Visitation Madness!!!!

Well today was my visitation day. The goal of today was to see how other teachers were integrating iPads and other various pieces of technology into their classrooms. During my visitations I visited Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Durfee Technology Magnet School.

Here is where my day begun.....

Made it to school five minutes later than I wanted to this morning but it was okay because we were still a little early by the time we (as in Mrs. Edwards(MOST AMAZING TECH COACH) and I) made it to TJ to meet with our first teacher of the day, Matt Grossman. During our visit we watched the students do the "I do, we do and you do" process. The students were working through a couple of different apps. First they were instructed to import a document from Dropbox into Goodnotes. Then the students were able to do annotate their work on the document. The first class of students was working on exponents and then the next two classes were working on like variables.

Realizations:

1. I need cases and stylist for my iPads.

2. I need to restructure the way my apps are organized on my student’s iPads.

3. Students need to model more of the problems that we work on in class.

4. Since of respect

Next we were leaving TJ to head to our next stop, Durfee Technology Magnet School and I get a phone call and a couple of text. I do not have a sub!! Of course I am starting to freak out, so I call the school to find out what happened to the sub we had lined up on Friday. Well, something happened in the computer and the sub was never approved. Well, when I was phone with one of our sectaries a sub accepted the job and was going to be in 30 minutes. This fact saved my day because if a sub was not found then I had to return to school. Which would not have been an ideal situation but I would have done it regardless. We stopped and got some tea and coffee to discuss our morning’s observations. Then grabbed lunch and headed to our next stop.

Now we are at Durfee Technology Magnet School and in McKearn's class. During this class students were working on several different tasks throughout the day. First the students were going over an assignment from the previous day and their scores. The students were told why they received the score they did on the assignment and why through a rubric. Next the students were instructed to pull out their notes from a previous day on their interview. They are currently working on college/career research. They had done four interviews and they had more to come. For the interviews they were using Skype. During class the students were using several apps/pieces of technology and they were notepad, edmodo, blogger, and apple TV. When we came back after recess we saw the students be given an assignment on the circulatory system. The students have been learning how blood travels through the body and today they had to create a story board. They are creating a first person story about a blood cell and its travel experience through the body. The next step after they create their story board is turn it into a comic strip using the app Comic Life.

Realizations:

1. All students engaged in learning experience.

2. Classroom atmosphere had a very community feel to it.

3. Very integrated units. No set block of time for one subject.

4. Students knew exactly what was expected of them and behaviors were directed in a positive way.

5. Students working at their own pace.

During the time that these students were at specials and recess we visited two other classrooms. The first class was Mrs. Pritts 2nd Grade Classroom. During this part of the observation I saw students working independently and in groups. Students were working on an Educreations slide show based off their story boards on horses. During the time the students who were not finished previously worked on their presentation the other students sat and listened to a Mrs. Pritts tell a story. After this block of time was over the students all were called to the rug. They listened and sang along with a video about odd and even numbers.

Next we ventured into a Walker's room. This is where I experienced iTunesU for the first time. Now I am a little obsessed with the app. I am looking into getting a mac book so that I may have safari to be able to create my own. I think this is the avenue I was heading with my 8th grade students.

I know this is a little late but I have been overly busy these last few days.

Long awaited UPDATE!!!!

Well, I have not blogged in a long time and there has been so many things taking place I do not know where to start. 

First, the students have been working on the Gen 1's almost daily. There have been days that we have not gotten them out due to the lab we were doing or like today I went back through all of their notes that we have taken up to this point. Reteach, reteach, reteach...... 

Second, speaking of notes I have been posting notes into Google Drive and having the students take them off of the iPad. Currently, I was talking through the notes as they copy them off their iPad but this is not as effective as I would have liked. So, today I had to back track and reteach them. I wanted to make sure the students understand the key concepts of the unit. The nice thing about the way my notes are structured is that each presentation is a chapter. Most of the presenations are between 4 to 10 slides long. 

Third, I and the students have made it through my first observation of the year. The students were working on a Venn Diagram on two concepts that we learning about at the time. The first part of the assignment was to create a list of six facts about each term. The next part was to teach the students about Educreations. They had to create a smiley face and write their name. I then taught them how to upload the screen shot to Google Drive. The next day was my observation and the students had to create a Venn Diagram in Educreations, take a screen shot of it and then upload it to Google Drive. There were good and bad things about this project. One bad thing was the fact I forgot to tell them that they only needed 3 facts for each category instead of 6.

Fourth, I am trying to make sure that I have not forgot anything related to iPads and I know I have. So, I created a meeting with my wonderful tech coach. I also apologized for not getting in touch sooner. 

Now its time to rework my units and get them mapped out...again. I am also very excited about creating fossils and doing an elemental baby book. The students love getting the iPads out and they ask every day if they are getting to use them. They also get very excited when other students are gone and you can probably guess why when you find out I only have 20 Gen 1's and my class sizes range from 22 to 27 students. One down side is that the stands I bought are not actually made for the an iPad but they work for what we need right now. I also wish we had key boards but right now the students are making due with the iPad. Please do not take this as me complaining about them because I am extremely thankful for the iPads and what changes they have brought to my classroom and my students. 

So, this is some of the things that I have done and have had happen to me since my last post. This is not all either and more is coming. 

More coming soon......