Teacher Talk

Welcome Back Teachers!  I hope you had a wonderful, restful summer break and are full of energy as you prepare for the upcoming school year.  I wanted to share some helpful technology tips that will make learning fun and meaningful for you and your students.

1.  Use your Flip Video camera to record the students as they tell about their first day of school, ask them to tell you what was the best part of their day or record the proper way to walk down the hall, raise your hand to ask a question, line up in the cafeteria and play safely on the playground.  Then review the procedures with your students and add to the video throughout the year.  Make a movie about their adventures, email the movies to the parents, and play it on the interactive white board as you publish their ideas!

2.  Use a digital camera to take photos of the teachers, cafeteria staff, office staff, nurse, guidance counselor, and custodians as you go on a scavenger hunt around the school.  Bind these into a book or make a transformation of the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear:  “Students, students, who do you see?  I see Mrs. Smith looking at me.” End it with “Mrs. Mauney, Mrs. Mauney, who do you see?  I see my students looking at me!”

3. Sign the Class Contract using your Interactive White Board (Smart of Promethean).  As a class develop the rules and procedures for your classroom, write the rules on the interactive board,  and let each student come up to the board and sign the contract.  Print the contract for each student and send it home for parents to read during the first week of school.  It could be called your Code of Conduct or have your students think of a name for the contract.

4. Show Google Earth to your students and how to find their school and their homes.  Or you can just show them Google Maps, make sure you show them street view so they can actually see the signs and houses as they move down the roads. 

5.  Show them how to use greenville.lib.overdrive.com .  You can go ahead and check out books to view on your interactive white board, or download some audio books to your MP3 players for students to listen to during independent reading time.

6.  Show the website www.scdiscus.org  and go to DISCUS kids.  Explore all the fun features of Britannica Learning Zone, Kid Infobits, Britannica Elementary. Check with your media specialist for the username and password.

7.  During your Open House or Orientation, make Power Point to show all the important information to parents and students:  For example:  Lunch is $3.00, Breakfast is ____,  Parent letters go home on Mondays in the Homework Folder, Spelling tests are on _____, School begins at ___, have a Wish List in the presentation and posted in your room.  I have an Orientation Power Point on my wiki that you can use. www.utc08.pbworks.com

8.  Assign the parents homework and have them write a story about their child and tell you what their child’s strengths and weaknesses are, how they learn best, what they enjoy most in life and what they’d like for you to help them with this year.  Save this letter and refer back to it frequently.  It helps to remember that each student is someone’s special child.

9.  Assign a class photographer each week to take photos during the year.  At the end of each quarter or at the end of the year, make a movie using Movie Maker or Photo Story about the exciting learning that took place in your classroom. Post your photos online and email the parents and students the link to the photos so they can share the learning experiences.  Use www.snapfish.com or www.shutterfly.com or www.kodak.com to upload photos.  Don’t forget to only post students’ first names when publishing their work or photos. 

10.  Use student response systems to get to know one another.  Ask questions and have students use Senteos, Activotes, Activexpressions to vote for their favorite restaurants, colors, books, etc….

Try a few of these tips and have a wonderful year with your students.

Who is the 28th President of the United States? Quick give me an answer, if you don’t know, get out your handheld computer (your cell phone) and text in the question, now send it to 242242 (cha cha) and within seconds you will receive a response back.  How cool is that?  Standard text messaging charges apply, so be careful.  One of our kindergarten teachers used Cha Cha as an activating strategy at the Upstate Technology Conference last week and everyone is raving about this newfound bit of technology knowledge!  My friend asked her 25 year old nephew if he“Cha Cha-ed” and he said “I am Cha Cha!”  He is a college student and gets paid to answer questions that are forwarded to him by Cha Cha. 

So if you don’t have the really cool iPhone or Blackberry with internet access, you can still impress your friends by using Cha Cha on your standard text messaging phone. 

By the way, do you have the answer yet?  It is Woodrow Wilson. 

Have fun with Cha Cha!

By Fran Mauney

If only educators could use brain imagery to analyze the architecture of students’ brains, we could actually see the areas in which students learn best.  This would allow us to build activities that correspond to students’ abilities and cause their brains to morph and grow.  Recent brain research shows that the parts of the brain involved in reading, math, music and personal relationships are different in every child.  They are also independent of one another, which brings me to the reason for this blog.  We need to begin thinking of students as a stained glass mosaic with several pieces, some of these pieces show  the areas they are really good at and some pieces show their weaknesses.  Many educators believe if a students is a poor reader, then he is going to be poor in other subjects as well. This is a myth that needs to be destroyed. What can we do as educators?  We can design lessons that appeal to multiple senses.  Teachers can lead students into a new subject through his strengths and interests. Once the student is engaged, he can try a weaker skills set for another part of the lesson and develop another area of the brain.

Special needs students have always touched my heart and inspired me to be a better teacher.  Because of their diverse learning differences (not disabilities), I look for activities that engage them and allow them opportunities to experience success. Technology is the tool that I continue to use to strengthen students’ learning.   When second graders were given the opportunity to visit websites to locate information about famous African Americans, they told me they couldn’t do that because they couldn’t read.  When I sat with these students at the computer and helped them locate the information, I read the words out loud to them as I pointed to the words on the screen.  Next, the students told me the facts they’d like to include on their storyboard and I wrote the words for them.  Finally, the students were able to read their parts into the microphone and record their stories using Audacity .  They were also able to publish their podcasts using Gcast.  These students were so excited and proud of their accomplishments!  Hearing themselves read, editing their pauses using Audacity, and publishing for friends and family on the web, boosted their self-esteem and developed the weaker parts of their brains. 

I think educators can benefit from the special education teachers’ experiences as they help write IEPs and set goals for students each year.  Finding engaging activities using technology will motivate students to work hard to overcome their weaknesses.  Programs like Compass Learning are designed to individualize instruction based on students’ MAP scores.  Movie Maker is another free download that students absolutely love using to create digital stories.  The reluctant reader will gladly insert photos, add titles, transitions and music to bring their stories to life.  Students who struggle with writing, will also enjoy the visuals and dictation of the story with Movie Maker.  Try using technology with your special needs students and give them the opportunities you give the gifted students.  You will be pleasantly surprised!

This is a demonstration for teachers to learn how to set up a blog for their classroom or their school.  I hope you will share your ideas through the blog and learn from each other!

When planning lessons and teaching students, I constantly ask myself how these plans will impact student learning.  I study the standards and write them in student friendly terms. I post the “easy to understand” standards on the board and ask an essential question about the lesson. We practice reading the words, then we body map the words (adding motions to help us remember the meaning). This solidifies exactly what we are expected to learn. I create a web and plan activities that  involve the multiple intelligences when designing lessons and I provide time for Reflection at the end of the lesson using Marzano strategies.  So often teachers only recognize the Word Smart or Math Smart students and neglect the other students who are strong in the other intelligences: Nature, Music, Drama, Body, People, and Personal.  I challenge teachers to evaluate their students by examining all the intelligences.  Technology provides students the opportunity to excel in all the intelligences.   Watch students’ eyes light up when you tell them they will create a T-shirt Research project, or record a podcast or comment about a virtual field trip using Voice Thread.  It is time for teachers utilize technology tools that motivate students and enhance learning based on the learning standards. You don’t have to do this alone.  There are many resources available at your fingertips.  Begin by asking colleagues at your school for ideas. Be willing to share ideas with other teachers at your school, district and state.  As educators, we should work together as a team and share our students’ successes with each other. Communicate using blogs and wikis and lead in-services at your grade level meetings, faculty meetings and local conferences.  Teachers are eager to help, if you’ll simply ask.  Here is an excellent model I found while researching this topic: Baltimore City Schools.

I am a member of an incredible list serve that sends me valuable research daily.  I was trained using the Highly Effective Teaching Model and incorporate all the components of that model when I teach. Ask to join their forum and you’ll receive a wealth of valuable information each day.

Here are some excellent resources to help you plan lessons that will meet your students’ needs.  Edutopia roject Based Learning, Technology Integration, Social and Emotional Learning

Brain Fitness Activiites

4th Grade Nature/Science/Technology Project

Brain Research and Learning

Design a Classroom of the Future

Good luck with your planning and collaboration.  I’d love to hear your success stories and share them with others!

Hello Teachers!  I have so much to say and I’m very excited about my new blog.  I’ve been teaching 25 years and I love learning about the newest and greatest technology.  I enjoy reading about the latest brain research as it relates to students’ learning and how being actively involved in the learning process is really the best way to teach young children.  I’ve been reviewing the theorists and studying Piaget and Vygostky and I remember how reading about them in college helped shape my views about learners.  I’m so thankful that I’ve had principals that allowed me to be creative with my students, let them create projects, star in plays, dance and exercise in the room, read stories to staff members, and have fun while learning.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!  I also am passionate about Howard Gardner’s Theories of Multiple Intelligences and how we as teachers should build on our students intelligences of Nature Smart, Body Smart, Math Smart, Picture Smart, People Smart, Self Smart, Word Smart and Music Smart.  It’s too bad that most teachers concentrate and teach to the Word Smart students and expect everyone to learn like that……taking notes, sitting quietly, no collaboration,etc…   I also firmly believe in cooperative learning and building teamwork in a classroom.   Technology is one of the ways that I teach my students to work together as they share ideas and help each other with games, strategies, how to locate web sites.