Technology for Individual Intervention

(photo source)

I have "my standard" technology integration that I use each day but my integration definitely gets more fun as the year goes on and we have more to work on and the apps can lend themselves to being a bit more self directed practice with the whole group. This class has made me think about what else I could do or what I could do differently. We're still highly focusing on letter identification and sounds so I decided that I'll look for something to enhance my instruction in that area.

My first stop was on ipadapps4school.com. I searched for "beginning sounds" and a list popped up. The graphics on Teach Your Monster To Read on the iPad caught my eye. They are cute monsters which I can see appealing to both boys and girls. I watched the promo video and it looks like exactly what I need. I then searched graphite.org to see what they had to say about it. Graphite gave it 4/5 stars. I paid my $5 and got it downloaded it. I played with it a little bit at home and was happy with what I was seeing so I downloaded it on my kid iPads and introduced it in class. The kids got to see me play it a little and then I let them take a couple of turns. At literacy work stations the children were using the app which I was pleased to see. I also used it during choice time to support one little girl who needed extra help and practice. She is usually a pretty serious little girl but I saw her smiling and happy while using this app to practice her letter S and the sound. I love play based intervention becuase children don't feel like I'm drilling and killing them. They're happy to practice and I don't feel like I'm taking away all of their play time. I'm just giving them a more structured play under my supervision and with my feedback. We all win!
 

A Peek at My Week

                                                                                                                       (photo source)

At the beginning of kindergarten I'm running a million miles an hour just to get kids ready to be in school. I have to teach them how to be a student before I can teach them content. Later in the year I like to let kids use the ipad and lead their own learning while I am there to facilitate and support.  For now it's a lot more teacher led but I do have some technology in use because that's my comfort zone.

Two of my primary uses for technology in these beginning days is for projection of student work. After children have completed their writing we oftentimes share our work on the projector while students tell about their stories. It is highly motivating for children to get work done and to do it well when they know it's going to be shown to the whole class. Students like seeing their work larger than life and using the teacher pointer to tell about their picture.

The other main way we use technology is during math. We do lots and lots of  great hands on math exploration with our Math Expressions. I love going around and snapping pictures of student work. I oftentimes take pictures of different ways to represent the same idea and flip back and forth between the pictures to compare and contrast. If I have time I will push those pictures through PicStitch or another app that allows for multiple pictures in any multitude of arrangements. This way kids can see more than one example at a time and talk about them them. With 5 year-olds being so concrete it's wonderful to be able to project their work in a large scale so everyone can see exactly what's being explained. And once again, children are so excited to see their work displayed on the screen and the pride they take in explaining it is wonderful to see.

Some of the other ways I use technology are good but not as interactive as the previous examples. I almost exclusively use the online content for our Reading Wonders curriculum and I run it via iPad. I am running it on my own for the time being but I like the freedom it gives me to be anywhere in the room. I'm not stuck behind a computer or at the front of the room. I've actually made a conscious effort to teach from the back of the room so that the learning space belongs to the students because it is about them and not about me.


Another lesser way that I use technology is via youtube on my iPad. We use lots of various educational videos on a number of topics that we've found on youtube. My current favorite is HeidiSongs. We have used her high frequency word videos for a few months now but her newer classroom management songs are a favorite of mine as well as my students. My current playlist is here if you're interested. Or if you'd like to poke around and see what HeidiSongs has available you can find that here.

Grad School, Nerd Style

I'm starting grad school. Again. Or still? This class is a workshop for technology in the classroom. Sounds perfect.

In our first meeting we talked about a few different apps we can use to present information as the teacher or for the students. Of course you find one app and someone mentions another app that they like and 30 minutes later you're down a giant rabbit hole. A fabulous, nerdy rabbit hole, but a rabbit hole none the less.

A couple that I'm getting excited to get my hands on are HaikuDeck that the instructor presented and Slate which is apparently an Adobe product. It's pretty simple but it puts it together to look pretty fancy. I can see kindergartners getting pretty excited about it. I'm thinking it might be a good way for me to post pictures of student math work so we can EASILY go back the next day and students can remember where our discussion left off. Plus, they can see several examples of ways children solved a problem all at once so they can easily reference each example during discussions.

I'm trying to decide where to go next. I feel like I have a pretty good system of technology integration going, but we're on year 3 (or 4?) of the same thing and it's time for me to UPDATE! In a couple of years we'll be getting iPads 1:1 so I'm looking to ramp up a bit so when we go 1:1 that aspect is an even easier for me.

One goal for this year that I've set for myself is to figure out how to do a flipped lesson AND ACTUALLY DO IT! I've been super fascinated with the idea of a flipped classroom ever since my buddy Jason did it several years ago. He did it in 4th grade and I was never confident that my efforts would be worth it for kindergartners. I'm confident now. With the added cushion of a university instructor, I've totally got this.

Another goal I have for myself is to get kids publishing their writing. Technology is so motivating to kids and I feel like I have lots of room to grow in the Motivating Kids in Writing category. Of course the next step is to use technology to motivate children in the area of writing.

I was asked to have 3 goals for this semester. At this time I have 2 solid goals. My third goal is to help others on my team become more comfortable with technology and to be a resource to them. The only problem with this goal is that their devices were purchased with Title 1 dollars and when their devices are going to show up is anybody's guess. If they don't show up then I'll designate another goal. It seems like the more that I learn the more I realize I don't know. If I were to choose an alternate third goal now I worry I'd run across something that really excites me but I wouldn't dive in to it as fully as I would if I were able to designate it as my goal. I'll keep you all updated on that part.

I'm going to write about myself for my classmates. It's was suggested and lets face it, I'm pretty good about talking about me.

I teach kindergarten at a Title 1 school. I absolutely love technology and have spent lots of my own money to get my classroom closer to where I want it to be as far as technology goes. I love ELL and experimented with team teaching with our ELL teacher last year for all of 2nd semester. I learned a lot about teaching English Language Learners and found that a little time spent preparing visuals on  google slides to support ELL students saved me lots of class time and strengthened understanding.

My husband handles all of the digital stuff for the Huskers. He and I are both very "connected" with our technology and use the tools available frequently. The same goes for our kids even though they're using it more as a consumer than as a tool. My son Owen (8) is very interested in youtube and has made a few videos. I was planning to link them up here but in doing so I realized he deleted all but one of his videos from his youtube channel when the memory on his iPad was getting low. I cried and then we had a long talk about not deleting without mom or dad as well as the difference between items being stored on your device and those being stored on the cloud.

Here's my family this past spring on the capitol lawn. Or maybe it was this past summer? Either way, we took thses ourselves with a wireless shutter button. You'll notice you'll only ever see one of Kelly's hands at any point in time. The other has the shutter! I have to say, it takes a little longer to set up when you are your own photographer, but the stress level of making the kids be good for someone else is a million times easier. I'm never hiring a photographer again. I love making technology do the work for me!