A Short Reflection on My Tango with Technology

I'm so proud of my little teacher's confidence, as he figures out the time. This was intended to be an assessment showing mastery. Even so, I (and others) have derived much enjoyment from this video. Showing understanding of time and the clock wasn't nearly as exciting, before we learned how to makeTouchCasts! Students love to teach! Writing wasn't as engaging, especially for students with disabilities, prior to digital books, various apps, such as ChatterPixKids and digital story boards.

After reading a blog posted by Dr. Laurie Friedrich, I've been reflecting on the fact that my accountability partners became my students, rather than colleagues. It took months before other teachers began asking, "How did you do that?" "Did the students create that?"

At the beginning of this journey, I was excited; trying to share with everyone around me. Quickly, I learned there were no listeners. So, my students and I ventured into the world of app smashing and chrome-books with only the support of my beloved 880J and our encouraging, Dr. Friedrich. Soon, I began to hear from parents. I began to share more with parents, via Seesaw. It's been a blast! It's crazy to think that this tango into tech wouldn't last without peers to hold me accountable! It has become just another facet of my obsession with teaching.

On a twitter chat last night, there were several comments about technology taking over pedagogy. Well, we are teachers, knowledgable about pedagogy, we know how to incorporate technology into our lesson planning and assessment. OK, I'll admit, there are educators who only think of games, when we talk tech. But, they are just where they are right now. We all start somewhere.

"What will I do if technology is no longer as motivating for my students?" I don't see it happening. My lessons were engaging before, so we will manage. My students and I will continue to be creative in how we use tech to learn and to show our learning.

The personalization opportunities with technology 
take individualization to a whole new level!

Seesaw = Digital Portfolios of Progress!

The chromebooks have arrived!

Download for free!

Now that we are a 1:1 school, I can use technology any time. No making deals with other teachers, so that we can have the laptop cart. No searching for the cart that I did check out. 
So much to be thankful for!

Recently, I shared my initial impressions of Seesaw. Well, I was clueless! Since then, I've learned that anything shareable, can be shared on Seesaw.

I have printed my class QR codes to give to parents at conferences. As long as they have an iOS, Android, chromebook, or any computer using Firefox or Chrome Browsers, they can stay up to date on their child's work.

Other reasons for my love of Seesaw:

• Seesaw has student activity ideas. I will be using a few of those, so that my students can get comfortable with uploading their own work. I've been a bit of a control freak until now.
• Teachers can flag work. I have flagged a student's work that I want to share at her Annual IEP Review, this week! I don't want to be distracted by work that we have already discussed.
• Students can share to Seesaw from Shadow Puppet Edu, Haiku Deck, Storybird.com, ChatterPix Kids, and Total Recall!
• Simple to monitor IEP goals, without pulling students from grade level instruction
• Students can snap pics of their work. Then they can add text, drawing or voice, before sharing to the class journal.
• Your class can even blog, connecting with a global audience!
• If you are feeling especially proud of your students, you can tweet their work. Seesaw's posts remove all personal information, so that the students' anonymity is protected.
• Free!
• No Passwords!
• Promotes strong communication between home and school.
• I still love it most, because it is a portable, organized way to share multiple students' Portfolios of Progress!  

Bye, bye paper!

Getting More Comfortable

This week was all about getting more comfortable using the technology available in the school building, experiencing a twitter chat, and trying out Story Bird, which was recommended by a colleague. The classroom teachers that I co-teach with are always in charge of the projector, smart board, apple TV, and iPad mini. Unfortunately, support staff in our building does not have any of these cool tools. That results in a feeling of appearing slightly less competent when we teach in the general education room. I will take some of the blame, since I know they are used to these things, I let them do it all. That is why a teacher's absence was a blessing in disguise. I discovered that I am perfectly capable of managing the technology, even in her absence. I still used my personal iPad, since I don't know where she keeps the mini and I'm comfy with mine. Anyway, I managed to show the class a video, using the Apple TV and projector, and model the graphic organizer using the document camera with no problem. I'm growing up!

I participated in a Twitter chat, #nebedchat on Wednesday night. At first, it seemed random. Then I realized that I had to click "all tweets" in order to follow the entire conversation. After that, I enjoyed it. It was fast paced and fun! The moderators (not sure what they are actually called) posed a question (Q1, etc...) The answers are labeled by the participants (A1, etc...) so that everyone knows what they are responding to. I would do this again!

Story Bird will require more tinkering. I added a student to my class, but he has had to work on his book in my account, since we can't get his log-in to work. Once we work out this glitch, I will add other writers. It is awesome, because the illustrations trigger their imaginations, much like a good writing prompt. My student who struggles to write a sentence, has written a paragraph for each picture! THAT is worth a little extra time to figure out.

More Technology on the Way!

We learned yesterday, that our district will be providing 3-5th graders with their own Chromebooks, midyear. Also coming soon is text to speech as an accommodation for students with disabilities. I have used free text to speech applications, but they do not sound very natural. Hopefully this will be an improvement.

It was another exciting week in special education!