Blog Assignment #8

21st Century Learning and Communicating Tools

My Teaching Tool by Haley Smith

For my tool, I chose www.scholastic.com. Growing up, I remember reading Scholastic books and engaging with the characters such as Clifford the Big Red Dog and the Magic School Bus. Every year, I always went to my school’s book fair put on by Scholastic. Today, as a future educator, I had NO idea that Scholastic would provide the tools that it does. From lesson plans to classroom management ideas to student activities, Scholastic offers an unlimited amount of resources that can be used to further learning in the classroom.

Resources and Tools

On the front page of this link, Scholastic offers daily starters, the freebie corner, and printouts that can be used inside the classroom. Daily starters are anything from fun facts to teachable moments and small lessons in math and language. In addition, you can look up information by

Common Core Standards. There is even a link that takes you directly to the Alabama Department of Education website where you can see the Core Standards. Scholastic is a partner with Common Core and they want to provide instructional materials and programs for you, the teacher, to use. Scholastic also provides teachers with lesson plans separated by holidays, months, and subjects. The amount of lesson plans that Scholastic offers is extraordinary and can be incorporated in the classroom in various ways. The best part of this website is that the lesson plans are free!  There is also a tab that is titled "Everything You Need". In this section of scholastic.com, there is anything you could need by theme such as bullying, elections, and holidays. It has teaching ideas for the month and there is also a search bar that you can use to look for something specific that you need.  

Some tools that are available through scholastic.com are the graphic organizer, the flash card maker, the spelling wizard, and the class set-up tool.  

Follow the links to explore other tools Scholastic offers for yourself!  

Graphic Organizer

Flash Card Maker

Spelling Wizard

Class Set-Up Tool

Strategies & Ideas

Another tab that you can find on Scholastic’s website is one where you can find different strategies and ideas. One resource found in this section that I find very helpful is Teacher to Teacher Blogs. In this section, you can find teaching tips, classroom management tips, lesson plans, and great things that are happening in the classroom. It gives you a list of teachers all over America giving their resources and tips for a better classroom. While exploring Scholastic’s Common Core section, I found links that explain what Common Core is and how to understand. This gives links to Skill Assessment, Math Material, English Material, and the Content Library. I really like the section called the New Teacher Support as well. This link offers tips for how to start your classroom, ways to deal with parents, how to teach lessons, and resources that helps new teachers get in the swing of school.

Student Activities

Inside Scholastic there are a lot of resources for teachers, parents, and students. The student resources vary from computer lab activities, SmartBoard activities, and “StudyJams!”. These are all resources that are extremely helpful and will allow students to grasp the concepts needed.

Here are the links to the student activities!

Interactive Whiteboard Activities

StudyJams!

Computer Lab Favorites

Family Playground (Ages 3-7)

Kid Stacks (Ages 8-12)

The final resources I am going to discuss are the Book Fair and the tab for Books and Authors. With the Book Fair resource, you can find book fairs near you, see what books are being featured, and you could sign your students up for contests such as Kids Are Authors.

I would use these tools in my classroom as often as I could. This would allow students to stay learning with technology as well as work collaboratively. This takes learning home, and it allows parents to join in on the fun of learning!

My Teaching Tool by Brantley Spillman

While researching technology-based tools for the elementary classroom, I was able to find a lot of new information.  The sky is the limit when dealing with technology and its potential for the modern day classroom. Constantly, new tools and programs being invented and implemented into our schools. These tools/programs are allowing educators easier application of the hands-on approach. The tools that were notable to me were Pixie, Frames5, Share4, Wixie, Image Blender, and PollEverywhere.

However, the program I will discuss in this post is Epals. Epals seems to be easy to integrate into the classroom.  They have several options that are specific to grades K-12.  One example is the “Global Community” that allows students and educators to collaborate with different cultures and communities (over 200 countries).  Additionally, this technology offers a safe way for students to communicate worldwide. Both educators and students now have the opportunity to search and learn from many different styles/cultures of education.

Another example of options that Epals offers to an educator and their students is “CRICKET.” CRICKET includes several different magazines and reading materials for a variety of ages.  “The mission of CRICKET is to inspire children to a lifelong love of reading and learning (Epals:CRICKET). In addition to magazines, CRICKET offers several learning products such as books, crafts, toys, and gifts. First and foremost, these products should bring a sense of fun to the learning process.

In2Books e-Mentoring Service is a more specific program Epals has to offer.  This service is grade-specific.  The In2Books tool is for students in grades 3 through 5.  It provides a student with a pre-approved adult pen pal to discuss certain reading topics they both have read. “The program provides standards-based professional development and professional learning communities and is facilitated by three resource-filled websites - one for students, another for pen pals, and a third for teachers” (Epals:In2Books). Historically, pen pals have been very useful in a classroom. (How to Set Up a Pen Pal!) Pen pal relationships offer several important inter-disciplinary benefits for your students: good practice at writing in the proper format, increasing your student’s awareness of other interpretations of the reading material, increasing chances that your student will continue to be a writer, increasing your student’s ability to communicate clearly in written form.

The notable aspect of Epals is that it is building on traditional learning tools; reading, writing, and pen pals.  However, making it more successful by using new technological methods such as video chats and email we are modernizing the classroom.

My Teaching Tool by Hilary Thames

In my sixth grade classroom, I plan to use technology in numerous ways, but the number one thing I want my kids to be engaged in weekly is keypals. Through these keypals, my kids will be involved in learning communities. Each students will be paired with another student from a classroom in another city or, possibly, even another country. My students will be in contact with the paired student through email. When working on projects, they will be using collaborative writing tools such as google docs. Once a month, as a whole, we will have contact with the class via webcam and have an activity planned for this allotted day for the students to engage with each other.  This will allow the students to see their partner and their partner’s culture with their own eyes.

In order to find a whole classroom available for keypals, I would use The Teacher's Corner. Through teacher’s corner, I would be in contact with the teacher about various things such as setting up the keypals, activities that will be used throughout the year, and potenital problems that may evolve over that period of time.

I hope, through this experience, my students will gain a working knowledge of teamwork. They will have to learn how to depend on others as they will not be able to take full control over their projects. This quality will not only help them in the keypals activity, but it will also help them when they are in the workplace. My students, through the use of keypals, will also be introduced to different cultures and to students with different backgrounds.

Another way I plan to engage my student in technology is by the use of ThingLink. There are many great tools that ThingLink offers; such as new ways to create an interactive report. By

creating this interactive report, students will be able to learn more because it is a fun alternative to traditional and boring reports. Through the use of ThingLink, my students will create a report of themselves on their own culture that they can share with the students they have been paired with via keypals. When their paired student has shared the report on their culture, we will have a class discussion about what was shared.

My thinking may seem outside of the box, but one thing I believe would be great for involving technology into the classroom is the introduction of digital desks. Instead of the old, boring wooden desks, we would have desks that allow each student access to the internet. The top of the desk could be compared to an iPad. It would be a touch screen and even have a connection to the SmartBoard that is in the front of the classroom. My students' books would be accessed through these desks. No more excuses like, “I left my book at home last night”! Of course, the students wouldn’t be able to take these desks home, so there would have to be a textbook available for homework activities and studying (maybe an iPad).  The students would even be able to take tests on these digital desks and submit them wirelessly! WE ARE GOING GREEN LIKE EDM 310!  Alright, so maybe there is a reason I want to be a teacher instead of an inventor, but you can never dream too big, right?!?