It's not just Skype!

This past week was very exciting for my assistant teacher Mrs. Fran as she became a grandmother to a beautiful little girl Mollie. Her daughter was blessed by having her stay for a week to help with the care taking. However, the students and myself missed Fran while she was not in school. We decided to use skype and connect during the week!

We were able to skype with the class and project onto the large smartboard and hear a story from Mrs. Fran. The children couldn't quite understand how Mrs. Fran was on the t.v. (as they call the SMART board) and how she could see them. I showed the children the camera and tried to explain to them that our computer was calling Mrs. Fran's computer. Either way, the details didn't matter to them, what mattered was the relationship that was fostered.

In this article: The importance of  Teacher-Child Relationships in Head-Start,

it states that "close teacher-child relationships were related to better receptive language for all children, but this was even stronger for children of color than for white children. Further, the connection between positive teacher-child relationships and children’s language was even stronger for preschool children than early elementary school children."  This one result was worth every second we spent on Skype with Mrs. Fran! 

Some see Skype as a fun way to connect with family or friends, but I see it as an educational learning tool that fosters relationships and builds connections that go beyond the school walls. I can't wait for another opportunity to use it!

Difficult Reality

These are my personal thoughts on what is going on in my classroom, a reflection, a blog post if you will.

The difficult reality I speak of today is hungry children. It is difficult because children whose basic needs are not meet can not move on to anything else until those basic needs are met.  I'm talking about learning here. If a child is hungry or tired, they are not going to be learning anything to their fullest potential. My job is then considered difficult because I want children to learn and be successful reaching their fullest potential but it isn't happening because they are hungry.

The last week in January I had at least half of my students tell me they were hungry. I would ask them if they had breakfast or something to eat before coming to school. Guess the response. No. I pondered this for a while. It would not have caught my attention but this trend was occurring in both morning and afternoon classes and with multiple children. This causes a teacher to wonder what is going on here. Why are the children so hungry?

My thoughts: were they in a hurry this morning, did they not want to eat, did they over sleep? What is it? I had to think about this because these basic needs were interfering with our learning. My second thought was, it is the end of the month. We all know our finances can get tight during this time of the month. I can't say for sure what is going on or why the students have been coming to school so hungry, but it does make me stop and think.

We are so thankful to be able to provide a healthy snack for children while they are at school. As I look at my classes and reflect on learning, I know my students need their basic needs met first! Are you able to meet your students needs?

Visual Learners

Hello to all of my new readers around the world! Sorry, I have not updated my blog lately. I'm still here working and teaching students using new technologies, just been a little busy. So this picture, yes, does look like something from the movie ET! However, it has been the coolest thing I've used lately and would promote for classrooms to have.

The real name of the device is a document camera, this one made by SMART works and interacts with my SMARTboard. This camera allows me to model or demonstrate tasks for my students that otherwise would be too small for them to see. 

As you can see here, I used the camera to show my students some new apps on the itouch! The students require little teaching when it comes to the itouch. Most of them pick it up and figure it out on their own. Their intuitive skills are far greater than many adults. I guess that is why they are called 21st century learners. They aren't afraid to break it by pushing the wrong button. They will explore until they get the app to work!

With this new document camera I am able to show an entire class how to use this small device. With the click of the power button this image is suddenly transmitted onto the SMARTboard. This is a little hard to explain, so I will give you a visual. The majority of people or 60% are considered to be visual learners. I think for our ELL students this statistic is much higher. As a teachers, I strive to meet all of the learning styles of my students. This new tool has empowered me to do just that! What is empowering you to meet your students learning styles? 

Start Creating

This is Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, notice the highest order thinking skill is creating. How much time do students spend creating while in school? Or are we still teaching them rote skills to remember things? Remembering is not going to get our digital learners very far in the world of change. I try to give my students a fair amount of time to create every day. Here is one way they created yesterday.

This may look like ordinary paint on white paper, and yes that is one way to create. However, my students are digital learners and they are painting on the SMARTboard using a program called ArtRage. No paint shirt required here and no messy paint brushes to clean up! This program allows students to use paint, crayon, or pencil to create. You can choose your medium and color; the rest is up to the imagination. When you choose paint, it looks like paint brush strokes, crayon is textured just as a crayon on paper would appear and so forth. The greatest part about this program is that it allows for color mixing. When the child paints blue and the yellow to paint over the top, it turns green!

We like to give children a real paint brush when they use this program to enhance the experience and increase fine motor skills. However, you can use your hand too, as one student found out yesterday! 

After choosing a paint color, the student began painting with the paint brush and then quite by accident he rested his left hand onto the board. (Too bad the smart board only senses one touch at a time.) He then saw a paint mark on the SMARTboard where he rested his left hand. His eyes got huge as he looked down at his hand as if he had paint on his hand! Too cute! 

Here are a few samples of what we created. What other ways do you see children creating with technology?

Where's Crystal

This past week I had an invitation to the Googleplex in Mountain View California! So, thanks to my school district, I went out there for training. I hope my writing can do justice to what I experienced. As I arrived on the scene I found myself parking in a lot full of cars and Google bikes. Yes, red, yellow, blue and green bikes that are just one perk of the Google employees. The campus is full of bikes for their employees to ride around on as a fast mode of transportation. I walked up to the Googleplex through a sculpture garden, then past their own vegetable garden. They do grow their own food, yet another perk to their employees. FREE FOOD, the campus has 18 cafes and many micro kitchens for their employees to stay fueled for their work day! 

Welcomed by a small group of educators, we were off to our meeting room. We had a full day of training, sharing, and learning with each other. I had a chance to learn from my colleagues as well as the experts themselves at Google. Their work environment speaks to how 21st century learners work. Most of the employees were very young and work for one of the fastest growing companies in the world. Collaboration and communication encompass the work environment of Googlers.

Even though my time at the Googleplex was short, I am still constantly connected to the group of trainers. Now that I am back home I plan to do many trainings on Google Apps for Education in my school district and possibly others. Here are a few photos from my trip! I had a great time!

I'm SMART

Assessments. Enough said, right? Teachers, you know what I'm talking about. We are formally assessing and informally assessing students on a daily basis. This past week I was able to assess my students using the SMART Response clickers that are designed for pre-k students. 

I asked the children what the clickers looked like as an introduction to using them for the first time. Without question, they all said it looked like a T.V remote. All of the students know how to use that (as you know from my previous post-watch t.v.-learn English)! The clickers have several colored buttons each with a different shape on them. The clicker also has a small screen on it that gives feedback in the form of a clapping bunny. Cute for children, right. 

So, I created a lesson to find out if the children were able to identify items that began with the letter T. On the SMARTboard I had a picture of a turtle with a green button next to it, a picture of a dog with a red button next to it. I asked the children which picture began with the letter T sound. They then pushed the red or green button to answer the question. This was a little mini test for them. 

The best part was that I could see when all students had answered the question. The results of the answer were also displayed instantly for me to see in a pie chart form. I was able to see some telling information about my students ability and learning that week. This has been a great tool for me as a teacher to see where my students are at after a week of learning. Watch for more posts about the clickers!

Down on the Farm

When I was a child, my grandparents lived on a farm. I vividly remember waking up there one morning and the smell of cow manure in the air, and yes the rooster crowed very early. As a youngster, I couldn't wait to get up and see what was going on. When I went down stairs, my grandpa was already outside working and I could hear the put put tractor in the pasture, grandma was in the kitchen making homemade bread. The smells and sounds on the farm were indescribable. After breakfast, we would head outside to pick the eggs and see what grandpa was doing. 

These were very real memories of the farm and I am sad to say my grandpa passed away on Saturday. He will be missed but I am thankful for the experiences I had growing up and visiting the farm.

It is a bit reminiscent but we are learning about the farm these next two weeks at school. The children in my class have not had those farm experiences and are just learning the names of farm animals. Yet, I want them to have the experiences and learning of a real farm. I wish I had a video of my grandparents farm to share with them. Since I don't, I am thankful to YouTube. Today my students watched this video about the farm, then played in our pretend farm I have set up in the classroom. The dressed up like cows, ducks, pigs, chickens and even picked eggs.  

How are children going to experience life in the 21st century? 

Pretend play and YouTube videos?