Lessons Taught & Lessons Learned

As I reflect over the course of the semester, I realized I have integrated more technology into my teaching than I ever have before.  I now feel more comfortable trying out new technology resources with my students.  Previously, I was too scared that the lesson would be a total flop or that my students would know more about computers than I do.  As it turns out, I am knowledgeable, capable, and confident in teaching my students skills with the use of technology.  Listed below are the TOP 5 lessons I have learned from taking this technology class:

1.  Story Jumper

The biggest thing I have taken away from this class is to have students create, not just consume, technology as it helps prepare them for their future using 21^st century skills.  I encouraged my students to write a book using www.storyjumper.com.  Not only did they learn keyboarding skills by typing out their personal narratives, they also learned how to create a picture book.  All of my students were so engaged while using Storyjumper- I just wish they would be as enthusiastic to work diligently when we have out our notebook paper and pencils!

2.  Kahoot

Talk about a great review!  My first Kahoot was a weekly vocabulary review on kahoot.it.   I loved how it shows the student responses immediately.  If many students got the answer incorrect, we were able to stop and have a discussion about it.  I plan to use Kahoot for more weekly or unit reviews next school year! 

3.  Educreations/Screencasts

I had the perfect opportunity to send a screencast to one of my student’s parent.  I received an e-mail from a parent on how to find fractional parts of a group because her daughter did not remember and needed to know for her homework.  I quickly (and easily!) made a screencast on Educreations to show the steps to finding fractional parts of a group.  My student came back the next day knowing how to solve these kinds of problems and kept reminding me about how I sent her a video of myself talking!  I am so thankful I learned about Educreations because it made my response to this parent's question WAY more understandable!  My screencast is below.

https://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/fractional-parts-of-a-group/30982367/?s=b7RCyo

4.  Twitter

I joined in on my first Twitter chat one bright and early Saturday morning.  The #nt2t chat focused on global connections.  I loved the topic and discussion... when I could keep up.  The chat went way too fast for me, and I struggled to keep up with everyone.   Using Twitter was a new experience for me.  In order to continue using Twitter, I need to work on figuring out all the buttons/features first.  Then I think I’ll be able to concentrate more on the conversation (and hopefully contribute more to it, too!)

             

5.  Haiku Deck/Digital Citizenship

Haiku Deck was quite interesting for us.  Students created slides to represent eight vocabulary words from the week.  They were to display the word, a meaningful sentence, and a picture.  One of my students quickly found out that there are inappropriate pictures to choose from on this site.  This brought up a good opportunity to review digital citizenship.  Even though Haiku Deck is simple to use, I don’t recommend it for all students because of the ease of finding inappropriate pictures that do not really even relate to the word being searched.