Author: Ellie Cordova

Wow! What a semester and what an amazing adventure in Ed Tech. I came into the class not really sure about technology in the classroom. I wanted to implement technology in my future classroom but wanted to use it as efficiently and productively as I could. After this semester I was also reminded of the importance of technology. I write this as we are going through the coronavirus pandemic and many schools are using technology to teach and communicate with their students. I have heard from teachers that they wish they had the opportunity to explore some of what technology has to offer, and now they do. They want to know more about technology so they are able to support and engage with their students as much a possible. I am thankful that I was given a start with discovery with this. Technology is something that is always around our students and so we must make sure to utilize it in our classrooms as teachers. This class helped me realize how important technology is in the classroom. I was also introduced to so many apps and sites to help me do everything. I was able to discover how to utilize technology whether it is creating a website, making books online to finding easy ways to get informal assessment data on what we are working on. I was also able to see the support that technology can give a teacher in making sure all of her students are able to access the material. I have included some of my work this semester along with the apps/sites I definitely plan to use in my future classrooms.

Reading with Ms. Ellie

We Love Good Teacher Apps

EdPuzzle: Anya Goes To Jamaica

All About Me Book Lesson

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

I chose to use a Google website and then added other technologies within the site for the content for my lesson. My lesson is about a ELA lesson where students will make a book called All About Me Book. My goal was to create a site that is user friendly and easy for my students to access the information at the pace they need to. I also wanted my Final Project to be creation that was easy for me to access and teach with. I like that all of my content would be in one place. I think it would be very easy for students to work on this assignment at their own pace. I also like that I could just use this to help direct my students rather than having all of my materials being everywhere. So I created a website that includes all of the materials to create successful writing lesson.

My target audience is for my students who would be in 1st grade. This lesson would be taught at the beginning of the school year because it can serve as a writing lesson but also as class bonding. This site would also be for guardians and parents but the actual activity would be for my first graders. The families can go on it to help them with what their kids are working on if they have questions. I will use and read the book I created on Book Creator that is all about me on the first so the students will be able to get to know. The students will be given access to copies that are blank of the final product that I created through Book Creator to make an All About Me Book. I also used Padlet to help students with each page. The Padlet creation takes students through each page and tells them what to include in this page as well as an example. I also like this lesson because I will be able to get a basic idea of my students writing. I will be able to see if they were able to meet the ELA Standards in Kindergarten.

My target audience is for my students who would be in 1st grade. This lesson would be taught at the beginning of the school year because it can serve as a writing lesson but also as class bonding. This site would also be for guardians and parents but the actual activity would be for my first graders. The families can go on it to help them with what their kids are working on if they have questions.I will use and read the book I created on Book Creator that is all about me on the first so the students will be able to get to know me as well.

The students will be given access to copies that are blank of the final product that I created through Book Creator to make an All About Me Book. I also used Padlet to help students with each page. The Padlet creation takes students through each page and tells them what to include in this page as well as an example. I also like this lesson because I will be able to get a basic idea of my students writing. I will be able to see if they were able to meet the ELA Standards in Kindergarten.

This creation would be used almost as schedule a teacher would have on the board. These pages would guide the students through the things we would be doing until lunch. I like this app because it could be applicable for all subjects but I like that it added another layer while we did silent reading and then reading journals because the format is a book. This would be multiple lessons as we are completing our routine before lunch. This book would be meant to help guide students with what to be looking at as they silently read and do their reading journals. I also like that I was able to use images to match my writing to give my students visuals. I especially like the visuals and thought bubbles to help guide my students while they are working in their reading journals. This will also serve as another way for the students to access what I was working on with them or what I would maybe say if I am not able to help them because I am working with another student. I also like this for students to access if they are sick or on vacation and they want to know what they are missing.

When looking at the apps I just compared them with some basics. I was looking at how they were to navigate, I also looked at how the the app looked (new and polished) and then what was offered in the free account. I ended up liking and can see myself using two of the apps. The two apps I would use are Bubbl.us and Padlet. I can see myself using Bubbl.us for a writing workshop. I tried to use both apps for the same reason which was talking about locations but I do not think that Bubbl.us would be good to use for this activity. I do think it could help students make a prewriting web with it or for me to make one as an example. However, I think it looks outdated. I wasn’t able to use Popplet because it needed to be used on an iPad or downloaded on a computer but it looks like it is similar to Bubbl.us so maybe it’s more updated.

Bubbl.us is not as new and polished at Padlet. I made a map on Padlet and liked all of the options I had from different maps to how you can add pictures from online. I also like all of the Padlet form options you can use. I definitely think this app could be great to use in the classroom. However, you have a limit on how many Padlets you can use with your free account. I would used Padlet for a lot of things. I think this could be a great app to explore the world and to practice the Capitals. It would give a visual of all the capitals and then the pictures could also help students remember the capitals.

This lesson is meant for Kindergarten to 3rd grade (most likely 3rd). This lesson would be an introduction to a lesson to prepare for a history lesson where we learn about different countries/places! I also think this is a great activity to get students to think about different places and to see someone their age while combining with their imaginative side. I also asked multiple questions but one question I ask are what places that they want to learn about. This way I can also cater to my students interests and keep them engaged.

I decided to do a screencast for my assignment. I made a video that could be a lesson for navigating the web for research. I planned on doing a lesson with my students from field experience on how to navigate the web and look things up for a subject. This would be a video for them to see how to find information for the topics they wanted to do a “research” paper on. Most of the students I have worked with get very distracted or don’t know how to navigate the web but are using computers more and more so this was also something I was trying to help with.

I created a video on Spark Adobe and in the video I am reading A Chair For My Mother by Vera B. Williams. I added the words on the page to also help them read along but there was a limit on how many words that I could put on a slide. I have seen and read about principals and teachers who read to their students and so I wanted to practice this. I enjoyed this app although I wish I would have been able to put all the words to match the pages I was reading. I also was almost done and it deleted all of the videos that I had uploaded but that could have just been my silly computer. The uploading process was super easy though! I think that this could be a great resource for teachers in many ways including reading to students and also to spice up a powerpoint even!

Poem:

I am from Salt Lake City, Utah where we have all four seasons. We go from yelling like crazy at college football games in the fall, to skiing in the winter in the mountains while spotting celebrities at Sundance, then posing in front of the cherry blossoms in the spring, and hiking the red rocks in the summer.

I am from no snow days because snow is part of our winter weather. I am from where the 2002 Winter Olympics took place. I am from tons of sweets and not a lot of coffee. I am from a place named after a large lake of salt. I am from a quiet yet loud enough place to know about it.

I am from a place where the history is deeper than the our slang terms and pronunciations. I am from a place known as “Small Lake City” Where everybody knows everyone and I am related to most of the people there. I am from a place that will forever be home no matter where I live.

Adobe Sparks Reflection:

I enjoyed making this poem and then adding pictures to it on Spark Notes. I can see how this could be a great resource and be used in the classroom like to help with a book that is read or for help with the writing process or the scientific method components. I think that I struggled with Adobe Sparks because I am not as familiar but think that the more I interacted with it, the easier it became.

Authors: Braelyn Higdon and Ellie Cordova

The target grade for this classroom website is any grade. A classroom website can be beneficial for classrooms with students of all ages from primary school to college. The intent of this classroom website is to provide information for parents, guardians, caregivers, and students. Click the image below to visit Ms. E and Ms. H’s classroom website.

Featured Image by: Geralt

I chose to create a survey to check on how my students are feeling about the math we are doing. The questions are meant for probably 2nd or 3rd grade and is meant to be a check in for me or another teacher to see how my students are doing with the multiplication concepts we are learning. This activity should be done individually so that I can reach all of my students. This would most likely be a exit ticket rather than a formal assessment. Each time my students answer no to the question, a video will pop up that explains the multiplication rule to them. At the end of the survey I allow them to write if they are still confused about so that I can know what I may need to review with my class or math topics that they are confused with that aren’t on the survey. By using google forms I am able to informally see how my students are doing with the material we are working on.

In this activity students filled out a survey about where they were from and then I was able to transfer it onto the maps. This is a fun thing to do for students to get familiar with the different countries and to see where their peers are from.

by Liz Frick, Josie Matz, Ellie Cordova

Polygon Practice with color sheets.  For this activity, students will be practicing their knowledge of the shapes vocabulary by creating a color coded mosaic based on shapes and polygons. Students will have to pick a shape name, for example a pentagon, and chose the color to fill in all the pentagons in the following mosaic. This activity is intended for middle school students, but can be altered to other grade levels depend on what shapes are included.