Summer Learning: Pinterest

click here to follow me on twitter!

I promised that this summer my blog would look into taking summer learning into your own hands.  This post will focus on everyone's favorite quickie PD Pinterest!
Many of us have come to know and love Pinterest, but for those of us who have not discovered Pinterest, it is a free website and app that allows you to collect ideas, inspiration, dreams, things that make you laugh, and anything you may be interested in.  You are able to collect and categorize websites, blogs, images better known as 'pins' onto different boards.  You can categorize these pins in whichever manner  you would like to make all of you favorite mus saves in a manner that makes it easy for you to find.  People use Pinterest to store recipes  home decor ideas, funny pictures and of course ideas for education.  Not only can you store things that you find interesting  but you can see the items that others have pinned.  This makes Pinterest a great place to connect with other educators and share ideas.  You can choose to follow other peoples' entire collections or specific boards.
This past week I had the exciting experience of attending ISTE 2013.  ISTE is a conference for educational technology, International Society for Technology in Education.  This conference had amazing sessions and I learned a lot, but one of the biggest takeaways is the connections made with fellow educators.  One person who who I connected with was a kindergarden teacher from Texas, Matt Gomez.  Matt has an incredibly extensive collection of educational pins on Pinterest.  If you are looking for a good place to spot and inspiration for what your Pinterest page could look like, start here.   Happy Pinning!

Apple Academy Reflections

So I just returned home from Apple Academy and I have a thousand thoughts swirling around my head.  I learned a lot of new skills, applications, and met some truly amazing people.   I feel as though I could write a million blog posts on the experience.   For now I will start with my biggest takeaway, I do we do you do.  

I am familiar with this model of instruction.   For those who are not familiar with "I do, you do, we do" it's a way to organize your instruction.  The teacher, or coach,or PD facilitator, will demonstrate a topic. Then you allow the participants to work on or discuss the skill in a small group or with a partner. Finally, the learners will engage in the task or concept on their own.  

Learning together at Apple Academy

I have tried to incorporate this into my teaching practices when I was in the classroom, and now as a coach I try to always use this model in the professional development I provide.  When I was at apple academy we experienced this method all week long.  Sometimes the we do was in discussion, sometimes it was in a small group.  Sometimes the I do was homework at night, sometimes in front of the whole group.  Whichever way we were asked to do it, the I do we do you do model really helped me to understand the skills and concepts in a deeper way.  

Looking forward to the variety of trainings I will be providing for my district this summer--shameless plug!   DPS employees check www.mylearningplan.com to find trainings and register!--I will be sure to not only consider what I will be including but how I will be presenting the content.  So, if you plan on attending a training of mine, be ready to work!  But also know, you will leave with a deep knowledge or what you have learned and hopefully also a deeper passion for educational technology.  See you this summer!

My PD with #edchat

After my post of professional development I decided to it my money where my mouth was.  I participated in a chat on twitter.  I knew of the twitter chat labeled #edchat.  When I saw it pop up on my twitter feed I went for it!  I went to the search tab and typed in "#edchat". Edchat are various conversations set up around different questions. Today's conversation was about the role of Direct Instruction and lecture in the classroom. 

It was awesome.  I read others' perspectives, comments when I had a thought or opinion on a tweet and people responded to me.  It really got the wheels turning, validation on some of my opinions, and I even found some people to follow.   I strongly recommend you to try out an edchat too. They are at noon and 7pm daily.  See you on the next edchat!

Summer Learning: Twitter

If you're like me, you have just begun your summer vacation.  To my friends still with a month to go, have no fear your time will come!  This means time to relax, refresh, and spend time on things you do not have time for during the school year.  Why not make a goal to develop yourself professionally a little bit each week. There are many easy, user friendly, accessible, FREE resources to develop yourself as an educator.  My next few blog posts will give you a variety of resources for professional development, and the best way to use them. 

Twitter

Twitter is an excellent place to connect with educators from around the world.   "Tweets" can be anything from a thought, to a website, a photo, really anything under 140 characters.  One of the best ways to connect is to follow people.  When you follow someone, you can see what they post, who follows them, and who they follow.  You can choose to follow their people and so on.  "Following" someone allows you to see what they tweet.  

If you follow people who are interested in education, like me (WARNING here's the shameless plug, follow me @chrissie62573), you have access to anything they have learned or found to be interesting.  I find my time on twitter reading blogs and websites, just skimming through things other people have found to be interesting.  The great thing about Twitter is that each tweet can only be 140 characters so its easy to get the gist of an article quickly.  You don't spend a lot of time reading through half an article to find out that its not what you were looking for.  

Another way to find interesting information onTwitter is to search by hashtag. A "hashtag" (this symbol #) followed by a word, phrase or acronym that groups together similar themed tweets.  For example, #edchat is a hashtag devoted to a conversation surrounding a selected topic for the week.  If you wanted to find the conversation, and participate you would search for #edchat and follow the conversation.  

When you are ready to share you can link blogs that you find, or mark your tweets with hashtags. 

I hope that you find that twitter is an engaging, exciting, influential tool that kick starts your summer PD.  Check back soon to find the next tool to continue your summers's professional development. 

Twitter Tuesday

Twitter is a social networking tool which can connect learners of all ages.  I use Twitter to connect with educators around the world, and share ideas.  Twitter allows you to quickly sort through ideas and learn more about ideas that interest you.  I tweet about what is happening at a conference I may be at, an amazing thing I see happening in classroom, and of course I always tweet about this blog!  Teachers can use Twitter in a similar way with their students as well!
I work with a fourth grade class at one of my buildings pretty regularly.  This teacher approached me about utilizing Twitter in her classroom.  Twitter Tuesday is what we came up with.  'Twitter Tuesday' is an activity which incorporates Twitter into the classroom.  Students use Twitter to communicate ideas, thoughts, and themes which have been discussed in the classroom.  We definitely wanted to make sure that we follow guidelines in CIPA and as our students were in the 4th grade we didn't want to sign up all of her class with Twitter accounts.  So, we decided to have students write paper tweets instead.  This teacher found a wealth of pins on Pinterest on exactly this idea.  She found a plethora of ideas on different ways to create paper tweets when she search 'class twitter'.  Students all receive these paper tweets and tweet when they have a lightbulb thought, or learn something new, or want to share an idea.  You could also use something like Edmodo, Today's Meet, Padlet, or Schoology to have students tweet.   At the end of the day the teacher selects the best few tweets to tweet on Twitter using their class twitter account.
When I started to work with classrooms on this idea i anticipated the excitement and engagement.  I knew that it would be a great tool for summarizing big ideas, and getting kids to take a more involved role in their education.  What I didn't expect was how this lesson became a teaching tool in itself for summarizing a lesson, and with hashtags identifying the main idea.  It also pushed students to become creative writers and develop their ability to write with an audience in mind.   Yes Twitter Tuesday is a great way to incorporate technology in the classroom, but it is also a way to develop summarizing skills, main idea, and author's purpose.  To see Twitter Tuesday in action, follow @firstgradehawks, or @mrsdanyus.

When you would like to incorporate technology into the classroom it is important to put our desired learning outcomes first, and then find the technology to support the desired skill.  Looking forward to the common core, students need to be able to synthesize information in texts, and clearly write.  

In fourth grade students need to be able to write clearly and express opinions with support from the text.    Let's look at one standard for the common core in 4th grade.   CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.1a Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose.  This standard demands that students be able to communicate a thought which also is supported by evidence.  Twitter Tuesday can help to develop many of these standards, including the above standard.   

A classroom 'Twitter Wall' in a first grade classroom.  

Continue Your Professional Learning

This past weekend our district hosted the 2nd Annual DPS Technology Conference at Hope Academy. The 5 geek gals had been working furiously to host the conference and I think all of our hard work paid off. Thank you so much to all of the volunteers, vendors, presenters, and attendees for making this conference as great as it was.
When I reflect on this weekend's conference I can't help but think about how important continuing our education is. As educators we should be constantly learning about the best research based approaches and ways to engage students. The use of technology in the classroom is a great way to accomplish this. As I was sifting though my twitter this evening a read that teachers as a whole stop their learning after college graduation more often than any other profession. That is disheartening. I know that I feel the most inspired after a conference or reading blogs. Continuing our learning at conferences like ours this weekend is so important. Kudos to all you educators who have a commitment to your professional learning. Reading blogs, attending conference, or even just talking with others in the faculty room can really help to light the fire and further your professional development.

Addicted to Aquiring Apps?

One of the best things about technology is that things are constantly updating, constantly changing, and evolving.  That can be one of the most frustrating things as well.  I know many teacher some to me with the feeling of exhaustion because it feels like as soon as they master one thing, the next new must have tech is out and should be in their classroom.  Apps are one of the worst offenders of this.
Working at a District with over 1000 iPads out student hands it can be very tempting/overwhelming for teachers to develop an addiction to acquiring apps.  Its really because they don't want students to miss out on an opportunity to experience all that the iPads and apps have to offer!  In all my experiences visiting successful school districts where a 1:1 program have been successful there have been key variables.  One being, that there is a core expectation of 3 or 4 apps that all teachers must use and master.  Beyond that enter at your own risk.  This gives the students to also have a sense of familiarity from room to room.  All teachers use the same program to explain work, all teachers use the same programs to submit work.  When a student goes from Mrs. Smith, to Mr. Jefferson they do not have to worry about how to work a program, just want to put into the program. 
When I think of the MUST HAVES of apps, and technology I think of the purposes first.  You need to have a way for students to know what to do, submit work, and receive feedback, a workflow.  I recommend an app/web based program like Edmodo or Schoology.  Both allow for workflow to become a true possibility.  Even in a non-1:1 environment this help to give students direction, and focus when in the computer lab. 
Another purpose you may need technology is creation.  Students' full potential is accessed when you allow them to create.  Apps that are drill and kill do nothing more than flash, buzz, and help with rote memorization.  A few FREE creation apps that I recommend are Educreations, and Splice.
Educreations is an interactive white board.  There is an app, and a web based program.   Students can type, draw, import pictures, and record their voices to demonstrate different concepts.  On the web version there are also teacher made presentations that students could watch to learn a skill.  Flipping your classroom?  You need to check out that site. 
Splice is a few video editing program.  Its an app on the iPad, be careful when you search it is listed as an iPhone app.  The reason I like this software is that it is a no frills way for students and teachers to put together pictures and video to create a finished film.  Sometimes I see students spending a ton of time on iMovies.  That software is great, but it is not free and can be overwhelming.  If you want a quick movie to put together Splice is the way to go. 
Both apps are very easy to export and submit as well. 
I hope I have convinced you to not worry so much about having a different app for each grade, subject, topic, and skill.  Slow down a little bit, get good at a few and use those in the classroom.  Student do well with consistency and routines.  Set these up with those few apps and students will soar.   See you next week!