Don't Forget the Hashtag #

Yesterday I was replying to a tweet that came up on my Twitter feed with the hashtag (# if you aren't sure) #edchat. I actually had a reply to one of these posts for once and was all excited that I could help someone I've never met, and likely never will meet, expand their knowledge and use of technology. However, when I replied I made a huge rookie mistake! I didn't put the hashtag in my response. Why is this a big deal? It's not a huge deal as I could delete the post and then repost my answer with the hashtag. It is kind of a big deal to myself for a couple of reasons. 1) One of the many uses of Twitter is a PLN, a place to learn. If you're a person that searches hashtags and had the same question as the original post I replied to, you wouldn't have received the answer. So although I may have helped one person, I didn't use twitter to it's fullest in letting others who may have had the same question and follow the hashtag #edchat know the information I had.
2) I have been spending that last few months reveling in the information I have gained through my own PLN via, Twitter, Blogging, and most recently Facebook, and I am hoping to spread the PLN fever throughout my school with my new role as Technology Integration Lead at my school. I should have a fairly sound working knowledge of the tools if I want encourage the use of them by others and what I did was a rookie mistake.

Hashtags in the Elementary Classroom

While I'm on the topic of hashtags. I was reading the blog post of George Couros (follow him on twitter as well, a great person to add to your PLN @gcouros) called "Twitter Hashtags in the Classroom" in the blog he gives ideas a  list of hashtags for educators as well as some ideas on how to create an effective hashtag for your school division, school or classroom. I teach elementary school (Grade 4 to be specific) and I really want to use twitter and blogging in my classroom. I've got some basic ideas for using twitter in my classroom like having my students tweet each day about something learned or are looking forward to (a way to hopefully connect with parents and let them know what's happening in my classroom and to teach students about digital citizenship). A lot of the ideas I find for twitter in the classroom and hashtags are for Junior/Senior high school. I would like to hear some ideas on how Twitter is used in the elementary classroom? How do you use twitter in your elementary classroom?

Making Connections Personally not Digitally

I came across this teacher's blog by searching #edchat.

Connecting With Students (personally not digitally)

In Mr Guyman's blog "How Spiderman, Washing Windows and a Book About The Beatles Taught Me the Importance of Touchpoints" he tells a great story about he discovered the importance of connecting with his students on a personal level. There is a lot of research that supports Mr. Guyman's story about connecting with a student but it's nice to see a real life story that supports the research. Research in education is valuable but it the real life support of the theoretical research reinforces the research and makes the research real for anyone skeptical of said research. 

I am a big fan of technology and I am always looking for ways to integrate it in my classroom to engage and connect with my students, but there's a lot to be said for making that personal connection with students. I am lucky in that a lot of my students who aren't really excited about learning and school are males and most of them just happen to play hockey. Well, I was that student and I still love and play hockey! I had a student this year whose parents told me that he wasn't really a big fan of school and especially reading, that he'd rather be playing hockey. I noticed that during our DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time he was looking at a book but not really reading it. So, I asked him if he watched TSN and/or if he had a favourite sportscaster. When he said yes, I asked him why he didn't bring in some articles from TSN.ca he looked at me, "I can?". Now I wish I could say he started reading regularly and was totally engaged during DEAR time because that would be a lie. He did however, start bringing in the odd article and reading those. He also started looking for books on hockey to read every once in a while. 

What do you do to personally connect with your students? Do you think making that personal connection with students and building a relationship with your students improves their learning and/or makes managing your classroom easier?

What Makes PD Great for You?

Continuing on with Mr. Couros summer blog challenge, today I respond to a blog post on teacher's and professional development.

I came across this post in my twitter feed this morning. The post is called "What Matters in Teacher Professional Development" .

I agree with this post. When we have professional development days at my school and our administration set up PD opportunities there was usually an overall "sigh". I don't think it was because what was chosen for us wasn't useful or relevant to the vision of our school....it was just that the teacher's didn't get to choose.

On that note, for myself, whether I chose the PD or the PD I chose really wasn't as engaging or relevant as I was hoping. I have decided that, as a teacher I have chosen to be a life long learner, no matter how entertaining or exciting the PD session is, there is always something I can learn from it. I want to learn more and therefore there is always something I can get out of a session.

Something I look for when I go to professional development which I rarely find but am extremely excited when I do is when there is a great strategy or idea and they can show me how I can tie it to the curriculum. I know there is more to teaching then just the curriculum but sometimes struggle with the connection (especially in Language Arts) between the strategy, idea, or concept and how it is connected to what I have to teach.

With that being said, one of the best PD sessions I went to was on the 6+1 Traits of Writing and the curriculum. The whole session was different strategies on how to teach the 6+1 Traits and then at the end we were given rubrics that specifically tied the traits to each grades Language Arts outcomes! I saw relevance and used the strategies and rubrics in my classroom immediately!

I leave you today with these questions (please don't hesitate to respond via the comments) What was the best PD session you attended? What made it so good?
If you were to lead a PD session what would your topic be and what would you do to make sure your attendees were satisfied?

Social Media and the Curriculum...Do They Align Somewhere?

Once again I was perusing through my twitter feed and came across a link on how to use twitter in the K-8 Classroom it was originally posted by @web20classroom and retweeted by @ASCD . As I read the post I was became excited and have decided that I am going to give this a shot in my classroom in this coming year (I teach Grade 4). I also decided that I want to get my students blogging this year and have been working out the logistics on getting them started on that. As I was thinking about it all I was thinking about all the content I need to get through in a year....how can I integrate these great tools and ways to engage my students into the curriculum content? If you're wondering the same thing....sorry I don't have an answer yet....this brainwave just hit me today....haven't really worked on the logistics yet.

This did however get me thinking about the curriculum and whether or not the curriculum is connected and ready for 21st Century Learning. I love doing project based learning with my students, letting them learn, discover and problem solve collaboratively but it is not a quick and easy process unfortunately. In Grade 4 with students who are just getting used to working in a collaborative environment these projects take time and thus I run into the problem of covering all the content (Maybe I shouldn't be admitting this to the world?). My question is though, is this due to imperfect planning on my behalf? (some of it for sure...I'm human!) or is because the curriculum is full of so much content (much of which is very accessible to students via the internet) and does not focus anymore on the skills students need to be successful in the 21st Century? (Problem solving, technology, working collaboratively, etc.)

As I venture into my next year of teaching I hope to get my students on their way to become connected, 21st Century skills equipped, learners using the tools they have available. Hopefully I will at some point be able to integrate them fully into the content that must be covered!

Summer Blog....Challenge Accepted

After reading my twitter feed this morning like I do every morning to get my daily news updates and find out what's happening in the world of connected educators I came across a favourite blogger and connected principal, who I was also lucky enough to see speak, George Couros (@gcouros) . I had originally decided to spend my summer blogging by reflecting on my past year but now have to decided to take Mr. Couros' challenge . I then continued on through my twitter feed and stumbled upon this blog "How to Ace Your Teaching Interview" posted by @Edtweeps.

I found this post really interesting. I have just finished my second year of teaching and consider myself a digital native but only because I was lucky enough to get a job in a school division who embraces and encourages teaching to the 21st Century Learner. Through my first two years of teaching I have changed how I used my twitter account (became more connected with other educators and educational technology), I started a blog and am spending my summer thinking of and coming up with ways I can used technology and social media more and more effectively in my classroom. However, if I were interviewed by the principle in the above blog two years ago....I don't think I would have been hired. It's not because I wasn't using technology in my teaching and it wasn't because I wasn't using social media or didn't have social media accounts. I don't think I would have been hired because when I did my post secondary education, use of technology was not used or demonstrated. In my "educational technology" class. I "learned" how to use Microsoft office (I grew up using Microsoft Office....I know how to use it!). In my the same class and my "Ethics and Law of Teaching" class I was instilled a fear of using social media....especially Facebook. We weren't told, check your privacy settings, create a professional account or now a page. We were shown the negative effects of having a Facebook account was and thus every year I see friends who change their name on Facebook for fear of "being found".

Twitter, edmodo, linkdin, etc weren't even mentioned. I never used or looked at Notebook until I started my practicum. Although I don't think I am quite where I want to be with being a connected teacher and encouraging and using technology to its fullest in my classroom...I think I would be hired by that principal today. So, I leave you with this, if you are a teacher if you went through the interview with the above principal, would you get hired? And, do you think Post Secondary Institutions are prepared teachers to teach 21st Century Learners?

A Look Back (Part 2)

Getting to Know My Students

I have done an activity at the beginning of the year to get to know my students and if they want to (which most of them have wanted to) they can share it with the class. It's pretty standard questions on the front about their family and favourite things, on the back they get to create a Superhero....this is where I really get to know my students! The tell me the superhero's name and stats what his/her special powers are, who his greatest enemy is, what is the superhero's weakness and then they draw me a picture of either their superhero or the logo that their superhero would wear. I really got a feel for my students through this, I could tell which students were really artistic and creative, who liked to just get things done, who played a lot of video games and a variety of other things. I used those to strike up conversations each day. I set a goal of spending time with each student at the beginning of the year this year, just to chat and ask them questions...I didn't quite meet that goal and it is something I am going to do for sure next year. I found that the students that I did chat in that first couple of weeks are ones that loved coming up and telling me about their day or if they were having a hard time with something didn't have a problem asking me or other students for help. The students I didn't get a chance to make that initial contact with I didn't have the same connection with. 

Every Monday morning I did a sharing activity called HALO (High, Acknowledgement, Low, Opportunity) my students LOVED this and I will most likely continue this. This gave me a chance to find out what my students were up to and another chance to make a connection or have a conversation. The best part about HALO was the boy with Autism in my class would never go up to a class mate and tell them about his weekend and the rest of my students, as caring and considerate of him they were, wouldn't go and ask him about his weekend or what he did the night before. He would talk about what he did and then soon I noticed the other students making connections with him. They realized (even though some had been in his class for a couple of years now) that he does the same types of things they do. The other students started to make him feel like a classmate, like one of their own. They even invited him to play at recess (even though he declined almost every time) and wanted to work with him in group projects....it was really amazing to see the transformation from the first day to the end of the year!

I know that next year I must take the time to make that initial contact with EVERY student in the first couple of weeks. I have seen the dividends pay off when that connection is made and students feel they have a voice in the classroom. This does mean that I am going to have to listen a few students tell me that story that goes on and on and doesn't really have a point....but the story really isn't for my entertainment or listening pleasure....the story is for the student to feel important in the classroom and to have their voice heard. 

A Look Back (Part 1)

As I now relax and look back at the year that past, a year with quite a bit of change for me, it's time to share what I learned and what I found hilarious (which is why one of many reasons why I love to teach).

Work Smart....Not Hard

I have always applied this philosophy in my life and I think some people may think of it as being lazy. I firmly disagree! I have learned this year that cooperative learning can be very fruitful for students of all abilities and while students are working and learning cooperatively, for an outsider looking in, it may not look like I, as the teacher, am working very hard. However, I have also learned that cooperative learning is only successful for students and teacher if the cooperative learning environment is structured, the students know the variety of roles and jobs each have, a goal is set before the cooperative learning begins and most importantly.....it's fun and engaging for the students. This is not always an easy task and does require some hard work up front but the majority of the time...the results are impressive. This year I had students working together whose parents called me at the beginning of the year to say that they want their child moved away from another. I had students who normally would rather cruise through an assignment on their own stopping and taking the time to make sure another student understood the concept. I even had students who would rather be playing video games or playing sports outside laughing, smiling and participating. It wasn't always sunshines and rainbows but when I look back at those moments, it wasn't my students who weren't getting the job done, it was me who failed. Part of this came from not teaching Grade 4 before and the other part came from me not working very smart or hard. I hadn't set the students up for success in my planning and thus their frustration in not being successful turned into a shared frustration....lesson learned! 

Another part of me working smart not hard this year, ties into the cooperative learning aspect but setting up a team environment where students are comfortable asking each other for help and are comfortable helping each other before they come to me for help. I spent about the first 3 weeks doing role playing and discussing what this looks like. We definitely had to come back to it a few times throughout the year as some students "forgot" how it worked but it was a great to see students helping each other out and gave me a little more time to help some of the students who still really weren't comfortable asking a peer for help or just needed some extra help. 

Taking the backwards by design planning to heart. I learned the hard way that there are some excellent activities, lessons, lesson plans out there but if I did not know exactly what I wanted my students to learn from it and how I was going to check to see if they have learned it (I believe this is called assessment) and then what I could do if they haven't quite understood the concept or idea....then I was in for some long nights and days. I learned this the hard way and sometimes I got caught in the excitement of how awesome an activity looks like or sounds....that I forgot about how I was going to check for understanding or what they were supposed to get out of the activity and then when it came to assessing them or giving them feedback....I ended up with very frustrated students and thus a very frustrated me.....lesson learned!

Finally I found that making my students laugh and have a little fun makes life a lot more enjoyable in the classroom overall. I found that breaking into song (trust me what I do isn't generally called singing), telling jokes, letting students tell that painfully long story that kind of repeats itself and doesn't really have a point, getting up and moving around (even though the recess bell didn't go) makes for a group of happy students who want to be in the classroom. None of the above are hard to do but it sure makes life a lot easier on the teacher in the end!