Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

In my new position as a technology coach one of the things I try to do is provide sample projects that teachers can do in their classroom with their students. Since my interest is science I tend to pick projects for that field. The video above is one that I worked on with a group of fourth grade students. It is based on a video style used by Common Craft in their In Plain English Videos . They are very good very simple videos put together using paper creations. Other teachers in other districts have done this and one even put an instructional video on YouTube to help students understand the process. To prepare the student I had working with me on this project (which we did end of year after state testing) I made them watch one Common Craft video and the instructional video. I then showed them the three videos below that someone made (about the difference between banks and credit unions) based on the same style to give them a sense of the playfulness and "acting" they shou...

Whew! Another end of the year has come around. I apologize for the lack of posts this year. I didn't mention it but I took a new position this past year (and again into the coming year) as the technology coach for two elementary schools in the district. I thought I would still be able to post notebooking items on a regular basis but learning this new job has been a bit overwhelming so my posts have been hit or miss. I've acted as a mentor for several teachers working on notebooking this past year and plan to continue in the coming year. My favorite moment this year has come from a teacher (shout out to Mrs. Maroney) who moved from third grade to fourth grade to take my position. I had been trying to talk her into notebooking for several years and she wasn't quite up to it. She was very happy to use all my notebooking stuff in the new grade level and liked it so much she has already started to work on material for next year (she is rotating back down to third). I can'...