Sunday, August 9, 2015

I'm moving.....





I am so excited for this new school year to begin. I'm moving back to 5th grade and teaching MATH!!







I'm gearing up by updating my TPT store and adding some new items that I am making for my classroom. Check out my new Stations Product by clicking on the TPT link to the left.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

How ExitTicket improved my Classroom Life...








So in one of my many Twitter watching mornings, I came across this online assessment tool called Exitticket .  I was immediately drawn in by the color coded teacher end of the assessments called the heat map.  That is what got me to start trying to use it in the first place.                                                                                        I eventually searched around and found the user guide that gave all sorts of fabulous answers to the questions that I was developing. This lead me to the toolkit, and that is where the real magic happened. I happened upon the micro formative assessments video and transformed the way that I organize my classroom.





A typical class structure:
1. Launch Ticket in exittix.com
2. Split students into learning groups and get them started for the block.
     - One reteach group that reviews the previous learning.
     - One group that moves on to the new learning working on a webquest or some other activity
3. Mid-class Practice assessment for the reteaching group to see if they mastered the skills after the mini-lesson.
4. Move reteach group on to the new learning.
5. Exit ticket in exittix.com
    - The higher group would get one on the new learning.
    - The reteaching group might get a mix of new learning and review of the old concepts that they have struggled with in the past.

What has changed for me:
-I absolutely love being able to watch my device and immediately know where student knowledge is in my classroom.
- I have become much more responsive to meeting students at their current level and taking them on the journey to the next learning outcome.
- I have opportunities to celebrate growth at the beginning, middle, and end of classes.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Week 1 Back over.....

Ok, so it wasn't an entire week, but it sure did feel like one. We started back to staff development on August 7th as a district. I started with Bring Your Own Device training on August 4-6 in the afternoons. It is just crazy getting back into the routine of being in school. We ended it Friday with Intruder Training. If you haven't experienced that, you're missing out. We are so prepared for the just in case that ever teacher hopes is a never in their life. It was frightening, yet empowering.

BYOD Training- We learned a little about a lot of different things. I got my district issued Macbook Air, only to find out that it doesn't connect to the wifi at my school. HELP DESK.....It still didn't work when I left on Friday. I'm hoping that on Monday morning, it will miraculously work. The chromebooks that we have a supplemental devices won't connect either. It is all a process. Trying to remain patient.

BYOD/Classroom  to do list:
1. Create an activity for Meet the Teacher night.
2. Create homework... Introduce yourself.
3. Procedures for
- getting and putting away devices
- Signing in to devices
- Where to go on devices
- Pictures
4. Tech Bootcamp Plan
5. Get to Know you activity
6. Getting Student's devices connected.


Saturday, July 12, 2014

New Blog Design...

I've been playing with the new blog design for most of the afternoon. Now that it is up, I feel that I need to give some credit to resources that helped me customize my Blogger template.

Knowledge of how to customize a blog:
Mrs. Fultz Corner  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpKuk5M4w5E
Ashton Swank  http://youtu.be/HvUtLI5BbS4

Book Shelf:
http://www.shelfari.com/

IMAGES:
PicMonkey
http://www.picmonkey.com/

Cup of Coffee in the logo:
By Filip Nohe (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons  http://commons.wikimedia.org/






Thursday, July 3, 2014

Interesting finds of the Morning...

50 Questions to Help Students Think about Their Thinking

This article is filled with amazing questions to help students take their thinking to the next level. The questions are organized into categories and would be super easy to use as formative assessments to get students to explain their thinking and learning.

Trends in Educational Technology 2015

Nice easy to follow list of the current buzz with educational technology. I was glad to see that I"m up on most of the current trends. This list gave me a few cool things to investigate.

SAMR and TPACK: Using technology with a focus on learning

Interesting article written after attending and ISTE presentation. It really ties 2 of the big trends in educational technology together and helps the understanding of the SAMR method.

30 Incredible Ways Technology Will Change Education By 2028

Open my eyes to the future. I love the direction that is hypothesized, but know that teachers will have to make the jump to keep up with the times. Exciting for students. 

Start, Stop, Continue

So while getting back into blogging, I ran across this Start, Stop, Continue post over at Teaching Statistics . Here goes my rendition of the strategy:

3 things to Start:
1. Blogging again- Getting the ideas out there is a valuable part of self reflection and sharing what I have to offer.

2. My BYOD journey- I got to attend the training sessions for the pilot 1/2 year of BYOD in my district last year. I couldn't be our building's official BYOD teacher because of an issue with school politics, but this fall they are adding over 100 teachers to the BYOD program. I'm very excited to continue the journey and grow as a professional facilitating lessons using higher level technology.

3. Adjunct Professor at a local university- My ultimate goal is to have the privilege of teaching students that want to be teachers. I am being given the honor of teaching the technology methods courses at the university that I earned my undergraduate degree at. I am beyond excited to get to work with the professors that I learned so much from and to be sharing educational technology.

3 things to Stop:
1. Self doubt- I really have to focus on putting myself out there and going for what I want to achieve. I do have something valuable to contribute.

2. Volunteering for so many things- I have been on tons of committees for years at my school. I'm at the point in my life that I want to explore other things and get involved more socially. I will learn to say, "NO."

3. Wasting moments- Life is short and things happen all the time. Moments are precious.

3 things to Continue:
1. Using twitter for personal PD. I love all of the things that I am learning and finding through watching the twitter feeds. I have found that it is far easier to follow the hashtags using tweetdeck than trying to keep up in my home feed.

2. Focusing on the positive. Through a lot of self-reflections, I've learned that I have to make a conscious choice to let the negative comments by others slide. I have to associate myself with the positive people and influences.

3. Focusing on what is important- It is amazing what you miss when you try to focus on it all. All of the brilliance and things that I could have spent doing with Ella or the time wasted worrying or thinking about the things that I can't control. It is time to continue the growth of realizing that I need to give it up.

New BLOG design Coming...

A new BLOG design is in the works. Name change happened this morning. I"m jumping back in and going to update it a little at a time. Stay tuned for changes...