting it by emailing as a PDF, emailing as JPEG, or saving it as a JPEG. This app is very easy for students to create and for them to express their ideas in an organized way. 

I envision teaching writing using traditional and new literacies by having students to using storyboards. Allowing the students to still traditionally write the narration, sketch a picture, and then choose from a media list for each page. To me I think using both traditional and new literacies is going engage the students more when it comes to writing. Using storyboards can help the student be creative and organized with their thoughts. 

Below is the Popplet I made as an example: 

Using a Screencast in the Classroom

I used the app Educreations to create a screencast to share with my students at home. I created a screencast on how to add with regrouping. The screencast that I created with Educreations can be used at home for the students and parents when they are working on homework. This is a great resource if the students get stuck or forget what they learned that day in math. Allowing students to have this resource that they can access at home is very beneficial. Also, it helps parents to see what their student learned that day and also it can guide them in helping their child. I will use screencasts a lot in this same way but also introduce it to my students in the classroom. Students can then work on problems with partners and share their understanding with others. I can see this becoming a huge resource in the future! Using screencast can be used in many different content areas as well! 



Educreations screencast of Adding with Regrouping! 

https://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/adding-with-regrouping/30010442/?s=PXVOOx&ref=app

Using Shadow Puppet in the Classroom

Last Tuesday, I was very fortunate to help two different resource teachers use Shadow Puppet with their students. Shadow Puppet is a great app to use with all students. Shadow Puppet brings out the creativeness of students as they make videos, slideshows and presentations. Students are able to use their own pictures from a camera roll/album or they can search for pictures or clip art within the app. A cool feature that students can do with their videos, slideshows, and presentations is that they can add music, narrate their project, add text to their slides. To me the most exciting feature of Shadow Puppet is how easy it is to share the student's project with friends, family members, and staff by the having many options of sending it. This includes a link, email, Facebook, Twitter, and so much more! 

The first hour I worked with Susan and her students (2nd graders!) who were working on their animal research projects. Before using Shadow Puppet the students had their project written out on paper and then pictures to go along with each slide. The students could choose to add their picture they drew or find pictures on the app. Once we had the pictures ready to go the students narrated their project for each slide. Each student had a cover slide, habitat slide, description of animal, what the animal eats, interesting facts, and then a closing slide. Students read from their paper for each slide. The projects turned out amazing. The best part of using Shadow Puppet is how excited the students were to use it and how proud they were of their project!! 


The next hour I worked with Paula, a student teacher, and the students (4th Grade!) who were working on their persuasion essays. Each student had a different topic. The student who I worked with had the topic of "Why Don't Teachers Let Us Use More Technology in the Classroom." These students had the same concept of having a layout already made of their topic and reasons. Student had to find pictures within the app to connect to their topic. Students would be using less pictures for their presentation but doing more talking to persuade the audience. The students did a fantastic job finding pictures to connect to their topic to make their audience engaged! 

I definitely can see myself using Shadow Puppet in the future and hopefully in my future classroom!!

Digital Citizenship

It is very important to teach students the importance of using technology effectively. Technology plays a huge role in student's lives now but will be a bigger factor in the future. As teachers we can give the students the skills necessary for appropriate use of technology. Below are three areas I feel are most crucial to incorporate into second grade curriculum.

1) Staying Safe Online-Students need to understand that they should stay safe online by choosing websites that good fro them to visit, and avoid sites that not appropriate for them. An important part of this area is students recognizing if they should ask an adult they trust before they visit a particular website. teachers we can provide websites to students that are safe and effective for them to use for various subjects.  

2) Screen Out the Mean- Students learn that children sometimes act like bullies when they are online. They explore what cyberbullying and what they can do when they encounter it. As teachers we need to make students aware of what online behaviors could be considered cyberbullying, explain how to deal with a cyberbullying situation, and the importance of engaging a trusted adult when they experience cyberbulleying. 

3) Keep It Private- Students learn that many websites ask for information that is private and discuss how to responsibly handle such requests. Students will review what information is private and should not be shared without a trusted adult's permission. Most importantly students will understand that they should never give out private information on the Internet and learn how to create effective usernames that protect their private information. 

Twitter Chat #nt2t

The first twitter education chat that I joined was #nt2t. This is such a positive place to look for guidance when first using twitter and joining in on conversations!! Everyone involved with #nt2t is very positive and encouraging. This is such a great resource for teachers to learn the basics about twitter and more so connecting with other educators across the country. Some things that I learned from #nt2t include:

• To search for a specific chat all you need to do is search the # in the search box. 

• Questions are marked as Q1:, Q2:, Q3: and so on and to answer these questions you put A1:, A2:, A3; ect. This really was helpful to join in and follow the conversations. 

• On some chats, the questions will be posted before the chat begins but not always. I thought it was really helpful to see the questions before the chat began to know what was going be discussed.

As I start getting more comfortable with using twitter, I want to learn more about the tweetdeck as I think it can be very beneficial. These education chats are a great way to learn and grow as an educator. 

How Teachers Can Incorporate New Literacies Into Elementary Classrooms

A fun project that student's could do that utilizes the new literacies skills is a research project about a zoo in the United States. An option for this is allowing students who are in an accelerated guided reading group to read the book Morgan's Zoo by James Howe. A brief summary of Morgan's Zoo includes: 

•  The Chelsea Park Zoo is a small zoo, and a slightly run down one at that. But to twins Andrew and Allison, it's their favorite place in the world. To the animals who live there, it's their home. And to the kindly, gentle zookeeper, Morgan, it's his life. So when the city announces the zoo will be shut down and the animals shipped to zoos all over the country, the twins-- and the animals-- spring into action to save Morgan's Zoo. But closing the zoo isn't the only danger afoot. The animals soon discover they have a chance to do more than save their home-- they have a chance to become heroes. 

"Morgan's Zoo by James Howe | Scholastic.com." Scholastic Teachers. Web. 14 Feb. 2015.<http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/morgans-                 zoo#cart/cleanup>.

After students finish reading this book they will be able to pick a largely known zoo in the United States. Once they have a zoo, they will begin doing research on the zoo finding out interesting facts about the animals that live there, where the zoo is located, the size of zoo, and ect. Once students have found their information that would like about their Zoo, they will use a graphic organizer for their notes. From this point students will be able to use various resources to share their information. This can be from making a poster, books, PowerPoint, using templates online called "PebbleGo." Finally, once students are completed with their project, they will share their project with the class. 

Students doing this project will be utilizing the new literacy skills. For this project they will be doing Internet Inquiry. First, they pick a zoo they want to research, then they go on the Internet searching for this zoo finding out important information they would want to share to the class. As students are searching for information about their zoo, they are analyzing the information they are learning about by writing it into a graphic organizer.  With the notes they took about a zoo, they then compose a presentation about their information. Then they share their presentation they have created about a zoo to the class. From this project students are utilizing the new literacy skills. 

Beginning Goals

Today is my first graduate class! I am so excited to be extending my education so that I can provide my future students with the most up to date technology resources. My beginning goals for this class is how to integrate technology in different way for various lessons. I want to learn about different apps that are successful for students during lessons. Also, I want to learn about the technology strategies that students need for the 21st century classroom. Most importantly, I want to learn as much about technology resources and the use of these resources before entering my first classroom as an elementary teacher.