Tech Check Out System

This week I finally feel like I'm getting back into the flow of things at school. I spent a lot of time after school this week trying to figure out how I wanted students to check out the iPads and computers in my classroom. In the first week of school students had to fill out an application for Digital Citizenship in our classroom. This week I created Digital Citizenship Licenses that students signed, recognizing that they will follow the rules for being an exceptional digital citizen. I used Apple's "Pages" program to create the licenses.

Here is my sample:

Once students filled out their licenses I laminated them, in hindsight, I wish I had put the licenses on a heavier paper...I'm not sure that they will last a year with fourth graders. 

Next, I created my check out system. One poster holds all of the licenses on it. The licenses are affixed to the poster with velcro. A second poster has the names of the devices that can be checked out and a spot for students to move their license to so that I know who is using each device. There is a spot for each of our ten iPads, the four computers in my room, and the four computers in the other fourth grade room. 

Lastly, I made a poster with all of our Rules for Being an Exceptional Digital Citizen. Some of the rules I pulled from Pinterest, while other rules were ones that I came up with on my own. 

It's probably difficult to read the actual rules from this photo so here is the list below.

1. I will respect the device as if it were my own. 

2. I will properly sign out the device that I would like to use.

3. I will stay at my desk with my device and will not distract others while I am using it.

4. I will let the teacher know if there is an issue with my device at an appropriate time.

5. I will keep food and drinks off of my desk while I am using a device. 

6. I will not change any settings or notifications on my devices unless directed to do so.

7. I will stay on task and will only use proper netiquette.

8. I will close out of any apps or programs on my device when I am finished.

9. I will replace my device carefully and if needed, make sure that it is plugged back in.

10. If I break any of these rules for being an exceptional digital citizen I will lose the privilege of technology for one or more weeks.

Then, at the bottom it says:

Digital Citizenship is: Respecting yourself and others, educating yourself and connecting with others, protecting yourself and others. Be safe, learn, and have fun!

I'm hoping that this will all set the precedent for my expectations for technology in the classroom this year! We'll see how it goes!

Digital Citizenship

I cannot believe that the first week of school is finally over! This has been such an amazing week but it was exhausting! So exhausting, that I woke up this morning with literally no voice. I guess my body has forgotten what it is like to talk all day long. Lucky for me we have the day off today so it's a four day weekend with Labor Day!

So I haven't posted in a while because, like every other teacher in America, I have been frantically running around trying to get my classroom up and running! This year I had to move classrooms so I was starting with a brand new canvas. I'll do a blog post later about what I did this year with my room, at the moment the room is in shambles after 21 fourth graders had their first week with it!

One thing I wanted to share is a lesson I did this week on Digital Citizenship. I wanted to make sure that my students truly understood what it means to respect our devices and respect the internet. There is so much out there right now on Digital Citizenship that I was able to pick and choose what I would discuss with them since they are only 9. I hadn't even heard the term Digital Citizenship until this summer when I went to the ISTE conference that I mentioned in an earlier post. I'm so glad that I did learn about DC because I think it is of the utmost importance to teach kids how to protect themselves on the internet, to respect the internet and others on it, and how to educate themselves with the internet.

I was on Pinterest the other night and was lead to this blog posting about Digital Citizenship on mattbgomez.com. I like that he is teaching this in Kindergarten. It is so important to start young since kids today are digital natives. They don't know what it's like to not have iPads, iPhones, computers and all of the millions of other forms of technology that we have today. I especially like that he has this quote at the top of his posting, "Our kids are growing up on a digital playground and no one is on recess duty"(@kevinhoneycutt)....I apologize, I should probably figure it out, but I'm not sure how to cite a tweet that you find on Pinterest that leads you to a blog that someone else has posted the tweet on.

Anyway, so I had a big discussion with my fourth graders about what it means to be a citizen and also what it means to be a digital citizen. We came up with a list for each, citizen and digital citizen. I was pretty pleased with their results!

For homework that night, I asked students to complete a digital citizenship application. Before completing the application, students had to watch a Brainpop.com video on Internet Safety with their parents. I wanted them to watch this video and make themselves, as well as their parents, aware of the dangers of the internet. Students then had to post a comment using Linoit.com with a virtual sticky explaining one thing they learned from the video. I learned about Linoit.com from ISTE and I think it may be my new obsession for a quick assessment of student knowledge. After watching the video and posting their sticky, students completed their application by writing 4-6 sentences on how they can be an exceptional digital citizen. I was very impressed with their answers! Students had to sign their application and have parents sign the application as well. On the back side of the paper was our classroom technology rules so that parents are aware of the rules and consequences as well. Later next week students will receive their "Digital Citizenship License" which is my new way for having them check out the different devices in our classroom. Stay tuned for that blog post! 

I think this was a successful lesson and I was able to accomplish my first lesson in my year of ISTE! Check out Linoit.com to see how you can create a canvas and have your students post their own stickies! 

 *The task is written on the yellow sticky along with the link to the Brainpop video. Students had to choose a different color sticky to comment so that students could tell that yellow was the teacher color.

Traveling Techy

Two weeks ago I had a wedding in Atlantic City. Since I went to school on the East Coast I decided that I should take advantage of the fact that my summer job ended and that I should travel around New England and visit all of my friends who live out there. Seeing that I have become obsessed with technology and how to use it in education I figured that I could do some work on my trip, especially during those long bus rides from city to city.

After the wedding in AC I hopped on a bus to New York City to visit one of my closest friends from college. All I wanted to do was go on Pinterest and see what the newest education pins were, but I don't have the iPad that comes with the Wi-Fi. Lucky for me, I happened to be at the Apple Store a few weeks before I left with my principal helping her pick out an iPad. At the store, the Apple employee shared with me some mind blowing information! You can connect your iPad to your iPhone and go off of your data plan so that you can get streaming Wi-Fi to your iPad! I have to say that I was beyond THRILLED knowing that I had this trip and that I would be taking buses from AC to NYC and then NYC to Boston. My 7 hours cumulative bus trips would not be a waste of time since I would be able to get on the internet and fully take advantage of the amazing things that Pinterest has to offer, especially since school is starting up so soon!

For those of you who are jumping at the chance to do this, know that the way that I connect my iPad and iPhone may not be the same for you. I do not have unlimited data on my phone. From what I understand, the way to connect is not going to be the same for someone who has unlimited data. I apologize for those of you that just had your bubble burst. However, from what I understand, I believe you also can connect your devices, it just may require you contacting your cellular provider.

If you ARE someone like me who does not have unlimited data and you are chomping at the bit to figure out how to connect your iPad and iPhone, follow these simple steps:

                     1. Go to the "Settings" icon on your iPhone
                     2. Click on "Personal Hotspot"

                     3. Click on the "Off" icon so that it switches to "On"
                     4. A password will then be given to you where it says "Wi-Fi Password"

                     5. Go to you iPad and click the "Settings" icon
                     6. Go to Wi-Fi on your settings list on the left hand side
                     7. It will then ask you to "Choose a Network"
                     8. Find where it says "Your Name's iPhone" and select that as your network
                     9. Enter the password that was given to you on your iPhone
                    10. Click "Connect"
                    11. Surf the web on your iPad!

Once you have connected, your phone will say something to the tune of "One Personal Connection Connected to your iPhone". When you are finished be sure to go back to your phone and switch your Personal Hotspot off. Your battery will drain if you keep your Hotspot on for too long.

From what the Apple employee told me, you shouldn't be charged anything extra and that you're literally just using your data off of your phone onto a new device. I haven't noticed any odd charges on my bill since I started using this feature, however, you may want to check with your provider before doing anything to be sure if you have any concerns.

I hope this helps those of you trying to get some last minute travel in before heading back to the classroom!

A Year of ISTE

Last month I was lucky to be sent to the ISTE 2013 conference in San Antonio, Texas. This year I have been the iPad coordinator at my school and since I'm still kind of a newbie to all of this tech stuff I decided to head south to Texas and check out what all the buzz about ISTE was. For those of you that don't know, ISTE stands for International Society for Technology in Education. If you want to know more, check out the site, https://www.iste.org/.

I've been to several teaching conferences before, probably about one major conference a year since I started teaching seven years ago. ISTE was probably the largest conference that I've been to and I was COMPLETELY overwhelmed. But I LOVED IT! I think I read somewhere that there were about 13,000 people there. It was chaos, it was information overload, but it was AMAZING.

I arrived on Sunday and went to my first session Monday morning at 8am. I went from session to session without time to catch my breath in between. I think I stayed till 6 that night. I repeated these steps for the following two days. I think I attended at least 8 sessions a day, maybe more. I could not get enough.

So, I have a goal for this coming school year. I want to attempt to try every single thing that I learned at ISTE at least once. From QR Codes (which I've actually done a ton with but learned even more) to this new Augmented Reality that I had never seen before.

I was amazed at all that technology has to offer us as educators and I left San Antonio with an excitement for what I would be able to do. The only downside was that the conference was in June and I have to wait till the end of August to try this all with my students. I mean...I guess I'll take my summer break...but I secretly wish this conference was later in the summer so that I could take that passion that I left with and use it all immediately!

Where to begin...

So, I'm not quite sure how to get started with a blog, but here goes. I'm a fourth grade teacher and I recently started leading professional development on technology. For two days I taught 25 teachers how to use SmartBoards and iPads in the classroom. Of course the timing of this was insane for me because I got out of school on a Friday and had to lead the PD the Monday and Tuesday after. Not only did I have to worry about wrapping up the school year and leading this PD, but I was also informed by my principal that almost every teacher in our school would be changing classrooms and that we needed to be completely packed up a week after school was out. All of the teachers got a head start those two days that I was leading my PD, so to say I was a little stressed was an understatement.

Being someone who doesn't get stressed or nervous too often I had a crazy time preparing for my PD because I was so nervous! I had done basic PD with teachers at my school but this was the first time that I would be presenting to a group of teachers that I didn't know. It's one thing to teach a room full of kids, it was a whole other ballgame teaching teachers. Not only that, the sessions were all day long! 6 hours each! I didn't know how I could talk about one topic for 6 hours. As soon as I got started, I caught my rhythm and I quickly realized that I could easily go on for many more hours about iPads and SmartBoards.

At the end of my first day of PD I had one of the teachers ask me if I had a blog that they could follow. I quickly started laughing and responded, "If God could miraculously turn the day into 48 hours then I would be glad to do that". However, this teacher really got me thinking. Could I really offer something to another teacher by creating a blog? The one thing that I realized while teaching these teachers is that I LOVE being able to help teachers be better teachers. If I can give some ideas that will help even just one teacher then I guess a blog would be worth it. Who knows if I'll even get anyone to follow me?

I hope to use this blog as a platform to hand out ideas about the classroom, lesson planning, behavioral management, and technology. I am by no means an expert on any of these topics, but I've learned that the way education is moving, many people turn to the internet for ideas on what they can do in their own classroom. Take a look at the thousands of teacher blogs out there, Pinterest, Teachers Pay Teachers, and the millions of other ways that teachers are out there on the internet helping each other. I guess this is a way to try and open up my classroom to people outside of my little old school.

So, for today, that is all. I'm going to work on my list of potential posts that I plan on blogging about. Hopefully I can get a good start on this during the summer because I know that as soon as school gets started I will be in a crazed mindset again just like every other teacher come August/September!

Courtney