*This post has been written as part of my professional growth plan through my #ISTE20 scholarship. Accessibility Tools Smackdown Presenters: Karyn Fillhart & Kristin Oropeza Overview: “Karyn is a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, Google certified, former elementary and special education teacher and current tech trainer. Kristin is a Google certified trainer, Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, educator and former special education teacher. Together, you get a smackdown of tools broken down by platform and area of need.” Main Takeaways Microsoft information presented by Karyn and Google information presented by Kristin (both use both platforms and will be comparing and contrasting) Enter all programming design… Read More
The Virtual Teachers of Our Childhood
I came across the following image this past week on social media and I can’t seem to get it out of my head. Its true, many people that I can credit with acting in a “teaching” role through my childhood are people that I never met or had any one-to-one interaction with. If I had to personalize this graphic, mine would look something like this: The virtual teachers of my childhood include individuals such as: Bill Nye Fred Rogers Mr. Dress Up (aka Ernie Coombs) Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton Hal Johnson & Joanne McLeod As I work with teachers… Read More
Ensuring Equity & Inclusion in Online Learning – #ISTEsla20 Microcourse #1
The following post has been completed as part of my personal reflection as I work through the ISTE Summer Learning Academy #ISTEsla20 Any images,tables, or direct quotes (as indicated with the appropriate formatting) are provided from the specific course or webinar and can be credited to: ISTE Summer Learning Academy. (2020). https://summerlearningacademy.iste.org/ Achieving equity in classrooms today can be a challenging task. Classrooms are filled with students of various needs, which challenges teachers to design lessons that meet those diverse needs. This can be particularly challenging in online or blended environments. This course will provide strategies that educators can use… Read More
Classroom Tech Tools
There are still EIGHT days left until I can get back into my classroom and begin setting up for the new year! *insert stressed expression here* In a perfect world I would have loved to have access through the whole summer so I could work at it casually since I am beginning from the ground up after returning from maternity leave. In my first year I had access in the middle of July which worked perfectly; I was set-up and ready to go a week before school actually started and I could relax before the craziness… Read More
Thinking About Choice
I think that most educators can agree that providing our students with choice can be incredibly beneficial, in and out of the classroom. This level of choice can be regarding instructional set-up, groupings, seating preferences, assessment options, etc. How do we, as educators, balance how much choice to allow while still managing our classroom? What about our students who seem to continually make the wrong choices? What do we do with students who continually change their mind and seemingly “waste” time bouncing back and forth between different choices? Yesterday the TED network shared this… Read More
Welcoming a New Set of Grade 8's to the Blogging World!!
Today my Grade 8 Science class joined the blogging world with the official 2014-2015 launch of Mrs. T’s Classroom! This blog is one that I actually started last year with my Grade 8 homeroom, who ended up blogging regularly for their science class as well as featuring a weekly “Mathlete Friday” post. This year we are maintaining our online presence at Mrs. T’s Classroom as opposed to starting all over again with a new domain. Some of my students have already been checking out last year’s posts and are excited about the potential of competing for page-view statistics! We… Read More
Introducing 3D Shapes
The week before Spring Break marked my Grade 8’s introduction to 3D Shapes. This is our 6th unit of the 8 that we will cover this year and, personally, I think it is one of the most fun! Here are some of the activities we completed over the week, they were NOT all done in one day. PRIMARY ACTIVATION I started off the unit by having students, in groups of 4, brainstorm ALL of the ingredients they would need if they were going to bake a cake. Some students went very simple with the boxed-cake-mix approach, others had detailed… Read More
Exploring Mitosis & Meiosis
Term Two is beginning to settle into a routine and my Grade 9s are hard at work on their unit on Reproduction. The first things we discuss are both Mitosis & Meiosis. With mitosis being the process in which cells divide into equal clones of themselves to produce body cells and meiosis being the process in which cells divide into haploid cells to produce sex cells (sperm and eggs). In addition to textual notes on both of these topics, I really wanted to incorporate activities for my students who may learn best through music and hands-on activities.… Read More
Stanley the Koosh Ball!
This post is for all of you that have a SMART Board or other brand of Interactive Whiteboard in your classroom. Did you know that you can use a “Koosh Ball” to activate your board and, thus, create a kinesthetic learning opportunity for your students? Before I graduated with my B.Ed I spent a lot of time substitute teaching in a Kindergarten class near our home. As part of their morning calendar time, students reviewed months/days/years by activating review prompts on their SMART Board with a “Koosh Ball”. These rubbery balls are the perfect sensory tools if you have… Read More
Welcoming My Grade 8's to the Blogging World!
Today my Grade 8 Science class joined the blogging world with the official launch of Mrs. T’s Classroom! They will be using their blog to:– Share their learning with an authentic audience– Catch up on lessons that were missed due to absences– Review lessons to get a better understanding– Connect with other classrooms around the world– Integrate multimedia of all descriptions (text, images, videos, podcasts)– Practice responsible digital citizenship– Receive feedback on their thoughts To celebrate we had a full-out Launch Party complete with whole-school announcements, a count-down to our first post, a visit from our… Read More