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Worksheets & Email
I started my teaching career in 1998. I was pretty excited to have a computer in my classroom because I didn't have one at home. I used the computer to create worksheets and activities for my students. I also used it to email. -
The Computer Lab
I moved to a new district in 2000 and I started to see how tech could be used differently. My new school had a computer lab with 30 desk tops. We would go once a week to visit the lab to do "tech" things. Usually we would visit a website to research or practice typing. Sometimes students would type up an essay they had written as well. -
Hyperstudio Stacks
Things were starting to look a little different! I was realizing that my students could use the computers to create. We used programs like Hyperstudio . Students could take the new information they had learned and create a Hyperstudio stack to document and share their information digitally. -
Testing
Who knew we'd be testing students online?!? Wow. Not only was online MAP testing simpler to manage from a teacher standpoint, we could get results and data sooner. The sooner we got the feedback about our students, the sooner we could implement interventions and plan for their learning. -
Communication
Technology really began to be a large part of communication in education for me. More and more parents were communicating with me through email, which was fast and effective. We started using "the server" to save our documents instead of keeping everything on a disk or on the desktop. The sever really helped with organization. Unfortunately, we couldn't access the server from home. :( -
Time Away From Education
I took time off to be with my kids. -
iPads
I got my first iPad while I was off for 6 years and really started to see all that apps could do. I used the iPad to search for information, and play educational games with my kids. I could see that iPads would be great in the classroom. -
Social Media
I was late to the social media game. I joined Facebook. OMG. I was shocked by how connected everyone was. Two minutes after I signed up an acquaintance from high school was messaging me. This was creepy. I abandoned it within a month. -
Back In The Biz
I went back to teaching in 2013 and was blown away by the amount of tech that was in the schools and the ways in which it was being used. -
Edmodo
Getting my students onto Edmodo was awesome. Having a contained online place for them to share and learn made things so convenient. I loved being able to post assignments and discussion topics for my students to access anywhere. -
Google!
Holy cow. We can create a doc and save it in the cloud? We can share the doc and work on it as a team?!? What? This changes everything. -
Library
I moved to the library in 2014. I really started to examine how I would use tech to access information with students. We used online databases and ebooks. -
My Website
Soon after starting in the LMC, I began to see that my website needed to be a place for students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade to start. It needed to be the place that could link them to everything they needed. -
Creation
I really focused on using technology as a tool to help my students create. -
Reflection
This year I've been working on ways for students to self reflect and give peer feedback. Many different tech tools help with this process. -
Connection!
As I think about my learning this semester, I can see a shift in my tech use. I am starting to use tech as a connection tool more and more. Most importantly, I am enabling students to connect with one another. They are using tech to work collaboratively on research and projects. They use tech to connect through feedback and communication. They are also using tech to connect with the world. They are now able to connect with "experts" or diverse groups, giving them a global perspective.