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 “Shooting for the moon” for me involves a lot of work. My plan is to work on one subject at a time, infusing technology a little at a time. At the moment, only our secondary students and teachers have a learning management system available to them which is Schoology. The elementary level can create their own through Google Classroom, but we have to do this with the understanding that we will not receive any IT support for this. 

This year in science, I have been creating a new ecology unit and teaching it as I go. My colleague and I have been working on this together. We are using Seesaw for various posts, assessments, and classwork. We have created a few assessments on Google Forms that are accessed through our Google Classroom, but I would like to add and change activities as we move forward. I feel like, with a little more research, time, creativity, and work we could add more items to our unit that utilize the technology we have available. 

The next subject I would want to tackle is Social Studies. The current curriculum we use is so dry. In the past, I have had students complete projects using Adobe Spark and Thinglink, but there are other areas in our curriculum that could use a facelift. 

Math and ELA are a little trickier. I’m not sure what I can do for math. We already use Reflex, Freckle, and games on ConnectEd. We use rotations for both ELA and for math. Beyond having the kids record their screens and walk us through the process of solving a problem or creating a video finding geometry in the real world, I’m not sure how to infuse technology in math. ELA, we also use ConnectEd and Freckle. ConnectEd is mainly used for our assessments. Freckle has an ELA component to it that allows students to read a story and take a quiz or learn challenging vocabulary through a game. We use a variety of reading and writing related apps during rotations and this year, I introduced my students to Google Docs. My class loves this, as do I. Before, they had such an issue with remembering to save their work and finding the location in which they should save. With Google Docs, saving work is no longer an issue. As far as ELA is concerned, I don’t know where else I can infuse technology. 

            

1:1 is such a great model. Our district is All-Day 1:1 at the secondary levels. The fourth-grade team is advocating to become Classroom-Only 1:1 with laptops. In order for 1:1 to work well, it would be best to have internet to support it. Way too often, our students will work on an ipad and get disconnected from the wifi. Our wifi constantly disconnects for the students and I don’t think increasing the number of devices using the wifi will help. I do like the concept of this model though. My district encourages personalized learning. With every student having a device, we could assign work for them to complete digitally at their level. Creating assessments online would make this process much easier. My own children are All-Day 1:1 and I am encouraged to try new apps, websites, and projects by the assignments that come home.

I was first introduced to the SAMR model at an inservice. We were encouraged to try to get to the Redefinition level, which is difficult at the elementary level. Redefinition requires students to take charge of their learning and use technology to do this. Each year I try something new, but this involves training a whole new crew to use technology. I feel like I dabble in the Substitution, Augmentation, and Modification levels. Assignments, assessments, activities, and projects have been created that require students to use various technologies for completion, but Redefinition is a level I aspire to reach. 

The TPACK model for me was the most confusing model to understand. I found a post on Schoology by Dylan Rodgers (2018) to help me wrap my head around it. This model is beneficial for planning purposes, but took me a bit to understand. I like this model, but I just found it too much for me to process without additional research. This really is the only reason that I wouldn’t choose this model as being the most useful. 

 

Rodgers, D. (2018, January 19). The TPACK Model Explained (With Classroom Examples). https://www.schoology.com/blog/tpack-framework-explained‌

 

 

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            The thought of becoming a 1:1 classroom is exciting, but does cause one to take a step back and consider current teaching practices and how they would change. Diana and Jen discuss pacing in a 1:1 classroom. They write, “many assignments and projects involving 1:1 technology take a little longer than their paper-based counterparts” (Neebe & Roberts, 2015). It’s important for our students to grow accustomed to using technology as a tool, but I know from first-hand experience that sometimes introducing students to a new tool and having them use this takes time. After taking a grad class in the Spring of 2019, I decided to introduce my students to Google Docs and use this for notetaking in a Social Studies unit. Google Docs replaced our pencil-paper notes. It worked well, but also added an extra four days to our unit. This cannot happen all the time, or we will struggle to get through the curriculum. 

Diana and Jen mentioned that in the paper-based classroom “it’s possible that some students never turned in anything because they didn’t finish” (Neebe & Roberts, 2015). They also mentioned that in a 1:1 classroom “we can check their work in progress and provide early intervention to students who are falling behind or have been absent from school (Neebe & Roberts, 2015). I currently use a checklist to track student progress in writing. When students are hand-writing a paper, it makes it difficult to conference with students and be the encourager for students falling behind. Having students complete writing and journal prompts online using Google Docs gives me hope. This would make it easier to track student progress, provide feedback, and enable students to keep working.           

I just looked into Nearpod today and have heard others talk about using Socrative with their students. I would use Nearpod to provide interactive feedback to students. I like that Nearpod, Socrative, and Google Forms can all be used to do a quick check-in. I have used Google Forms with my students quite a bit. I really like how easy it is to gather information from students and quizzing them. The results are instant and paper is not used; it cuts down on grading. I will have to explore Nearpod and Socrative a little more to figure out what I can create or use with my students. I do like that students can respond to a question and their answers can be displayed on the screen. This allows for discussion and clearing up of misconceptions. 

This school year, my colleague and I have been creating a new unit in science as we’ve been teaching it. Over the summer, we developed the learning targets, but didn’t have any resources or materials put together to help us meet those learning targets. We have been collaborating on Google Docs to develop the unit. It’s so much easier than trying to find time to meet or sending things to each other via email. We like that we can work on the unit at the same time or separately. One mistake we made, we used ActivInspire to create a flipchart for the unit. I want to try converting this into a Google Slide so that we can easily share this with each other as well. The flipchart is not a live document; we must save the changes we’ve made and send it to the other person so they can update their copy. If we had used Google Slides, we wouldn’t have to continue saving and sharing our updates with the other person. 

Neebe, D., & Roberts, J. (2015). Power up : making the shift to 1:1 teaching and learning (p. 31, 32). Stenhouse Publishers.

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Every school year, we send home an information packet. Included in this packet, is an Internet Use policy and a Photo Release form. There are other forms as well, but these forms allow our students to access and post to the internet. When parents sign off on the photo release form, they are giving permission for their child’s picture and name to be used on the website, in media releases, and used in our schools. They are also allowing their child to be interviewed by news reporters and such. At the elementary level, we don’t post items to the internet that are not able to be kept private. For example, I use Seesaw with my students. Seesaw items are only visible to those that have the QR code. Each parent receives a unique QR code and have access only to their child’s posts. My students are under the age of thirteen, so our rules are pretty strict. 

When I completed my first master’s degree program, I wrote a thesis. Because I was using my students’ work as part of my evidence, I had to write a letter and consent form and send it home to parents. Before I could start my work, I had to have all the forms signed and returned and show them to my building principal. For this process, I also needed to have a letter of permission from my principal. 

   As Neebe and Roberts pointed out, students “tend to know who received which reading assignment, and are aware if they’re always in the ‘low group’” (Neebe & Roberts, 2015). For that matter, they tend to also can figure out who the “high” kids are. We are not 1:1 yet, we are hoping this is coming for us in the future. Making this discreet is complicated when I have groups to meet with. I meet with students in groups for math and reading. While I have changed how I group for math, reading is a bit tricky. I must wait for certain students to return from other special area teachers (ELL and Learning Support), to meet with them. I like some of the suggestions given in the book; strategies that Neebe and Roberts use effectively. I would like to try writing frames, Activelylearn, and paperrater.com and hemingwayapp.com.                                                              Chapter 7:  Consider an upcoming assessment (formative or summative) for which you’d like to rethink the feedback process. Which of the six strategies identified in chapter 7 do you think can best support your students and ease your workload and why?
 Of the six strategies for feedback, I liked the options for Instant Feedback the best. Whenever we finish a writing piece, it always seems like students are all ready to conference at the same time. Setting up and using the Hemingway App, would help me by providing students with useful feedback. I would still like to conference with them about their writing pieces, but maybe this would give them ideas to work on in the meantime and my list of students wouldn’t be as long. I would like to also try using Nearpod for more lessons. I have tried it once or twice in the past, but I think it would be an easy thing to implement during rounds and enable me to group students based on misunderstanding rather than ability or level. This may mix up the groups so they are more heterogenous. 

Neebe, D., & Roberts, J. (2015). Power up : making the shift to 1:1 teaching and learning (p. 109). Stenhouse Publishers.

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For this assignment, I decided to try miro. It worked quite well. I liked using the sticky notes and linking arrows to help someone else follow the thought process. I will admit, I do not find drawing on a screen to be an easy thing to do. Using a stylus makes it easier, but the drawing still does not look fantastic. I feel like sketchnoting was a fun way to help me remember what the speaker was saying and highlight important aspects of the talk. This would be beneficial to students in helping them identify key ideas and creating a drawing to help them remember the information; I feel like it stays with you longer. 

 

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If there weren’t any time constraints, I would do more projects, Project Based Learning, and instate Genius Hour. I want my students to have more time to collaborate and create. Right now, we are tied into a schedule that does not allow for much wiggle room. Our district currently encourages us to do projects with our students, but with no other obligations taken away, we struggle to find the time. I have also always liked the idea of Genius Hour. This is something that could fit into my schedule now, but I need time to figure it all out. 

If there weren’t any time constraints, I would spend class time training my class on blended learning; helping them navigate the lessons. As Neebe and Roberts point out, “depending on the ages and experience of your students, you may have to teach them about pausing a video to take notes and have them practice the steps for accessing your course material online” (Neebe & Roberts, 2015). As stated in the book, we have been doing things a bit backward in our class instruction. “Most classes are set up to frontload content during face-to-face sessions and to send students home on their own to practice what they’ve learned” (Neebe & Roberts, 2015). This was a ‘duh’ moment for me that makes me want to advocate more for our students to be 1:1. It makes a whole lot more sense to be able to help students tackle the harder learning (applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating) when we are face-to-face and have them work on the less taxing work of remembering and understanding at home. 

Neebe, D., & Roberts, J. (2015). Power up : making the shift to 1:1 teaching and learning (p.180, 181). Stenhouse Publishers.

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Two years ago, my district’s superintendent, proposed that every classroom across the district should work with our students to complete a “Cornerstone Project.” These projects take a real-world problem and ask students to come up with a plan to solve or fix it. This year, our fourth-grade team decided to target the Historic Ephrata Cloister. Their real problem- diminishing public interest and attendance at the Cloister. We had students brainstorm ideas of how we could solve this problem. One of the roadblocks was time. We timed this project so that it coincided with our annual field trip to the Cloister, this way students could take pictures or video to use in their project. The field trip was in the middle of October and the marking period ended two weeks afterwards. This was a graded project, so there was a time crunch due to other subjects needing to be covered as well. This roadblock was resolved after we brought this to our superintendent’s attention. There was a miscommunication- Cornerstone Projects don’t need to be graded and are intended to last a full school year. Now we know. Beyond the Cornerstone Project, if the proposed project were cross-curricular, then it could be given more time. 

Another roadblock is brainstorming. When I read this section in the book I chided myself- I have been guilty of killing a brainstorm session. When brainstorming solutions to the problem in our Cornerstone Project, I steered students away from the “wild ideas” because of our time constraint and I wrote every idea down. After reading this section, I will do a better job of brainstorming sessions, I wouldn’t want to stifle student creativity. I also like the idea of drawing ideas or mapping connections. I feel like having student groups brainstorm a list of ideas, having students select an idea from the list, and group students together based off their choice might be a way to have different projects and a variety of solutions. Creating a Google Doc that is shared with the class could allow for the brainstorming session to occur outside of class- I don’t know how well it would work, but it could be fun to try. 

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In regard to social media, the only concerns I have are privacy. I have several social media-type accounts that I read and post to daily. I do not mind using most social media platforms, except for Twitter. My only beef with Twitter is security. A few years ago, I created a Twitter account for a grad class. A week or so after setting it up, I received numerous emails daily, telling me that I needed to check my account because someone had attempted to hack into it. These emails flooded my account. I believe things have since gotten better, but this kind of turned me off to Twitter. My account is still there, but I haven’t used it. 

The points made by Neebe and Roberts are valid. They hit the nail on the head when they stated, “teaching has historically been one of the most isolated careers” (Neebe & Roberts, 2015). They also had a valid point about networking to get more ideas and reducing that feeling of isolation. When they stated, “when innovators have access to each other, they create better and faster” and that “the people, information, and opportunities I have found through Twitter have made me a better teacher and a more informed educator” (Neebe & Roberts, 2015), I felt more inclined to try Twitter again. When it comes to ideas, the more the merrier. I like trying new ideas in my classroom- it keeps things fresh. I might have to give Twitter another chance. 

Neebe, D., & Roberts, J. (2015). Power up: making the shift to 1:1 teaching and learning (p. 202, 204-205). Stenhouse Publishers.

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Twitter chat: #DENChat

The chat that I took part in consisted of seven questions. For each question, we answered using a meme or a Giphy. Most of the questions involved our week- how the week went for us, a positive moment, something we wish had gone differently, something we learned, something we’d known 4 weeks ago, a growth mindset item, and something we are looking forward to next week. It was a lot of fun, but also a little stressful. I am not an avid Twitter user, so I felt like I had to keep refreshing the page or clicking ‘Latest’ to see what the next question was that posted. In my first post, I forgot to include my ‘A1’ tag, so I quickly deleted it and reposted correctly. I would participate in one again, this was fun. The participants and host were really nice. 

            My students have been using Seesaw all year. We have had them completing activities and posting these and projects completed in class to their Seesaw account. Because we use Seesaw, I would use this platform to have students sift through their work each marking period and find items that they are most proud of. I may have them choose a specified number of items in each subject area or have them choose 5-7 items they feel show quality work. I think an e-portfolio would be a great way to showcase work students have completed each marking period and an easy way to share with parents at conferences. 

Using Padlet to create my own digital portfolio was fun. Because all assignments were submitted to once location, finding the needed materials was pretty easy. I had to play around with the format until I found one that wasn’t too chaotic and difficult to follow. Once I found a format that would work, adding all the completed assignments was easy. I like the digital portfolio because it shows all of the tasks we completed- you don’t realize all that you’ve done until it is on one screen- it’s really amazing!