Digital Story Telling

Digital storytelling is an activity in the classroom that can be extremely useful but is often overlooked. It has several benefits, such as improving communication skills, broadening the students understanding of technology, and provide students with the opportunities to share their thoughts in fun and exciting ways. It is a great tool for young learners who are not avid spellers just yet, but can express their thoughts through pictures and oral language. Or, if a student writes a story on paper, they can go back and recreate that story digitally with pictures and sounds. It is proven that the listening comprehension is higher than the reading comprehension. Teachers can use it to show students their role in a community, see perspective of rules, routines, and home experiences, assist students’ language and vocabulary growth, reflect on experiences or environments, and help with behavioral management and reinforce correct behavior. Teachers can also use this to give ELL students a voice. They can receive assistance through digital story telling by showing it to their friends or family, re-recording themselves, and being able to listen to themselves speak. This shows that it can also be a great collaboration tool. Any student can ask their friends for help or tips on what to say or what effects to use. By doing this, students gain experience in the peer-review process. Digital storytelling can also encourage struggling writers and aid autistic students in performing social behaviors. This is a great way to show not only autistic students, but all students how to act in new places or difficult situations. Also, the students can help the teacher in making them, therefore making them even more personal and realistic to them.

Nearpod

Nearpod may just be the greatest app created for teachers. It is a presentation software available as an app or on the website. The presentations are completely interactive and customizable. Through the app, presentations can contain assessments that are shared to the students through mobile devices. The result can be monitored and controlled by the teacher, as the teacher receives he students answers immediately after they are submitted.
It works on any operational system or browser. The teacher can create PowerPoints, upload previously made one from the computer, or find and edit other’s PowerPoints already on Nearpod. (nearpod.com/explorelessons) The students follow along on their personal iPads and interact. The teacher can use presentations, modeling/displaying children’s work, virtual reality/fieldtrips, homework, and assessments all on Nearpod.
The teacher or students can create their own virtual reality on here, or they can use pre-made videos. Polls, interactive quizzes, open-ended questions, true/false, and drawing are all assessments that can be added to presentations to keep the students engaged. They receive immediate feedback and the teacher knows if a child has been dormant for too long. This is a great way to make homework fun and engaging for students, or letting students be self-sufficient with their work in the classroom. The basic silver is free, but there are higher levels worth buying, such as a school and district that is bought by the school for multiple teachers.

Tech Tools for the 1st Year Teacher

   Students have become digital natives, and it is our job as teachers to do the same and meet them where they are. Blogs, social networks, and google docs are great places to start integrating technology into a classroom, but there is so much more out there. There are apps and websites that can be used for all sorts of things, such as classroom management, assessment, or parent/student involvement.

For classroom organization, there are apps such as LearnBoost, MyGradeBook, and Haiku. With these apps, the teacher can create seating arrangements; upload lessons, videos, quizzes, and links; and parents can log on and see student’s grades. Haiku specifically, can be used during class as a mini lesson plan for students. The teacher can upload directions, links to videos, and other quizzes or assessments for the students to complete in order.

   For classroom assessments, there are apps such as GoFormative, See Saw, Kahoot, and Quizizz. GoFormative does away with the pencil and paper tests. Sudents can now do them completely online. See Saw is a digital portfolio app. Students can keep up with their own work and parents can view the work from home. Kahoot is an app that the students love. It is fun and interactive and gives real-time feedback. The students have an opportunity to compete against each other, and the winner is the person who answers the most correct answers the fastest. Quizizz is a little more interactive and provides the teacher with great data about the class. It has avatars, music, memes, themes, and leader boards for the students.

   For classroom management, there are apps such as Too Noisy, Stick Pick, and Cold Turkey Blocker. Too Noisy projects on the wall the level of noise in the room, letting the students know when they are too loud. Stick Pick is a randomized name-picker app. Cold Turkey Blocker is an app that blocks websites. Or, the teacher can turn the guided access on the iPads, which prevents the students from leaving that app.

Flipped Classroom

  

Flipped classrooms are a great way to create opportunities for the teachers to assist students one-on-one and have the students create independence and researching skills. This is a great way to accommodate all different types of learners. Children can study and learn at their own pace, so that slow learners can take all the time they need and receive assistance, while quick learners can complete the assignment and move one once they are finished. Flipped classrooms must constantly be changed and tweaked for each specific class. It causes the students to form great organization skills and collaboration skills. The students are learning how to learn on their own, only asking the teacher for assistance when extra help is needed and the student has done all the digging they can do. Complete module, lesson, discussion boards, and notes can be completed outside the classroom.

Some advantages to this is increase in student engagement, strengthening team-based skills, it is more personalized to the students’ needs, and it builds friendships and collaboration between faculty. Flipped classrooms work best with smaller classes, but can be ineffective if the teacher does not properly plan the lessons or put the time into it. It is easier to start with one subject to get the hang of it. Motivate students to do their work by attaching points and letting them know that they cannot participate in class if they do not do their work before. Another advantage is that the parents now get to not only see what their kids are learning, but get to even watch the lessons being taught. Especially with the parents help, this helps kids build management, organization, and comprehension skills.

Student Response Systems

Student response systems are a great way for students to get real-time results for their problems and for teacher to easily assess and keep students involved. The answers can be shared with the class but the students’ answers are kept anonymous to everyone except the teacher. Since feedback is immediate, students do not have to wait for things to be graded and issues can be addressed immediately. Students have shown a positive reaction to these devices and respond well to them.

Three free apps that can be used for this is Plickers, Ping Pong, and Socrative. Plickers is great for a low technology classroom, because it only requires the teacher to have access to a smartphone or tablet. The students are each assigned papers with codes on them. those codes are numbered and have a-d on each side. The teacher asks a question and the students hold up their answer with the letter they want on top. The teacher then scans the room with the app and it detects all the answers and once an answer is received, the student may not change their answer.

Ping Pong has several options that can be used to assess students. Each student must have the app and the teacher oversees the host account. The teacher asks a question out loud and the students can either answer through multiple choice, drawing, true/false, or text. Socrative is similar to the previous app, but it has a feature called “Space Race.” Here, students can compete in teams or individually against each other. The teacher will have pre-made quizzes and the students race their rockets with correct answers. Correct answers move the rockets forward, but incorrect answers leave the rockets where they are, so the students are not penalized.

Student-Led Conferences

   Student-led conferences are exactly what the title says. They are an opportunity for students to take responsibility of what they are learning in school and explain their grades to their parent or guardian. They can be digital or on paper, but access is much simpler digitally. The students have a chance to document big projects and accomplishments and follow their progress through the year, and then show they achievements to others.


The teacher's role in this is to guide the students to do the thinking. They are the facilitators, and simply prepare the students to present their work and guide them in the right direction when creating their portfolios. Especially for younger grades, the teacher may provide the students with a rubric, but still provide room for creativity. The student’s role is to create and present their presentation. They can collaborate with their peers for ideas on what to use and help with technology or setting it up. The parent’s role is to show up, be and encouragement, and hold the student accountable for the goals they set for themselves at home.

There are several benefits to this. Parent participation improves, ELL students feel more comfortable because they can share their work in their own language, students learn to make improvements and be self-reflective, it covers listening and speaking standards, and it grows students speaking and presenting skills just to name a few. In order for this to be successful and easy, the teachers must keep a digital portfolio of each student, or the students can keep up with them themselves. If the student is nervous about their first presentation, have them record themselves and show the recording and then answer questions after with the help of the teacher. GoAnimate, SeeSaw, WeLearnedIt, and Evernote are all webistes/apps that can be used for this.  

iPads for Autism

   Research has already proven that iPads are extremely beneficial in classrooms, but especially in special education classrooms. Today, we learned the benefits of using iPads with young children on the autism spectrum. As they said, “They’re not ill or broken, they just have a unique view of the world.” Their brains are wired differently that our, so their senses tend to be set on overdrive. Things that are normal to us can be difficult to them and things that are difficult to us can be easy for them. autism is the fastest growing developmental disorder in the United States, and boys are five times more likely to develop it than girls. It affects 1 in 68 people. ACC, This for That, Kids in the Story Book Maker, and Proloquo2go are just a few programs that can be used to improve their quality of life. These apps help student communicate in ways that was not possible before. By learning these programs in school, they can then carry them over into the world later in life and live a higher quality life. They not only work on communication skills teaching spelling, word usage, and phrases, but these apps also improve on social skills and behavior. Things to consider while selecting an app for a student is the ability to customize the program to meet the child’s needs, requisite motor skills needed to access the program, resources and time needed to teach iPad operation, if the app is research based, and cost or affordability. Make sure the app is purposeful and teaches the student as they use it, and it is not simply a time filler.

Why I Chose to Become an Educator

    As a child, I always knew that I wanted to become a teacher. It was not until growing up and witnessing some of the struggles and achievements of students that I realized why I truly wanted to become a teacher. Children hold so much wonderful potential in them, and all it takes is a good teacher to pull it out. I want to create a loving and welcoming atmosphere in my classroom. Children learn best from people that they know care for them, so that is my number one priority as an educator. Every child deserves an education and to be loved, and I feel like those will go hand-in-hand in my classroom.