Week 6: Using Pinterest for teaching and learning

            I had already signed on to Pinterest before this week’s assignment. I love to spend free time on Pinterest to look for great ideas shared by other teachers. I had not created my own board before so that was definitely new to me. I liked some of the ideas on how teachers can use Pinterest with their students.

            One of the ideas I liked for lower grade teachers was from Sarah Muthler’s article called “The Educator’s Guide to Pinterest” on how teachers could create a board that provides pins to students with informative text from the Internet without the fear of having them get into inappropriate websites. Muthler also shared how teachers can create book lists on Pinterest to help students find the right book for them. I like how the board will limit the websites that the students can view.

            Madeleine Cummings wrote about the popularity of Pinterest among teachers in her article “There’s a Big Hole in How Teachers Build Skills, and Pinterest is Helping to Fill It.” I know that from personal experience I wish that I would have had Pinterest way back when I first started teaching. New teachers now have the opportunity to look up good ideas to decorate their classrooms. A new teacher at my campus had adorable sitting crates and matching decorations in her classroom, and she quickly shared that she got all the decorating ideas from Pinterest. Cummings also mentioned that Pinterest helps teachers with lesson planning and getting ideas for projects and assignments which is important for a new teacher when he or she is lesson planning. Not only does Pinterest have decorative ideas but also good activities and lesson plans for teachers.

            As a reading coach, many times I have to share ideas for centers and lessons for different grade levels. Pinterest allows me to go in and look up activities for different grade levels plus now I know how I can create a board for each grade level and they can go in and look up all the activities that I have pinned for each grade level. The pins allow the teachers to narrow their search and not have to look through so many pins when they have so much to do. I think that allowing teachers to sell some of the activities that they have created on Pinterest is a great idea. Teachers are extremely underpaid for their hard work and should be compensated when they have a unique idea to share. Their products will benefit many students and teachers alike, and I think that they should receive some benefit themselves.
Link to my Pinterest board https://www.pinterest.com/srugarte/teaching/

Week 5: Using Evernote for teaching and learning

            Evernote can be an extremely useful tool in the classroom. Students can use it when they need to collect a variety of information. The fact that they will be using technology will mean that they will be engaged from the beginning of any projects or lessons. I think that Evernote could be used for research, note taking, and reading for enjoyment.

            I thought about using Evernote in a fourth grade classroom to help teach the Social Studies standards on the Regions of Texas. Some of our students that have not traveled to other parts of Texas have a hard time comprehending what certain land features are such as: an escarpment, prairie, or plateau. Using Evernote would be a great opportunity for them to look up these features and find the nearest location of each in order to help them learn more about each Region. Another plus would be that they could look up images of these land features in order for them to know what they look like versus having to see an illustration in a textbook. All of the information and images they collect could be stored in a notebook on Evernote called Geography of Texas. Another notebook that they could add would be Native Americans. In this notebook, they could collect the information on the Native American tribes that lived in each Region of Texas, and they could continue to take notes on a topic of study in Social Studies and have history come to life.

            I thought about having students in grades third and up use Evernote for projects. I think that students would be more interested in pursuing and completing a science or math project if they are allowed to use technology to research ideas online. Any notes they would like to take or information they would collect could go into the notebooks they would create on Evernote. If they have to create an end product, they could collect diagrams and images that would help them to create their product. I think that their interest level would remain high throughout the completion of the project.

            Allowing students in second grade and higher to search for topics of interest to them and collect information to read whenever they are given an opportunity is a great reading incentive. Providing students the opportunity to read after the completion of their work is common practice. Those students that do not like reading, however, find it difficult to stay on task. I think that allowing students to use Evernote to collect and sort their reading material will keep them engaged to where they will consider whatever time they are given for reading too short.

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s561/nl/153116495/2ff87c05-3c31-4787-91f7-7eb7dd4f2310

Week 4

Most students are not that interested or excited about writing a book report. Kim Blomqvist’s article in Teachthought.com entitled “Instead of A Book Report, My Students ‘Wrote’ A Video” caught my attention right away. She shares how her students were not that interested in writing book reports, so she began her search for a method of book report writing that would spark her students’ interests. She found it when she came across mysimpleshow.com. She still has the students write their book reports first, and then they may create their video. 

            The video is created using a four-step process. She has the students write an outline of their book report, and then they begin using the “Summarize literature and movies” template. The templates help the students in precise writing because they are provided word limits in the Draft and Write stages of creating the video. She mentioned how they enjoyed the Visualize step since they got to select illustrations according to their text. They were also provided with the option to upload and combine images. Once they had completed adding the images they moved on to the Finalize step that allowed them to choose a voiceover or use their own voice. They presented their final products to the class, and Blomqvist then had the students publish them on YouTube so that they could share the videos with others outside of their classroom. 

            I think that using mysimpleshow.com can make book report writing fun for students. I also think that maybe this tool could also be used to bring compositions to life especially for those students that are not that interested in writing.

            Another article I enjoyed reading was “A Principal Plays Pokemon Go: Lessons Learned So Far” by John Robinson in the21stcenturyprincipal.blogspot.com. In this article, Robinson shares how he was enticed to download the Pokemon Go app due to all the publicity about it and his curiosity to see if there was any educational value to it. He admits that he did not know anything about the game and learned as he went along in the game, and that took him out of his comfort zone. He has now gained knowledge of the Pokemon world and app, and adds that playing the game may be a time waster, but now relates to some of his former students that may have thought the same thing about the course he used to teach. 

            I respect him for learning a new popular game that most of his students are playing and sharing the discomfort he felt in the learning process. He ends the article by saying that he is not sure when he will ever use what he has learned. I think that the fact that he plays Pokemon Go is an advantage because that will allow him to connect to his students

Most students are not that interested or excited about writing a book report. Kim Blomqvist’s article in Teachthought.com entitled “Instead of A Book Report, My Students ‘Wrote’ A Video” caught my attention right away. She shares how her students were not that interested in writing book reports, so she began her search for a method of book report writing that would spark her students’ interests. She found it when she came across mysimpleshow.com. She still has the students write their book reports first, and then they may create their video.

            The video is created using a four-step process. She has the students write an outline of their book report, and then they begin using the “Summarize literature and movies” template. The templates help the students in precise writing because they are provided word limits in the Draft and Write stages of creating the video. She mentioned how they enjoyed the Visualize step since they got to select illustrations according to their text. They were also provided with the option to upload and combine images. Once they had completed adding the images they moved on to the Finalize step that allowed them to choose a voiceover or use their own voice. They presented their final products to the class, and Blomqvist then had the students publish them on YouTube so that they could share the videos with others outside of their classroom.

            I think that using mysimpleshow.com can make book report writing fun for students. I also think that maybe this tool could also be used to bring compositions to life especially for those students that are not that interested in writing.

            Another article I enjoyed reading was “A Principal Plays Pokemon Go: Lessons Learned So Far” by John Robinson in the21stcenturyprincipal.blogspot.com. In this article, Robinson shares how he was enticed to download the Pokemon Go app due to all the publicity about it and his curiosity to see if there was any educational value to it. He admits that he did not know anything about the game and learned as he went along in the game, and that took him out of his comfort zone. He has now gained knowledge of the Pokemon world and app, and adds that playing the game may be a time waster, but now relates to some of his former students that may have thought the same thing about the course he used to teach.

            I respect him for learning a new popular game that most of his students are playing and sharing the discomfort he felt in the learning process. He ends the article by saying that he is not sure when he will ever use what he has learned. I think that the fact that he plays Pokemon Go is an advantage because that will allow him to connect to his students.

Using blogs for distribution, discussion, and demonstration makes school more interesting for teachers, students, and parents.

I think that the best way for me to use a blog as a Reading Coach would be in the form of distribution. I would probably use weebly.com to set up a blog for teachers I support and coach. I could show them how to incorporate literacy centers into the Language Arts block of time. I could upload how to set up the centers and how to introduce the centers to the students. I can include tips and pictures on which methods have worked best for me on the management board when running literacy centers in the classroom. I can also post links where teachers can get ideas on literacy centers they can use in their classrooms as well as attachments of upcoming testing windows, materials they need to bring to Professional Learning Community (PLC) meetings, and upcoming trainings and dates. Teachers would have the opportunity to obtain any information they need at anytime.

I would recommend to fourth grade teachers that they use a kid friendly discussion board such as kidsblog.com or edmodo.com. The students could respond to a prompt online.  The assignment could include requirements such as asking them to use the proper conventions of writing while posting their discussions in order to reinforce correct grammar. The students may also be provided time to have an online discussion on topics of interest to them or topics they can debate. These writing opportunities will allow the students to find their writing voice.

A fun way for second through sixth grade students to respond to literature could be through demonstration. The students could respond to the piece of literature they read on their blog. Then in turn, other students can respond to them. They could include pictures or videos with their responses. The blog would be a writing portfolio that would allow all students to express themselves, and they could see their progression of writing throughout the school year.

Allowing students to use a blog for their schoolwork or classwork will spark their interest in school and benefit the teachers and parents. Teachers would be able to access student work online without having to take papers home to grade, and parents could easily access their child’s work online to make sure that assignments are being completed. Blogs are a good example of how technology and education can come together to make education more efficient.