Author: Georgina Jeffers

Photo by Lubo Minar on Unsplash

This semester I have learned and gained so much knowledge on different ways a teacher can use technology in the classroom. This class helped me create a subtle and seamless way to use technology with lessons and base lessons around technology. I have seen firsthand how easy it is to develop lessons that use technology. I am excited to see how I can use it in the classroom next year.

First I started off with a post that was a…

Letter to My Future (Teaching) Self!

Letter to My Future (Teaching) Self

This post started me off with learning how to use simple elements of EdTech. Without this lesson, I do not think I would have such confidence in my portfolio that I feel I have now. Having time to transition into such a strange approach to a class was much needed. I am quite a hands-on learner myself, so creating said post helped me build up my skills with the application in the end.

From there I started to create more technical posts like…

Persuasive Brainstorming!

Persuasive Brainstorming

Here we really started to strategize on how we can use technology as activities within lessons. With this lesson, students would be asked to create a slide on a Google Jamboard and develop ideas that they could use to write a persuasive letter/essay later on in the unit. This would also be an amazing way for students to easily provide peer feedback on their ideas and build their own inspirations from other students’ ideas if all is accessible on one Jamboard.

Next, I developed…

Life Cycle of a Butterfly!

Life Cycle of a Butterfly

What is great about this post was the fact each group was able to explore more technological tools that the internet can provide. For example, PBS Learning Media provided Kaelyn and me with a great online lesson! Here students can interact all in one place from the beginning, middle, and end of the lesson. It also was great because it provided which state standards it met so you knew exactly how applicable this lesson is to your overall school year.

After looking at the lifecycle of butterflies, I made a final post on…

Foods from Around the World!

Foods from Around the World!

I felt like I built a strong and engaging lesson on learning about cultural dishes in one’s country of origin. It was also nice to show how a teacher can incorporate multiple different technological applications to help build a lesson. Having the brainstorming and finishing with a presentable book for other students to read and learn from rather than the average PowerPoint presentation.

The Approach to Teaching Tech:

For myself, technology should be more of a helping hand rather than the end-all, be-all of teaching. I have enjoyed finding subtle ways to implement technology into the classroom rather than making whole lessons around a single product like Adobe, Google Drive, or BookCreator. Having small things here and there, like an exit ticket using Google Forms or a brainstorm that is worked on Google Jamboard. While it was interesting to find a lesson like that of the Life Cycle of the Butterfly, it does not feel natural to use in an in-person classroom setting.

What Have I Learned:

I have learned so much from this course. Most importantly, I have found my method of involving technology in my future classroom. Because of this signature way, I have been able to see how accessible it can be for students and peers alike. With technology, more group work can be done asynchronously and feedback can be almost immediate. Technology can support many students, they are able to take lessons at their own speed and be creative in their approach to growing their understanding.

Goal: Provide a lesson to students to learn more about the geography of the world and how different concepts, like cultural food, connects to their daily lives.

Tool: Students will be using Google Jamboard as a place to form ideas and showcase their research done on cultural foods that come from ancestral countries. After working on Google Jamboard to brainstorm some ideas, students can then use books and online resources to do research of their country of choice and the food they choose to present to the class. The presentation/assessment type will be shown through a Book Creator book.

Grade: Fifth Grade

Subject: Social Studies

Instructions:

1. FOR TEACHERS: It is important to follow the family tree unit with this unit of foods from around the world.
2. Students will first be asked to begin the lesson with five-minute independent writing where they can talk a little bit about what they discovered about their family history.
3. Students will then be asked to brainstorm, using Google Jamboard, cultural foods based on one of their home countries.
4. Following the Jamboard, students will then use Book Creator to share facts about cutlural foods from their countries of hertiage.

Google Jamboard:

Book Creator:

Sources:

Photo by Fernañdo Prado on Unsplash

Authors: Georgina Jeffers and Chloe Kelly

Grade: Third Grade

Content: Science Lesson

Context:

1. Students will begin the lesson with a warm-up on what are magnets
2. Students will watch videos and observe what magnets do and how they behave.
3. Students will be asked to show their learning through an exit ticket reflecting on what was covered in the lesson.

Goal: Students will have started to grow a foundational understanding of what magnets are and how they work based on the YouTube video and exit ticket alongside.

Sources:

Photo by Dan-Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash

Audience: Kindergarten

Topic(s): Math and SEL

Purpose: This would be a great book to use to show students, especially younger ones, three great things. First of all, it can introduce younger students to Book Creator, letting them start to understand the platform and its use. Secondly, this lesson would be a great way to teach kindergarteners about shapes and the differences between different shapes. For example, what makes a circle, a circle. Last, but not least, this book can help develop students’ SEL. The book comes with a moral and teaches students at a very basic level how to treat others.

Sources:

Photo by Mel Poole on Unsplash

Grade: 5th

Subject: Social Studies

Goal: Students will work to learn the geography of different countries their family is from, this will teach them the importance of history and how it connects to geography.

Instructions:

1. Have students create their family tree for homework alongside their parents. Ask questions about ancestors and countries they have emigrated from.
2. In class students will use Google Earth to highlight some of the birthplaces and hertiage sites for their family history.
3. Class will then end with students presenting their own Google Earth to the class and interesting information they learned about their family and geopgraphic locations and the importance of those places for human populations.

drive.google.com/file/d/1f9Nqvn6GBtYH4j_C5n6pI-opooHhu9iO/view?usp=sharing

Source:

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Context: Students will be creating their own video through Adobe Creative Cloud Express Video Maker dedicated to the hero’s journey.

Grade Level: 4th/5th Grade

Subject: English Language Arts

Instructions:

1. Students will be assigned to draft a hero’s journey and then create the final product in Adobe Creative Cloud Express Video Maker.
2. When first opening the video maker, students will be asked to follow the directions of choosing the hero’s journey as the format for video making.
3. From there students can input there: the setup, the call to adventure, the challenge (or rising action), the climax, and finally, the resolution.
4. After creating their posts, students will then have time to share the creations with one another in small groups to show what their process was like and how their story fits that of the hero’s journey.

Photo by Arkinasi from NounProject.com

Self-Graded Quiz:

Adventure Branching Form:

How is it Useful?

Google Forms can have such a unique and special use in the classroom. I think some really cool ways are, of course, two of the ways I have displayed above. When looking at previous students’ work, I was quite inspired by the Art History gallery walk and thought I would make my own rendition regarding historical periods. Not all the periods I used will reflect that of social studies in elementary school, but I used some of my favorite periods to display how an adventure branching form can be used to teach history. I believe, especially in this day and age, students might find themselves more confident using technology when testing. So having self-graded quizzes for both formative and summative assessments is possible. One great feature of creating a formative self-graded quiz is students then are provided resources to study if they answered a question wrong or are unsure when reflecting on their score.

Sources:

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

By Kaelyn Kato and Georgina Jeffers

Grade Level: 2nd Grade

Subject: Science

Technological Tool: PBS Learning Media

Instructional Goal: The learner will be able to explain or describe the life cycle of a butterfly from egg to adult butterfly.

Outline of Lesson:

1. Students will have basic understanding and background of the life cycle of animals of insects.
2. Today, we will be learning about the life cycle of a butterfly. As butterflies become adults, they go through many changes. This is known as metamorphosis.
   • Before we dive in, we want to dive into special body parts of butterflies. Some familiar ones you also have are eyes and legs, but they have three special, unqiue parts: their wings which help them fly, their antennae to help them smell, and proboscis which helps them drink.
   • Now we will be drawing the proboscis after watching this video on what it does and what it looks like.
3. There are four stages in the life cycle of a butterfly.
4. The first stage of the life cycle is Eggs: The mother butterfly lays her eggs on leaves.
5. The second stage is the Larva stage, at this stage the animal/insect is very young and look very different from the adults. Butterfly larva are called caterpillars, when they first hatch the caterpillars are very small.
   • Another name for larva is catepillar. The most important part for the larva to turn into a butterfly is that they grow big so they can progress into the next step. Now I want you to arrange the catepillar from beginning to end and show how it changes over time.
   • Before they move on to their next stage, I want you all to follow the directions on page eight of our activity and draw what you think they eat. Eating helps catepillars grow and turn into… pupa!
6. The third stage is the Pupa stage: when a caterpillar reaches their last install, she stops eating and forms herself into a chrysalis, which is also known as a butterfly pupa.
7. The last stage is the Butterfly stage: Once the butterfly is ready, the chrysalis splits open. The cycle is complete – and ready to start all over again!
   • One last task, can you all please organize the life cycle of the butterfly like it asks you to do on page eleven?
8. Good job today second graders, now we know the life cycle of a butterfly.

Tech resources and tools for teacher and student:

Link to the Source:

https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nat36-int-butterflylifecycle/butterfly-life-cycle/

How Does it Help Reach?

This website is an interactive lesson that can work alongside the teacher, it gives them fun drawing activities to engage their scientific knowledge. The technology resource helps students grow an understanding of the specific process of butterflies and their unique growth from childhood to adulthood. The source provides a chronological sequence for students to follow from when the egg is laid to when the butterfly exits out of metamorphosis. With this chronological sequence, students are able to show their understanding along the way and provide evidence to the teacher as they move through the lesson.

I come from different and various landscapes,
I come from my family,
I come from my friends.

I come from the Pacific Northwest: from Portland and from Whidbey Island.

Wherever my heart is, wherever my people are: that is home.

https://express.adobe.com/page-embed.js

Why Adobe Express?

1. Similar to that of Canva, already understood design website.
   • The interfaces are similar, Canva has a similar layout and similar tools to that of Adobe Express.
2. Adobe Express is an application I have used before.
   • I have used Adobe Express when it still was Adobe Spark. However, the updated Adobe Express is even simpler to maneuver than Spark was.
3. I like how simple it was to preview and user friendly it is.
   • Being able to easily click on button to view a preview rather than jumble around to find a perfect preview of the presentation was nice.
4. I like the creative uses of images in Adobe Express.
   • Last, but not least, I love how there were multiple ways to display images whether it was solo, as a background, within a photogrid, or my personal favorite, a Glideshow.

Sources:

Photo by Cristofer Maximilian on Unsplash

Context:

“Mystical Mosaics” will be a lesson on fairytales, magic, and other fictitious worlds. The use of Google Drawing will come from students being asked to create a mosaic of a character or creature read about in whatever magic or fairytale-like books are used during read-aloud. This lesson will be focused on showcasing student work using Google Drawings. The lesson is fit for younger grades, it is a great way to introduce K-2 students to the concept of fairytales and fantasy while also letting them learn a new style of art: mosaic art.

Instructions:

Teacher: What did you all think of Dragon’s Don’t Dance Ballet? [book is optional, any fantasy picture book will do]

Students: GOOD! READ AGAIN!

Teacher: Well I am glad that you all enjoyed the book. Now, what do we understand about fantasy and fairytales?

Students: It is make-believe and it is very magical.

Teacher: Very good, for today’s activity I want you all to pull out your laptops and go to Google Drawings. Here you will be making a mosaic of your very own dragon! Before we dive in, a mosaic is a style of art where you can make shapes or drawings out of smaller shapes and patterns. Here is my example. Ready? Begin!

Teacher: Ready? Begin!

Goals:

1. To introduce and build a foundation around what the genres of fantasy and fairytale are for students.
2. It gives students an ability to showcase their art skills.
3. It pushes students to think of aspects to look out for to differentiate various types of fiction.

Sources:

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

Context:

“Persuasive Brainstorming” is a lesson using Jamboard directed towards upper-elementary students, for example, 3rd-5th grade. Outside of grade level, this Jamboard could be of great use to teaching your students different types of writing. In this case, we could introduce or develop students’ abilities to draft and create a persuasive paper. The process would include asking students to log into Google Jamboard and access the shared file called “Brainstorming Persuasive Essays.” From there, students will be able to add their ideas to their specific Jamboard slide.

Instructions:

Teacher: Okay students! Today we are going to start BRAINSTORMING for our persuasive papers! Can someone remind us what it means to be persuasive in our writing? Raise your hands to give me the answer.

Student: It means we are trying to convince someone that our point is correct.

Teacher: Correct! We are wanting to convince someone with a different opinion why our idea is better. What are some strategies we can use to strengthen our argument?

Student: Providing evidence!

Teacher: Yes, great answer! Now before we start writing let me explain BRAINSTORMING. BRAINSTORMING is when you all start to think of ideas that you want to persuade someone else to agree with you on. So here is an example of today’s Jamboard Brainstorming activity. First, you will log in, then once on the Jamboard look for your name, and finally, start writing down ideas. Here is mine:

Teacher: Now, it is your turn!

Goal:

1. It gets students to be creative and learn how to use collaborative technological tools.
2. The lesson overall can help students work and better their writing ability.
3. It pushes students to find evidence when backing up their opinion.

Final Product:

Sources:

Photo by Per Lööv on Unsplash

Today I will be interviewing my mom Reagan, born in 1967, and her upbringing in today’s technological world. Not only will I be talking of her experiences, but I will be drawing similarities and differences between her life from childhood into college compared to my own.

1. How would you describe your childhood without technology?
   • R: “Well, my childhood was quite different to your own. I mean, growing up, there wasn’t much of technology other than landlines. I didn’t know any different, technology was remote and in the background most of the time. For me, it was awesome. Getting to live in the moment rather than feel attached to a product was amazing, I felt free and independent. Especially when going off to do things with friends, my parents had to trust me to follow the rule of coming home. I was able to find some independence from them in those scenarios.”
2. What do you think of the accessibility to different media in society today?
   • G:
     • I find is so crazy how we basically have the world at the push of a button. All of the different streaming services that we can access and all of the different forms of media that are also available are insane. It is nice to be able to jump from YouTube to Netflix. Even though I have only known a world of technology growing up, the amount of access we have to other states, other countries, other people is mindboggling.
   • R:
     • “There is a lot of it, like you said, super accessible, and yet with how much there is it feels like there is still nothing to watch. The accessibility we have to technology in today’s society oftentimes feels of lower quality to cable television. Plenty of streaming services, like Netflix and Hulu, have so many shows, which impacts the amount of time given to that singular show. What I have watched shows the quality. Not only is quality something media impacts, but with the accessibility it often seems like people are sticking their heads in the sand and procrastinating, I mean I am that way sometimes.”
3. What has been your reaction to the fast pace evolution of technology throughout the past couple of decades?
   • G:
     • It is neverending. It is so wild that Apple is able to release a new iPhone every year. That devices are able to become more compact and mobile. I remember playing video games with my brother on our Xbox, not even Xbox 360, and now we can walk around with a Nintendo Switch and play against other while mobile. Sometimes, it is scary how quickly technology evolves. The unknown of technology and how far it can go does scare me when I think about it too much.
   • R:
     • “Initially when mobile phones were introduced, I was surprised. It was exciting to have such a convenient piece of technology, to make phone calls while on the go. Now, having the world in my pocket scares me. Having access to media like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter can bring a lot of hurt to people’s mental health. Being able to see the news at the snap of our fingers is unsettling. Having gone most of my life without technology to how far it has gotten in today’s world has messed with me.”
4. Do you think today’s technological world is helping or hurting our society?
   • G:
     • I think technology, like many other things, has a contribution to both sides of the argument. We are able to connect with one another internationally like no one has been able to do before. We hear our news quicker than ever before. Technology can help us feel connected to others outside of our circle. With my phone, I am able to have this interview with my mother, who is over 100 miles away from me as we speak.
     • Yet there are drawbacks to having such accessible information. Misinformation and hate can be spread far easier in today’s world. Social media apps like Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube can set up an ideal life that leaves others wanting more rather than enjoying what they have. The destruction of one’s self-image is often the result of high societal standards via technology and social media. It is hard to truly be authentic online, it is quite vulnerable.
   • R:
     • “In my mind, I miss how my childhood was. Like I said, the freedom and independence was amazing throughout elementary, middle, and high school. Your dad and I tried to keep you away from technology for the longest time. Yet, we succumbed to it because so was every other parent. The world I see, seems to only be hurt by technology. It has been hard to watch others become dependent on the internet, dependent on a small metal device.”

Having grown up in two very different generations, my mom and I have quite different opinions on a variety of things related to technology. We both do agree on how the convenience is nice. Having the ability to travel with our phones to different parts of the world and still be in contact with one another is revolutionary. Seeing each other face to face while thousands of miles apart is, once again, mindboggling. We also both know technology will never go away and that it is intriguing to see where we go next as a society.

Machine Evolution by H Alberto Gongora from NounProject.com