My newest favorite~ Buncee

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend Superior Tech 4 Teachers in Clearwater and it was fabulous! First there was an opening keynote with Bryan L. Miller and Katrina Keene and the top tech toys.  There was an entire table full of tech toys/tools to use in the classroom. Really there were 2 tables and I had to control myself from creating my Christmas Wish List.

 I was so lucky to win a @Tiggly Words software for 1st grade and when school starts back I will be sure to get a kid's point of view of the fun!

I spent the rest of the day in the Robotics and Coding Workshop where we learned more in depth about code.org-yippee all signed up for my class so more to come about that too.  We were exposed and got our hands on just about everything to do with Coding and Robotics and it was amazing as much as it was overwhelming.  No worries the wheels are turning and plans are being put into motion...

     The next day started off with an Opening Key Note from Brad Waid.  He was amazing and so insightful.  He really made me think about the generational gap in particular technology and the internet.  Technology has really changed over the past years but what about classrooms? Does the classroom really look very different over the past 50 years? rows, teacher up front...

He showed some pretty inspirational videos and had the crowd in tears as well as laughing out loud.  

How lucky was I to get a photo with Brad Waid and Kevin Honeycutt? Seriously #edheros here!

 Sessions were tough to choose because there were so many good ones and I jus wished I had some more teachers from our school so we could split and conquer.  Do you know Kayla Delzer, also known as Top Dog Teaching.  She is amazing!  So very personable, down to Earth, cute as can be and just plain lovable!  My favorite quote from her was that most days we are a hot mess riding the struggle bus! Seriously how accurate is she?

Of course one of my most favorite people in the world, Stacey Simpson @simpsonsuperstars knows her and we had to take a selfie.  Check that off my Bucket List-meeting another #edhero

 Explain Everything is one of my favorite apps and I do believe it would get 5 out of 5 stars from most of my firsties too.  Jennifer Baselice gave an excellent session on the benefits and ease of using the app in the classroom for flipped learning as well as interactively in the classroom with math students.  Lucky me I won a 3 month license for the new Collaborative Explain Everything.  I can not wait to try it out and taking bits and pieces from those around.  I guess I will have to blog about that too, I will be BUSY...

Book Creator is another favorite app not only for me but my firsties.  Anissa Labrador shared some examples of first graders and high school students collaborating on a shared book that even made it to iTunes.  My Pet Monster started with the younger students drawing monsters and writing stories about them.  The high school students then digitized the monsters and they were too cute, pretty true to the original.  The cutest part-the younger students read their stories.  Seriously a collaborative effort that made serious memories for all involved.  

Remember those tech toys from earlier well there was a Tope Tech Tools session.  This Padcaster in the photo is the #1 on my wish list-seriously it is the same quality as those roving news vans.  I even have the portable green screen ready for some excited adventures this upcoming year.

You might have noticed the title of the blog post is my new favorite-Buncee.  What is Buncee? Only the most amazing presentation tool to hit teachers. Did you see the slide way at the top right under the title?  The is a Buncee I created to give highlights from ST4T and there are links?!? Did you see the dancing taco?  I can't wait to learn more and share this resource this upcoming year.  The fabulous Amber, @Edtechamber presented a session on getting on the #Buncee Bus.  Here I got a special one on one mini session of all the features Buncee has to offer.  There were 20 people sitting on the floor to hear the session-the most packed one of the sessions I attended.

 

This is Claire and I think we are going to be good Buncee friends.  She is in the area and has tons of ideas of how to use Buncee to integrate technology into lessons and daily routines. Loved hearing her  sorties about her own kids and Buncee and she shared examples.

 This is Buncee's CEO , Marie Arturi, telling how Buncee came to be.  Amazing and I know with the crew I met she has all the right people in place to make Buncee your favorite too.

ST4T was such an amazing experience.  There were so many sessions to choose from and my wheels are turning about presenting next year.  I need to start collecting samples and stories now to prepare and hope to share the same stage as some of my #edheros.

SeeSaw and a directed drawing of a pirate...

We worked with the ar pattern and of course I dressed as a pirate and got some funny looks from the firsties.  Surprisingly enough they came up with quite a few ar words.  Then I thought let's get the iPads out and I could lead a directed drawing using the Draw and Tell app.  Ok these are the cutest pirates you ever did see and then we app smashed with ChatterKid to use our best pirate voices while reading sentences we created.







Ms. Clutter and I are using SeeSaw app to collect work from the firsties to share.  They can share with one another so we had to teach how to comment.  Once we were pretty good we shared with our parents so they could see the amazing work we are creating on the iPad.  Our next steps are to blog through SeeSaw and share with other 1st grade classes. So exciting to connect with others around the world and share our learning.

50s day

Every year I look forward to the 50th day of school.  9 years ago my Aunt Alice made a pink poodle skirt and I bought a pair of saddle shoes so every year around this time I get to go to the back of my closet and pull those gems out.  I love counting those days with the kids and Zero the Hero, then the BIG day arrives.  We talk about clothes, cars, and other things from the past and now.  The wheels start turning for parents and how to dress them up.  By the picture below you will see they did not disappoint.

My fabulous 50s firsties.

We rotate through the other 1st grade classrooms for a variety of activities.  Here we are getting ready for some root beer floats and we got to watch the chocolate factory episode of I Love Lucy.  Can you believe these kids hadn't ever seen a black & white TV show.  We laughed and laughed.

Get ready for some drag racing!  Here we used our breathing power to race those cars. Can we get a cheer for these kids?!?

Some of us really get into our work right?  Who could blame him he was having a ball!

Who remembers coloring contests?  These kids are getting their creations ready for the judge!

What 50s day wouldn't be complete without a hula hoop contest?  

The firsties had to come up with their favorite parts to an amazing day and we used ChatterPix to tell you all about it.  Watch and see all the fun we had main it to the 50s day of school.

This is our crew and they are amazing!

#MiamiDevice 2015

Back from #MiamiDevice and what are my thoughts…Well I am finding it difficult to sleep through the night because the inspiration is brewing and needs to be released.  Watch out CCE because now I have seven other teachers along side me to bravely face our fears and move forward with technology because it is what is right for kids.  

We cannot teach 21^st century students with 20^th century material.  There is a passion locked inside each and everyone of us.  We need to find that passion, share it and build relationships through that passion.  We heard some of the most inspirational speakers talk about being brave because fear is the greatest barrier to our own success.  I want to encourage our teachers to find their passion and in turn find the passion of their students.  I want to help build those relationships along with some very connected educators so we can bring forth the message #ottersmatter.  

Throughout #MiamiDevice I saw our team cry, smile, and most importantly share a part of themselves they reserve for those closest to them.  Our team will need to rely on one another as we move forward and we are off to a solid start and will show our brave along the way.

Yes that is Tony Vincent! We made it to several sessions and learned how to integrate iPads into our daily instruction.  Thank you @tonyvincent

We might have been @techninjatodd stalkers but seriously we did have thoughts of moving to Texas just to teach for him!

Adam Bellow is such a fabulous storyteller and wow his Keynote presentations are amazing!  I loved the Hack the Keynote session and will start working on my story soon...

You never know who you will meet, here is Reshan Richards, co-creator of Explain Everything. One of my favorite apps and he has ideas spinning in my head of how I am going to empower teachers to use this app.

@GoNoodle is one of my all time favs and there were many, many smiles for GoNoodle.

Did somebody say Hot Dog? Yes, yes they did...

I got to be the @GoNoodle HOT DOG!! Highlight of the trip! Thanks so much Go Noodle!

Wes Fryer was so informative and even gave me a challenge.  Post coming soon.  Hope to get some time with Thanksgiving coming up.

The Volusia County group and some of our favorite speakers.  Felix, you are amazing.  This learning conference ignited a fire in all of our teachers and we are spreading the fire to our entire community.  Thank you for everything and we will be back in 2017.

Our crazy prop picture!

Stacy Simpson I love you girl and so glad to meet Dr. Tony and connecting on Twitter.  You both are amazing and goes to show I might not see you every day but you are only a tweet away.

Angela Maiers you have started a movement #ottersmatter is real and we are running with it. Thank you for helping us see your vision and making it ours. #youmatter 

THANK YOU :) Florida Education Association-Retired We are a Grant Winner!

How happy do these children look? They are absolutely loving the new Lakeshore headphones we were able to purchase thanks to Florida Education Association-Retired through a grant we were awarded.

This year my mission was to really integrate technology into our daily routine.  I researched, talked to important people, attended conferences, collaborated with teachers, and used TWITTER like no other year before and it has changed my teaching.

Our district invested in Reading a to z and anyone that has used it knows the power it can be for a young reader.  You can listen to, read, record, and answer comprehension questions.  What do you do when you don't have enough headphones and you can hear others in the background?

Well Florida Education Association-Retired offered a grant for needed classroom materials and I made sure to advocate for my friends.  Who would have know they would have picked our grant out of all the entries.  We were so excited to get the news and order those headphones.  

My friends and I agree they make a world of difference in the classroom.  We are able to listen to information on the internet, record ourselves in apps, and practice our prosody as we get to be better readers.  I can't thank Florida Education Association-Retired (and Charles Moskowitz, District Director)for their efforts and making us a grant winner! #grateful

#mtgr1

Twitter is such an amazing place.  You get up to the minute information and can find someone for just about anything.  Our class is connected to so many other teachers and other first grade classrooms across the USA.  Each week a teacher posts a picture and we find the math.  #mtgr1 stands for math talk grade 1.  Check us out looking for math relationships.  We made videos and drew on the picture to show what we saw and then posted our thoughts to a padlet.  I posted that to Twitter for other classes to see.  The world is wide open and we are making our mark.  Check us out: http://padlet.com/WrightsRippers/kc5ihvjclzwk

YES! look at that face.  Doesn't it make you want to try Twitter and #mtgr1?