Classroom Website 2016-17

Mrs. Mann's Classroom Website

I recently started working on my classroom website through Swift. The challenge seemed difficult as there were no videos to watch but I got assistance by my kind colleagues. The learning experience of creating a website was not only rich learning but also a very pleasant one. 

Being a new teacher, I had many ideas in place for what I wanted to teach and felicitate my students  in the current academic year. But the real struggle was to keep track of everything while staying organized. Classroom website would not only help me stay organized but also help my students and parents to stay updated with current posts and archive older posts. This challenge is truly helpful in reflecting what is that I have missed and would like to add for students and their families. With a room to create, go back, and update current information, classroom website is a strong tool necessary for every classroom teacher to have.

Additionally, classroom website is a very effective tool to communicate with parents and keeping them engaged in their students' learning. It informs student families about events that are happening in their students' classroom, school as well as district. Parents can also access my website to contact me no matter where they are. My classroom website is an ongoing process and I will keep adding necessary pages to make it easier for parents to navigate.

Challenge: Digital Citizenship

What did you create, and why?  I created a support tool in Google Slides for the 5th grade "Talking Safely Online"  Digital Citizenship lesson.  Creating slides gives me an opportunity to reach the students who are visual learners and reinforce vocabulary and concepts for English Learners.  One of the main learning targets depends heavily on understanding that what you see on the screen may not be the whole picture.  It feels like it will be valuable to be able to illustrate that idea with the slides.

What went well for you?  I am very familiar with Google Slides as I have used them for my Morning Messages in 1st Grade as well as supporting lessons in Math and Science.  The articles and videos included in this challenge were thought-provoking and entertaining.  Please see the attached Google Doc for my reflections. Digital Citizenship Challenge Reflections

What was challenging?  Volume!  First, the sheer volume of information regarding Digital Citizenship was enormous.  I wanted to read every resource, but knew I could spend my entire summer focused on this topic alone.  Also, I wanted to include everything in my lesson.  I had to keep reminding myself that I needed to stay focused specifically on that lesson's learning targets and try not to take too many birdwalks.

What did you enjoy?  I enjoyed taking a look at a couple new tools that were suggested for presentations.  I appreciated the wealth of resources available to help us to more safely navigate the internet frontier with our students.  I had fun thinking about the students I would be working with and trying to use images that would appeal to them.

What ideas do you have for using this tool with your students, grade level, staff, or to communicate with families?  I have two 5th graders and a 4th grader at home.  I will also be working in their classrooms this year.  Although they do not have their own Social Media accounts, they see that all of the adults in our home use them.  They see their grandfather and grandmother using Facebook frequently.  As they become more and more familiar with Social Media and the online world, I want them to know how to proceed in an safe and informed manner.  I want that for all of their classmates as well.  The Common Sense Media lesson plans and the ever expanding number of apps and websites for our students can help us to reach our students in the formats that are familiar to them.  For those students who are not online, it will help us to prepare them for a future at school and work, that is already there.

3x3 links

3x3 links is a very useful tool for students, parents, and teachers. It not only organizes all the educational websites and apps that are used in the classroom conveniently but is also make them easily accessible all at once. In my view, it is a far better and most interactive tool for all ages as it saves a lot of time for students in navigating sites. To me, as a teacher, 3x3 links proved to be helpful in reflecting on the quality and quantity of educational sites and apps I have been using in the classroom. Having them all at once place was beneficial in finding what is needed to be added.

Organizing the links as per subject is valuable in finding out ways to help and support my fourth graders as well as having a place to save and celebrate their accomplishments. I found it challenging in the beginning as it took me quite some time to figure out what is better option between a folder and a link. Once I figured that, I faced the problem of opening many webpages at once. I learned a way to open all tabs related to one subject and then copy the links one by one. Each folder allows nine folders or link and all nine can allow 81 folders in them. In short, there is enough space for teachers to categorize as per subjects and students’ interest.

The challenge was helpful in discovering my own strengths in using technology effectively. One thing that I learned through this challenge and was a little time consuming was to set similar user names and passwords for all educational websites. For students, the name 3x3 links helps to learn 'dimensions' and other mathematical vocabulary related to dimensions while they visually see how it works. 

I enjoyed this challenge while having a sense of accomplishment. 3x3 links can be added to my students Chromebook and it will save me so much time in setting up new chrome books ready for my new fourth graders. 3x3 links allows teachers to put links to educational websites as well as online bulletin board like Padlet and digital journal such as See Saw. 

Even though the work of adding new links as per students' interest and demand of curriculum is an ongoing job but I am excited to start the academic year with this helpful tool. 

 Here is a link to my 3x3 links:http://www.3x3links.com/?open=34e593ea8cd52e75ade5e56b249df938

Challenge: Reading Online

Reading Online Challenge

What did you create and why?
My students struggle with reading online and need more practice. I created a lesson where they will read an article on Newsela and then find and quote evidence from the article.

What went well?
By having my students use online tools such as Scribble and Highlighter, they will be able to find evidence quickly and accurately.

What was challenging?
No challenges. The tools are easy to use. The articles were interesting and helpful.

What did you enjoy?
The articles were interesting. They gave strategies for helping students read online. I had not used some of the tools before like Reading Glasses and DocHub. I enjoyed finding out about them.

What ideas do you have for using this tool?
I plan on having my students use the online reading tools whenever they are reading online.

Google Drive Challenge

Google Drive Challenge

What did you create and why?
For this challenge, I learned how to make files for my documents and how to remove files I no longer use or need. This was very helpful for my effort to become more organized.

What went well?
I learned how to organize folders, move my files to folders and upload files. Getting organized is a work in progress but I was able to make a start.

What was challenging?
Trying to figure out what some of the documents were was a challenge for me and slow going. I had to open a file, decide whether or not to keep it and then trash or put it in a folder. Not naming the files added work to this process.

What did you enjoy?
I enjoy the fact that I'm moving one step closer to organization.

What ideas for using this tool with students?
I will be able to help my students organize their work, name the file and put it in a folder.

Google calendar

I did the Google Calendar Challenge.  

Once I figured out how to make the calendar it was easy to make one that will be helpful for me next school year.

There was quite a few videos that were not necessary to watch.

Reading Online

It was interesting to read and think about online reading and the challenges it poses for students. The main complaint is that students struggle more with comprehension than when reading print-based texts. Part of this stems from the propensity toward skimming words rather than spending time on each page/section.

• What did you create, and why? I created a lesson plan in which students will use online reading tools when reading on RazKids and/or Scholastic online. My students read online at least once per week as part of a Daily 5 model. Using the tools Readability and Read & Write with Google Chrome, my students will be able to reduce color and images (Readability) and highlight text or use a picture dictionary (Read & Write with Google Chrome).
• What went well for you? I enjoyed learning about online tools my students can use to help when reading online.
• What was challenging? I was unable to complete the Online Reading Article Study. It came up as a Read Only document so I was unable to add anything/share. I sent a request to the administrator.
• What did you enjoy? I enjoyed learning about tools that are available to help students when reading online.
• What ideas do you have for using this tool with your students, grade level, staff or to communicate with families? My students will be using these tools when reading online during our literacy block. I am going to do more research about Cirriculet, which was mentioned in the 'Digital Reading...' article. Perhaps I will incorporate this website as an option for my students.

Arts & Crafts Challenge

Sumo Paints and BoomWriter

What did you create and why?
I created a lesson using BoomWriter and SumoPaints. The students begin on BoomWriter using the prompt to write the first chapter of the book. Students then illustrate their chapter using SumoPaints.This challenge gave me a lot of opportunities to explore different apps and tools. I like Mystery Science because the lesson is all set up for teacher. A video introduces the topic/mystery, students are given a challenge and there's followup with data collection and other activities. I also liked Denki Word Quest and Rewordify. I explored Road to Grammar but found that I like NoRedInk which I have used in the past better.

What went well?
 Getting set up on BoomWriter is easy. There are step by step instructions. Teachers set up accounts for their students. I found Sumo Paints also easy to use, no accounts necessary.

What was challenging?
Sumo Paints has a lot of tools available so it took some time to try them all out. I got overwhelmed trying to get my lines straight.

What did you enjoy?
I liked exploring different websites and trying out apps. I found Mystery Science engaging.

What ideas do you have for using this tool?
I plan on using BoomWriter in September. Students are able to write chapters for a book. I think they'll enjoy being able to illustrate their stories with SumoPaints.

3X3 Link

What did you create, and why?

• I created a 3x3 Link because I wanted to have one place where I could put all the different webpages/links that I want my students to have access to on a regular basis without having them try to add them all separately to a favorite list.

What went well for you?

• Wow! This was so much easier than I was expecting it to be. I had wanted one for a while now, but had never gotten around to making one, mostly because I thought that it would be harder than it actually was. But I found it easy to add links and even reorganize the links once added.

What was challenging?

• The challenging part was that at this point in the summer, I added some pages that the students will be using for next year, but they are new sites and I do not yet have all to correct or current student logon page information at this time. I tried to add a basic link to the main webpage that will remind me what I wanted on the 3X3 link so that as I get the current information I can easily go back in and add it for student access.

What did you enjoy?

• I found making this way more fun than it probably should be, but the organization of all the different pieces put in one easy place for students to just click on made me really happy. I am always trying to find ways to help support my 4th grade students to access online resources easily and without needing my support to do so and I see this as being an easy way for them to help themselves. I was also quite excited to link it to my student Google Classroom as well has having plans to add it to my student Chromebooks as the homepage.

What ideas do you have for using this tool with your students, grade level, staff or to communicate with families?

• For this assignment I just created a 3X3 Link for the most commonly used webpages that my students need access to during the day. But I was also thinking about how easy it would be to create different 3X3 links to provide directions, resources, links for student projects limiting the amount of pages or resources or searching for information of research reports or different strategies that I want students to be working on and cutting down on some of the "extra" explore time that students sometimes get lost in.

Google Classroom

What did you create, and why?

• I created a Google Classroom to use with my students. I want there to be one shared location where I can share information and links with students that does not involve a lot of extra places for my 4th grade students to need to navigate as they are leaning how to use technology as a educational tool instead of more as a fun toy or activity that they are used to.

What went well for you?

• I found it pretty straight forward to create a Google Classroom and to add assignments, questions, announcements, and links for students to use. I have read the directions for how to grade and look at student responses and I hope that they are as easy to use as the directions are and as I found creating them to be.

What was challenging?

• It was a bit frustrating to be asked to assign students to the classroom, when I do not have a class list at this time. But I plan to have the student join the classroom as I introduce Chromebooks and student logons, probably as guided groups.

What did you enjoy?

• I love the idea of having one place for students to go to find what they need to access and complete assignments and access information that I want to share with them or that they can start to share with each other as relatively new technology users. I was really excited to be able to link my 3X3 page here for students to be able to access easily.

What ideas do you have for using this tool with your students, grade level, staff or to communicate with families?

• I plan to use this with students as a place for them to see and access assignments, as well as connect to online resources and shared documents. I plan to post assignment/project directions or links for students to have access to. I am excited to try our using assignments and questions as a way for student to practice communicating their thinking using computers on a more regular basis sharing, not just with me, but with each other as well. Teaching 4th graders this is really the beginning of using technology more regularity and consistently as a tool and I would like to help them to see the possibilities that come with this.

3x3Links

For the 3x3 Links Challenge I first created a simple 3x3 grid with the most frequently used links in our classroom, historically, Knowing that there are a couple more interactive pieces that I would like to add this year, including a reflective (exit ticket) tool, a vehicle for students to interact with each other, and a link to contact me with a need, I decided to use folders. I am still pondering the additional grid spaces I have available. I enjoyed perusing the resources available and example webpages that other teachers have developed. The most challenging was navigating through the changes that I decided to make after having the initial 3x3 grid complete and then deciding to create folders. Staying focused on the challenge at hand was difficult as I found myself wanting to create the exit ticket in Google Forms and update my class website, and create my Google Classroom page for the upcoming school year. Most of these are challenges I will be tackling in in the coming days or weeks, yet I know that I will want to add some of these components to the 3x3 Links so in wanting to be efficient, I know I inadvertently become inefficient. I know that this will be a tool in which the links I had posted to my website will now be able to be streamlined. Visually, I already see that this is much more user friendly both for students and families.

Click here for the link to see what I have done before adding the additional links.

Classroom Blogs

Greetings fellow tech campers!  Other than blogging with my students using Kidblog, this was my first experience creating a blog knowing that I will be using it professionally for the general public to possibly view.

Knowing that I intend to continue to blog and create a digital portfolio while on this journey, I wrote my first blog with my Edmonds.wednet.edu account as an introduction to the direction that I believe the blog could take. I am excited to continue to embrace technology and facilitate this learning in the classroom. The only challenge was a bit of a mental block, considering that the work that I put in to this is the property of Edmonds School District. I wondered if there was a way to do this work and have it within a personal account so that I am not at risk of the content changing or should I ever not teach within Edmonds, no longer being connected to the work I look forward to doing. I enjoyed creating a relevant post that can be a springboard for future thoughts. I think blogging can be an effective means to communicate from conversations with students to a tool for sharing learning with colleagues and families.

Chromebook Basics

What did you create and why.
I read through all of the instructions and completed the quiz.

What went well?
I took notes about the various parts of the keyboard and their functions.

What was challenging? 
I did not have a Chromebook with me.  I would like to verify the difference between the status area and the shelf, as well as practice pinning.

What did you enjoy?
I am glad to know how to turn off the spoken feedback since my students were able to turn it on.  I am also glad to know how to change the settings for auto correct and word prediction.

What ideas do you have to share?
I plan to make an anchor chart for the computer area of my classroom with some of these keyboard shortcuts.

Google Site

Anderson's Achievers

What did you create and why?
I created a website for our class newsletter.  One of the Danielson Framework sections encourages students to contribute to the parent communication.  So I created a page that starts with many of the sections I usually add to my weekly newsletter.  The pages include an important dates section so that students and parents can be aware of upcoming events.  I made a Math Minute section.  Students can post summaries of the skills we are learning in math.  There is also a video link, and a Google Doc for students to include examples of math in everyday situations.  I also included a File Cabinet page for parents to access documents related to Curriculum Night.  That way parents that were not able to attend could still receive the information.  I also included a link to a WebQuest.

What went well?
The videos in the Synergize section were very helpful.  I was glad to be able to choose from coordinated colors for a beginning theme.

What was challenging?
I am still not sure how to add an image to a page without it becoming a link to a separate browser window.  I would also like to practice more with the list page options so that data can be sorted for various purposes.  Since this is a sample and all of this was created by me, I would also like to experiment more with other contributors on a webpage option to see how the comments would work.  I am curious about the benefits and drawbacks of using a site versus using Google Classroom for specific purposes with students.

What did you enjoy?
I was glad to get the process started for something that I have wanted to do for a while.  Now I have the format ready.

What ideas do you have to share?
Last year we had students do research for individual state projects.  This involved lots of documents from each student sent to me for each piece of information.  I would love to create a site for each student where they could publish the information in one place, rather than having all of it on separate pieces of paper.  My grade level team could also create some Google Doc templates so that students are able to follow the correct formatting.  We also do book projects.  I would love to have a site per student where they could collect all of their work throughout the year in one location by topic.

Google Drive

What did you create and why?
I created a new folder within my Google Drive for all of my summer tech classes so that I can keep all of my new resources in one location.  I also converted one of my old files to a Google format so that it can be edited by students next year.

What worked well?
It was easy to move documents into new folders within Drive.

What was challenging?
I want to be able to send a form and receive responses in a spreadsheet as an easy way to check over students' work.

What did you enjoy?
I really liked the videos that demonstrated how to use the various functions.  I am sure that I will use plenty of the links from the Cybraryman page!!

What ideas do you have to share?
I am excited to be able to share folders with my grade level team.  Then with access to add comments, we can work together to help plan in a more concise way.
I am also still thinking through having students do all of their writing curriculum entries through Google Docs.  I like the ability to go back and see the archives of changes that have been made.  I am excited to use this comment feature to provide more feedback for students in a timely manner.

Google Classroom

What did you create, and why?
I created a Google Classroom that corresponds to a webquest about the Underground Railroad.  I created assignments for each of the episodes within the webquest.  That way I could read and respond to the students' responses, as well as see how far they had progressed.  This also helps students practice their writing skills.

What went well?
Students easily joined the class.  The assignments were kept organized by having one document for each of the four episodes.

What was challenging?
When I first made the assignment, I did not adjust the type of file.  So students tried to open their own documents and only had access to a blank Google Doc.  Upon changing the type of file, students now had their own copy, and no longer needed to copy and paste from my original.  I also learned how to send the grades back to the student with the 'return' function.

What did you enjoy?
I liked being able to adjust the assignments for any subject in class.  I am also glad to now know that grades can be sent directly to Skyward!

What ideas do you have to share?
One of my students was very glad to be able to access the website at home to show families what we are working on in class.
This next year I want students to have more options of materials to help them prepare and study for tests, specifically in math.  Having their responses online in a central location will provide a way for the to go back and review the major concepts from each chapter.
I would also like to try a shared document within our grade level for a brainstorming type of activity.  I think this might work well in collaboration with the writing curriculum.  We could also share some data with the science kits, specifically the Motion and Design tests with the distance traveled of the standard vehicles.

Google Calendar

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=edmonds.wednet.edu_f9p44fgkfkgp7uvfm6m1197o38%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Los_Angeles

I created a Google Calendar titled 'First Grade 2016-2017' to be used to keep track of activities during the school year. I added five events that were on the district calendar as well as three that pertain to my classroom.

Overall, this challenge went well. The directions were clear and I was able to complete the assignment easily. I like the format of Google Calendar; you can have multiple calendars and it is easy to add to calendars. There really wasn't anything challenging about creating a Google Calendar.

Once I create a classroom website, I will add a link of the calendar so parents can have access to classroom activities and district events.

There really wasn't anything challenging about creating a Google Calendar.

Arts & Crafts

https://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/educators/lessons/grade-k-2/Lets_Talk_About_Painting

https://www.sumopaint.com/home/#app

What I created: I created a lesson on continents. The kids will use Kennedy Center Arts Edge and Sumo Paints to create computer-generated images of the animals, crops, and/or famous places of all seven continents.

What went well: I like that using the Kennedy Arts Edge resource I can incoporate social studies and the arts. I like that using Sumo Paints, my students can create creative images online.

What was challenging: I forsee it being challenging to have all of my students complete the assignment(s) at the same time because I do not have one computer per student.

What I enjoyed: I like using the tools to help create lessons with my students. I like that my students will have freedom to be creative on Sumo Paints. I also like that using Sumo Paints, my students can include text with their artwork.

How will I use this with others: I will use both resouces with my students. I will check Arts Edge periodically during the school year to see what is new and and what I can use with my students. I will discuss both resources with the other first grade students.

Tools used: Kennedy Center Arts Edge and Sumo Paints

Challenge: Class Blog

I created a class blog for my students to write about their reading or anything they want to share. I found it very confusing and not sure that I did it right. I'm having trouble visualizing what the students would see and what I see. I found this challenging, trying to find someone to have author the blog and then comment on someone's. The blog is an excellent tool for students to share ideas and information. It could also be used as a communication tool with parents.

Challenge: Google Forms

I found the idea of making a form online very intimidating so this was the perfect opportunity to create one. I created a multiplication form that can be used for a quick assessment or exit ticket. Here's the link: http://goo.gl/forms/PHFTKmaJw1ukIHlD3

It was so easy, I wish I tried earlier. It's very straightforward and doesn't let you make a mistake. I like that you can use both multiple choice, short answer or paragraph. I made a couple of other forms for practice. I will be using this a lot especially for exit tickets. It could also be sent home to parents for a quick response.