Prezis, 1.22.13

I was introduced to Prezi last year at a student council conference and I have used them ever since. I do not use powerpoints in my classroom. My students appreciate the different style and approach and it gives the content a more professional look. This is my new thing but my goal is to make the transition next year to flipcharts.

Downloading a flipchart, 1.22.13

I have had a hard time using and finding appropriate flipcharts to use in class but I did find one of the civil rights movement. I think that the interaction was fairly simple but I did use it as a starting point to revise a flipchart. It is very similar to powerpoint but the interaction that you could create for students is important.

Using Flipcharts, 1.22.13

I have been using a few flipcharts in class and I will say that my students love them. My students like that a few of them get to go to the board and use the pens and it certainly keeps them more focused and in tune, especially not knowing which one of them will be called up to the board. It is more difficult to use than other programs I have used but I'm sure that I will get the hang of it.

Experimenting with a Flipchart, 12.11.12

I uploading a powerpoint and made adjustments which did take some time.  The next day I conducted a review with my class and had at least 3/4 of the class come up to the whiteboard to write, circle something, underline by answering a question.  It seemed a little out of my comfort zone because it seemed chaotic but my students loved it.  Most of them had NEVER done anything like this before.  I will do something like this again as my students liked it but I think I need to make it more technologically enhanced as I feel the graphics and what I had my students do was simplistic.

No more Lemonade Lesson Plans, 12.11.12

I viewed the keynote by Kevin Honeycutt and came away with his comment about "we need to stop doing lemonade lesson plans".  I really liked how he was very excited and motivated about his job! His students seem very, very excited about school.  While these are middle school students I would be amazing to recreate something like this at the high school level.  As I have utilized technology in the classroom I have been recreating new lesson plans and I have gotten rid of the lemonade lesson plans.

BYOD, 12.10.12

This video highlights Carson Middle School's B.Y.O.D. policy.  I am a huge supporter of this program but I do think that more needs to be done in our local school district to fully utilize and embrace this policy for our students.  Some amazing points from the video include  1) Having students register his/her device with technology.  While this may already happen and be monitored I think that this extra step, which could be done at various times throughout the year, could be an opportunity to reiterate school policies and rules and teach students how to log into the system. This could easily be done at the high school during 5th period on early release days.  Second, the comment that if students are not bringing in their own devices that the school district provides the device for this.  This is a policy that Lindbergh schools implement as soon as possible.  For the past five years we have had access to the same number of computers in a shared departmental computer cart and the need is greater but the number of computers is staying the same.  More and more teachers are using technology in their classrooms which is great and speaks directly to our technology department, but the availability of the computers is low.  While the B.Y.O.D. policy has been in place students are limited in access when only their smartphones are being brought to class.  The majority of my students are only bringing in smartphones but tablets, ipads, and laptops would greatly enhance learning. 

Adding to Pinterest, 11.13. 12

It should be no surprise that I like Pinterest.  I have found so many ideas that have helped mainly with my children but I have not been impressed with specific classroom content. I want to have a rotating board that would fit with each unit of study.  I am in the process of creating a board for my next Unit on African Americans and I will be pinning very useful sites for my students. Then I will put the board on my class blog.  At the end of the unit, I plan to assign students to explore and evaluate my pins, plus they must add at least a few of their own.