October is Busy but Fun!

 (Photo Credit: @FriedrichLaurie)

I'm a bit behind in posting. Life is busy as a mom, teacher, and wife to someone else with a very busy job this time of year! I've enjoyed the work I've done for my tech class and I even got to present at my first tech conference yesterday which was so much fun. I felt like I walked away with so many ideas that I have to sift through them all to decide which one I'm doing first and how I'm going to get funding for the rest of them. It seems like I always walk away from tech conferences eager to buy ALL THE THINGS! It's just so exciting to see the possibilities and to be around others with the same excitement. It's very motivating.

I'll start with a few things I've already done.

I went to Common Sense Media and found the K-2 curriculum. I'm always great about getting technology in the hands of students but I admit I'm not great about preparing them for internet safety outside of my 4 classroom walls so I was happy to have some guidance on how to do so. We watched the "My Online Neighborhood" video on internet safety, discussed it using the provided prompts, and took a virtual field trip to a pumpkin patch that I found on youtube. The kids loved it! After the lesson my students wrote about internet safety. We're in the first quarter of kindergarten so their writing was "______ is safe for me." They each told me what was safe for them (app, website, etc.) and then they drew a picture to match and shared it with their group. The kids loved being able to write about their favorite apps and websites. A few common mentions were minecraft, starfall.com, pbskids, and the Teach Your Monster To Read app. A few mentioned Netflix so we talked about how Netflix is usually safe but it's best to talk to your families about what shows are appropriate for kids to watch and they all agreed that they would continue getting parent permission before watching. I was pleasantly surprised at how fun it was talking to the kids about being safe online. I saved all of the information to be used again next year and I plan to do a few other lessons from Common Sense Media in my classroom as time permits this year.

Yesterday I got to present at the TechEdge conference. I presented on using iPads as tools in the classroom rather than strictly as toys as many kids see them. I just called it "Tools not Toys" because I'm bridging that gap for kindergartners. Many of them have never used an iPad for another other than entertainment. If you'd like to see the powerpoint that I presented with click here. I also had a little handout with a few apps that I reference in the presentation that you can get here.

Next up - Flipping my classroom! I've wanted to do this for a while but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I have some great ideas but I'll have to narrow it down to one and start there.

Until then, I'll leave you with my favorite tweet from my session at the TechEdge conference.

He's right. Even if you don't have a lot of technology you can still do a lot with it. That's a great reminder for all of us. It's in the QUALITY, not in the QUANTITY.

Thanks, @mrbalcom!