Animoto

I finally finished my video for my classroom website. I used Animoto. It was very easy and my parents love it.

Robots in the Classroom

A New Generation of Robots

 High Tech Ways Students Can Attend School

 I saw this report on ABC News this morning. In some schools, avatars are taking the place of students in the classroom. When students get sick or if children are disabled and can't attend school, becoming a virtual student is a viable solution. 

March 7, 2013

September 26, 2012

    West Seneca School District  

There are many more examples of children using the VGo Robot to help to attend school. You can find them on You Tube and Pinterest. I was not aware, but am now thankful that I am.

Post NJEA

        Presenting at the NJEA convention was very rewarding and, of course, the hats added a special flair. I recommend this experience to all. It was exciting to see a captivated audience and the positive feedback that we all received was energizing. Hats off to Jackie, Elsann, and Sandy for such a great experience! Much thanks to Amy for giving us the opportunity.

Sorry Jackie...I had to post this pic. I love it!!!

Getting Ready for the NJEA

It's Sunday night and I'm thinking of the upcoming week. Jackie, Elsann, Sandy and I are almost done with our preparations and we are excited and ready to present with Dr. Amy Ackerman in Atlantic City!

The title of our presentation is Take Ten from our PARCC Place.

Scan the QR code to view our Weebly or check it out on www.taketenparcctools.weebly.com.

Rest In Peace Lucky. You were my little fuzzy friend 

and the best cat any one person could ever ask for. 

We will greatly miss you in the Simmons household. 

Christmas - your favorite time of year. 

Gamification

    I really enjoy this video about the "Gamification Revolution". Gabe Zichermann is the keynote speaker at this Google conference. He is an author, has developed games, started up companies, created apps, and chairs a number of events. He's very busy!!

     Gabe tells you about his history, which is very interesting, and he goes into details about video/learning games (i.e. Where in the World is Carmen San Diego). I remember playing that game!! Loved it.  He also talks about the effects that these games have on learning and behaviors and human development. 

     It's a fairly long video, so you might want to grab some popcorn. Hope you enjoy this!!

Learning Centers

       Today, I would just like to briefly share my learning center approach. I recently changed my strategy and am finding that it is working fantastically!

      I have put the students into heterogeneous groups. There are five groups and five centers. The students go to every center, daily, for three days a week. Each center rotation lasts for 30 minutes. While everyone is working in their centers, I pull small homogeneous groups to work on reading skills. I like this because I can meet with all of my students each day and challenge them at their level. I also like the fact that all of my students have the opportunity to work with technology on a daily basis. Since I only have 3 desktop computers and one laptop, using technology can be a bit challenging. I am lucky though, because I have a wonderful school friend who shares some of her technology with me too.

Here is a list of the centers that I use and a brief description of each. 

Writing - The students are responding to a text (either nonfiction or fiction) in their Reader's Workshop binder. They are required to complete their writing assignment each day so in a week's period of time they are finishing at least three response assignments.

Reading Center - The students are required to read a book and fill out some sort of graphic organizer that addresses a specific skill that I'm teaching that week (i.e. text-to-self connections, identifying nonfiction text features, character trait analysis, etc.).

Technology - The students are on a computer working on completing a project (Prezi, Glogster) or in a learning program ( ScootPad, Moby Max, Edmodo, Zondle).

Activity - The students are working together to complete a PBL assignment.

Word Work - The students are usually playing a learning board game that builds vocabulary or reading comprehension skills.

I think the following video gives a great picture of what a center based learning community classroom can look like. This can be adapted to fit any grade level.

   

Using technology in the classroom is very important....and it's FUN!!!

Here are a couple of tools I use all of the time to improve ELA  and Math skills with my students.

ScootPad is not free. 

                      

             

Zondle is free.

  

Edmodo

      So I started using Edmodo with my students a couple of days ago. They loved it!!! We had fun sending messages to each other. I also showed them how the polling device works. 

        Snapshot is a new featured app within Edmodo. It allows the teacher to assign practice exercises to help prepare students to master the Common Core Standards in ELA and Math. All you have to do is simply click on the standard/standards that you want your students to master, and Snapshot will generate a formative assessment on that standard or standards that you choose. You should check it out.

Animoto

        I'm trying out Animoto this week. I'm in the process of creating my very first video that I will post on Twitter and Facebook, so that my parents will be able to enjoy seeing their children at school. One of my goals this year is to involve parents a little more in their child's educational experiences. I feel that this is a good place to start. 

Still in production. Will post when finished.

   I would also like to share a nice web 2.0 tool that I just recently learned about. It's called Zondle and it can be used to support your teaching: for whole-class teaching, for formative and summative assessment, and for homework. In addition, you can view student progress and achievements. It seems to work much like ScootPad or Moby Max but it's free!! Check it out.

Week Two

    So at the end of week two in my classroom as well as graduate school I am feeling a bit overwhelmed!! There is so much work to do and I am still getting used to a new group of students. I can say that with everything that needs to be accomplished in school as well as with these graduate courses, I just need a couple of extra hours in my day to get it all done. But, when it is all said and done, I know I will learn a lot.

Project Based Learning

(PBL)

       We had such a positive experience at my school, in June, with our PBL activity, that I can't wait until we get our creative juices flowing once again this year. It was a long, busy, sometimes monotonous process. However, the journey was worth its weight in gold! Once we were finished, and ready to present, our halls had been completely transformed into a rainforest.

Our Waterfall

Science wall showing the layers of the rainforest leading into the cave

 Interactive Food Web

 Bar graphs comparing the tropical rainforest to the temperate rainforest.

     The reason we decided to build a rainforest stemmed from our read aloud series, The Island, by Gordon Korman. The students connected with the characters in the books and they truly embraced the projects that were assigned to them. Of course, there were many challenges along the way and it was definitely time consuming. Yet, in the midst of all of the model curriculum testing, NJ ASK test prepping,  and RTI sweeps, the students and teaching staff persevered. Vines were twisted for the canopy, rainforest creatures were colored, glued, painted, and hung. Rainforest layers and trees were carefully positioned on the walls, and a waterfall was built. When the day arrived, students eagerly rehearsed their jobs, prepared for their tasks, and I can honestly say, they ran the show, with just a little help from the teachers. Overall, our PBL was an amazing experience for all of us. We were all happy to see the nicely written article in The Daily Journal and were pleasantly surprised when the article made it on the National Council for the Social Studies NCSS website. 

The see more pictures of our PBL, just click on the picture below.

Stay tuned....more to come on this year's project!!

First Week

       It was back to school for many this week. My class came in looking very nervous last Thursday. Since then, We have spent some time trying to build a sense of community along with the usual "getting to know you" activities. The students worked together to build a free standing tower with toothpicks and mini marshmallows. In addition, and they giggled their way through a challenge to save their gummy worm friend Fred from drowning in the imaginary lake. It made me smile to see them learn about the scientific method while they were having fun.

        So, in the few days that I've been back in my classroom, I've noticed that some students are excited about being back, while others are not. This leaves me, once again, pondering those questions that I'm sure all educators ask themselves.  How can I motivate these students? What can I do to make school and learning fun yet challenging for them? What am I going to do to get these kids ready for the PARCC assessment? How am I going to use technology to enhance learning in my classroom? Going forward, I am excited to try some new strategies and tools this year! 

Whole Brain Teaching

       

     Whole Brain Teaching is one  instructional strategy that I've decided to try out for the first time.  I've looked at some articles, collaborated with a few colleagues, and have viewed many instructional videos to wrap my brain around the concept. Seems pretty interesting and my students have responded well so far. I like the idea of it for two main reasons. First of all, I like the multi-sensory approach. It also supports student accountability and teamwork. There are many components to Whole Brain Teaching and I know that I have only scratched the surface. If you are a classroom teacher, at any level, your students will have fun with it. Take a minute and check out the Whole Brain Teaching instructional videos below.

More on this later!