I have been teaching in the same fifth grade classroom for the past three years. Every year I stay in the same place, the more new ideas I am ready to try. The first year in a classroom, I am focused on just seeing how the book has everything laid out to teach. Then after that, it is easier to jump off of those ideas onto activities and teaching methods that I think will be of a greater benefit to the kids.
Working on my Masters through Wilkes has opened me up to a number of ideas that I would not have found without it. Here are some examples of things I have tried because of past classes.
S'more for Math: I love math songs. I originally would just Google them, search on You Tube every time I needed them, or email myself the link and pull it up before class started, but I like having them ready for the kids to look at. They can play them at home and I can mash it up with some instruction and skills based games. It is a bonus that it looks neat too.
I started using edmodo after it was introduced in a class. This has been a great tool to connect with students.
I have ventured into making movies with my classes, and some small groups have chosen that as an option for a performance. We just watched a reader's theater the kids did in class along with this PSA I made for my 510 course.
In Social Studies I have used Tic Tac Toe boards that I created in a class for Wilkes and I have been slowly improving.
My next great Social Studies idea is a video that I found that shows natives that have never met a white man before. I find it so remarkable that not only are there tribes that have no contact with the outside world, but that their first contact was recent enough to tape. I will show the beginning part of this from YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyHYbsXt05k
Some of my other idea have just come from working with my teaching team and brain storming together. Together we have created great hands on projects. We challenge each other and point out pitfalls when we see them and support each other when none of us do. It is great to work on a supportive team. I did share the Snipping Tool on the computer, I didn't know it was there until a few weeks ago, that was a great find.
Then there are the things I have stumbled on. I have followed endless streams of random clicks that have ended on great sites like Fakebook, where I will have the students create a journal for an explorer. Here is my example that is not nearly as polished as what I want the students to have when they are complete.Columbus
From the same site: http://www.superteachertools.com/ I have also made games for vocabulary. I hadn't been encouraging students to use the games and a student come up and asked me to update the set for the most recent lesson. It was a great reminder that even if I am not actively telling them to use a tool, if it is good they will ask to be able to use it.
For everything that I have found and I have learned about, I am overwhelmed by all the new things I haven't even heard of. I will miss the support of fellow grad students at Wilkes when classes are done, but I am looking forward to being able to focus on using the tools I have learned about. http://www.symbaloo.com/ seems very cool, but I haven't had the free time to dig into it the way I need to to understand it.
The challenges of being the first one to try something in my building is the push back from students and parents. I have heard a number of "They never had to do this before." and "Why do they have to do THIS." Projects that I have given that have a technical piece to them have been a source of frustration to parents who are unfamiliar with technology. If mom and dad don't know what a URL is, it is hard for them to help a struggling child copy it into an email so that I can see a finished product. I had this issue last year with the Fakebook project. I have found a way to model what I want and how to use the site in class for 3 days before I have the students work on it at home. I am hoping it will be a smoother run. In the end the kids LOVED the project, but tears were shed before they got to that point. My fingers are crossed for a tear free run this time around.
I have found that while my students know how to play games, they do not know how to do some basic needs from their personal technology. They do not know how to print, or where to find their pictures on their iPod once they are plugged into a computer. They do not know how to properly save a file. They do not know how to type and without that skill, there are a number of online or with computer projects that take forever for them to P...I....C.......K O.U......T all the letters.
Despite the pitfalls I have found or stumbled into backwards over the past few years, I love using technology to reach my students and I am excited to learn something, or an overwhelming number of somethings in the next seven weeks. I already know what my first curiosity is- interactive textbooks-WHAT! That could be what I needed next in my life.
-Chris Lopez
Hi Chris!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you about your willingness to incorporate new ideas into the classroom now that you have some more experience. I feel the same way. My first year, I was just trying to get through the list of everything they wanted me to teach! I probably didn’t do as good of a job incorporating new technologies as I could have. Now, I am much more willing to try new things since I have the curriculum down.
I can relate to your frustrations with your students not knowing how to do certain things when using the computer. Since I teach Computer, I will have students who think they know everything and anything about computers but in reality, they don’t even know how to save a document correctly. It’s amazing to me to discover all of the things these self-proclaimed “whizzes” don’t know how to do!
I have similar frustrations with parents. They often tell me how they can’t wait to learn from their child because they don’t know anything about technology. A lot of times, the parents will tell me that their child knows more than they do! As teachers, we want to incorporate so many different new, cool technologies but it is difficult to use them to the fullest if parents can’t copy a URL! I hope your classroom runs smoother this year in that respect!
It has been really nice to “meet” you! I look forward to working with you throughout the class. ☺
I suppose the most accurate thing to say is that it is good that kids are the same in multiple locations. Then, as teachers, we can plan for it. If we know that they all need to learn certain skills, we can teach them and not feel like we are overdoing a simple topic. The internet and technology are complex. They are like Othello, "a minute to learn but a lifetime to master."
DeleteHi Chris,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your video and Smore. I will, at some point, put together a video to share on my blog.
With technology, I found that students are good with computers on the surface. If you dig deep, students are lost. When reviewing websites, I find students go with the first choice that pops up during a Google search. I do my best to open up students to different search engines but the students fall back into old habits. I gave an assignment where students needed to look up information on the internet about their school. To help students get into a deeper search for material on the internet, no research results could include a .com or .net website. Students were forced to look at other domains. It was an eye opening lesson for the class. It is a lesson I will fine tune and bring back next semester.
Ruth
My first year teaching 5th, I wanted the kids to do an explorer report. I put hours in at home finding websites that I trusted at home and made active links for each one while I was at home. We get into the computer lab on the first day and the links are blocked by the district firewall. I panicked. I have two of my gifted students help me find new links that actually work to replace all the broken ones. They find this website http://allaboutexplorers.com/ and start putting up links. The other students are working on their research. They start asking me things like, "Was Amerigo Vespucci really born in America." At the time I just took a quick look at the site, said this must have been made by students and moved on to mroe reliable sites, frustrated even more. This summer I was making a Diigo and I wanted to find some things to improve my Explorer unit. I found the http://allaboutexplorers.com/ site again, but I started from the homepage. The whole site is designed to show students that they can not trust everything that is on the internet. Just because it is pretty and looks trustworthy doesn't mean it is. They have whole lesson plans on picking out the errors. It was a palm to forehead moment of, so that is what was going on. I haven't figure out how I want to use the site this year, but I would like to.
ReplyDeleteChris,
ReplyDeleteAs a former fashion designer, congratulations on making your own clothing in your spare time. I like designing not sewing. Perhaps that comes from having to do clothing alterations when I got out of college. It was one of my 3 jobs. When I worked at Tommy Hilfiger, we were always onto the next thing so I still have that super fast timeline in my head. I would imagine you enjoy the process of making the garment like I like making art. Photography is a way of expression and a tool of the trade for me so I understand your love of it. I know it is a total surprise but I love crafts, too. Creating a useful work of art is where it's at. Your use of S'more is impressive. Is it easy? School blocked my Diigolet so I am back to bookmarks and History. My essential Pinterest is always available. Ok confession. I signed up for Edmudo and never did it. 600 students where do I start? Symbaloo, Ditto on what you said. I will have to check out http://www.superteachertools.com/ . Your tic tac toe board is fabulous. Mine had lots of great stuff but I will never have access to tools I need for an entire class especially seeing them once a week.Thanks for giving me so much to think about (my technology deficiencies) and great resources. Honestly such an in-depth, rich post.I look forward to learning together.
Valerie York
Valerie,
DeleteIn full disclosure, I grew up in a very creative household. My mother is an artist and my father created with word in radio advertising. I really don't think that I have decided what I want to be when I grow up. I love teaching and I have put a lot into being a teacher. I think I can happily teach for next 10-20 years, but teaching is only part of what I do. I also spend a large amount of time volunteering for both scouts (where I do a number of crafts, art, and organizing events) and my boy's school track team as a coach, and I have been shooting weddings for a professional wedding photographer for the past 5 years. As my major role in scouting has an end in sight and these graduate classes are wrapping up for me, I did finally put together my website for photography at clophotos.smugmug.com . This website was relatively easy to put together, but it took me roughly 40 hours to do.
I do only have 60 students, and I only actively use Edmodo with the 40 not in my homeroom about 3 times a year. That smaller number of students helps me focus and keep it together. I do use it in waves. We will use it more right now as I will have them submit the Fakebook pages online.
I always find it helpful to see what teachers are actually doing with different tools. My hope is that after classes are done I will develop deeper roots with different tools because I have the time to put into them.
Another note, the Tic Tac Toe was originally matched with 9 different technology tools which I had to give up to projects the kids could do on paper because of a lack of technology available in my elementary school currently. They are working towards more technology, but it is slow going.
I love learning from creative types, it should be a fun 6 more weeks.
Nice intro Chris,
ReplyDeleteGreat examples of ideas you've found and explored and implemented. Just curious, can you attribute any of those to specific people?
The ideas are all mine. What professor prompted me to look at the tools? That has been lost in the soup of my mind. The Smore website was introduced to me by Trace Blazosky in EDIM 508, which was just this summer. Some of what I have above is directly linked to original creators. Like the Smore links directly to 2 songs that I did not write or perform.
Delete