Facing My Fear...

This week I did something that was up there on my top fear list - I presented at a staff meeting. Speaking to kids is easy, but adults are another ball game...

What was I sharing? The Nowboard! 

In case you don't know, the Nowboard is a little camera and magic wand that makes any flat surface (ie. a projector screen) into an interactive whiteboard.

For the past 2 years I've had it in my classroom. Last year my new principal came in for an observation, saw me use it, and from there ordered one per grade level. So it was my job to show it off. 

I use it for a bunch of stuff in class... 

Brain Pop Quizzes

Playing center games (example Internet 4 Classrooms)

Working on IXL full class

Highlighting passages on K12reader or any reading comprehension thing...

Putting up our math text (we have it online through Think Central) and doing the problems.

Using a typed paragraph and practicing rainbow edit. 

The list goes on and on...

My class 2 years ago had a technology fundraiser in the spring and we raised the money for the Nowboard. We didn't raise quite enough, so my principal at the time used some special EIA money to cover the rest. 

Do you also have a Nowboard?  

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Student Motivation: Technology!

It's that time again - linking up with Joanne over at Head Over Heels for Teaching to share the biggest motivation in my classroom these days.  

THE IPAD...

Everyday during silent reading and then again during workshop, there is a big silence as I announce whose turn it will be.  

The person chosen must have all their work completed to be able to take their turn.  

They must be on green or higher.

It's a big deal.  

Of course the wireless in my classroom hasn't been working lately (at all this year), so the only thing they can really do on the ipad are the many FREE apps I have found and uploaded.  

The front page (not shown) is all the basic stuff that I use in the classroom - the timer, class dojo, camera, etc...  Then it gets into the fun stuff.  I started out putting them into folders with the different subjects, but a bunch of folders isn't exactly eye catching.

So I moved the folders to their own pages, and started unpacking them.  Some of them have been mixed up, but mainly the first student page right now is Reading/Grammar/Spelling...

The next page is mainly all math.

Then the 3rd student page is Social Studies and Science...

And the fourth page continues on...

I haven't bought any apps yet.  It's all free stuff that my students are eating up.

The kids know they are all educational apps - that they will only get educational stuff from me.  They are loving the choices.  Right now it works out to being 1 or 2 students that get a chance during silent reading time (12-15 minutes), and then another 2-3 during workshop at the end of the day.  So yes, it's taking more than a week to get through everyone, but we're making due (and the kids aren't whining).  

Between the Ipad (skills), the nowboard (whole class), the 9 mp3 players (listening centers), the Kindle Fire (free kid books), and the 2 microphones (fluency), the classroom is a busy technological place.  :)  Love it!   

Also, wanted to shout out a STUPENDOUS Freebie over at Fifth in the Middle and Where the Wild Things Learn.  Everyone wins today!  

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Monday Made It

Tis Monday, time to link up with Tara with this week's Monday Made it.  

 This week I printed a ton, then laminated, and cut it all out during a movie and 2 TV shows.  I also made a ton of new products that I'm excited about, here they are again. :)  

But the newest thing that I "made" I actually have to give credit to my husband for.  I got a new laptop yesterday and I wanted to make it mine... meaning girly.  So I changed out the desktop and screen saver, and then I made a comment to my husband that I would love to change my folders on the desktop into something more "me".  He googled folders for mac, found the directions, clicked some random buttons, and under my supervising eye changed out my initial folders into cute landscape images.  Then we went a step further and color coded the folders with the different images.  So here is how my laptop looks now.

We found the images over at Icon Archive.  Aren't they pretty?  I'm loving the fact that they aren't the basic blue anymore.  I'm also loving that I don't have a screen full of stuff at the moment... I still have to organize a ton of files into all the specific resources, but that will come in time.   

I hope you have a great day!  I'm off to play more on my new computer.  :)  

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Technology Central!!

I think this is what an ulcer might feel like. My stress levels are out the roof and I'm considering running away. You see my husband received a promotion on his first day at a new job. That was this past Tuesday... Tuesday seems forever ago... Anyhow he was bumped up from 20 hours to 40 and became station manager... So basically a ton of responsibility.  It's a great opportunity. I just have no clue about where our almost 3 year old will be watched in the mornings / by whom / where??? So many questions and right now no answers. So 2 nights ago my stomach started rolling and I thought I has the flu... Then it came back the next morning and I wrote last minute sub plans and left school around 10 when the sub came... I'm a planner and its driving me nuts not knowing who to trust to send my baby to.
In other news...I've reached the point in the classroom that I can trust my students using all the different gadgets.  It's been a process..  
I wanted to make sure that all my students were having a chance to utilize the different things, so I repurposed my laminated calendar.  I changed up my calendar to just a regular calendar (since I don't need much room to write the different due dates/reminders) -  plus this allows me to NOT have to rewrite the calendar numbers every month.  My calendar now happens to be an extra Lego one since Santa brought one to my own boys and they didn't need the one that I had picked up from Scholastic.  

My other calendar (that has been on my wall) has turned into technology central on the side of my file cabinet.  
Students need to just write their number in the corresponding square for the different areas as they have a turn.  Technology time seems to be happening mainly during silent reading time - those 30 minutes that everyone is quiet and focused.  Students can use the MP3 players with their ear buds, they do an AR test or IXL on the computer or Kindle Fire, or they can talk into the microphones for a page and then plug their ear buds into the microphone to listen to themselves read.
I am thankful that I figured out a way that could easily tell me who is avoiding doing a turn.  Now I just have to keep modeling how to fill in the chart (picture taken on Tuesday when we had been in the computer lab).  My classroom helpers will wipe this off on Friday afternoons when we all pitch in to get ready for the next week.  
Hope this helps someone!

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Technology, Organization, and Professional Development

I'm linking up with a bunch of bloggers to share my resolutions for this coming year.  I'm late to the party though... so I'm catching up!  Click the below links to head to the different link up spots.

Technology

Organization

Professional Growth

Technology

Technology hasn't always been my friend.  I still wouldn't consider myself an expert, but I do feel more comfortable about it.  I'm not the person that my parents call when they need help with their TV/Computers/VCR etc.  In the classroom though I do feel right at home.

Here is my list of favorite techy things in my classroom:

I know I've mentioned some of these things in past posts, so if you are interested in them and want to know more about them, just let me know!

  

 

Ladibug Document Camera - My school purchased these for all the classrooms 2 years ago.

 

Now!Board - My students raised money last year to purchase this for the classroom.  It gave me an instant "smart" board.

Kindle Fire - My students raised enough money last year for one of these, and I had enough Amazon gift certificates for another one.  Instant extra internet access to take AR tests and work on IXL Math skills.

Talk Buttons - I bought my class a set of these - they are used to record short messages (like directions/reminders).

Easi-speak Recorder - I bought this for my classroom using EIA money last year.  Actually I bought 2 of them.  I use them to record my students during fluency testing (and can download it into my computer for comparisons throughout the year).  The other one gets passed around between students during silent reading for them to read into when I'm not right there to listen to them.

 

Mp3 players for my classroom - I have 4 of them and when using a splitter I can have 8 kids listening to a book.  I downloaded our weekly stories onto the computer and they listen to them for review. 

So what do I want to work on?  

I'm at the point that I feel I have so much technology going on, maybe it's a case of too much too soon... but this year I really need to figure out a plan on using the equipment more effectively.  There are some things that I remember on a daily basis, but others that I forget about... I want to use what I have better.

Here what's working for Organization:

I have an entire page on the blog about organizing the chaos in my classroom. I guess I need to update it though... wasn't updated since this past summer.  Maybe I need to work on organization...

Here's my resolutions:

*Update the blog to better be able to find information (for me and for you)

*Organize the files on my computer.  Since starting the TPT store and buying a bunch of stuff recently at TPT, I have so many files in random places on the desktop.

*Enable my own children with responsibility of cleaning up.  I need to accept they are growing up and are able to clean by themselves (rather than me doing it MY way only).

Professional Development:

Did you race to the top of the salary schedule too?  I did.  After student teaching 14 years ago, I took so many classes right away to climb the unit ladder.  I've been at the top for a while now, and I felt settled... then with beginning to read blogs and then starting this one, I found that maybe I was too settled.  I've learned so much this past year from the different websites, blogs, and by just looking around on Pinterest.  I know all of that has made me a better teacher.  

This next year we will finally be starting up Common Core and that alone has me on edge.  I have heard horror stories about test scores plummeting the first year with the transition, and as a planner I have wanted to be informed.  It's been hard to wait until the "professional development" catches up in my district.  I guess my resolution would be to embrace Common Core and learn as much as possible to assist my present and future students.

There are more linky parties going on about resolutions, but I'm going to wait until another day to link up... this post is already getting long!  Hope you have a good day!

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Every-Day Edits

Today I cleaned.  The house is clean.  The boys are relatively clean.  The clothes and dishes are clean.  Hopefully everything will stay in its place until after we see the rest of the family tomorrow.  :)  
As I'm sitting down completely exhausted from cleaning, I've been thinking about the things that I love using in my classroom.  You know, the things that I'm grateful for...  I decided to try and organize my files a bit more on the computer and I ran across my folder of Every-Day Edits.  
Do you use these too?  

The stack I use comes from Education World.  They have made it so easy for me to find everything on there.  The students need that extra practice in editing.... don't we all?  They provide a non-fiction paragraph to edit, and it's sorted by real dates in history.  I call it our treasure hunt time when we tackle it together in class on Mondays.  If we don't do it in class, the paragraph goes home for homework.  It's that important to me for them to do it.  Since they have 2 per page, I can easily justify the amount of copies.  
Education World has a ton of other stuff as well, but that's all I really wanted to share for today.  It's a free resource that I am grateful for.  Click the link above to head on over so you can check it out yourselves.  This resource is more for the intermediate grades, but they also have something similar for primary students.
Happy Thanksgiving! 

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Beyond Question (Clickers)

Do you use this system too?

At our school, each classroom has a set of these "clickers".  A couple of years ago we were able to get a grant to help fund them, then we covered the rest of the cost asking for parent donations.

So, what is it?

It's a way to easily see student responses.

This is the student remote, my teacher remote is similar.

It has a disk that I put into my computer, a receiver that accepts student responses that is plugged into my computer, a remote for each student, and a teacher remote.  By the kids clicking in their answers of any assessment, I can automatically see what areas we need to focus on whole class.  I can either have it broadcasted through my in focus machine so the students can also see the graphs, or I have it on my laptop when I'm using my ladibug and projector (showing the test).

Here you can see that I have strapped the receiver on top of the ladibug.

There are 3 main ways I use it in the classroom:

*When we take a multiple choice assessment the kids usually take the test and record their answers on binder paper/scantron.  After I've already scanned/graded their assessments (like Curriculum Associates or Reading Lions), I hand them back and we review it together (they click their remote on the answer they chose) and then we see as a class what areas we need to work on.  It's an easy way to review a test without having to rework all the problems.

This is what we see when we are inputing responses.
I didn't do a full on powerpoint thing, just accepted answers.

*I also use it as a way to do informal quizzes.  I can program the disk to set up a short little quiz (you can input like a powerpoint).  As the question is shown on the projector/system, the kids click in their answer, and then it shows a class graph.  We can see what specific questions we need to work on.  It also allows me to save the specific file so I can see how each child answered and if I click my teacher remote with the correct answer it will grade their assessment for me.  

This is the bar graph that depicts the kids answers after we did the short review.

*Another way I use it is in the early spring to help with review for the state assessments.  We go over the released test questions - the kids solve, click in, and then we solve together.  It really is a fun way to review.

The options are really endless with this product. 

Can you tell that I love it?

I hope that somehow in my excitement that I made sense trying to explain it.  The grants are still available and it really is worth it.  Between the grant, and using some EIA money, our classrooms just had to come up with a little money.

Just something to think about.  

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