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.