School let out on Friday at 10:30am.... ahh summer! Then Monday morning rolled around and my alarm rang. I don't have anything to get up for today, oh wait. I do. The PACT Tech Academy 2015, a week of learning with other middle school teachers from the area. PACT Tech Academy is funded and ran by the Connelly Foundation. They provide the opportunity for Catholic school teachers to network, learn, and share with other teachers throughout the greater Philadelphia area. I was fortunate to be selected to join hundreds of other teachers in this tech experience. Day 1: Google Me this, Batman! Google is king of the internet. That simple sentence sums up the existence of Google. Google for Education has an endless list of features, add-ons, extensions, and programs that can make life easier for students and teachers. By no means is technology a means to an end for education, but technology can make the art of education a little more stream lined while also building skills within our students for the 21st century (not to mention a great way to build student engagement or motivation). We spent the day with Gene Carboni and Preston Tyrell going over Google Drive programs, Google Classroom, and various programs that work with those systems to make life, grading, writing, and organization slightly easier. Google Classroom was a program launched in the last year that is exclusive to Google for Education Schools. It was a great free resource for myself and my students to collaborate in a whole new way. The first day was a great review for me and also gave me some new tips and applications to try! Day 2: A Digital Voice for the Classroom Day 2 was probably the most rewarding for me. Blogging, social media, and connecting outside of my classroom were things I had limited experience in. Tina Schmidt and Bell Gallagher had countless resources and examples of how simple it can be to reach out and accomplish AMAZING things. Tina and Bell both had classroom blogs, not for themselves but for their students. They had streamlined rules and expectations for the young authors and established a large audience for their work. It was intimidating. They created a new classroom blog and made each of us a student account, so we too could experience what their students did. Blogging can be simple! Blogging can be fun! Isn't that the fun in teaching? --to share with others and get new ideas that help inspire our own classroom.
Tina also showed me how Twitter can be used to connect classrooms. She would send out a tweet that her 3rd graders were looking for a Mystery Location and teachers across the world would respond. She would set up a Skype date with that teacher and after working out some details ahead of time, their students would live Skype and play 20 questions to determine where the other class was located. It was a great lesson for her students in geography, history, culture, communication, reasoning, and the list goes on. Tina and Bell definitely gave me some things to work on, I just want to know when they have the time to sleep with all the things they are accomplishing with such young tech users!
Day 4: Sharing
After three full days of learning, creating, and collaborating it was time to share. We had a great guest speaker, shared work from the many different groups of teachers, and had some time to network or continue to create with the resources we had been given. The week certainly left me with a lot to think about and a big chunk of inspiration to try something new! Summer vacation spent with professional development and now a new book to be ready for the #GBA2015 in the fall!
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Welcome, come into our classroom! We have a great room to share with you that show cases our work, collaboration, friendships, and the space we work within! Hope you enjoy our home away from home! Pottermore is a fantastic addition to the traditional book experience! Students followed along with the Pottermore story lines to explore additional information about the characters, setting, and plot that was revealed to them by the author, J.K. Rowling! After being sorted into Hogwarts houses and purchasing school supplies in Diagon Alley, students explored the rest of the magical world of Harry Potter. They were able to practice potions and jinxes, just like book characters, to earn house points towards the Hogwarts House Cup! We created a Google Sheet to track our own house points to see who could earn the most points within just our school houses! TechnologyDuring our regular school week, students read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with their ELA teacher and class. Although, on Fridays students had an opportunity to combine with another grade level to take part in a book clubs across grade levels! Students had reading roles throughout the unit to help lead their own book discussions. They were able to make predictions, connections, inferences, as well as generate discussion questions and visualize the setting and/or plot! English Language ArtsArt and Physical EducationMiss Derrickson and I are lucky to work with a supportive and flexible faculty! Our physical education teacher made the last 5th and 6th grade gym class extra special. The 5th and 6th grade students were able to play Quidditch together! They were able to adapt the fictional sport of Quiddidtch to our gym class. While we were unable to find a magical snitch to fly around the gym the whole time, we were able to have a student be the snitch! The snitch would have various bases to remain safe on during the game, but would "fly" across the field at any point trying to avoid the seeker! During art class the 6th grade made two creations related to Harry Potter. At the start of the literature unit they were able to envision their own magical owl, like Hedwig. We found our inspiration from Art Dish with MJ. We used charcoal and pastels to create a feathered or textured effect for our owls. I find anytime we use pastels it is best to laminate the student work before hanging it so it does not end up on clothing as visitors walk by. Towards the end our our Harry Potter unit we had one book that was read so much it fell apart at the seems. We took this as an opportunity to make some creative Sharpie Art Wizard Poetry! Student took any page out of the novel and drew a magical image. Then within the image or across the page they picked out key words to compose a muggle or wizard poem by illustrating over the other words.
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AuthorCurrent 1st grade teacher and former middle school educator trying to be techy, Reading Specialist, life long learner, and avid reader Categories
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January 2021
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