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Well, I just updated our class website! Ahh! Don't you love that feeling of making something better and more organized!? It makes me so happy when I see things improving!! This got me thinking though... How do you use technology in your classroom? A couple coworkers and myself were able to go to the MACUL (technology) conference. I have had so many ideas since then and I'm slowly starting to integrate more and more technology into my classroom. I already use lots of videos/songs for learning, as well as SMART board activities. Right now my students are using the computers during their centers. I'm always trying to think of new things to do that will help my class to run smoother as well as integrate technology! QR codes are the BEST! I have many books recoded with QR codes ready to be scanned. I learned at the MACUL conference an "extension" that you can have if you use google chrome as your web browser where you can make any page you are on into a QR code! Super helpful. I have attached all of our notes from the conference at the bottom of this blog! Make sure to take a look and find some new ideas! Just this week I have recorded my first video lesson for our STEM (STEAM) center. I decided to start small. If you look at the home page of my website you will see the words "this week" where I will be trying to record some lessons each week for students to follow along with lessons, repeat lessons as needed or listen to lessons when absent. This is my attempt at an in-class "flipped" class. To do this I used the explaineverything app (which I am NO expert at ... yet!) but I at least have my first video behind me!! :) Last year I also used plickers which I really like but I am trying to stay away from multiple choice questions for the kinders. I also really liked to create and use Kahoots! This is my current goal (after finishing more work on our class website). I would love to create Kahoots for some of our end of year assessments but I know they again will be multiple choice - not my favorite assessments. My tech goals for this week -Prep the class set of computers (ALL charged!) for a Kahoot for next week. -Create at least 3 Kahoots. -Video record 1 writing lesson. -Finish updating website Later goals/to do -Video record a lesson for teachers for our upcoming PLT Any other suggestions for use of technology in the classroom!?
Video of students working on STEM lesson. This is both my first time creating a video lesson and the first time my students have completed a video recorded lesson. Still looking for ways to make this better!
We just had a collaboration day about Technology and the things we are going to do in our classrooms for Friday, our schools Technology day! There are so many cool tools out there to help students learn! The kindergarten team is going to video tape our students teaching a lesson. Each teacher chose different content and we will break up our content into 5-6 lessons (for the small groups in our classrooms). Once we are finished we will all post our videos to a shared blendspace so we can ALL access the videos! We will each record 5-6 videos but we will end up with around 25+ videos of content all created by students! Blendspace is a website I learned about that crates a mosaic of videos that you can choose right there through the search. For example, one of my blendspace lessons are letters, so I searched letter videos on blendspace and was able to create a mosaic of songs about each letter of the alphabet! I also have blendspace lessons for sight words, math songs, digraphs and blending, brainbreaks and many more! Here is an app I came across when I got home later that night and spent my whole night technology surfing on the web! Oh the life of a teacher! :) The colAR app is an app where you can download images off of their website for students to color and then when you open the app and hold your device over the colored image, it comes to life on the app! It becomes an interactive 3D image on thedevice . I think I am going to use this in our class for one of our writing assignments. I will let the students color the hot air balloon image I downloaded for FREE from the colAR website. We have just had Dr. Seuss week at our school so I will use the colored hot air balloons on their lockers and then use another app, Aurasma (below) to show a video of students writing and the "Places they wills go". They will write & then read about what they want to be when they grow up and their goals for the future! This app looks so fun! A co-worker showed me this app. She linked up locker name tags with videos of here students using the Aurasma app. Here is a video I found that explains Aurasma better than I can explain it. I'm thinking of using this app for my library corner. Students will open the app, point it towards the book they want to read and then I will pop up reading the story to the student! I would like to see if just my voice could be on there so that way students are still looking at the words and images on the page as I am reading, even when I am not actually there! I would also like to record my students reading their reading series! I would also like to do this with some of our vocab. words. They can point the device towards the vocab. word and then see an example as well as the definition of the word. Another app I learned about was Plickers. This is a quick assessment app where each student gets an answer card that has choice A, B, C or D around the outside edges. Students turn the card to hold up the correct answer. The teacher uses their device to take a picture of the cards and the answers are automatically recorded. This saves time with grading and can work as a quick exit slip to see if yes, students understand or no, students need more practice with the content we practiced that day. Similar to Plickers is Kahoot. This is a website where you will create a list of multiple choice questions and students, on their own devices, will click the correct corresponding answer. The trick with this one is that all students need a device, but it is much more kid friendly than Plickers. My students LOVED Kahoot, we just have to rent out schools laptop cart to use it. Oh my goodness do my students LOVE GoNoodle. This is a brainbreak website with tons of videos already there and safe for students! There are also videos for indoor recess! Every time you watch a video you get a point and your end up building characters! My students love to watch these characters take shape and every time we finish one we print them and start a new character! If you don't use GoNoodle I highly suggest it! I have learned so many col technology tips in the last year that my head overflowing with ideas and things I would like to do and try out in the classroom!! I will continue to post these as I learn more and more! :) |
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