Techie in Primary

Looking Back This week I am finishing up my first class for my technology specialist degree at Dominican University. Before starting this class I was a little nervous. Do I know enough about technology? Will I be able to keep up? How much of it will go over my head? Am I flexible enough in my thinking and teaching to try new things? I thought back to last school year when my kindergarten team was piloting the 1:1 device initiative in our school district. I was terrified! My students didn't touch the iPads until October and every time they did I was filled with anxiety, expecting something to go wrong. I can say with confidence that I have come a very long way. Those devices really changed my teaching and my students learning. Creating, explaining their thinking, and sharing was really transformative for my students. That experience encouraged me to start my technology specialist classes at Dominican. This first tech class allowed me to try so many new things: my first blog, T...

Social Media This week in Edu 776, I learned about using social media in the classroom and reflected on my own use of social media. I read David Geurin's blog post 7 Reasons to Use Social Media in Your School . Here is his awesome infographic that summarizes his points. Infographic from DavidGeurin.com Social media is definitely not going away and to ignore it as an educator is to do a disservice to our students. Through my reading of various articles this week, one point was really hammered home: social media is generally safe for our students! Our students are more likely to be abused by someone they know in their real lives than they are to be attacked online. I think that teachers can feel comfortable using social media in our classrooms. Teachers can guide our students to make good choices, show them how to be responsible, but help them to see it as a great tool for learning and sharing. I think the opportunity to make connections outside of your building is one of ...

Gif found  via GIPHY Digital Tatoos This week in EDU 776, I learned all about digital tattoos. Digital tattoos are essentially the lasting impressions we have made in digital spaces. We live in an age where it's uncommon to not have an online presence in some way. Like body tattoos, digital tattoos (social media posts for example) last forever. Whether we want them to or not! Everyone, adults and children, need to think carefully about the personal information they are putting out in public digital spaces. For myself, I have personal and professional digital spaces. I interact with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram very differently. The social media space where I am visible and professional is Twitter. And now I can add Blogger to this list as well! Only in the last couple years has my viewpoint of my professional online presence changed. I used to think that I didn't want myself to be "seen" online at all. Now that I've been working for a few years for a...

My Experience with Twitter This week in Edu 776 I participated in some educator Twitter chats. I have been using Twitter in a professional way for about a year. The school district I work for really encourages us to use Twitter to share our classroom activities with our community. At first I was really leery of joining Twitter. I wasn't sure how much I was going to get out of it. However, I have really enjoyed being part of Twitter. I love seeing what other educators are sharing. Follow me on Twitter @MsRzewnicki . Participating in Twitter Chat There are a couple things to remember when participating in a Twitter chat to help keep everything organized and easy for participants. When you respond to a question, put A1 if you are answer Q1 (question 1) so on and so forth.  Add the hashtag of the Twitter chat you are participating in at the end of each answer you tweet.  When participating in a chat, search for the hashtag and then make sure you are following the Lates...

Pic Collage This week I downloaded and investigated a "new to me" digital tool. I decided to explore the PicCollage app because I was so inspired by it's use in the active learning lessons I looked at a couple weeks ago! Image from  PicCollage.com Pros:  The app is free!  This is a fun and easy to use app that would give students the opportunity to make picture collages.  This is a very flexible digital tool. Students from kindergarten to high school could use PicCollage to create projects.  The ability to add text allows us to differentiate projects.  Students can be creative with various backgrounds, fonts, stickers, using the drawing tool, etc. What could be a boring picture collage is now more creative and engaging for students.  There are school settings in the app settings to disable social media icons and web images.  Cons: One negative to the app are all of the pop up messages to download additional items. I think th...

Ed Tech Research This week in Edu 776 I studied some research on educational technology. There was one area of research that I wanted to take a closer look at. Common Sense Media interested me because my district is starting to use the Common Sense Digital Citizenship curriculum this school year and I piloted a lesson in my kindergarten classroom last year. Embarrassingly, I hadn't actually read the research available, so I figured this was a great opportunity to do so! GIF  via GIPHY The first document I looked at was the  Common Sense Census: Inside the 21st Century Classroom . It was great to read that "teachers who used any type of digital citizenship curriculum in their classrooms, approximately half said it was “extremely” or “very” effective in helping students make smart, safe, and ethical decisions online." My students have 1:1 devices in our classroom. They use their iPads mostly for creating and sharing learning with me and their parents. They don...

Word cloud created on WordClouds.com What is Active Learning? Active learning moves teachers away from being lecturers to passive listeners and more like facilitators of engaging learning experiences. Active learning helps put students in charge of their learning with hands on activities. We know that the days of lecturing passive students are long gone, or at least they should be. Students that are active in meaningful activities will be more engaged, more motivated, and end up learning and retaining more. Here are just some examples of teaching strategies that prioritize active learning: Think Pair Share Partner and group games Debates Roleplaying Self-reflection  Group projects Science labs STEM projects Hands on learning /manipulatives Genius Hour / passion projects Research projects Field trips Whole body learning Multi-sensory learning My Experiences with Active Learning As an early childhood educator, I've been trained to focus on developmental...