Classroom Websites

This week I've been working on a couple of websites, one for my classroom and one for a presentation for my local school district.  I really wanted to become familiar with the format and functionality of a variety of different free options, so I explored Weebly, Wix, and Goggle Sites.  I have learned a lot through this experience and have pretty strong feelings about what I'd recommend.  I started building my classroom website through Weebly, and love how it turned out.  You can see it here. Right now it has a bunch of numbers as the URL, because I have not upgraded to include a personal web address, although for $4 dollars a month, I will likely build that into my school budget when I return to the classroom.  Weebly is intuitive to use, and its drag and drop features make it easy to build a beautiful, professional looking website. There are hundreds of templates to choose from, and the customization possibilities are endless.

For an iPad PD course, I started with the Google Sites option, because (up until this experience) I love most of what the GAFE system has to offer.  This website builder, is not as user friendly as Weebly, but I am not one to give up easily.  After all was said and done, I made the ugliest webpage ever! I am proud of the content the site contains, but aesthetically speaking, it leaves a lot to be desired.  You can see that website here. I was in too deep.....with the presentation too near by the time I decided I wanted to ditch Sites.  The old, perfectionist me would've stayed up way too late for way too many nights and re-built it.  But this is a new era, with a new, more realistic (or maybe slightly overworked) me, where I am letting it go, and moving on.

I do know where I'm headed next though....for my next website project, I will be trying out Wix.  It is very similar to Weebly with it's drag and drop features, and it's simple designs end up looking sleek and sophisticated rather than the archaic and blocky look of Sites.

Brain Breaks

I am having so much fun sharing "brain breaks" with my preservice teachers!  These intentional activity breaks spaced every 20-30 minutes do wonders for students young and old.  Brain-breaks can help students re-focus, re-energize, and incorporate much needed movement into their days.

This week I shared some of the research about childhood obesity from the CDC as well as information about the limited physical activity in the daily lives of Americans.   I also shared this eye-opening image from a study at the University of Illinois.

Current recommendations from the Institute of Medicine say that children under 6 need to be physically active for 15 minutes every hour, while older children need 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous physical activity. But those 60 minutes don’t have to occur at once.   This is where classroom brain breaks come in!  

Over the next four weeks, each of my preservice teachers  will research and teach a 5-minute brain-break to a small group.  The variety of activities already is astounding!  Some are energizing, others are relaxing.  Searching the web or Pinterest for brain breaks will produce a plethora of results. Some helpful classroom specific  tips can be found here.  Free, one-minute activities to get kids moving can also be found here.  

I will post pictures and videos of my students in the weeks to come.  In the meantime, try this quick trick called the Foot Circle: Circle one foot around clockwise.  With your finger make a 6 without changing the direction of your foot.   Can't you just feel your brain working??

Educational Technologies Concept Map

For my 'Teaching with Technology' course, I was asked to develop a concept map of educational technologies using a web-based tool.  There are many to choose from including:  SpicyNodes,  Inspiration/Kidspiration, Mindmeister, IHMC CMaps and Gliffy, to name just a few. 


I choose to explore Inspiration Maps because of its PC and iPad app capabilities.  This program has many simple features, and is very intuitive to use.  There are a variety of icon shapes and images to choose from, and you are able to customize the colors, fonts, and overall style with a simple menu of options.  Embedding web links was simple, but as far as I can tell, are only functional within the Inspiration app or PC program.  I used the free version, which allowed me to make the concept map using the full features.  However, in order to save it as a PDF, or email it as a PNG image file I will need to upgrade for $9.99.  With the free version I am able to send it as an 'Inspiration file' to someone else who has the program, and they would be able to open the links that are embedded in the map.  

This technology could be used prior teaching any new unit of study to serve as a pre-assessment, or at the conclusion of a unit to show the conceptual understandings and connects made by students.  Students could work individually or in pairs to visually conceptualize their funds of knowledge on any topic. This technology could also serve the purpose of the planning stage of any piece of writing that was taken through the full writing process, although it would be a time consuming and labor-intensive task.  At the second grade level, I'd most likely use this specific technology in a whole-class KWL model before and after my science or social studies units of study.  

Due to the time and labor demands of using electronic concept maps, I'm not sure that this is something I need in my second grade classroom at this time; and therefore won't be making the upgrade anytime soon.  I typically using concept maps as brainstorming/pre-writing activities rather than final projects, and would choose other technologies to spend my time on. 

Without the ability to use the links, this concept map would fall into the 'augmentation' level of the SAMR model because I was able to upload photos and icons digitally.  When using the full program, this would jump up to 'redefinition' on the SAMR model because of the ability to embed web links. I can see myself using Inspiration Maps, or something similar for a presentation to my students or colleagues, but this is not something that I'm going to ask a second grader to use anytime soon.  

Visualizing The Field of Teaching

I am two weeks in.  My role as a lecturer has settled into a sweet spot.  I wasn't sure just how the transition from teaching second graders to teaching college freshman would go, but I've been pleasantly surprised.  There really are more similarities between the seven-year-olds and college students than I ever would have imagined!  One thing that this experience has already done for me, is to highlight my love and passion for teaching.  I have learned that it really doesn't matter how old my students are.

Last week I asked my students to individually brainstorm the qualities of excellence in teaching.  Then, in small groups they needed to create a visual representation of their ideas and share out with the class.  Here are some of their ideas:

Can you guess what they are representing?  

Service Learning

As part of the 201 course that I am teaching, my students must complete 20 hours of service learning.     Our first effort was to help beautify the grounds of Lena Whitmore Elementary by pulling weeds, and trimming bushes and trees.  It was incredible to see how much was done in such a short amount of time!  

First Day Feelings

I asked my college freshman to write one word that described how they were feeling on the first day of class.  I then typed it into Wordle.net and came up with this:

They may need to work on getting some basic needs met....

Feeling Disturbed

Tomorrow is my first day of teaching all over again.  This time at the University.  My new outfit is ready and hanging up.  My lunchbox is packed in the fridge.  My syllabus is finalized and uploaded, although not copied off in paper form yet.  I have typed my 40 students names enough times to become familiar with them, and am excited to begin connecting faces with these names.  I have a pretty general idea about what is going to happen, but am a bit nervous about the limited technological capabilities of the classroom, and how I will work around that.

I'm sure the first day jitters will kick in soon.   But it's okay.  I am ready to be disturbed.   I was recently introduced to the works of Margaret J. Wheatley.  In her essay," Willing to be Disturbed she writes of  needing to have our thoughts and beliefs challenged.  She reminds us that we are not used to admitting that we don't know something, or don't know how to do something.   I am trying to get better at this. I am ready.  "....we can only find those answers by admitting that we don't know."