CTE-PLC

What is CTE? Career and Technical Education is a broad branch to cover all the technology courses and certifications in a district. Students in elementary are exposed to an introduction of technology to include basic operation functions, Microsoft Suite-in our district, and fundamentals of web browsers. I was blessed to find our elementary CTE-PLC group my second year into teaching STEM as a special area. What an amazing group of educators! I live for the meetings where we share curriculum ideas, websites, and ideas to implement to further our students in technology. Not every school has an introduction to technology course so we are a group of about 15 that regularly meet or even chat in Teams troubleshooting and sharing. Our leader is the famous Debra Dumas and she is a gem! We try to meet in one of our classrooms and that is amazing for photos and ideas. Yet with drive time we are sometimes on a short schedule so she found a neutral spot for us to meet-Dave & Buster's!!

YES you read that correctly. Did you know they have wifi and a small conference room where we are able to have a webinar with Animation-ish from Fable Vision? It was a perfect setting for a technology group.

The sound was great, food was available, and we were from all over the district in one room. If you need to have technology PD why not at Dave & Buster's.

Debra even had door prizes for us after our meeting.

Thank you Mystery Science...

A friend years back bragged about Mystery Science website. I checked it out and if you have heard the voice-"Hi, it's Doug." You know we are in for an adventure. Since I work with all students kindergarten to fifth grade I get a bit excited when it comes to hands on and standards related. EVERY single unit I have used has been informative and fun for the students.

Traditionally our 4th graders struggle with rocks, weathering and erosion. Mystery Science has a unit entitled the Birth of Rocks for 4th grade.  It starts with the question Could a volcano pop up in your backyard? Doug weaves a story to provide photos and an interactive activity of plotting volcanos in regions around the world. As the maps come together...well you will need to do it to find out.

We go on to discover various volcanos and their differences.

Who says science isn't fun?

These students are interacting with one another and having a blast learning about thin vs. thick lava.

The next lesson had us all shaking...

If you haven't tried Mystery Science you need to. I subscribe each year and it is well worth the $. I will write more on some of the other lessons that ended up being our favorites over the years. They are constantly adding and improving so sign up today.

Text Speak?

When I heard the phrase Text Speak, I wondered if it was really a thing?  I have two teenagers and they are constantly texting rather than talking on the phone for hours like I did when I was growing up.  All that texting do they use correct grammar and spelling? We have heard of shortcuts and acronyms the kids are using but is there a time to use text speak appropriately?  4th grade was the lucky grade level to use this lesson.  They were all to ready to talk about their texting habits and routines.  There are benefits to using text speak according to the students. It is shorter, friends understand what they mean, and quicker than a phone call.  We broke into groups to discuss when grammar and text speak are appropriate.

As you can see school was the main reason to use grammar while social media  used text speak.

They talk to one another on video games like Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox with shortened messages as to not interfere with their playing time.

Glad to see letters, business conversations, homework, emails made the grammar list.  There were a few giggles when we talked about shortening words like OMG and they knew not to use those in writing at school. Our next lesson was to see how well did they really know text speak?  I made a Kahoot and it was surprising to hear their thoughts when we were done.  Everyone knew BFF but very few knew what RSVP stood for but knew they had seen that somewhere before.  Most students used their phones-yes phones in the 4th grade to text one another. Others used iPads and computers to talk to one another during games.  The most interesting thing we found was the highest scoring students on the Kahoot did not have a phone to text friends. When asked why they thought they did so well, one said he reads the text conversations when his friends "talk" but doesn't really text back in the conversation. Interesting because it made me think about all the time I spent reading tweets before I actually made my first tweet onTwitter.  I was nervous and was almost learning a new language.  I was quite surprised how much social media these 4th graders were exposed to and interact with on a regular basis.  There are articles stating text speak is harming our student's writing skills with incorrect spellings, poor grammar, and incomplete thoughts. I think it is an important lesson to have with our 4th and 5th grades as productive digital citizens as there are valid reasons to use either. How do you feel about text speak and does it have a place in our classroom instruction?

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Keyboarding is for everyone

I wanted #CCEstem to include technology for everyone K-5. To be honest the first year there were so many apps I taught in my 1st grade classroom that I wanted to share with the rest of the school so I used them in a variety of ways. Then I started to think there has to be a sequence and I needed to develop one for the grades. Our school district uses Microsoft and Office 365 products.  I wanted 3rd grade to use Word and 4th graders use PowerPoint and 5th graders to use Excel.  I thought those are the BIG topics but where and how do I get there? Typing and keyboarding weren't taught and they needed the skills so I set upon finding resources to use to teach what I so took for granted.

Thankfully we had a CTE learning group that I became a part of and soaked up every thing they were doing in their classroom.  We had meetings in each others' rooms and I took photos.  I wanted to learn how they were planning to make their students successful using technology. Years ago we could auto log in students with a generic password but that process went away and students had to learn an alpha code and their 8 digit birthday to log in to any computer on campus. Yes the imagine of 20 kindergarteners trying to find letters on a keyboard, yelling where is the 1? and timing out because they could not find the keys quick enough. I learned the hard way that does not work. You need to model and practice and find activities that are engaging and interactive for them to learn and practice with a partner before they go solo.

YIP skip I found Brittany Washburn's large keyboards. My mom helped cut out letter cards and arrange all the velcro dots. Whether you have 2nd graders or kinders this was a puzzle to put together and they loved racing one another. We could even do it as a quick start or end to my lesson when we had time. I made sure to have a few extras for the students that wanted to work by themselves even. I noticed it helped with our ELL learners as well to learn the names of letters and where they were on the keyboard.  

 Yes, that is B. Washburn's giant keyboard on the wall that I reference often.

 These keyboards were an unplugged activity to help students learn so we could move to the ipads and laptops to use Typetastic! Hands down one of the students favorite things to do and it is free for students and teachers to use! These kidners are using Typetastic and I know I have more photos to upload. Typetastic gives a game like format starting from piecing the keyboard back together to problem solving to find letters on the keyboard to working with and training home rows keys. Did I mention the kids cheer when there is time for Typetastic?!? I will tell you one VERY helpful hint use 1 ipad and Air Drop Typetastic to each ipad in the room. *You will need to teach them how to press Accept and not Decline but wow what a time saver-not having to type Typetastic out or them for that matter. You will need to click Start Learning at the top> then K-2 Elementary> Unit 1.  They should start at Unit 1-level 1 because they are multi-level and it does get harder as you move along. Soon I would allow 1st grade to select from level 1-2-or 3. Level 5 Ducky Trouble is tough but end of 1st graders can figure it out to be successful. Unit 2 moves to working with Home Row keys and 2n grade gets to this level and become experts.  Besides being free and fun, Typetastic works on laptops-touchscreen or traditional or iPads. The students want to use it at home and I do have it marked on my class Google Site. More to come on keyboarding and tips to help that I learned along the way...

Various Lessons I Taught

Kinders have trouble with directions and steps so what better way to help than a partner? Botlogic is a website where children must use arrows to get a robot to the house.  As the levels progress there are a certain number of moves, a battery back that will give you extra moves, and even a button you must turn on and off to proceed. I usually model for students the buttons and the path or algorithm they create and special notes of the level before letting them partner up and making their way through the path.

Ozobots are robots that follow a color marker route where the combinations of colors tell the Ozobot certain directions pertaining to speed or direction.  The students brainstorm with partners the routes the Ozobot should take to meet the most houses for present drop off.  Here we have students demonstrating the route and timing their journey.

Dash and Dot robots from Wonder Workshop area great for a group to test an algorithm. Dash can do so many things from moving, turning, singing, lighting up...it is endless what the students can create.  They learn and collaborate together.

Laptops are a must tool for the students and there are so many websites to practice skills.

Nearpod is an excellent companion in the classroom for students to follow along and interact with a lesson planned in advance. 

One of my favorite features of Nearpod is when the students draw their answers I can put them up on the screen for everyone to see without anyone knowing who it belongs to.  We can discuss the pictures and rationale for their answer or why someone would agree or disagree with them. 

Seesaw is an app we use to create or show our learning and hand in on the iPad.  Here these kinders are telling a little about themselves using emjois. The might not be able to spell out the words but they can find a picture to let you know their thoughts.

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.