Slice of Life: Confessions of a Technology Teacher

Sometimes I go overboard on technology. 

Sometimes I don't give enough choice in technology.

Sometimes I don't think of ways to integrate technology into my lessons.

Sometimes I use technology as the end product and don't integrate it throughout.

I have felt every statement this year several times. Every year I continue to shift my thinking and continue to make purposeful choices when to embed technology.  I remind myself often to focus on the learner and the lesson objective prior to choosing the tech tool.  Too often when I first started integrating technology, I always thought it would be the culminating activity.  

One of the areas that I have made the largest change this year was with choice. Allowing my students to brainstorm with me and have conversations as a whole group.  We are working on our third mini research project, and last week during workshop we discussed way to organize notes. The class chose three ways:  Google document, pocket folders or writer's notebook. Interesting note: 15 of 23 students chose pocket folders not what I would have guessed but reassures me that everyone needs a voice in organizing their writing.

Decorated cover for research topics

Example of questions on pockets with new research on index cards.

Example of notes answering inquiry questions

Exploring Math Visual Literacy

I have been thinking differently about math all year. Actually my thoughts started to shift last summer when I drove with Mary Lee and Mandy to a writing retreat. I learned when our children were teenagers to volunteer to  drive anywhere and just "sit back and listen." As Mary Lee and Mandy discussed the idea of math visual literacy, I thought about that conversation several times this year during math lesson planning. Last week I followed some tweets from Franki, Mandy, Katie, and Brian about #nerdymathclub. Their conversation was about professional books that they were planning on reading this summer.  I have accumulated visual math photos throughout the school year and collected my own math books to read.  I think I am ready to focus on math literacy for summer 2014.

Last week, after OAA testing, and I refused to use another worksheet or packet for the last few days of the week, I passed out colored graphs that I tore out of Kidbits book that I love for graphing. I purchased two - one I tore up and the other one is in my math library. Once I use these graphs, my students are excited to check out the rest of the graphs in the book since they are organized in student friendly categories: food, sports, music, clothing.

Thinking about math as integrated literacy has shifted my instruction. Our focus this year has been "MATH is about READING".  My students say the phrase with me. We look at "reading" computations and "reading" story problems. I have always enjoyed math because I was the student who always tried to solve the problem differently than my teacher showed us.  "IT HAD TO BE DONE" this way. But not for me. This idea has also shifted my math instruction this year. I always begin this is one way to think about... do you have another way? 

This year we had two days of release time for professional development for integrating Common Core math next year in fifth grade.  The focus of both PD sessions were about rich story problems. I have to admit I did not see enough practice problems on the strategies, and I continued to ask the facilitator about practice. There needs to be a balance within my required 80 minute block, but as I reflect on this year I believe starting with math visual literacy is the best place to begin.

Slice of Life: Opening Up Reader's Notebook

 Excited to join Two Writing Teachers for Tuesday Slice of Life writing community!

The calendar has turned, and the month of May has arrived. I am not sure about most classrooms, but our classroom is more of a buzz and the pot is beginning to boil over with excitement. Controlled excitement is the goal. I am always breathing easier in May - state testing is over, and I have a huge desire to circle around to where we started in September. Focusing on our lives as a reader, writer, or wordsmith. When the students arrived to school this morning, I had three new blank bulletin boards ready to start collecting their ideas from their notebooks. I am borrowing this idea from Donalyn Miller and how she uses a graffiti wall in her classroom.

I modeled for my class how I collect vocabulary, lift lines and share their thoughts from our current read aloud. It is fun to begin to share our connections with current Just Right books. For example I am reading The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage, and I have highlighted several favorite lines and shared using my document camera. I then opened my writer's notebook and shared where I recorded my thoughts from last summer from The Real Boy by Anne Urso. I plan on encouraging my students to continue to collect favorite lines, vocabulary and share them on our class bulletin boards. Hopefully they will be covered by the end of May with a celebration of readers, writers and wordsmiths.  

Twitter Library

I fell in love when I saw this Little Free Library on a weekend trip up to Lake Erie. How exciting "give a book share a book."  Nothing is better than sharing favorite books.  Fast forward last week to twitter talk, and I tweeted that I am interested in learning more about multi genre writing. What happened next was amazing.

After reading the DM, Vicky asked me for my home address and offered to mail me her copy of the book.  What a gift of paying it forward.  I was ecstatic, and I immediately began reading and taking notes. My conversation continued with Bev on twitter, and she continued to help me learn.

I starting thinking about all of the professional books that I own. Several of them I have read, taken notes, highlighted and learned what I needed to know.  I would be more than willing to pass on any of the books below.  Just DM if interested and I will pay it forward just like Vicky helped me.