Crazy Busy in the Best Way Possible

Happy Valentine's Day!!! It's been over a month since my last post and today is the first day I've had time to sit down and blog. *Sigh* I have been very busy with student teaching, life, and landing my FIRST JOB!

I've known for awhile that I had a job, but last week found out what grade level and building. Beginning in August, I will be teaching 1st grade at Butler Elementary in Fort Dodge, IA, my hometown. I have heard wonderful things about the Butler staff and I cannot wait to become a part of it. I will be meeting my team over spring break and pick out my classroom for next year. It is all very surreal. I can't wait for next year, but right now, my focus needs to be student teaching.

The 2nd graders keep me busy and on my toes - I love seeing them every day. I am finally full time teaching and it is fabulous. It makes me so excited for my own classroom next year. I've been able to get to know each of them, which has been very rewarding. They make my heart happy. Only 3 weeks left with them; I don't like thinking about having to leave.

We have doing a lot of things, but my favorite project we've been working on in 2nd grade is our blog. We have been using KidBlog to publish our writing to express our opinion. This writing unit began by introducing opinion writing and what that should include. We used an OREO to help us remember.

O - state your Opinion
R - back it up with Reasons
E - provide Examples
O - and restate your Opinion

Next, I introduced the blog. This lesson was a bit of a nightmare, yet a success all at once. I went home that day mentally exhausted. Of course, with technology, you have to be patient and know that something will always go wrong. It was a process to familiarize the kids with it - they had lots of questions, but their engagement and excitement level was through the roof.

The next lesson, however, was a breeze compared to the first! They had a better understanding and the initial craziness of a new app had subsided. They still had questions, but they didn't bombard my brain like last time. They published their first post - an about me post - including 3 facts about themselves. 22 second graders sat quietly at their desks without a single reminder, while writing. SUCCESS!!!!!!

I learned an important lesson during these first lessons; trying new things requires you to take a leap of faith, but the jump is SO worth it. We have had great discussions about digital citizenship, proper use, and purpose of our blog. We are all learning as we go; learning new things each day.

The students have been able to publish a few opinion writing pieces, comment on peer's posts with editing advice or their thoughts, and write to an audience which provides great purpose to their writing. It makes writing much more appealing to them.

Our next project is a book review. It has many components, but I am very excited to try it out. Here's a breakdown of the plan:

• Students pick a book
• Students brainstorm on paper 
• Students write a draft on paper
• Students revise and edit
• Students get their final draft approved by the teacher
• Students post their book review on the blog
• Students read their book review and are recorded
• Videos are posted to YouTube 
• QR codes are created for each YouTube video
• QR codes are placed on the books in the library
• Students can scan the QR codes to listen to their peer's opinion and recommendations about books in their classroom library

This will be my first time doing anything like this, but as my cooperating teacher says, "This is your time to try new things!" Very true. I'll never know unless I try.

Realistically, it will probably be awhile again until I am able to blog due to the craziness of life, but hopefully next time I'll have a successful book review project to discuss!!

Using Twitter to Connect

This week I learned how useful twitter can be for educational purposes. We participated in a live interview via Google Hangouts with Toby Brown, a professor at Oklahoma State. He discussed why and how he uses twitter to grow professionally. I learned that twitter chats are a great way to share information and ask other educators questions. By simply hash-tagging during a chat on twitter, you are instantly connected to others.

The twitter chat I observed this week was Elementary Counselors Chat, #escchat. It took place on a Thursday at 7-8 central time. The topic was art therapy. I think this topic was chosen to be discussed because it is a common way to have children discuss their feelings. Rather than talking about things, children can draw what they feel.

It was so interesting to watch the chat live. I had seen some of my followers use hash-tags before but I had never searched a hash-tag and watch the chat happen. To begin, all the teachers all introduced themselves. Then they began answering questions that one person posed. They used letters and numbers to communicate which question they were answering, for example the first question would be labeled: Q1 and would have answers labeled: A1. It was so cool to see teachers communicating back and forth, sharing their lesson ideas, successes, and failures. They offered to help each other with tools that other teachers were not familiar with. I really enjoyed it and I look forward to doing this again. I think the hardest part about the chats is remembering when they happen! Once you have a specific area of teaching that you want to connect with other educators about, it would make participating in these chats much easier.

I follow many of my friends on twitter but before this, followed few educators. I don't personally know very many teachers who use twitter professionally. I decided to put myself out there and follow a few well-known tweeters who I can learn from. Here are the people I decided to follow and why:

• Jamie Fath (@jamiefath) - my instructor for the technology course I am taking this semester. I know she uses twitter well and I look forward to learning from her!
• Toby Brown (tbbrwn) - he is the professor I mentioned earlier in my post that we interviewed on Sunday about twitter. He had a lot of great ideas and participates in the chats on twitter regularly so watching his tweets would be beneficial to become connected to other educators.
• Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) - Toby recommended we follow him. I am looking forward to learning whatever I can! He also participates in the twitter chats regularly.
• Scott McLeod (mcleod) - I followed him about a year ago. My dad is a friend and colleague of his so I had the opportunity to meet with him him last year. He founded CASTLE, a center whose focus is on school administrators need for technology. I highly recommend following him on twitter and also checking out his blog called Dangerously Irrelevant.
• Jacob Short (mrshort2005) - He is a teacher at Saint Edmond high school, my alma mater. He occasionally participates in the twitter chats and also is a great example of how to incorporate technology into a high school classroom.

There are so many other great tweeters out there, but this will do for now! I look forward to creating authentic connections with people in the future. Similar to my blog post about being a connected educator, we must create relationships, not just internet interactions.

I think the twitter chats are helpful and I will participate in the future. I am connected through social networks already for personal purpose, I might as well follow some educators too and hit two birds with one stone! I know a new and unknown tool can be frightening to use, so here are some tips for teachers new to twitter:

• Follow at least 5 people who are tied to the education field. 
• Watch a twitter live chat. Check out this link to find the times and dates of different topics discussed: Twitter chats
• After you have slowly immersed yourself into the twitter world, tweet at an expert with a question!
• Push yourself even more, participate in a chat!
• Slow is key. Don't overwhelm yourself.

A Connected Teacher

Being able to be a team player, work collaboratively, and communicate with colleagues are crucial characteristics of great teachers. This week I did a little research on being a "connected educator". For those of you that are not familiar with this term, it simply means a teacher who is connected through technology tools with other teachers. For example, not just 'following' other educators on twitter, but tweeting back and forth, creating relationships, and carrying on conversations. Here is a great visual that Dr. Alec Couros created which illustrates this idea.

[Retrieved from http://dmlcentral.net/blog/howard-rheingold/professor-alec-couros-connected-teacher]

Through my research, I found that a lot of people are talking about Connected Educators online. There is a Connected Educators project, a month dedicated to Connected Educators, books for sale on the topic, the information was overwhelming! I found a site with ten tips for becoming a Connected Educator. It is a great starting point, I recommend checking it out!

Benefits of being a Connected Educator:

• You can learn from other teachers' mistakes and successes.
• You can use resources created by other teachers and share your own to save time.
• You can create relationships with teachers all over the world which will last much longer than any tool.

Am I connected? Not nearly as much as I should be. Sure, I blog, tweet, post and buy things on Teachers Pay Teachers, search sites for lessons created by other teachers, follow blogs and educators on twitter. All of those things I'm doing are great, but I have not taken the next step to create a flow of communication back and forth. I plan to challenge myself to do so. This is what I will do to become connected:

• I will comment on other's blogs when I see an idea I like.
• I will participate in EdTech tweet conversations using hashtags.
• I will contact teachers to question them about lessons they've created or done that I find online.
• I will create relationships with teachers I do not know or have not met yet.

"The tools come and go, but the relationships endure." - Dr. Alec Couros.

I challenge you to step out of your comfort zone and create deep connections with other educators!