Sunday, October 23, 2016

DE Digital Board

A Screenshot of my DE Digital Board

Link To My Digital Board 

Link : https://app.discoveryeducation.com/player/view/assetGuid/51FA2F17-9454-3BA9-18CC-44FC644DE34D



     This week, I was given a task to complete a Digital Board using Discovery Education. This was my very first experience using this tool, and I must say that it was a positive experience, indeed. Digital boards are a new concept to me, and I think what made me immediately love them was that everything is in one place! Videos, pictures, etc. were all in the same place, and there was no toggling back and forth. We are currently working in a "small moment" activity in writing that includes our real life experience of visiting the MHS Apple Orchard. Students will use their expeieroncs to author a small moment, or one specific part of the story that was significant to them. I thought that having access to links, videos, clips, and other media sources all in one place was absolutely fantastic. 

    I think that I could easily integrate the use of the DE Board Builder tool into my classroom this year. I think that it would serve the best in the Writing curriculum area(s), because students would be able to craft their own board and would be able to express their opinions, and what is important to their six year old minds. I would especially find this helpful when we are working on our opinion writing unit. Students will be able to use the Board Builder to help express their opinions that will be covered in the six week unit. Students will be able to take ownership and represent their thinking to other classmates. 

   Board Builder in my opinion, is another great tool that will help students understand that we all have different opinions, and express them in different ways. What one student may choose for his Board, another may not choose. This will only help students understand that differences are ok and accepted, which directly ties into our Gardner discussions of respectful and ethical minds.  Exposure for young minds is key to developing correct responses to differing work and opinions. the more exposure our children have to things that aren't within their ways of thinking, the easier it is to understand and embrace them. 









Thursday, October 20, 2016

Video Blog- 5 Minds

Below is the link that you will need to view my blog entry for this week:

http://ge.tt/271E0if2

References:

Howard Gardner. Five Minds for the Future. 2007. Harvard Business School Press, Boston MA.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Respectful & Ethical Minds

Respectful & Ethical Minds

Milton Hershey School instills four sacred value into their employees and students, and one of those is "respect."  Students are taught to respect other classmates, houseparents, and teachers on a daily basis with the hope that it becomes intrinsically instilled in them. I am sure that you can imagine how tough this is for  six year old to constantly remember, because for the most part, they are only focused on what is important to them at the current moment. Throughout the discussion  between Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, the theme of respect continually came up. Ownership of respect, giving respect, and understanding what respect is in a digital world were all major thinking points for us listeners. In my opinion, respect is a major part of the digital world. We are often times viewing others work, sharing, commenting, editing, etc. The previously mentioned digital practice are also something that we see happening in the classroom. Students are often viewing others work, providing feedback, and seeking to understand more. 

In my first grade classroom, we are LOVERS of the app Seesaw. Students are able to create a digital portfolio which can be shared with parents, houseparents, teachers, and other students. One of the things that we are beginning to work on within the app is posting comments. Students are able to "like" another students post by pressing the heart, or they can voice record a comment/type a comment for the student to see. This has provided to be an excellent way to build community in the classroom, understand how to take criticism, and really embrace the growth mindset. We have set up "posting" rules in our classroom, and they are as follows:

1. If you record a comment, it must start off being positive. 

2. If you see a mistake that was made or feel that the student could have done something differently, you can only post it after your positive comment. 

3. You must give suggestions in a kind way, and may not say things such as "not a good job". If something could be better, students must say "next time, why don't you try" or "have you thought of."

I have found that these guidelines help students receive feedback that produces growth as well as understand how to be a kind classmate. As we all know, kindness matters. :)  A sample is attached below (I modeled the comment for the class):



(Photo Credit: SeeSaw: Paid Version via MHS).

My favorite take away thought from  the video was: The aim of global collaboration in education is to improve learning, break down classroom walls, and develop authentic audiences. I feel that our system of commenting in SeeSaw is just one subtle way that we are achieving the above!

Sunday, October 9, 2016

SMORE...and Lips The Fish :)

Link to SMORE

What instructional goal/challenge does your SOS address? What additional value does the integration of digital media bring to your idea in terms of students’ understanding of the concept or topic?

SMORE was a very interesting way to access digital media and incorporate learning strategies as well. Reading instruction comes with many challenges and hurdles to overcome. It is such a complex thing to teach students to do, because there are so many different components to teach, along with the "why". Students often discover that reading is a major struggle and also find that it is HARD to keep all of the reading strategies that we learn readily accessible. Applying the knowledge learned is even harder for our younger minds. This year, in my class we have adopted a set of fun reading strategies to help students work through the struggles of reading, and overcoming the hurdles that prevent them from being fluent, successful readers. Since we have just adopted these strategies this year, it is hard to understand the positive or negative impact that they are having on students reading. I can tell you that reading is more fun, exciting, and engaging for students when using these strategies, which in my opinion leads to more engaged and dedicated readers. 

I think that the integration of digital media will not only make reading and using it's strategies more appealing for students, but will also help them establish more of a purpose for what they are doing. We have all agreed that technology and digital media only enhance and increase student engagement as well as promote ownership and understanding of the content being taught. I think that using the SMORE strategy checks all of the boxes above and gives an extra edge to to content being presented to students and other educators. 

Link: https://www.smore.com/udstv

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Creativity Conversation

Creativity Conversations...With a six year old!


This week in first grade, I had the pleasure of engaging in conversation regarding creativity with Olivia. Olivia is a lovely six year old girl with beautiful freckles and red hair. She is spunky, sweet, and FULL of things to say! I asked Olivia a few questions regarding creativity in the classroom and she had wonderful answers to share with me! A few things about Olivia: Art class is her favorite, and she loves reading and having her nails done! What's not to love about Olivia?  See below for our conversation:


1. What does creativity mean to you? Creativity means that I get to use my brain to make things. 

2. Are you creative? Yes! I love to go to Art, I love to color and I love to draw. 

3. Why or why not? I always try my best and I love to use different colors, AND I color inside the lines. 

4. What helps you be creative at Milton Hershey School? Well, I-pads help me draw on SeeSaw and paint helps me make cute photos. Is it snack time yet?

5. Do you like using the computer or i-pad to be creative? Yes! I think that drawing and recording on the I-pad helps me be creative. Easy bake oven is fun too because we can bake things. 

6. What apps do you think help you be creative? Ms. Book! I just told you! SeeSaw and Easy Bake Oven. 

7. What else do you think we need in our classroom to be creative? More i-pads, new markers, and maybe some glitter. 

I am sure that you can tell that Olivia is a funny little girl. She has wonderful responses to think and is very much a girls girl. I found that her responses were very typical to what a child would say to such questions. I found it interesting that she equates creativity to coloring, art, designing, and creating. I think that for children, creativity is seen more as using colors, working hard, and expressing yourself. I really enjoyed my time with Olivia and laughed quite a bit at her answers. I hope that you enjoyed reading it, too!


Thursday, September 29, 2016

Creativity In The Classroom...Dead or Alive?

     This week, I had the pleasure of watching a TED Talk, which I absolutely love. They are exciting, engaging, and informative ways to present information and incorporate real world situations. This week's TED Talk was given by Sir Ken Robinson, and I have to say, he hit the nail on the head! Creativity is something that we often associate with classes/subjects like Art in school. We often don't think of subject areas like Math or Reading being creative. They are often composed of skill, drill, and practice, and seldom offer opportunities for creativity. This brings us to the focus of this week and the major question that people often forget to address: Do schools kill creativity? In my opinion, the answer is a blaring "yes!"  Education in our society has become the picture perfect vision of a disaster. Education is focused on test scores, data, closing the achievement gap, and inducing necessary stress on our children.  Students are no longer looked at with the idea of tuning in to them and their needs, but are looked at as scores which define success in a classroom and division.

     My personal experiences have shaped my strong opinions above, and rightfully so in my opinion. I taught kindergarten for ten years, and was often criticized for not using time to "teach" rather than explore and art project that directly related to content. It would drive me insane, because I think that we often forget that children learn so much about themselves through creative activities such as dramatic play, the arts, and self based inquiry or inquiry with peers.  My five year old students held an attention span that was their age plus two in minutes (or 6-7 minutes) and often times became restless or frustrated when stretched too thin. This was a problem because behavior declined, performance declined, and student engagement was nowhere to be found. If students are encouraged to complete a task that they created, I feel as though we will see the opposite. Engagement that lasts for much longer as well as students that are intrinsically motivated to finish are some of the major differences that we would see.

     Digital media has become such a power player in the classroom today, and has replaced many of our existing ways of instruction. Applications for reading, writing. math, sight words, and discovery (for science and social studies) have now replaced most textbooks and students can now find answers, videos, and deeper understandings with the touch of a button or swipe of a finger. Digital media has really launched the platform for incorporation of creativity and creative based projects, because students can now add video, photos, drawings, and music to all presentations and ideas. A great example of this is the SeeSaw app. My students use this app each day, and can create books and presentations to share with other students and their parents. These projects are all student created and are a true reflection of what an engaged six year old mind looks like. Digital media has allowed students to take ownership of their work while allowing them to share and launch creative ideas to their peers at the same time. Long gone are the days of colored pencils and paper, and welcomed are t student created videos with dialogue that showcase just how powerful the minds of today really are!

Source: Gardner, H. (2007). Five minds for the future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Project 1: Media Infused Presentation/Learning Center

Project 1: Media Infused Presentation or Learning Center- EDIM 508




 View my presentation here & the exported version here


 Media infused presentations are wonderful resources for the classroom, whether a traditional teacher centered classroom or a non-traditional flipped classroom. Throughout discussions in the our class so far, we have all agreed the media, technology, and the infusion of both dramatically increases student engagement. I found that contractions are on the the toughest concepts to teach to my younger first grade students. The idea of putting two words together when speaking is simple, but taking away letters and adding an apostrophe is quite frightening to them. I decided to make this learning center for them to use as an introduction on the week that we begin this task/concept. 

     I feel that my learning center will contribute to developing the synthesizing and disciplined minds in many ways. The synthesizing mind immediately came to me as I began to make my learning center.  Students will be able to view the learning center on their i-pad(s) and will then be able to able to make more meaningful connections when they revisit the content as a whole group. I will have the ability to address the content to the whole group and trust that they have a better understanding and grasp what a contraction is, rather than just front loading the concept all at one time. I feel that for younger students to master content, it need to be introduced and revisited multiple time and in multiple ways. Those ways may include paper, pencil, partner or technology. Once students have gained exposure to the content, they are able to synthesize or connect/interweave the material(s) taught to past and current connections. This, in my opinion, is what leads to mastery of content.

     The disciplined mind would certainly be address with younger students while incorporating the media infused learning center. Students will be able to use the information from the presentation as well as the skills needed to work through the learning center (SeeSaw) and will be able to apply those skills to other areas of learning. Students will be required to think, apply, and understand how the information presented here can possibly connect to another area of learning. Examples of this could be: identifying contractions in print (context) or integrating them in to writing to make it more meaningful. 




Thursday, September 22, 2016

EduClipper Post




Link: View My EduClipper Post Here
 (https://educlipper.net/edu_clip_boards/57e4544169702d1bbb3a0100)


I created my EduClipper board on nouns! I chose to focus on this because we are studying nouns and how to find them when reading, writing, and listening to others. I have found that just talking to students about what they are is not meaningful at all, but instead students find more success with the use of visuals. The number of visuals available is amazing! 

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Big Huge Labs Motivator!



In first grade, we constantly deal with tattling! Our little ones love to take care of everyone else, but them!  We have daily talks about tattling, what a tattletale is, and how to make sure that what you are reporting/tattling is a true emergency. My team mate, Manal, and I  decided that we would make a poster to place in our classroom (s) to hopefully give a gentle but funny reminder that tattling does NOT make us happy. Look at our faces... do they look like happy first grade teachers?  I don't think so! Curbing potentially negative behaviors are a major part of social/emotional learning that takes place in our classrooms and for our students at Milton Hershey School!