Category: Technology - LAIRD LEARNING

Story Retell using BeeBots!

11/1/2019

Today, I had a blast co-teaching a story retell lesson in first grade! As you may know, story retell, CCSS RL.2, is a skill kindergarten through third grade students work on each year. Teachers are always looking for new ways for students to practice retelling stories, and I was approached by a teacher to provide coaching support through co-teaching a technology integrated reading lesson.

My office is full of Makerspace items, including Spheros, Ozobots, Ollies, but the cutest is definitely the BeeBots! We have Bluebots too, however for this activity, the teacher wanted to use the Beebots.

For this lesson, students retold a familiar story: The Three Little Pigs. This was selected so students would become acquainted with coding the Beebot. I had pre-made cards representing different parts of the story, which students placed around the card mat.

Next time, students will retell the story from their whole class reading lesson or small group reading book. Other lessons the teacher has brainstormed include placing sight words, math facts and number sentences, and science concepts like animal life cycles, under the cat mats.

If you haven't given Beebots a try, I highly suggest it! Students love coding, and teachers (and Instructional Coaches) love seeing another technology learning tool being used in the classroom!

Who Would Win?

2/1/2019

Every so often, teachers reach out to me for enrichment activities for reading, math, science, or social studies. This is an activity I put together for 1st grade students and is modeled after Jerry Palotta's Who Would Win series. The grade level is 1:1 (one device per student) Chromebooks, so I designed this in Google Slides. The final page will have a Blabberize (Chatterpix could be an alternative if you have iOS devices, where the winning animal explains why they won the battle. A few resources students will use for this project are PebbleGo, Bookflix, TrueFlix, and Kiddle.

If you would like a copy of the Google Slides file, please let me know.

I also created a graphic organizer where students can record their findings.

Google Classroom and Professional Development

9/5/2017

This year, we are using Google Classroom to house all our PLC and Professional Development resources. All posts are tagged with topics like "Building PD," "PLC - Student Focus," and "PLC - Professional Growth." I love how easy Classroom is to use, and having everything in one place allows all staff members to easily locate resources.

After posting on social media about how we're using Classroom this year, I was asked to share directions on how I set up our building's Google Classroom. Rather than sending multiple emails, I decided to type up some directions.

Setting up a PLC in Google Classroom

Log in to Google Classroom and click + to create a class

Give the class a name (ex: Mitchellville Teaching & Learning) and click Create

To add your first PLC document click the + sign and select Assignment

Give the assignment a title (ex: PLC Week of Sept 4), due date (typically the last day of that week)

Add a topic tag (this will make it easier for teachers to locate past assignments and posts using the topic bar on the side of the class page.) Since we are using this for all building level teaching and learning opportunities, we have three topic tags.

Attach any files or links using the attachment options. (decided if you want each student to have a copy, or if you want the document view only).

If you want it available immediately, simply click “Assign.”

If you’d like to schedule posts, click the arrow next to “assign” and choose “schedule.” Select the due date and click “Schedule.”

Invite students to join the course
- Click “Students” at the top of you classroom

Click “Invite students” and type in their email(s)

To view PLC documents during or after the PLC meeting, click on “Done” or “Not done” and open PLC facilitator’s document.

To post resources (slides shows, PDFs, handouts, etc.) that teachers will refer to but not complete, simply choose “Announcement” instead.
Every time you post a new announcement or assignment, students enrolled in the course automatically receive an email.

If you have any questions, or would like help setting up your building's Teaching & Learning Google Classroom, let me know!

Kindergarten Expedition

5/30/2017

One of my favorite aspects of being an Instructional Coach is the opportunity to partner with teachers to support their integration of new instructional practices or technologies. This year, my building added Project Lead the Way, and during the kindergarten Structure and Function: Human Body module I knew it was the perfect opportunity to introduce the teachers to Google Expeditions. For this Project Lead the Way/Google Expedition, the kindergartners travels inside the respiratory, digestive, and circulatory systems. The students were able to have a 360 degree view of the systems, and the expedition allowed the five year olds to experience the structures and functions they had been studying.

Power of Technology in Literacy Instruction

6/28/2016

I had the privilege of presenting at the Iowa Reading Association's 2016 conference. Rather than doing a typical sit and get presentation, I had stations set up for participants to rotate through. Below you will find the handout I had available for participants.

If you would like information on any of these technology tools, including how I implement them with our K-5 students and teachers, let me know!

4th grade ELA and Stop Motion

2/4/2016

What would do you do when a group of students score proficient on an ELA pretest covering the following Iowa Core standards?
(W.4.3) Students understand that an author reflects on his/her life by writing a narrative to convey a real or imagined experience or event.

(RL.4.2) Students understand that details that develop the theme of a story, drama, or poem lead to a better understanding of other perspectives and cultures.

(RL.4.3) Students understand details in a story or drama develop characters, settings, or events and lead to a better understanding of other perspectives and cultures.

(RF.4.4) Students understand fluent readers learn to recognize words quickly and accurately as a way of obtaining meaning from what is read.

As an Instructional Coach, this scenario is very familiar to me, and was the challenge our fourth grade teacher asked for my assistance in solving. After looking at the standards, we decided to give students the task of creating a stop motion video of a readers theater script that they wrote based on a fairy tale or folk tale. Below, you will see the finished product. I'd say the students did a wonderful job, and I could see using this activity again.

ILA Conference Presentation - Connect Your Classroom

7/16/2015

I recently presented at the International Literacy Association's annual conference. Although I have presented at several local and regional conferences, this was my first presentation at an international conference. As you can imagine, I was extremely nervous, but received a positive response from those in attendance.

Below you will find the resources shared during my presentation.

Slides (also available on Presentation Symbaloo)

Links:

Classroom

Professional

Tech in Focus: Popplet

4/2/2015

Today, the next book in the Tech in Focus series was released on the iBooks Store! This title focuses on how you can use Popplet in the Elementary English Language Arts (ELA) Classroom. Click here to download this free eBook.