Who are you following?
GCouros
The Harbor TV by Jostens (amazing)
Eshepherd
iPadArtRoom (@art_cathyhunt)
Alice Keeler
Hal Davidson
Girls who code
All I Ever Realy Need to Know - I learned working on the Kindergarten Report Card-
Something here speaks to me about walking a mile in aother teacher's shoes. For the last few years I've been working with Kindergarten teachers on their report cards. It's amazing. The first quarter you get a point for knowing a letter but after that you only get a point for the letter is you can recognize it in upper case and lower case, write it and say it. There's a section on reading comprehension, foundational skills, site words and numerals. Each of these sections has a different point matrix that might change in each reporting period. I can't imagine doing this without excel fomulas making calculations automatically consistent for each student. It was my goal to help simplify the calculation process so teachers could focus on their students and not the math. It was not easy to translate what the teachers knew and get time with them to test and finalise the document - but we did it. I created a format so teachers could share what they needed to with parents. It was an excel challenge that I hope gets a 4 star from the K teachers.
profiles
We'd love to know what you are doing as it relates to integrating technology into your classroom. Who are you following? What's your favortite education based pinterest group? Recomendations you have for teachers as they embark on their classroom integration.
Send your comments to cbullock@ppsb.org.
Courtney Bullock
I recently spoke to students at BCMS about my career and life's choices that lead me to my current position. It was great speaking with the kids. I told them about my career in festival administration before becoming a teacher. I reflected on the days when I was getting my credential and the hysteria that teachers didin't know enough about technology. I wanted to come into the profession with everything I needed so I added on a Masters Degree in Educational Technology. That launched me directly into the path of becoming a computer lab teacher for grades K-8 and spent much of that time teaching professional development to teachers during the summer.
I think there are two camps in educational technology. One is use the tools to drill the facts that students need and that's a great resource for teachers and tests. The other is using technology as a problem solving creativity building tool. I believe the ideal is somewhere in the middle. I saw first hand that students working in animation had to figure out how to get their animal to do what they wanted. They learned about volcanos, habitats and space while working through all sorts of trial and error challenges - collaborating with peers, figuring things out - teaching with an integrating technology was so much more valuable for them than I had ever expected.
The key - If you are teaching with technology but doing the same routine you would with pencil and paper, kick it up a notch. Find what can elevate the experience making the most of the advantages technology has to offer. Use the comments section in Google Docs to interact with the students, share Google documents with teams for collaboration, give a challenge that requires strategic planning. Take your students' PowerPoints to the next level by creating hyperlinks and movies. Want more help, ask me. I'm here for you.
Favorite Projects:
Kindergarten: animated counting books
Second Grade: , a digital art series on emotions that integrated hand drawn work done in classes with digital mediums recording their voices
Third Grade, a wacky animal planet - animals morphed and mirgrated as their habitas changed
Fifth Grade Space Travel brochures - Fly bys to landed explorations
Sixth Grade - Animated volcanos in Flash
Eighth Grade - Motivational Posters on careers they were aiming for that integrated their pictures with dreams of their future.
Yearbooks that included quotes from the grade level standards on each student photo page so when students were looking for each others pictures, they would be reminded of things they learned.
Favorite all time educational computer game (and now app) - Logical Journey of the Zoombinis.
I used Pinterest for my art pln and I use Twitter for my educational pln.