Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

I follow a blog -  http://gingersnapstreatsforteachers.blogspot.com/ -   and she posted her long range plans this morning and I LOVED the format...which she provides for free (you do have to download some fonts to view it correctly but I believe those are free as well).  My favorite was the "Year at a Glance" that she provides to parents at the beginning of the year (which is what I really liked and think it's a fabulous idea).  I'm pass it along in case folks are working on their LRP's this summer :) 

Last year I made an “about me” presentation that I used when introducing myself to teachers and students. The goal was to show teachers and students how they could easily create one on their own using the Promethean software our district has. Since a lot of my readers do not have Promethean software I created two tutorials highlighting how to make this easy back-to-school presentation. The first is using Promethean’s ActivInspire software and the second using PowerPoint - both are around 5 minutes.   As you can see, it is a fairly simple process. I've done this project with third graders on up and they catch on fairly quickly (and they like it a lot better then being forced to write a paper about their summer vacation). I do make them type details about their picture (so there is some writing involved) and I limit them to one piece of clipart from the internet…otherwise the process gets bogged down by picture searching. When they are done I either let...

I saw a goal list on Pinterst (see first picture) and I thought it would make a good research collection template for students (what student wouldn't love working with post-it notes!). I created a template for upper grade levels (collection of six facts - using 11x17 paper) and a template for lower grade levels (collection of four facts - using 8 1/2 x 11 paper).  I printed out 24 copies of each on card stock and laminated them. I worked with third graders using them to collect biographically information for a black history project and with first graders collecting facts about habitat specific animals.  The idea, in my mind at least, was that these collection boards would allow for more research and collection opportunities in the classroom...other then the typical 1-2 a year.  Here is what I learned... 1. The third graders really didn't know how to gather pertinent information. They were a bit all over the board with their facts so I ...

Classroom management is the hardest lesson that teachers learn...and sadly it can't be learned in college...it is certainly "talked about" but the only way to learn this one is on the job (sorry new teachers...on the plus side it gets better :). It has been my experience that new teachers can learn any content with some degree of confidence...find a lesson and support material without too much difficult...and deliver it with authority. It is when you throw in the kids where everything gets tripped up :) My first year as a science teacher with no science background I felt pretty good about if I could stay one day ahead of my pacing guide... for example, I had no idea what a dichotomous key was until the week before I had to teach it...um...let alone pronounce it :) but I powered through the content like a champ however, I struggled with the students. I invited seasoned teachers (that I like and respected) to come in and give advice and I went and observed them duri...

I recently had the opportunity to attend ISTE's (International Society of Technology Educators) national conference in Atlanta. One of the perks was chatting and meeting new people. I happened to meet the teacher pictured above while waiting for a session on how to create games/advanced actions in PowerPoint (great session by the way!). We bonded over her nails (hence her hand position in the picture - they were Jamberry Nails and a friend of mine started to selling them so they stood out :) While we were chatting she said that she wrote a grant to attend the conference (she was from Oklahoma). Apparently this grant (Fund for Teachers) paid for EVERYTHING...including her laptop, laptop bag, etc. She wrote everything she would need for the conference into the grant (I want to say the total grant she wrote was for $3,000). This was super impressive. She said in the grand scheme of things she thought small. Apparently a person wrote a grant to study programming using Scrat...