Where do you find the majority of your teaching resources?
The majority of my teaching resources come from my colleagues. We are required to complete four collaborations in a six-day cycle with our peers. It is such an important part of finding new and useful teaching resources. This morning, I had a collaboration that involved our technology coordinator. He provided us with many tools that we can use to help our readers. For example, he showed us how to place graphic organizers into Seesaw (our online portfolio we use with our students) and allow students to answer comprehension questions about stories read, along with sharing those ideas with their parents. Our tech coordinator also demonstrated using Google Slides to type phrases and have students practice reading those phrases to improve their fluency. Finally, he demonstrated Toontastic for summarizing and retelling, along with Voice Record Pro for students to record themselves reading fluently.
Who do you look to for support and research for new ideas?
I truly look at my current Wilkes University classes as a way of support and research of new ideas that are innovative to try within my classroom. I use discussions and blog posts of my peers to learn about new games and activities that have worked with their students. One virtual simulation game I learned about via a Wilkes class was Prodigy. I learned about this math simulation game last year and I am still currently using it! The students absolutely love it and it provides accurate and informative data that I can use at conferences.
Do you follow any particular blogs? If so, please share.
Currently, I do not follow any particular blogs. However, I am definitely open to suggestions so if anybody is following someone who has excellent ideas to use at the elementary level, I'd love to know!
What challenges do you face as you try to incorporate new ideas and research with your students?
Some challenges that I have faced in the past is the technology we are given for our students is not always compatible with what I'd like to complete with my students. An example I have of this is Storyboardthat. I learned about this website in my last class and played around with it a bit. I have a pretty good grasp on how it works and decided I would have my students create a storyboard for a narrative writing piece. I had my students get a laptop from the cart and probably about half of them did not even turn on. When they did turn on, they were incredibly slow and my students became frustrated. I decided that I would have the students use their iPads as we went 1:1 this year. Students accessed the website, but it crashed on them due to our iPads not supporting the site. So, once again, I decided to scrap the idea even though I thought it was extremely beneficial and downloaded Comic Maker on their iPads instead. This worked well and we created a comic instead of a storyboard about their narrative writing. This is frustrating when I find something incredibly cool to use with my students and the technology we have just does not support it.
Hi Rebecca!
ReplyDeleteWe are almost neighbors! I teach in the Dallastown Area School District and I live in Stewartstown. What elementary school do you teach at? I student taught at Hayshire.
Also, my husband and I are expecting our first child in February! My due date is February 20. Our babies will be close!
You and I are very similar in the way we find our teaching resources and who we look to for support. My colleagues are my biggest resource, and they are the reason why I am successful! They are full of ideas and I learn about many different resources through them! I also agree that the courses through Wilkes University are providing me with support with learning about new resources and how to appropriately implement them in the classroom.
I also do not follow any blogs, and this is my first experience following and commenting on other blogs. This will definitely be a learning experience for me!
I look forward to learning alongside of you!
Hannah (Potter) Shaffer
Hannah,
DeleteI teach at Stony Brook! We are neighbors! Congrats on the baby as well! It is quite exciting and something to look forward to!!
I look forward to learning with you over the next few weeks!
First and foremost, congratulations on your second pregnancy! What an exciting time for your family. Hope you are feeling great!
ReplyDeleteI, too, believe collaboration with colleagues is not only beneficial, but necessary for all educators. We all need time to discuss new ideas and have everyone involved to freely express their opinions about new lesson implementations. The Wilkes program has also allowed me to discover new apps to utilize in my classroom. I appreciate the feedback from teachers who have actually attempted a new app or idea in their classrooms. I highly suggest searching on Pinterest if you have an account. There are so many elementary-based blogs you can find from the app that are creative and fun for the students. Have you ever tried using the app “Tellagami”? It is an app where students could create a character and record their voice as the characters. I have used it before for students to analyze character traits or maybe a story-retelling for your third graders. A fun game-based app is Plickers. Your students do not need a device, but the printed cards provided to you on the site. You create questions you would like your students to answer about a concept, post them to a smartboard, and students must rotate the card based on their answer in a multiple-choice format. You as the teacher, take your iPad or cell phone and scan their answers across the room. The class and individual data will display on the screen. It provides immediate feedback to assess your students learning. I would gladly help you navigate the website!
Thanks for your ideas!
Kelly
Kelly,
DeleteI have not used Tellagami before but will look into it! Thank you for sharing. I have used Plickers in the past and it does give immediate feedback for me as the teacher to see who is really understanding the concepts. It is great for quick checks!
Thank you again for sharing your ideas with me! I am always looking to try new technology within my classroom!
-Rebecca
Hey Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteSounds like you have some pretty good supports at your school. We often do the same things with our students and push for ideas of growth with all of our tech. I would also agree about what you said about your use of these classes for ideas. I definitely rely on some of my classmates to see what new ideas and tips I can add to my bag of tricks. Good luck this semester!
Hi Rebecca!
ReplyDeleteIt was nice to get to know you more. I really liked the way your video popped up because you put it in Google drive, I think I might do that next time.
Congratulations on your bundle of joy that is on the way. I have a daughter Stella that is two-- she makes life CRAZY! But so worth it and I love seeing her little personality blossoming. How is your son about the prospect of a baby?
I think that you make an excellent point in your frustration with finding these awesome tools that we can use in class, only for our technology to fall short. The tech that is available to us is FANTASTIC! But sometimes it is hard to rely on it. I guess that is when our flexibility comes in handy and just like anything getting to know what works. It was awesome that you still were able to get the children to story board even with the website crashing, way to persist!
Have a great week!
-Maggie