Today was a very busy day. Being a part of the technology committee for our district, I was in charge of leading some training for our district-wide back-to-school breakfast. With every certificated employee being given a ASUS Chromebook Flip, the committee felt it was necessary to do some basic training on the capability of these devices. I was part of the Google Drive and Contacts session. We started a little rough, but quickly saw where a more appropriate teaching level would be for some of the staff members in our district. It was a pretty interesting experience for me (even with the ups and downs) but it was very insightful to me as a technology instructor to see so many varying levels in one room. Of course, with any type of teaching there is always room to reflect and evaluate what could be done differently or better in the future. I definitely would like to see it become more interactive for those who were the learners. It might also be interesting to create different tasks for people in the same session based on what they feel is their level of technology capability.
Other sessions that were presented today dealt with Google Remote and Cloud Printing, Google Slides, NetSupport, Google Classroom, and Read and Write for Google. Having seen a preview of these sessions, I can say that it was a very tech-filled day.
Also, I came a little bit out of my comfort zone today. I participated in the tech slam that was held during the lunch period. I showed my colleagues (in the entire district) about symbaloo.com. I am very excited about this tool to give my students an easier access to the items that I want to share with them. I am also very happy that I was able to share this with others who might find other ways to use it in their own classrooms.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Sunday, August 16, 2015
RockStar Teacher
This last week I had the opportunity to attend the CueRockStar Teacher Camp in Crescent City, CA. I wanted to take some time to reflect on this amazing event. It was a very exciting, but slightly overwhelming, week. I had done so many things with technology in just 3 days that I was avoiding my screens for a couple of days.
During the course of 3 days I was able to attend 6 different sessions that were all focused on different ways to integrate technology tools into my classroom. At a first glance, many of the sessions seemed like they would be better for older students, but I quickly found out how versatile RockStar Camp is among different grade levels.
I officially learned how to use GoogleForms in a way that will be productive in my classroom. I plan on doing probably one form (at least) each week with my students. I am also going to start up a general technology survey for all of the parents at my school site. I plan on creating a survey to find out what type of technology is available to our parents and students when they are at home. Hopefully, this will give me (and other teachers) a better idea of what our students are familiar with concerning technology.
Going along with that first session, I learned more effective ways to reach out to parents and get them more actively involved in their students' academics and school events.
Day 2 for me consisted of learning how to start some Project Based Learning (PBL) in my classroom and incorporate some coding activities into my class, as well. The PBL is a little daunting to me and I may not take that on right away. I am thinking I will wait until spring to start something really big like that. This last year (2014-2015) my students participated in the Hour of Code event. I plan on doing that again this year, but also building up to it with some other coding activities, including some web-based applications. I am really excited about getting students coding, both in the classroom and at home, for 2 reasons: it is really fun and game-based, and it is just a springboard for what a lot of the technology industry currently looks like to society. In my coding session, I also learned about Spheros and we will definitely be using those in my classroom this next year.
On the last day of CUERockStar I was able to focus on playing around a little bit more. I learned a lot about an application called, "Zaption," which allows me to embed questions into pre-made YouTube videos. I had a great time working on that and am excited to use that on a pretty regular basis with my students. I also learned about Pear Deck, which allows a similar thing to Zaption except it is involving slide shows instead of videos. Both of these web-based applications allow for a more interactive opportunity for my students.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the CUERockStar Teacher camp and I could easily see myself attending this event again. I was able to learn so much and hear about so many new/different things. While it was overwhelming at first, now that I have had some time to decompress and reflect I am feeling ready to try out quite a few new technology-based tools, applications, and activities to use with my second graders this coming fall.
During the course of 3 days I was able to attend 6 different sessions that were all focused on different ways to integrate technology tools into my classroom. At a first glance, many of the sessions seemed like they would be better for older students, but I quickly found out how versatile RockStar Camp is among different grade levels.
I officially learned how to use GoogleForms in a way that will be productive in my classroom. I plan on doing probably one form (at least) each week with my students. I am also going to start up a general technology survey for all of the parents at my school site. I plan on creating a survey to find out what type of technology is available to our parents and students when they are at home. Hopefully, this will give me (and other teachers) a better idea of what our students are familiar with concerning technology.
Going along with that first session, I learned more effective ways to reach out to parents and get them more actively involved in their students' academics and school events.
Day 2 for me consisted of learning how to start some Project Based Learning (PBL) in my classroom and incorporate some coding activities into my class, as well. The PBL is a little daunting to me and I may not take that on right away. I am thinking I will wait until spring to start something really big like that. This last year (2014-2015) my students participated in the Hour of Code event. I plan on doing that again this year, but also building up to it with some other coding activities, including some web-based applications. I am really excited about getting students coding, both in the classroom and at home, for 2 reasons: it is really fun and game-based, and it is just a springboard for what a lot of the technology industry currently looks like to society. In my coding session, I also learned about Spheros and we will definitely be using those in my classroom this next year.
On the last day of CUERockStar I was able to focus on playing around a little bit more. I learned a lot about an application called, "Zaption," which allows me to embed questions into pre-made YouTube videos. I had a great time working on that and am excited to use that on a pretty regular basis with my students. I also learned about Pear Deck, which allows a similar thing to Zaption except it is involving slide shows instead of videos. Both of these web-based applications allow for a more interactive opportunity for my students.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the CUERockStar Teacher camp and I could easily see myself attending this event again. I was able to learn so much and hear about so many new/different things. While it was overwhelming at first, now that I have had some time to decompress and reflect I am feeling ready to try out quite a few new technology-based tools, applications, and activities to use with my second graders this coming fall.
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