Tech Tip Thursday: Padlet

Ever need to gather all your students responses or ideas in one place? Need help putting a twist on your everyday activities? Padlet is a wonderful tool to help with that. This week's Tech Thursday is all about using Padlet in the classroom. I was first introduced to Padlet as a way to share learning experiences during my first Ed Tech Team GAFE Summit. I was sucked in from the moment I click on the shared link and starting sharing and reading about my colleagues experiences in the different sessions.

Self-Paced Learning with Schoology

Based on previous experiences with my advanced classes I felt a need to pre-test my students knowledge of solving equations. The assessment was short and to the point with 3 sections: one-step, two-step, and multi-step equations.  The results that followed weren't too shocking for myself. 8% of my students were ready for the next level which was solving equations with decimal and fractional coefficients. About 38% of may students were not ready for equations at all. The remaining 54% of my students fell somewhere in the middle. I did not want to hold students back but I also didn't want to leave students behind so Self-Paced Learning was born in my class to solve this problem that I was conflicted with. Without any researching I took off and started planning.

Meeting Students Where They Are: Tiered Assignments and Activities

I was told by an amazing administrator years ago that, "Parents send the best kid to us that they have." They can't send us what they don't have and we have to work with what we have. We, as educators, like to some times play the blame game, myself included, and we must do better. We can not control what students come to us with and how involved parents and/or guardians are outside of school so we have to, for a lack of a better way to put it, "work with what we have" and ensure that all of our students are successful. Small wins and big wins are still WINS. I'll take it! That's where my inspirations for this blog post comes into play, Tiered Instruction. Tiered Instruction is a way to differientate for your students. It allows you to provide leveled assignments and activities that meet the students where they are in an effort to bring them up to where you need them to be.

My One Word for 2018

Last year I was inspired by Rachel of @historicalipad to set goals for 2017 and choose my one word that would inspire me for the new year. Last year my one word was consistency. With consistency I hoped to achieve my goals for 2017. So here I go again with my #oneword2018. My one word for the new year is GROWTH.  

Growth is the process of growing or increasing in size. There are several things in my life that will benefit from growth or that I would love to grow.

Tech Tip Thursday: Bitmojis

Have you ever thought about personalizing your class presentations, activities, or rules? Ever needed to express a feeling that may take too many words to express verbally? Do you want to grasp your students’ attention and make connections with them? Want to be the “cool” teacher on the team or hall? There’s a bitmoji for that!

Tech Tip Thursday: Youtube

We all know that our students are familiar with Youtube but they are fascinated with music videos, reviews of games, and makeup tutorials. Have you ever thought about using Youtube for your classroom? With or without a tech heavy classroom you can make youtube work for you.

Tech Tip Thursday: QR Codes

Teaching in a technology rich environment affords you the opportunity to use many online resources. I have learned from experience that students struggle to type in web addresses correctly. I found myself walking around and typing in the same address numerous times. What if you are a teacher who has checked out the iPad cart and you need your students to complete a series of tasks that require them to go to several different websites? What if you are in a "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) and you want students to quickly get to a location on those devices? I have the answer for you! QR codes will solve your problems. QR stands for quick response and  these little scan codes are easy to create. There are tons of ways to use QR  Codes in the classroom but first lets see how easy they are to create.