Year TWO of 1:1

Well... we're halfway through year two of 1:1 learning in my building.  I've learned a lot, the classroom teachers have learned a lot, and I know there is a lot more to learn.  The beautiful thing about my job is that I am learning new and exciting things all the time.  I love scrolling through my Twitter feed to find new things to try using the awesome technology that we have.

My school district is fortunate enough to have administration and school board members who are completely on board with where we are and where we are heading with technology.  We have Technology Integration Specialists (Ed Techs)

in every building K-8, which is 7 of us right now.  

When we first started there was only 4 of us because we rolled out 1:1 in our 3-5 buildings, one K-5 building, and one middle school building first.  This year we added both of our K-2 buildings and our other middle school.  Yes... we are 1:1 learning with Android tablets and Chromebooks K-7.  Next year we will be adding on our 8th grades.  

As Ed Techs, we meet about twice a month to plan professional development.  We provide professional development to our building classroom teachers twice a month.  We've slowed down a bit with giving the teachers new things to use in their classrooms.  We're focusing more now on giving them other ideas of things they can do using the tools they already use with the students.  We also started sharing ready-made activities that the teachers can use in literacy, math, science, or social studies using technology.

Over the past 3 weeks we piloted some Chromebooks in the school where I am, which is a 3-5 building.  Our main concern was the 3rd graders using the mouse pad.  They were awesome with the Chromebooks and absolutely loved them.  When we first went into the classroom, we showed them how to log in.  We just let them play around with the Chromebooks for about a 1/2 hour.  The following 2 weeks, we brought in the Chromebooks during literacy blocks so we could see them in small group instruction and independent work time.  The students did really well with them and really wanted to keep using them because of their ease of use.  I'm not sure when or if we'll make a change, but I think I see Chromebooks in our future.

Slightly Obsessed

Ok... so I may be slightly obsessed with all things Google, but I can't help it!  I get this wave of excitement when I read about something new they've done or things they've changed to make everything work better.  The newest change that I can't read enough about... add-ons!  Add-ons are available with Docs and the new Spreadsheets.

I remember learning about Doctopus earlier this year and realizing that this could solve a big issue that we've had with the app version of Drive.  Doctopus allowed us to share the same document with individual students so that we didn't have 25 students collaborating on one document.  Even more exciting was the fact that we could keep tabs on what the students were actually doing while they were working - in REAL TIME!  With the new add-ons, Doctopus is still awesome... times 10.

With the new add-on version of Doctopus, you don't have to run the script every time you want to use it.  Once you've added it, it's there to use all the time.  The other wonderful change that has been made is now you don't have to keep making a copy of your master class roster. Doctopus will remember which lists you have used in the past and you are able to choose from a drop-down menu.  Fantastic news!  Even the new look of Doctopus is better.  There creepy Doctopus character is less creepy!

The other Google script I've just discovered is Gclassfolders.  A-MAZ-ING!  Gclassfolders allows you to create shared folders for your students so that as a teacher, you are able to have all of the students work in one spot and you can see what they're doing on assignments.  The beautiful part is that Gclassfolders and Doctopus run hand-in-hand.  Once you go through the Gclassfolders script, you can also run Doctopus for handing out assignments.  However, right now, the script creators have not made Gclassfolders into an add-on yet, but I expect it to happen very soon.

Andrew Stillman and friends are the creators of these awesome scripts/add-ons and they continue to come up with great things to help teachers collaborate with students and to help keep teachers organized

I can't wait to see what comes next!

Where do I start?

Well, I've been meaning to start blogging for a few months now, but every time I go to my blog I just stare at this empty page.  I don't really know where to start.  The more I think about it, the more I've decided to start here... blogging about where to start and telling about me.  I think maybe if I just begin writing it will become easier.  I guess I'll find out.

I've been a teacher for almost 20 years now.  It makes me feel so old seeing it on "paper".  I started with teaching kindergarten for 3 years and then moved up to 2nd grade.  I loved kindergarten, but I started to feel like I was trying to do too much with them at the young age of 5 and 6.  They were babies!  Second grade wasn't my favorite and I had my first baby that year.  I wanted to be closer to home, so I applied in another district and landed a job teaching 4th grade.  I remained there for 7 years and had 2 more babies and received my master's degree during that time.  After 7 years it was time for another change so I jumped all the way up to 5th grade where I remained for 4 years.  The longer I taught, the more I felt like I wanted to try my hand at teaching middle school.  I was not having much success getting there, so my principal asked if I'd teach keyboarding skills at my school (I think she knew I needed another change).  I did.  For 2 years.  I'm not sure I could have done it any longer.  Really... you can only repeat the same things over and over and over again for so long.  "Sit up straight"... "feet flat on the floor"... "relax your arms"... "fingers on the home row".  You get the point.  That position ended up getting absorbed by the regular classroom teachers so I was back into the elementary classroom teaching 4th grade again.

Last year brought a WONDERFUL opportunity to my school... 1:1 learning.  I was teaching 4th grade in a 3-5 building and we were given the chance to pilot 1:1 learning in our classrooms using Android tablets.  I was so excited when I found out and I couldn't wait to get started.  It was a rough start with working out internet and wifi issues, along with tablet issues, AND receiving a new reading curriculum that we would be using on the tablets, but I was so grateful I was where I was.  We had had help along the way, but for the most part we were figuring out things to do on the tablets to enhance our curriculum.  We were SO excited when we figured out how to get a PDF worksheet onto the tablets and the students could WRITE on them!!!!  Oh how little I knew about worksheets and all of the wonderful alternatives there are to worksheets. 

Mid-year we found out that the 1:1 program would be going into 3 more buildings.  It would be in another 3-5 building, a K-5 building, and the middle school for the 6th graders.  Our district would be hiring a Technology Integration Specialist at each of those buildings.  It sounded like my dream job because I embrace technology and want to learn as much as I can about it.  I applied and was offered the position at the other 3-5 building, which is where I am today.

See that... all I had to do was get started.  This is the beginning of my blogging career.  It's probably a bit wordy, but I'll get it all figured out.