Well I got through the first week of school, but it was filled with conflicting emotions. I normally love the first week of school. The students are always filled with joy and eager to please their new teacher, and I am usually filled with new energy and ideas to start the year. This year I had the same energy and excitement and the same joy filled students, but there was one huge change. This school year I had to leave my three-month-old baby at daycare while I come to school to facilitate creativity, excitement, and learning. I spent the first few days building relationships with students and going over rules and procedures, all while wondering how my baby was doing in the care of someone else.

Although the time away from my son was hard, I'm happy to report that he seemed to have a great experience in daycare. His provider sent me pictures updates throughout the day and he even started taking hour long naps for the first time ever! Knowing he is well taken care of helped me give my best to my students the first week and reminded me of how important it is to communicate with parents.

I recently found a quote that I absolutely love: "Everyone in my classroom is someone else's entire world." These precious little lives that I work with every day are loved by someone, and that someone is trusting me with their care and education. That is a responsibility that I don't ever want to take lightly. I want to make sure that guardians are always a part of the journey as I guide my students to achieve new goals and inspire the four C's (creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking).

This summer I became a part of the Digital Age Learner Leadership Academy (DALLA) and I was challenged to create a project for the year that incorporated the ISTE standards. My first idea was to dig deeper into student blogging, but after my recent separation anxiety I decided I wanted to really increase the home-school connection. I decided that this year, I want my students to create their own web pages using Weebly Education. It will be the third grade version of picture updates. I'm hoping that the web pages will help students compile and manage a digital portfolio that highlights all that they learn this year and will keep parents up to date and involved.

I have a feeling it's going to be a great year!!!

Teaching in the Digital Age Reflection

This is the easel.ly I created to reflect on my learning over the past few months. This class has help me grow and try new things so that I can provide an engaging, creative, and collaborative learning experience for my 21st century learners.

I have an ideal classroom space that I would love to create, but it wouldn't be realistic given the space, outlets, and furniture available, so I decided to create a classroom that may actually be achievable. This is the classroom set up I'd like to have by next year. The students would have group space as well as comfortable seating to work independently. My students would be able to airplay their projects to the television and I could use it to display videos, projects, etc. for the whole class to see. I also love the idea of a maker space/green screen area where students have supplies available to create videos and projects throughout the year. 

*Note: The circles that are labeled round desk are supposed to be bean bag chairs

New Third Grade Webmix

I made a Symbaloo for my class this week. I chose an animal research webmix since my students are working on writing animal reports. I also included a how to video and examples of iMovie trailers so my students could get excited about our upcoming project. I will share the Symbaloo with my students using a QR code.

Third Grade Animal Research Symbaloo

How To Make An iMovie Trailer

Reflection on Strengths and Weaknesses (ISTE-T 2)

Before I started this class, I thought I did a fairly decent job of designing digital age learning experiences. Now I know I still need a lot of work, but I can identify my strengths and weaknesses regarding ISTE-T Standard 2. I think that I could use some work in all areas, but I would rank subcategory C as my strongest. I work very hard to offer various levels of each of the projects I assign for my students. Some of my students need much more scaffolding and modifications than others to get to the level of understanding needed to complete the projects. Some need accessibility options like dictation so that they can spend more time sharing content knowledge than typing their ideas. I also think I do a good job providing students varied formative and summative assessments (subcategory d).  I use observations, exit tickets, whiteboards, assessments, student feedback, etc. to guide my teaching daily. There have been many instances that I have gone another direction with a lesson because I realized that it wasn’t meeting the needs of my students (based on formative assessments). I use summative assessments at the end of units to guide future lessons and reflect on my teaching. I try to use digital projects as my summative assessments because they cover many standards and the students are much more motivated to complete a project rather than a “test.” I could still work on insuring that my projects reach the Redefinition level of the SAMR model.  The subcategory I feel weakest in is b. I would love to spend more time enabling students to pursue their individual curiosities (I am a huge fan of the emergent learning model), but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around how to give students the freedom to pursue their interests, while also meeting required standards and time constraints. I also struggle with consistently giving students feedback regarding their progress towards goals. I know that this is extremely important, but I often run out of time in the day/s.

How I Will Promote Digital Citizenship in the Classroom

1.          I will, “Advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources.”  I will do this by teaching students how to find pictures and save pictures from the Internet using the Google search tools feature. I’ll also be mindful of teachable moments as I search the web with my students.
2.        I will, “Address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.”  All of my students have access to technology in my classroom. I will make sure that students have research resources appropriate for their reading levels by researching and providing sites that fit my students’ needs. I will also use student tech helpers (classmates) and iPad accessibility features to make sure all students are able to use the apps/technology.
3.        I will, “Promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.” I will use Common Sense lessons to teach, model, and talk about appropriate digital etiquette. My students will then have a chance to apply what they learn as they make comments on a third grade blog, and participate in Google Hangouts.
4.        I will, “Develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital age communication and collaboration tools. I would like to take my students on a virtual fieldtrip using Google Hangouts so that they engage with students of other cultures. I have been looking for ways to start digital pen pals but none of them have quite panned out.

The three technology goals that I would like to accomplish by the end of this course are: Facilitating and inspiring student learning (substandard d), Designing and developing digital age learning experiences (substandard d), and Modeling digital age work and learning (Substandard b).

I would like to focus on ISTE-T standard 1b because I love the idea of engaging in learning with students. I’ve tried to keep my lessons student focused, but I often revert back to the direct instruction model, which is simply me sharing knowledge with my students instead of walking them through the knowledge seeking process. I would like to work towards this goal through the use of virtual field trips via Google hangout. This process would allow me to learn with the students, colleagues, and other professionals as we create and ask questions in a virtual environment.

ISTE-T 2d is another standard I would like to focus on during this course. The digital testing my students will encounter at the end of the year is always in the back of my mind. They are not used to taking assessments in a digital format and they are just starting to get used to reading text from a screen. I feel that they need repeated exposure to digital formative and summative assessments so that they are completely comfortable with the reading and technological skills needed to be successful on the SBAC (now CAASP). This will also give them the opportunity to assess their own learning and create goals based on the results of their assessments. I plan on using illuminate and the new CASSP practice tests to achieve these goals.

The final goal that I would like to achieve by the end of this course is ISTE-T standard 3c. My students are doing some amazing things in class, but most of the time I am the only one who knows. I want my students to be able to share their ideas and successes with their caregivers, peers, and community members because they work hard and should be proud of their work. I would like to achieve this goal through the use of a classroom blog or website. I could share the projects that students have been working on so that students could "show what they know" through a digital community.