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!