Today begins my first full week of summer vacation. I’m working for a few hours at my part-time job, which is tutoring at Huntington Learning Centers, but mostly my week will be free. I love time off, but for me it always takes a little time to transition into summer. Teaching is such intense work, that during the school year, even when I’m not at school I always have a long list of things I “should” be working on for school. Then you hit that time when you really don’t have to go to work for a couple months. I always find myself double checking the calendar, just to be sure that I didn’t read it wrong.

So here I am, 9:40 in the morning, sitting sipping my tea, still in my nightgown, and contemplating how I want to spend my time this summer. For me, that means lots of projects for school, that I really don’t have time for during the school year. I also have a long list of household projects that I never get to when I’m working two jobs, and of course there is yard work. It’s also a great time to learn a few new things, and read!

One of my big tech projects this summer is to build a new classroom website. For the past two years my class website has been with Iowa Pages at Ms. Day’s 4th Grade. I pay a fee for this website, and I am very limited in the space I am allowed before I have to pay for additional space. To reduce the expense last year, I removed most of the photos, and I love photos, so I’m looking for a different solution. I recently learned about Weebly from my PLN. I plan to give that a try.

It’s also time to weed out my Delicious account, and maybe finally learn how to use Diigo. I have over 500 bookmarks in Delicious, many of which I bookmarked so I could come back later to read. As I read and weed, I will Tweet out the good ones. I did this last summer too, and it was a good review for me as to what was in there and some great resources to share.

This summer I also want to play with Voki and Voicethreads, and figure out how those work. I have seen projects that others have used with students, and these are things I want to try next school year.

I’m really glad that Twitter chats like #4thchat are still going on. I’m sure I’ll continue to learn a lot from that this summer, and get more ideas for the fall, and then there is an Iowa TweetUp to look forward to on July 30th. If you’re in or near Iowa, you can learn more about that here.

Now I guess it’s time to actually get off the couch and get started, and I will . . . . .   right after another cup of tea. So what are you doing this summer?

One of my goals for this school year was to learn how to make a Glog. I had heard about them, and seen a few, from others on Twitter, which is where I get most of my technology ideas. It took me a while to get around to doing it, though. I have been gradually working my way through the new Being a Writer materials. This is our first year with these materials. In March we began a new unit on writing non-fiction. The first project was to research and write about countries around the world. This seemed like the perfect place to try out the Glogs.

If you aren’t familiar with a Glog, it is an on-line poster. You create a Glog on the EduGlogster website. They can be embedded into wikis and blogs. As I read about EduGlogster from others in my PLN, I was very intrigued. With advice from others, I watched a couple YouTube videos to learn how to do this, and I created a sample poster to show to my students. I had the kids partner up to get things started, but ultimately each student made their own glog.

We started out with pencil and paper. We did our research by reading library books to learn about other countries. Students were able to choose whatever country they wanted, and several chose the same country. I created a organizational web called Country Glogs,  so students could collect and organize their information before we moved to the computers.

When I began to look at the developing Glogs, I realized that some kids were into adding lots of unrelated animated graphics, but were not including much content. At this point I created a Making a Glog poster with my expectations and a checklist for students to use as they edited their work. Later, I used this checklist as a Glog Rubric to evaluate our finished Glogs.

This turned out to be a really wonderful project, and I was very impressed to see what the kids did with it. Their Glogs were way better than mine. They figured out how to find and embed photos and links in their Glogs. To make it easier for people to see our work, I created a wiki for this project and embedded all the Glogs. I also embedded the Glogs on each student’s Kidblog.

We had Core Knowledge Night, which is an open house type event, on May 5th. One of the problems with on-line projects is being able to display them for visitors to see. I set up three laptops with display boards. I also talked to the class about showing their work to their parents and other visitors. We had lots of people that took the time to see our work.

I will definitely be using Glogs in the future. The kids really enjoyed making them. It was a great way to demonstrate their learning. I also found that several students who often struggle academically really excelled with this project.

Next weekend I am going to camp– EdCamp Omaha, that is!  I’m pretty much a homebody, and I’m not much of a traveler, but this is one of those times that the closer it gets, the more excited I am.  This will be my first EdCamp, and there are so many things that make this a great opportunity.

The Price is Right!

I am a classroom teacher.  I do not have a technology position, so I have no support or budget for conferences.  The price of EdCamp Omaha is just right, it’s free!  Because it is only 130 miles from here, I will not even have the expense of a hotel.  I plan to drive over in the morning, and drive home at night.

A Chance to Connect With Others Using Technology In Education

I’m going because this is a great opportunity to connect with others who regularly use technology in their classrooms.  I am the only person in my school who is doing webquests, using Edmodo, and blogging with students.  As I try new things, I waste a lot of time trying to understand and figure them out, and I often do things the hard way.  Sometimes I feel isolated.  Twitter has been a fantastic support.  My questions get answered, and I get new ideas.  Sometimes that 140 character limit is frustrating, however.  This is a great chance to listen, learn, ask questions, and have questions answered.

A Great Opportunity for Professional Development!

The whole concept of EdCamp is amazing!  They have been popping up across the country.  Someone takes the initiative to organize it.  No one makes money off of it.  No one gets college credit or staff development credit for it.  It is outside of work hours, so there is no financial compensation.  People go because they are dedicated passionate professionals who are hungry to learn and share.  What other profession has people who do that? I can hardly wait to spend time with these great people!  I have an idea of what to expect because of this great blog post by Russ Goerend (@RussGoerend) on his blog, Learning is Life

I’m going with a list of questions.  I’m starting a new project with my students soon.  We’re going to use Glogsteredu.  I’ve explored it, but I still have questions.  I’m looking forward to connecting with Barb Gilman (@BarbinNebraska) and Shannon Miller (@ShannonMiller) who I know have experience with Glogs.

It’s Social!

I’m looking forward to meeting people I have known via Twitter.  We have some regular Tweetups here in Iowa, so there will be some people that I know.  I’m excited to meet others face to face, that I have only known on Twitter.  It’s a great new adventure!

Omaha, My Hometown!

I was born here in Des Moines, but I grew up in Omaha, so I’m always excited for a chance to get back to my old hometown.  EdCamp is being held at the Thompson Alumni Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.  You can learn more about EdCamp Omaha by visiting the EdCamp Omaha Wiki.

Last night I had dinner with a few tweeps from my PLN.  We had a tweetup.  To some that may sound a little like a foreign language or some kind of crazy code, but for those of us who frequent Twitter, it just means I got together, face to face, with people that I met on Twitter.  These people have become friends and colleagues.  I turn to them when I have questions about technology, they come to my aid when I don’t know how to resolve an issue in my classroom, sometimes I just share a joke or two with them.

While others may hang out with friends at the local bar, most nights I sit in the comfort of my own home, chatting with my Twitter friends via Tweetdeck.  I’ve shared recipes, I know what their kids look like, I know their dogs, sometimes I even know what the inside of their homes look like, though I’ve never been there. 

When I know that someone in my PLN is going through a hard time, I worry about them.  When I’ve had a bad day, I can commiserate with them, occasionaly I even argue with them.    The most impressive part of all is how generous these people are.  Last week I mentioned that I was going to teach poetry this week.  Seconds later, someone who I wasn’t following yet, sent me a link to her Livebinder that was chock full of links for poetry websites. 

Last month I was becoming frustrated with the way Daily 5 was working in my classroom.  I threw a question out to the Twitterverse, and another member of my PLN offered several ideas regarding goal setting and planning which have helped my students to be more productive during their independent work time.

Twitter is 24/7 professional development.  I am continually inspired by the things that others are doing, and I learn new things every day.  People share links to websites and valuable resources.  Most important they share themselves through their tweets and their blogs.  I feel valued when I share the things that I have to  offer with them.

I am very fortunate to have taught for the past twenty years at the same school, with a wonderful group of people, who I see everyday.  None of the people I work with, however, share my interest in technology.   Twitter has added a whole new facet to my life, and has truly enriched it.  It’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t tried it, but I really love my PLN.  I appreciate everything I’ve learned from all of you and have been able to share with you.  Twitter has changed my life.  Thank you!

Our school recently purchased twenty-four new iPads.  Teachers, who are interested, now have three to keep in their classroom.  That means the original set of ten, are still in my room, and while they can be checked out by others, they will mostly be used by my kids.  More time for us!  That’s good!  As you can tell, I have a love/hate relationship with these little tablets.  One week I’m complaining that the iPads almost made me cry, and the next I’m excited that we got more of them.

On January 20th, I got to take time to visit the classroom of a teacher who is running a paperless classroom.  I was eager to see what he was doing, that I could apply to my own situation.  I was happy to see that I am already doing many of the things he is doing.  My students complete work using Google documents and Google forms.  The big difference is he is a special education teacher with 8 students and iPads and laptops for each student, whereas I have 28 students with ten iPads,  six laptops, and one antique desktop.

He uses his class blog as a platform for assigning work to students, and providing them with the links they need.  I do much the same thing with my class wiki.  While my classroom is far from paperless, it was great reinforcement to see someone else doing these things, and it really encouraged me to continue in the direction we are going, even if it takes us several days to rotate through the computers to complete work.

Our latest project with the iPads is using Edmodo.  If you are not familiar with Edmodo, it is a social networking website that  looks much like Facebook, except it is designed exclusively for education.  The teacher sets up a group, the only people who can access the group are those with a special code.  I like the fact that you can include links, embed forms, upload videos, and in this way build background on a subject for your students.   Teachers can also make assignments and grade them, conduct polls, and carry on a private conversation with an individual student.  To get a better idea about Edmodo, check out the video below.

Last year my students completed a webquest on the American Revolution.  This was not as successful as the earlier webquest we did about mountains, so I was looking for a way to improve on that.  The advantage of Edmodo over the webquest that I did last year, is that you can follow up the research and reading with discussion.

With the iPads, the students are able to visit the websites that I want them to, summarize the important points, and answer questions that I have posed.  I am having students work on this while I work with others on reading.  So I’m using the iPads and Edmodo to squeeze in some instruction in a way that hopefully will keep students excited and interested.

If you are interested in learning more about using Edmodo check out Henrietta Miller’s blog, Techie Brekkie on Using Edmodo in the K-12 School.  She is a teacher in Sydney, Australia (@henriettami on Twitter.)

There are those moments in the classroom, when the room is filled with the satisfying hum of kids working and engaged in learning.  Those are the magic moments, that make everything else worthwhile.  I treasure them when they happen.  I have experienced a few of those precious moments in the past two weeks.  It happened when the kids were using the laptops and iPads to research mountains for our first webquest.  It happened again when we were doing problem solving in math.  It also happened as kids were reading and commenting on their classmates’ new blog posts.  These moments happen when kids are actively involved in their learning.  I would say it almost never happens when kids are passive learners, sitting at desks, listening to a lecture.

By fourth grade, most of my students have had little or no experience doing research.  That’s what I like about doing a webquest.  It guides them in their first experience of researching a topic on the internet.  I wrote about Using a WebQuest on my Prospecting for Treasure blog.

We are just wrapping up our study of mountain systems of the world.  The iPads really worked well for this project.  This is the second year that I have used my Mountain Trek webquest.  While it may initially seem like a lot of work to create a webquest, as long as you check to be sure all your links are still working and everything is still relevant, you can use it from year to year.  I want my kids to use a variety of resources, so along with websites, I bring reference books in from our area education association.

Problem Solving Fridays

Our math lessons on Fridays are devoted to problem solving.  We do problem solving other days as well, but on Fridays we really get into it.  I like to use a book, titled 200 Super-Fun, Super-Fast Math Story Problems, by Dan Greenberg, (published by Scholastic.)   I’ve had my book for a long time.  When I checked the Scholastic website, I found that you can actually print the pages of this book, by clicking here for Scholastic Printables. I didn’t even know Scholastic had this feature.

These story problems are seasonal, thought provoking  and often humorous.  They are often multi-step and more challenging and engaging than others we might use. Instead of running copies of the pages, I create a monthly Powerpoint.  I used my scanner to include some of the illustrations, tables, and graphics from the book.  Each Friday, we cover as many as we comfortably have time for.

My policy is to step back, and let the kids do the teaching.  We use a CGI model, (Cognitive Guided Instruction) and take time to listen to and appreciate the different ways that kids solved the problems.  The kids enjoy going to the board or Elmo to show what they did, and talk about their thinking.  I’m still learning about when I should step in and point something out, and when I should remain in the background. I plan to take some additional training next summer.

One of the problems we did recently involved taking an 8 inch square of paper, folding it according to the directions, and then measuring and counting the resulting number of rectangles.  In the past I have always cut the paper into squares for my students.  This time I forgot, so I passed out rulers, scissors and paper.  It was another magic moment as kids measured and cut the paper into a square, and then solved the problem.  Now days, kids get little opportunity to cut. fold, and assemble paper, outside of art class.  These are important hands-on problem solving skills that are as important as the intended exercise, and I will never again rob them of that opportunity by cutting the paper for them ahead of time.

Our Blogs

We have been working hard to get our blogs going.  Our first posts were the bio poems that we wrote before parent/teacher conferences.  Last week we published our second posts.  For this one, students chose what to write about.  You can visit our blogs here:   Ms Day’s Class at Kidblog.org.  We welcome your comments.

Kids were interested in the blogs, but I didn’t see real excitement until they began to read each other’s work, and write comments.  Before we began writing our comments, I showed the class an excellent blog post and video created by Mrs. Yollis and her students, in Los Angeles, California.  Check out Mrs. Yollis’s Classroom Blog.

Early this morning, I went on-line to read more of their posts and write comments.  I found 54 comments waiting for approval.  These were comments written by classmates to one another.  The comments were written in class, but I also found a new post, written by one of the kids, who went to a new restaurant, Friday evening, with his family.  He was excited about it, so he decided to write about it, on his own, on a Friday night.  Now that’s a Magic Moment!

These hands-on experiences are what makes learning fun, both for the kids and for me.  These experiences are not easily quantified or measured by a test, but this is what creates a life long learner.   This is the learning that sticks.

It’s sometimes difficult to balance my new ventures in technology, with some of my favorite projects that I’ve always had 4thgraders do.   One of my favorite writing projects for the beginning of the school year, is to have the children write bio-poems.  Bio-poems follow a pattern, and witha little guidance, all the children are successful with them.  We start out with pencil and paper, and every year before this year, I have painstakingly transcribed my students writing, and typed them into Word.  At the top, I put the student’s name in  ”Wordart”.  I always learn a lot about the kids from this project.  I take a photograph of each child, and it makes for a nice display for parent-teacher conferences.

I don’t do this project every year, but I wanted to this time.   I was really pressed for time, however, due to all the testing, and additional requirements from my school district. Then, it suddenly occurred to me that it was a little silly for me to insist on typing all their poems, when the kids are learning to write blogposts and use word processing programs.  So, I taught them how to use Word, and they did it all. 

Not only did it save me hours of work, it was another wake up call, that I need to allow my students to grow and be more independent.  This summer, while working at my part time job, it became apparent that I sometimes try to do too much for kids, things they would really rather do themselves.  I caught myself reaching out to turn pages and arrange work for some of the high school students I was working with.  I can’t expect kids to do things for themselves, when I don’t let them. 

As I see what other classrooms are doing, I realize that I also need to permit my students to do more exploration as they are using the Internet to read about and research topics.  Last year we did a couple of webquests, which introduced students to research in a very controlled way.  We are going to begin our Mountain Trek webquest this week.  But as the year goes on, I am going to take it to the next level, and let the kids do some of their own research, using kid friendly search engines, like  Ask Kids or KidRex .  

Our parent/teacher conferences were held this past week.  Because I let the kids do their own writing on the computer, I also managed to get our blogs at Kidblog.org  up and running, just in time to show parents.   Every one’s first post is their bio-poem along with the word-clouds that my parent volunteer, Mrs. H. helped them create at ImageChef.com.  Check out our posts at Kidblogs/Ms. Day’s Class.

This next week the walk through evaluations will begin.  All principals will be walking through classrooms with the  Literacy Expectations – Walk Thru form, to make sure we are following the list of “Non-negotiables” I talked about in an earlier post.    As a consequence, I am feeling a little bit like Lucy in the Candy Factory.

With all this pressure to perform and conform, I sometimes wonder why I create so much additional work for myself, by spending all this time on technology.  No one else in my building is creating wikis and blogs, or using all the resources our class does.   But I know the answer:  if I’m bored, the kids are bored.  If I’m excited about learning, the kids will be excited too.  The new things that I am trying, keep me going. 

I’ve been learning how to use two new websites this week, which always renews my enthusiasm. The cartoon at the top of the page was created at Toondoo.com. My first attempts are pretty rough, but it’s a lot of fun.  The kids will probably do much better than I’m doing.  I’m also creating my first Prezi,which I will use to introduce our mountain webquest.

How do you balance it all?  Do you have to let some things go in order to make time for others?  I look forward to hearing from you.

Last year was the first year that I really used technology in my classroom.  The previous summer, I had taken an on-line class, called “Using the Internet in the Classroom.”  As part of the class, I built my classroom website, and learned how to make my first webquest. That was just a start.  

 Once I became active on Twitter, I experienced ongoing professional development .  From my PLN on Twitter, I learned about Wordle, Wallwisher, Storybird, StoryJumper, hundreds of websites, and I got into blogging.  In November, my class collaborated on a wiki with teachers and their classrooms in Nebraska, Virginia, Michigan, Montana, and Canada.  It was fantastic!  The kids loved it, and I loved it.

We tried lots and lots of wonderful things last year, but there wasn’t much of a plan to it.  I kind of lurched from new discovery to new discovery. This year, I am hoping to be more selective about what we do.  I want to be sure that our use of technology supports our academic goals.  We will do research.  We are a Core Knowledge school, so in 4th grade we learn about mountains, the middle ages, and the American Revolution.  Sometimes we play games that build skills.  Most of all we write. 

Of all the things we did last year, by far the best, was blogging.  Starting a class blog was the very first thing I did with technology, but I really didn’t know how to use it effectively.  By far our most successful venture, was when I learned about Kidblogs.  That wasn’t until March, but we did a lot with it for the rest of the school year.  You can read about our experiences in my post:  Our New Student Blogs.

Our Classroom Computer Center

My school does not have a computer lab.  Our classroom equipment consists of three Dell desktops (that are probably 8 years old), an ancient Dell laptop, and four fairly new HP laptops on a cart.  The cart is actually an old TV cart that another teacher and I rigged up with a power strip.  The laptops are for the use of the whole school (350 students), but, so far one 5th grade teacher and I are the only ones who actually use them.  I am fortunate to have them in my room almost all the time.  This year we added ten iPads, and so far I have had the exclusive use of those as well.

Last year I bult a reputation for myself as a techie teacher, so the kids came into my classroom, eager to use the computers.  From the first week of school, I have been introducing my students to technology.  We started with some safety education.  Then I put the iPads in their hands, so they could try out a few of the apps.  So far we have used PopMath, Pages, and Glow Doodle.  We broke out the computers so they could use SpellingCity.com, which will not work on the iPads, because most of the games have flash.

This week I introduced our class wiki, ReadtheWeb, to the kids, so they could read some support information about our stories and authors in Houghton Mifflin Reading, and explore some of the Language Games.

I have also introduced them to blogging.  The first week of school (two days, really) we brainstormed the information that should be included on our class blog post, Our First Friday, and then I wrote the post.   The second week, students wrote the blog post, Fourth Grade is a Busy Place.  All of this is designed to move them towards beginning their own blogs. 

I struggle with how to balance it all.  How do we fit all this in, along with district requirements, implementing the Daily 5, Core Knowledge, and continuing to do some of my favorite pencil and paper projects as well.

One of my favorite projects over the years, has been to write bio-poems, which are displayed, along with a photo, for fall parent/teacher conferences.  We are going to begin that project next week, and I think we will still post a hard copy outside our classroom door for parents to see.  We will also post their bio-poems as their first post on their new Kidblogs. 

I have a wonderful parent who volunteers in my classroom every Friday afternoon.  Mrs. H is helping all the students to create a word cloud about themselves, using ImageChef.com.  In Health, students made a list of words that describe themselves, including physical traits, emotional traits, dreams and goals.  Since I do not publish kids photos with names, we are going to use these word clouds with our first blog posts.

The kids are loving the iPads, but they are a great source of frustration for me.  I see lots of articles and blog posts about how wonderful the iPad is, and my students would definitely agree. Our school acquired ten of them at the end of May, and I had the use of one for the entire summer. So far this school year, I have had almost exclusive use of all ten of them. We have used several of the apps. Last week we used the Glow Doodle to practice spelling words, and practiced math facts with Pop Math.

The previous week, I had the kids use the Pages app to write sentences. We had two goals: first to practice sentence structure and spelling words, and second, to get experience using a word processing program.  Unfortunately I have yet to discover how I can print the work they did on the iPad, or even e-mail it myself, so that I can have their work in one location.

I learned quickly that any website that uses flash does not work on the iPads, so this rules out some of my favorite websites, like SpellingCity.com and Storybird. I wrote about this a few months ago on my Prospecting for Treasure blog, in a post titled Getting to Know the iPad.

The limitations of the iPad are compounded by my school district’s filters. Almost everything I tried to do, was blocked. I tried to access Delicious, it wouldn’t let me put in my password to see my own account. I tried to visit our class wiki, ReadtheWeb, it wouldn’t let me. I tried to put Dropbox on it, and it wouldn’t do that either. I brought one home with me over the weekend, and I was able to do most of these things using my own wireless internet, so it is definitely district filters contributing to these problems.

There are some things I really like about the iPad. I like how portable it is. I love reading my Google Reader on it. I like the fact that you can easily enlarge things. Photographs look fantastic on it, though I can’t figure out how to put any on for my class to use.  When I am able to access websites on it, the visuals are great.  I would just like to not have the logistics be so difficult. It would be even better if my school district was not putting up roadblocks.

All in all, I think we are off to a very good start.  There are a few areas that I hope to explore this year.  We just added a Shelfari bookshelf to our class blog.  That is new.  I want to learn how to make glogs on Glogster.  We will be collaborating with fourth grade classes in Solon, Iowa, and Louisiana.  There is always something new and exciting to do and learn when it comes to technology in the classroom.

What new technology will you be using in your classroom this year?