Lifelong Learning Journey

1. I enjoyed so many of the technologies I got to play around with through the making of this blog. Many I had used before, and several were new to me. My favorite activities were those that I was able to take immediately back to school and use. I showed our first grade team the Wordle I created. They liked the idea of it and together we explored other options and have since created with the use of WordArt. I also used the Voki I created with my 3rd grade math class. 2. My learning goal is to continue taking chances and trying new things. I never want to become the teacher that does the same exact same thing year after year. I want to explore and learn about new ways to help my students learn, create, and collaborate. This assignment has obviously helped me towards this learning goal. 3. Honestly, the biggest takeaway I had was that I can create and keep up with a blog. I learned that it is quite easy to create, and there are so many ideas that I would love to share with others. Af

Photo Peach was fun (and a little frustrating) to use. I did appreciate how easy it was to get started, add photos, and add music. The music offered some really great options. The part I had trouble was getting my photos in right side up. They were right side up on my computer, but when I uploaded them to Photo Peach they were sideways. I did persevere and win the battle though! I would probably not allow my students to use this site because it required registering. However, I can see creating fun presentations with this as an introduction to a lesson. I could see myself using it at a teacher in-service, as well. Our teachers would love seeing all the fun things they have been up to in a format such as this. I will definitely use it again! Emmy Rides the Largest Horse Yet! on PhotoPeach

Skype is a great tool for communicating and bringing the outside world into the classroom (and the classroom into the outside world). While it can seem difficult to some teachers, having a technology person on hand to help troubleshoot any problems makes the process quite easy. Teachers on my campus have used Skype in a variety of ways. We are a very international school, and our families tend to move around quite often. Recently, one of our families was relocated to Indonesia. A few weeks after moving, this student's class at my school Skyped with her. She was able to share with them how things were different in Indonesia, both in regular everyday life as well as at school. This was a great lesson on different cultures. This same class adopted a low-income 2nd grade class in another state last year. Around the holidays, the students at my school sent books and homemade bookmarks to the students they had adopted. These books were for them to take home as many of them didn't ha

I had never searched for Podcasts before or thought them relevant for use in class. I knew there was valuable information in some Podcasts to grow my personal thoughts and ideas as an educator. However, I never realized what all was available to me until I started searching. While I do enjoy learning from others' experiences, I realize that I am more of a Twitter/Blog girl. I prefer to read what others think or have experienced. I don't enjoy just listening to someone talk. I did, however, find some Podcasts that were videos. Those I enjoyed watching AND listening to. One I found particularly useful to teachers in a classroom setting was called The Amoeba Sisters. This podcast had a series of short videos to teach students about different biological processes such as cell transport and mitosis. The videos were short, cute, fun, and informative. I thought them particularly interesting for my sister who teaches freshman biology at a tough high school. I shared this blog with her

I created my YouTube video using a source called Screentastomatic . This site allows you to do a recording of what is happening on your desktop, which I love (especially at 5 in the morning when I am trying to get my homework done before everyone wakes up, and I  don't really want you to see what I look like). It was so simple to make the video, and when I was finished there was an option to directly upload my video to YouTube. It really could not have been more user friendly. I have used YouTube videos in my classroom. I like to use them as an intro to a lesson to capture students' attention or to explain a concept in a different way. However, I try to just use TeacherTube if I am looking for something for my students. I feel I find more relevant and school appropriate videos in that way. I don't think I would feel comfortable with asking my students to post a video to YouTube. I think my students are too young to be posting on YouTube (I'm pretty sure you have to be

I had fun taking the time to search for videos on YouTube. I searched with the thought of helping the teachers on my campus find useful videos. I first searched for book recommendations for third graders. I was hoping to find videos of children recommending books to other children. I knew that would be a long shot though, given parents' valid concerns for student privacy. However, what I did find was just as useful. I found a variety of book read-alouds. The link I am sharing is a read-aloud of The TRUE Story of the Three Little Pigs. I have read this book before and have used it as a comparison tool for students to compare different versions of fairy tales. I feel that a YouTube read-aloud would gain student interest a bit more than a teacher reading it aloud. I also searched for (and found) a variety of math videos. Some of my favorites were for 3rd grade geometry. Obviously, teachers have to be diligent to watch the entirety of any videos they plan to show students to make sure

I used Animoto for my presentation tool. I have tried playing with Animoto in the past and got quickly frustrated. This time, however, I found the process to making a short video quite simple. Perhaps I have gained in my knowledge in how to manipulate these types of tools or perhaps Animoto has become more user-friendly. Either way, I very much enjoyed playing with this presentation tool this time around. I did not upload any of my own pictures but instead used stock photos already available on Animoto. I chose to make a video for our 1st grade classrooms. Adding pictures was easy, as was adding a title and captions to the photos. The video did, however, cut off part of some of the pictures I wanted to use so I had to delete those photos. Animoto is a great tool to create short videos to help catch your students interest at the start of a unit or lesson. Singular and Plural Nouns Video

I chose to use Voki for my animation tool. Again, this was a new tool for me. I chose this particular tool because the video I watched looked like it could be a fun tool to use. I was able to create a cute squirrel avatar. I was thinking this would be a fun way to introduce the question of the day in my math class. I usually deliver the question that we need to answer or have a student read it aloud. I think using Voki would be a bit more engaging for an introduction. After creating my own account, I got to wondering if my students would have to create an account in order to be able to use it. I logged out and started over. This time I did not sign-up but "continued as a guest". This worked fabulously! I was very excited to see that my students could use this tool, as well! What a great way for them to EXPLAIN their understanding. They always struggle with explaining their math work, and I have found that they explain better verbally rather than written. Just a quick note tha

Zoho Doc is a new resource for me! I had never even heard of it until today. I have used Google Docs on a number of occasions, and I feel like Zoho Docs is comparable. One feature I especially liked about it was how user-friendly it was. It was super easy to insert a math equation. I would even say that it was easier to use the equation editor on Zoho than on Microsoft Word. The equation editor on Zoho shows you a preview of what you are typing. I also liked the grid in the background. When I tried to move shapes around, the grid certainly made it easier to see if the shapes were lined up. It was rather difficult to move smaller shapes around though. For some reason, I kept grabbing the shape and altering the size rather than dragging it to another location. The bigger shapes were easier to move around. The other thing I really liked about Zoho were all the ways to share a created document and the ability to see changes and versions. I definitely would not mind playing with it a bit mo

I have had experience with all of the assessment tools discussed in Thing 8. I used Poll Everywhere at the middle school level. This is a great resource to poll students, just as the video described. However, I was reluctant to use it in an open-ended way because I was nervous about what students might post. That being said, I really appreciated how the example in the video used the open ended answers to create a Word Cloud. I thought that was a powerful way to use Poll Everywhere. I would not choose this as my go to tool for elementary students though. I have used Socrative at the elementary level. I stopped using it when I discovered Quizizz. My students enjoyed Quizizz more because it was more interactive and visually appealing. What I did notice in the Socrative video, however, is that it now has a feature called "space race" that allows students to race against each other. This makes it more comparable to Quizizz, but Quizizz is still more visually appealing (and still

Well it seems that Wikispaces has disabled all their educational wikis. All the links I tried led me to a page that read in part: As stated in our communication in January 2018 and subsequent site banners; as of July 31st, 2018 all Free and Classroom Wikis were disabled and are no longer accessible. It is unfortunate that some of the best, free educational tools are often taken away. I was already brainstorming ways in which I could use a Wiki. I had thought to create a Wiki to do a group wide book study for teacher professional development. I still think I'll do the book study. However, I'm going to need more ideas for collaboration and gathering teacher thoughts to our readings. Please share any ideas you have besides using Google Classroom. Google Classroom is a perfectly good tool, but I would like to expose my teachers to other technology tools if possible. Also, any thoughts on good books to use for such a book study would be greatly appreciated!

These image generators were fun to play and create with! I apparently happened upon BigHugeLabs one "thing" too soon! For this thing, I played around with some different features than I mentioned in Thing 5. Most of my teachers are self-contained. I thought using the MapMaker would be a useful cross-curricular activity. A few years ago I observed a teacher who let her students put a pushpin in a classroom map for every location that appeared in their independent reading books. I thought it would be neat for students to keep track of locations in their own reading journals. Then each quarter/grading period the teacher could pull up the Map Maker and the students could help her check off all the locations they have traveled to through their books. I also thought that the Movie Poster would be useful for our 5th grade students. While this idea isn't necessarily extending learning of a particular objective, I thought it would be nice to share. Each spring we put on a musica

I found this "thing" to be a bit more difficult than the previous things. I had a hard time finding sources that I trusted, but I did eventually find a site called BigHugeLabs.  https://bighugelabs.com/ This site has several options for mashing Flickr with other activities. The one I most enjoyed using was creating a Trading Card. I first searched Flickr for landforms and put several photos in my "favorites" folder. Then I followed the prompts on BigHugeLabs to create a trading card. This was really fun. However, I don't think I would recommend this for use with my elementary students due to the need to login to Flickr. I would recommend it to my teachers to help build classroom learning tools. For instance, I would encourage my science teachers to continue the lesson I started for them. They would create a trading card for each landform they want their students to learn about. I might encourage them to not include the name of the landform so students would ha

So, I've used Flickr before. It has proven to be a very effective way for all the moms of the students in my classroom to share photos with one another. It has made it especially nice for those parents that are unable to attend class parties or field trips. Parents that do attend just upload their photos to Flickr and all parents are invited to the group. I have also used it in an effort to share photos with family. Now, of course, I share fun, family photos on Facebook. The photo that I have tagged here is of the mandatory stop at Buccees on the start of our summer road trip. Unfortunately, the amazing trip lasted a total of 2 days... We made it to Mobile, Alabama, before the horrible stomach flu hit. We were forced to come home and are still awaiting our much anticipated trip to Disney World. Buccees Stop

OK, so photo editing was quite fun! My 14-year-old son, in particular, is very into GIFs and would love to know that he can create some of his own. My first goal was to find a photo editing site that did not require me to sign up or pay for anything. Finding sites that are free and don't require an account are essential for school use. This way teachers and schools don't have to spend money and students don't need to have email addresses in order to use the tools. I chose FotoFlexer and had fun applying and trying out all the different features. For the purpose of my picture, I especially liked the glittery options available. I could see having students use photo editing to create advertisements for books they are reading. They could draw a picture of what the main character in their book looks like, take a photo of their drawing, and place it into a GIF. Alternatively, students could use a drawing app to create their picture, save it as a photo, and upload it to FotoFlex

Creating a blog is something new to me. I found it to be not as user-friendly as I might have imagined. However, I like to learn by playing so after a few clicks I kind of got the hang of it. Something I tell my teachers is to not be afraid to try new things. I don't mind just clicking around to see what happens. I can (usually) undo whatever I don't like or didn't mean to do. I realize the benefits of using blogs in the classroom. What a great way to share knowledge and communicate and collaborate with peers! I have considered creating a blog for my classroom but have never made the time to do so. I have also considered creating a professional blog, but I doubt my commitment to maintain it on a regular basis. Perhaps using this class blog will be the motivation I need to create a classroom and/or professional blog!

After learning the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners, I realize that I possess several of these habits. Perhaps that is why I crave knowledge and learning new things! The easiest habit for me is accepting responsibility for my own learning. I started my graduate school journey because I was at a point in my life where I was ready to do something for myself. Learning makes me happy, so I decided furthering my education was what I needed to do. The enjoyment I get from learning makes it easy for me to take the time to study. Admittedly, if the content isn't my favorite, it is harder to force myself to focus. However, I handle that by doing my least favorite homework first and rewarding myself by then doing the homework I enjoy. Similar to the way I tell my kids to eat the things on their plate that they don't like and saving the best for last.  Interestingly, the hardest habit for me is beginning with the end in mind. I started my graduate school journey knowing that I wanted to