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In-Class Portfolio

• Bio Poem
• Web Site Evaluation
• Graphic Organizer
• Integrated Technology Lesson Plan Cover Page
• Integrated Technology Lesson Plan
• Video Book Trailer

Dialogue Poem - The Raft - Sarah and Christine

Day 3 Reading Reflection: Complex Texts

The last paragraph of this article summarizes the thesis and makes a strong statement. Do you agree or disagree and why?

I absolutely agree with the author that we should ensure that our students continue to work with a real book in hand and learn to slow down. Since the children who walk through our classroom doors aren't coming in with the higher-level thinking skills they need in order to be successful in college, we need to make sure they walk out our doors with those skills.

Bauerlein stresses the importance of being able to slow down in a quiet, uninterrupted environment in order to successfully read and understand a complex text. Students (and adults alike) have become used to getting anything they want at an extremely fast pace. Society tells us that we need faster phones and internet, drive-throughs, movies on demand, and next-day delivery. Our students are not often forced to slow down, so they don't know how to. They don't understand what it takes to actively read a complex text, to interact with it, and to consider its meaning. Since they are not "catching" this concept from the world around them, it is up to us to teach it to them. This is what they are expected to do in college, so we need to prepare them for it.

The one point I disagree with Bauerlein, is when he says this is for high school teachers to fix. If high school teachers are the only ones challenging students to read complex texts, they will not be any more successful than they have been in the past. Teaching students to think, to question, and to wrestle with topics is something that needs to start at a much younger age. Students in middle school should be researching and discussing controversial (age-appropriate) subjects. Children in elementary school should be digging deeper into their texts, discussing their thoughts, and forming opinions. Leaving this vital piece of education to high school teacher would be extremely unfair towards those teachers and would be doing the students themselves a great disservice.

In-Class Portfolio: Graphic Organizer.

ELA

3rd Grade

My Ideal Bookshelf

Bio Poem Wordle

Day 2 Reading Reflection: Technology and Humans in Symbiosis

“How could we rethink our K-12 curriculum for the 21st century, symbiotically combining human strengths with the most powerful technology strengths?”

Our Brains Extended

I'm not sure that we need to rethink our curriculum, but perhaps re-evaluate how we teach it using technology and keeping our students' strengths in mind.

Technology has so much to offer us. It can make history come alive, zoom in on tiny molecules, turn written text into audio and vise-versa, and solve math equations. It can be manipulated to do just about anything we could ever want it to (if we know how). If all this technology is at our fingertips and is where the future is headed, we as educators should be working to incorporate it into the lessons we are teaching the decision makers of tomorrow. We should be taking advantage of technology in the classroom as a way to broaden our students' horizons, teach them more about the world around us, and as a tool to help them express their ideas.

For any symbiosis to work, however, the two sides need to be working cooperatively and are often mutually beneficial. In order for this to be a symbiotic relationship we need to give something back. How can we give back to technology? Personally, I've watched hundreds of videos made by students and teachers that teach a concept through a song or a short play. I have read more teacher blogs than I can remember to gather ideas and inspiration for my own classroom. These are things my students could do. These are ways that I could contribute to the ever-growing plethora of resources available at just the click of a button. Perhaps one of my students will invent something new one day if they are able to explore technology today. Although giving back to technology seems more difficult than benefiting from its power, I think it is important to consider.

I have not yet fully formed a vision of what this symbiotic relationship would look like. However, I believe that technology and human strengths can work together to foster higher level thinking in students who are challenged to explore and be curious and who care about making a difference in their world.

Skippy Jon Jones Book Trailer

Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

Skippy Jon Jones Book Trailer

Annotated Website List

1. Dolch Word

• Website address: www.dolchword.net
• Category: Student Interaction, Teacher Resource
• Audience: Students, Teachers
• Grade Level: K-4
• Subject Area: ELA

This website has printable lists of Dolch words from Pre-Primer to Third grade as well as online matching games for students to play. Students are required to listen to a word and then match it to the correct printed word.

2. Book Adventure

• Website address: www.bookadventure.com
• Category: Student Resources/Teacher and Parent Resources
• Audience: Students, Parents, Teachers
• Grade Level: K-8
• Subject Area: ELA

Students can search for books, read them offline, come back to quiz on what they’ve read, and earn prizes for their reading success. Teachers can create class lists, monitor students' reading reports, and create personalized quizzes for students. Parents able able to track their child's reading, approve prizes, and find resources for them to support their child as he/she learns to read and enjoy literature.

3. Inference Riddles

• Website address: www.philtulga.com/Riddles.html
• Category: Student Interaction
• Audience: Students
• Grade Level: 3-5
• Subject Area: ELA

Students practice making inferences by using clues and their prior knowledge to solve riddles.

4. Magic Tree House

• Website address: www.magictreehouse.com
• Category: Student Resources
• Audience: Students, Teachers
• Grade Level: 2-5
• Subject Area: ELA

Students can keep track of which magic tree house books they have already read, take quizzes about those books, play games, and collect "stickers" in their online passport. Teachers can find lessons and resources related to almost all magic tree house books to use in reading groups. Parents can find fun activities to do with their students, check their child's wishlist, and find events in their area.

5. National Geographic Education

• Website address: http://education.nationalgeographic.com
• Category: Teacher Resources/Student and Parent Resource
• Audience: Teachers, Students, Parents
• Grade Level: K-12
• Subject Area: Science/Social Studies

Tons of ideas for science and social studies lessons as well as resources for students to look up information, watch videos, play games, and explore. The Mapping part is my favorite because it includes printable maps, map maker kits and an interactive map that you can manipulate and draw on.

6. NC Math Common Core

• Website address: http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net
• Category: Teacher Resource
• Audience: Teachers
• Grade Level: K-12
• Subject Area: Math

Free common core math resources from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Includes "unpacking" documents (explain exactly what students need to be able to do for each standard) and supports for all math standards. For some standards, there are also lesson ideas and/or units with all materials included.

7. I Can Common Core Standards

• Website address: www.thecurriculumcorner.com
• Category: Teacher Resource
• Audience: Teachers
• Grade Level: K-6
• Subject Area: Math and ELA

This website has lists of all common core standards written in students-friendly language. All standards are organized by grade, subject, and strands. Teachers can use these printable "I Can" statements as part of their learning objectives to help students understand what they are learning.

8. Laura Candler

• Website address: www.lauracandler.com
• Category: Teacher Resource
• Audience: Teachers
• Grade Level: K-12
• Subject Area: Math, ELA, Science, Social Studies

Laura Candler provides resources, lesson plans, activities, and articles she has collected in her 30 years of teaching. Most of her activities and lessons are interactive and engaging.

9. ABCYA

• Website address: www.abcya.com
• Category: Student Interaction
• Audience: Students
• Grade Level: K-5
• Subject Area: ELA, Math, Social Studies

Free educational games for students grades K-5. Originally created by a teacher for the students in her own classroom, all games are now teacher approved before being posted to the site. Some grades include games just for fun, but the majority of games are entirely educational.

10. Wonderopolis

• Website address: wonderopolis.org
• Category: Teacher and Student Resource
• Audience: Students, Teachers, Parents
• Grade Level: PreK-7
• Subject Area: Science

Every day, Wonderopolis posts a new question (or wonder) about the world and answers it with video, text (which can be listened to as an audio), links, quizzes and more. Students can submit questions of their own or search for topics - organized by grade and subject - they want to know more about.

Technology Autobiography

Growing up, anything on tape was a great source of entertainment. VHS tapes could be watched forward and backwards for hours. I remember spending rainy days inside with just one movie and laughing with my siblings until we cried when Cinderella's step mother and sisters marched back up the stairs backwards. 
We generally didn't get much time in front of the tube television, so we cherished every moment. On road trips, we would listen to cassette tapes - mostly singalongs - and fight over who got to pick the next Donut Man favorite.

In the summer, we would visit our grandparents who had a television in almost every room and, since we were on vacation, mom would let us watch Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street every morning. We were in heaven! Sometimes, mom would even record episodes on VHS so that we could take them home and re-watch them. The fact that the VCR could even do that seemed like magic to us.


One summer we got to grandma's house to find that grandpa had bought a "special kids computer". He was the coolest man on the planet! Summers had reached a whole new level of fun!

One Christmas, I became the proud owner of a walk-man. I could now carry my home-made mixed tapes with me wherever I went. And I did. It had sliding levers on the side to adjust the bass and treble. Cool, I know.

A few years later, I upgraded my walk-man to a neon green, clear plastic disk-man. And again, this thing traveled anywhere and everywhere I did. My first CD purchase - a very exciting, big girl moment - was a classy Britney Spears album. And if you put the CD in your computer, you could watch her music video. Amazing!

In middle school I remember coveting my friend's mini-disk player. Looking back, however, this would have turned into another gadget collecting dust on a shelf very soon because I got to pick an mp3 player not too long afterwards. Now I could spend hours transferring music from my CD collection to this tiny new device.

Over the years, our extensive VHS collection was exchanged by an ever growing stack of DVDs. The VCR was replaced by a DVD/VHS player combo and then a pure DVD player. Our home computer kept its box screen for much longer than most other house holds, but eventually my parents did invest in a flat screen for the computer. Just a few years ago my house got an exciting technological upgrade when mom invested in a flat screen TV and wireless internet. It was a good moment for the whole family.

Since then, we've added four laptops, three iPods, and a Netflix account. The house finally got away from a wall-attached phone with a cord that could reach halfway around the house a few years ago and all of us kids got cell phones when we went to high school. None of us have taken the plunge into the smartphone world yet, but I have a feeling it'll happen before too long...