Category: Uncategorized

Personally, I think the implementation of Genius Hour is a wonderful way to have them find their own learning path and strategies that can help them succeed with limited frustration.  Every student learns differently and utilizes different tools that can benefit during instruction, collaboration with peers, and independent learning time.  Genius Hour provides them the time to locate these resources and tools.  

One of the benefits of Genius Hour is that it allows students to explore their own creativity and learn about how to problem solve independently.  These skills are very important to teach at a young age because curriculums are now steering towards more “Why” and “How” questions that use higher order thinking skills.  Another benefit is that Genius Hour encourages students to be more independent in their learning.  We always want our students to request for assistance, but this time will teach students to search for answers on their own before asking for help.  Finally, students can become more familiar with additional resources and tools that they can demonstrate their understanding.  Our district uses so many different resources, but we do not have the time or professional development sessions to teach students how to use them.  

One hurdle I see happening is how I can convince our administrators that this would be appropriate for our students.  Even if we had it once a week, it would be good to see if data improved and move on from there.  Our curriculum minutes allow for no additional time, but even if we had it during our morning meeting time or beginning of ELA would be beneficial. Another hurdle I see is making sure that our elementary students do have a beginning path so that they do not steer away from what the targeted goal is.  Our students do have a tendency to lose focus quickly and go on to games.  One of the first things I would want to teach them is that there are so many other resources we have access to other than games.  

Overall, I think that Genius Hour would be a wonderful time for elementary students to begin searching new ways of learning and strategies that can help them inside the classroom.

Twitter can be a very effective PLN to ask questions, connect with people all over the world, and share resources.  However, it is important to use this tool appropriately and not as your only source of information.  Below are some pros and cons of using Twitter as a PLN:

Pros For Using Twitter

1. Connect with people from all over the world.  This connection can help build on prior background knowledge.

2. Share resources and tools that have been successfully used in your classroom.

3. Easy to navigate and accessibility can be from any mobile device on the go.  

4. Receive feedback on ways to differentiate a lesson for a specific topic.

5. Twitter chats are available for those that have information to share or want to increase knowledge on an unfamiliar topic. 

Cons For Using Twitter

1. People may be more inclined to share subjective feedback, when you are in search of data of what was successful.

2.  Anybody can make an account! You may not be talking to who you think you are.

3.  Responses to questions may not go into great detail. 

4. Your statements and questions are public for everyone to see.

5. Social media can become very addicting and time consuming, which could steer away from the use of current curriculum resources.

Twitter can really help educators grow by the exposure of what strategies and resources other teachers have used in their classrooms.  Twitter is a great way to learn from one another, and I think that Twitter chats can really allow people to share their real world connections.  As an educator, I am always searching for new ways to engage my students and Twitter allows me to connect with other educators to increase my knowledge and professional growth.

At the beginning of the pandemic, our district was faced with the challenge of what tool would be most effective for their staff and students during online learning.  Since we incorporate Google G Suite tools into our instruction, they decided to have us use Google Meet.  In the beginning, the biggest challenge was discovering how to use this tool.  Our district had to put together very quick professional development sessions to teach us how we can teach in this new type of environment. 

Once we got started, I thought that Google Meet was very easy to navigate and use as our platform for live online teaching.  It was very simple to add students to specific breakout rooms and as a teacher, it was easy to switch back and forth between these breakout rooms to support my students.  I found that it was very easy to share screens and teach students to share their screens to check their work.  I did notice that some of my students struggled with using the chat feature appropriately, but once I was able to learn how to turn that feature on/off during instruction, it made it a lot easier.  Unlike most people, I do not have a lot of experience with Zoom, but have loved using Google Meets since we started using it in the classrooms.  

Flickr is a wonderful resource that allows users to upload and view photographs in either a public or private setting. I can see many uses at the secondary level for Flickr, especially when our technology department offers photo journalism and editing classes.  Our secondary students have many more resources and equipment available to them, but there are many ways I could still use Flickr in my elementary classroom. 

Creative Writing – Have students locate a picture that they can use as a setting for a story.  Students will use the detailed colors within the images to add descriptions to their setting.  This is one thing we continue working with our 5th graders.  We want them to be able to add vivid details to paint a clear picture in the reader’s head.

Photo Scavenger Hunt – On our annual field trip to Philadelphia, we take a tour of some of the most historical landmarks in the city.  I could provide students with a checklist of what photos they need to find and add them to their slideshow. This is the reasoning for the Robert Morris photo.  This statue is one of the stops of our field trip

Calming Area – Different media have been a wonderful resource for calming in my classroom.  As a former Emotional Support teacher, I have used sounds and images to help students find peace, relaxation, and an escape from being overwhelmed or frustrated.  This has led to many behaviors being deescalated within the classroom and Flickr is a wonderful way to continue that for all my students.  Students can find photos that they find relaxing and a way to help with anxiety and focus.

R’lyeh Imaging. (2011, May 21). Philadelphia. Flickr. https://flic.kr/p/9KFNCb

Today, I cannot imagine an educational environment where teachers and students do not collaborate with each other.  The idea of everyone sharing their knowledge in a collaborative environment does affect the teaching and learning in the classroom.  Every teacher and student have different background knowledge on specific topics and can make unique real-world connections to the lessons.  I learn a lot from the teachers I work with everyday! We share experiences that we are then able to incorporate into our lessons to allow for better learning experiences.  The idea of collaborative teaching allows us to create a more authentic learning experience for our students.  

Can it be very time consuming differentiating these collaborative learning experiences based on students’ backgrounds? Absolutely! But the learning experience will be more meaningful and students will be more engaged throughout the lesson. Students can benefit from working with one another inside the classroom.  The knowledge they gain from one another is incredible! All of my students are always willing to share their background knowledge and make connections with their peers.  

Outside of the classroom, when I think of collaboration I think of a group of people in an office working on a project together.  That is one of the biggest reasons I am all for bringing collaboration into the classrooms. We want to prepare our students for their future careers! The activities and lessons we incorporate collaborative opportunities are the stepping stones for them in the future.  This will allow them to become better presenters, activate additional background knowledge they learn from their peers, and work better with one another.  Collaboration is one of the most important successful ways of teaching and learning inside the classroom.

I chose this specific lesson plan, because this is definitely one of the skills my students struggle with. My students have a difficult time remembering the strategies they have been taught and how to implement them in the problems. I chose Pinterest because I feel that my students have binders of math resources, but could use an online resource to pin all their popular strategies. By connecting this struggling skill and a social bookmarking site like Pinterest, I can provide my students with resources at their fingertips. They can also share the resources with peers that helped them the most during the lesson.

I see a couple major advantages and disadvantages that will happen as a result of this revised lesson. The first advantage is that my students will have easy online access to their resources. This has always been a concern of mine with students continually losing resources in their binders. Another advantage is that this opens up for additional peer collaborations. Students can work through the resources they have to help students that may be struggling with the skill. Students can share resources that may have been helpful to them in the past.

One disadvantage I predict is that students may identify resources that have not been modeled yet. On Pinterest, people identify the strategies that work for them, but that not be a strategy our curriculum is teaching our students at their grade level. This is important because our curriculum tests strategies and not always the ability to find an answer. Another disadvantage is that I need to ensure that my students know how to properly use Pinterest. At the elementary level, this could take a lot of modeling. Students need to understand that it is only to be used for educational resources and not personal use.

Title: Everything You Can Do with Messages to Communicate and Collaborate with Your Entire School Community

Author: Seesaw

Location: https://web.seesaw.me/blog-archive/messages-to-communicate-and-collaborate-with-your-entire-school-community

Relevance/Summary: Seesaw thrives in allowing the communication between students, teachers, and families.  The teacher is able to set the privacy level for how much of their classwork can be shared, and who they can communicate with on the platform.  

This article talks about all the different ways people can communicate with each other on Seesaw.  Teachers are able to send announcements to all or some of the students that may need extra motivation or reminders of an assignment being due.  The teacher has the ability to set replies on/off for messages for any assignment.  “From asking a question to sharing an exciting discovery at home, students have a space where they can ask for help, take ownership of their progress, and build strong relationships with their teacher. By default, students can start a private conversation with the teachers in their classes. Of course, teachers can start them, too” (Seesaw, 2023). 

Seesaw allows students to translate their text into over 100 languages.  This helps teachers that need to message families that speak a different language at home.  In my opinion, I think that the student messaging system is the biggest benefit to Seesaw.  Students can communicate with other classrooms in their district or across the country.  This opens up the collaboration to higher levels! Students can make real-world connections with different students and build on prior background knowledge. 

Teachers can collaborate with teachers by sending pictures, videos, or text to other teachers on the progress of a student.  As a special education teacher, this would be beneficial for all my students on my caseload that see related services or reading specialists for additional support.

Seesaw. (2023, February 17). Everything you can do with messages to communicate and collaborate with your entire school community. Seesaw. https://web.seesaw.me/blog-archive/messages-to-communicate-and-collaborate-with-your-entire-school-community 

Title: Using Seesaw in the Classroom

Author: Holly Hodges

Location: https://www.research-and-play.com/2018/11/using-seesaw-in-the-classroom-a-how-to-guide.html

Relevance/Summary: One of the brightest spots of incorporating Seesaw into your classroom is the ability to have peers collaborate on assignments.  Whether you are in an online classroom or face-to-face learning environment, Seesaw allows students to work together on the same classwork.  In Seesaw, teachers can assign students their work and differentiated assignments can be assigned to those struggling with a skill.  Teachers can easily add students to groups so that they can work with each other. 

The article, Using Seesaw in the Classroom, gives readers an outline of how we can implement Seesaw into our classrooms. Teachers are able to fully customize their page and control the privacy and implementation of Seesaw.  Students are able to work individually, in small groups, or in whole group settings.  Students are able to upload different media to demonstrate their understanding of a skill. “I use Seesaw for counting collections and small group instruction. During counting collections (their hands-on rotation), students count their collection, check their count by using a strategy, then write the total. Then, they use an iPad to take a picture of their count and record themselves explaining the process. I have coached them through this process for about a month, and now they are independently recording themselves without my prompting” (Hodges, 2018). 

Another way we can have students collaborate with one another is during their language arts block.  On Seesaw, students can collaborate with one another on strategies to remember their vocabulary words.  Seesaw saves all student data and it allows students and teachers to see the progress they are making throughout the school year.

Hodges, H. (n.d.). Using seesaw in the classroom: A how-to guide, research and play. Research and Play. https://www.research-and-play.com/2018/11/using-seesaw-in-the-classroom-a-how-to-guide.html 

Title: Build Relationships and Engage Students With Seesaw

Author: Edtechawesomeness

Location: https://edtechawesomeness.com/2018/08/13/build-relationships-and-engage-students-with-seesaw/

Relevance/Summary: Seesaw is a web tool that allows students to collaborate with peers, both inside their classroom and in other classes, and with their teachers.  Every student has a digital portfolio that allows them to collect and reflect on their classwork throughout the school year.  Students can share their digital portfolio with their peers and teachers to open up collaborative opportunities.  This type of sharing allows students to communicate on one another’s classwork and progress.Appropriate feedback can elevate student confidence and engage them to put forth their best effort.

This article outlines the benefits of student engagement and collaboration within Seesaw.  Seesaw. “ Seesaw gives students powerful creative tools to capture their learning but it doesn’t stop there. Once students have added materials to their online journal, those learning moments are then shared with their teachers and even more importantly, their families” (Edtechawesomeness, 2018). Seesaw connects individuals with other students, teachers, and their families.  It allows all parties to see the progress of themselves, peers, or family members.  This allows the instructor and families to better work together on skills a student may be struggling with.

The article goes into detail about the many benefits of Seesaw and how educators make the decision on the privacy of their students’ accounts.  This opens up the ability for students to collaborate with one another, leave appropriate feedback, and build connections with each other. As an elementary educator, this is my primary goal! I want my students to build on prior background knowledge and make connections with one another.  Seesaw allows my students to do this in all assignments uploaded.

Edtechawesomeness. (2018, August 14). Build relationships and engage students with seesaw. EdTech Awesomeness. https://edtechawesomeness.com/2018/08/13/build-relationships-and-engage-students-with-seesaw/ 

Before this module, I never heard of RSS.  Now that I have read more about its benefits, I feel that this could be beneficial to my professional development inside and outside of the classroom.  I love how all I need to do is search for a specific topic and subscribe to related blogs very quickly.  I found it very easy to put my classmates’ blogs in my subscriptions.  Now I can access all of them without having to find them in the discussion boards.  The five blogs I found in the Old Reader really helped me discover new ways to make my classroom a more authentic and engaging learning environment for my students.

5th Grade Rocks, 5th Grade Rules

This blog provides teachers, students, and families with a variety of resources that can be helpful inside and outside of the classroom.  The blog provides engaging activities that are aligned with 5th grade standards that can be used in a variety of ways.  These activities would be wonderful ways for my students to practice a specific skill at home.  In the classroom, I could use some of these engaging activities in my centers that students do weekly.  

5th Grade Chalk Talk

I chose this blog because it provides differentiation strategies for students in the math classrooms.  Even though this blog is older, I still found some wonderful ideas I can incorporate into my instruction.  This blog offers some great resources students can use on their own technology devices. This teacher shows the different setups in her classroom and how she makes it a welcoming environment.  This is something I need to work on better! I want to start changing the setup of my classroom multiple times throughout the school year.

Diary of a 5th Grade Teacher

I chose this blog because it opened my eyes to new ways to assess my students.  By creating more authentic formative assessments, students would be more engaged to put forth their best effort.  It also talked about technologies that can be used for whole group discussions and how Padlet is an amazing tool for student engagement.  I love Padlet and have been using it in my classroom for a couple of years.  The students always seem engaged when adding to our Padlet boards and commenting on their peers.  This has sparked some small group and whole group discussions.

4th and 5th Grade Happiness

Wow! This blog was awesome! I loved the creative activities that kept the students engaged.  This blog provided instructions and pictures on the final product.  I definitely want to have a more creative environment inside the classroom and these ideas are a great starting point.  I never thought about having sheets over their desks to have them read in a “tent.” These ideas were simply amazing and I cannot wait to implement them in my classroom.

Special Education Strategies and More…

I chose this blog because it offers a variety of special education activities and strategies for students at the younger ages.  I hope to move down to the primary grades in the future and this website offers some wonderful resources I can use.  This blog provides teachers with ways they can differentiate activities for struggling learners and how it worked for her students.  I look forward to using these resources in the future.