Author: Liz Frick

I believe that technology can be a great resource in the classroom. For example, technology can be used to create and build relationships and connections with students. One of the project’s I created was a get to know you timeline activity, where students could create a timeline of important events in their lives, such as starting new grades or moving. Here is my example of this project.

Final Project – A get to know you activity

Another example of a relationship and community building activity is one I created for having a circle activity. This activity allows students to build relationships with their peers in a safe environment. I created a google forms that would allow students to understand this circle activity better.

Community Circle Information Questionnaire

I also believe that technology can be used by students to explore the material in school with real world applications. In one of my lessons, students would create an online cookbook complete with recipes and the fractions in the recipes. This digital book could be printed out into a physical copy that they could use in their homes.

Fractions and Cookbooks!

Another real world application is exploring digital photos to find shapes in the real world. This allows students to get excited about the world and buildings around them. Here is my post about this lesson.

Hide and Seek 2D shapes in a 3D world!

Overall, I believe that technology is a great resource for students in the classroom. I’m excited to use my technology skills in my future classrooms and to find even more exciting resources for my students!

My goal for this project was to create a get to know you tool that would allow students to share information about themselves while also being creative and customizing their presentation. Specifically, I wanted students to be able to create a timeline of their life and be able to include their own pictures, pictures from the internet, videos, gifs, or any website. This presentation was created with my 7th grade class in mind, however, this project could be used with any group of people older than 4th grade and into adulthood.

I used Padlet to create this timeline because of how much a user can customize their timeline. Students can add a custom background image, upload their own personal images or choose images from google, and link to any website or video on youtube. I loved how easy this program was to use, which will allow students to easily create their timelines. I also loved how users were able to link to a website, which allowed me to link to my classroom website. I also loved how I was able to add gifs to the timeline, which was a fun addition that I have never seen on a timeline before.

I created a cook book about fractions in recipes for my 6th grade class. This book would be a collaboration between students and me, where students would create their own pages and then all the pages would be combined into one class book that could be sent out to each family. This cookbook would be the final product of a long project where students would explore how fractions are used in cooking and baking.

The criteria I used for this assignment included:
1. Ease of usability (how easy would it be for students to learn and use this program)
2. Customizability (how much can students customize and be creative with this program)
3. Accessibility (how accessible is this program, i.e. do students need to create an account, do students need to download an app, is it free?)

I really liked using Padlet for this assignment! I thought it was really fun and easy to use for students. I liked how there were multiple options of what students can create, such as a wall of posts, a shelf of information, a timeline and a world map. I really liked how much students could customize their work and be creative in choosing which setting would work best for their ideas. For example, I liked using a shelf organization method to compare the different representations of the seasons, however, a student could have used the canvas or wall organization method. This app was also very accessible and free, and students just had to sign up with an email address. I tried out Wakelet to create my collection, however, I liked Padlet better because I thought it was easier to use and had more options.I chose to create a shelf about different ways to represent the four seasons.

For this assignment, I created a Edpuzzle exploring honeybees and honeycombs for my 7th grade students. This video gives a real world application of geometry because the honey bees create a hexagonal shape within their honeycombs. This lesson could also be combined with a science class so students could see connections between subjects.

This lesson is for 8th grade students and acts as an introduction to the online resource of Desmos. The main point of this lesson is to introduce the table function of Desmos, as my students would have already used the linear graphing function of Desmos.

For this week’s assignment, I created a mini science experiment using Toontastic. I liked this software but I wish there was more customizability with how the characters faced and showed up on the screen. Overall, I think that kids would really like to use these for school assignments and would have a lot of fun creating movies.

My version of the I am From Poem:

I am from a multitude of places
I am from the hot dry summer
From the high desert in Bend, OR
And the cities that reach to the sky
I grew up in the rolling forests of Pennsylvania
And traveled to Yellowstone, Wyoming
I am from all these places but I ended up in portland, oregon
I am from a pet loving family
And i have two adorable pets today

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

I liked using Adobe Sparks! I liked how much creativity a user could bring and how mayn image options there are to users. I wish that there was more customizability in the caption placement on the pictures however, because I wish I could have moved where the caption was located. Overall, I think that this could be a really cool tool to use in the classroom and I think that students could really enjoy using it.

This website that I created is meant to be a resource for parents and students in my 7th grade math class. It includes my contact information, the class homework schedule, some helpful websites that students can use for help reviewing topics and strengthening skills.

This website also allows parents to complete a form of their preferences for communication, which allows me to build better relationships with the adults in my students’ lives. Ideally I would love to update this website with more documents such as notes taken during class or handouts so that students would always have those resources available.

In my classroom, we have a community building activity called circle that allows students to learn about each other in a safe, respectful way. This activity allows students be be silly and have fun, but also be more vulnerable in a safe environment. As a class, we get into a circle with our chairs and start with a fun question, such as, “If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?” and then move into more serious topics as the year goes on.

This questionnaire would be given to students within my math class, but this could be edited and given to any subject class. The questionnaire was written with my 8th grade students in mind, but could be altered to any secondary grade. This would ideally be in a 1:1 technology situation.

This questionnaire would be given to students as an introduction to Circle, and would allow students to share what they are comfortable and uncomfortable sharing in a group to me privately. Students have no way to see other students’ answers, so there is not pressure about answering the questions truthfully. I also want to take some of the fun answers from this questionnaire and so the statistics behind it, so students can see similarities between each other.

I created a map to showcase some of my favorite science museums in the United States. I haven’t been to most of these museums, however, one day I hope to explore all of them!

I really liked learning how to use MyMaps! I’m definitely going to use this tool to explore cities and places that I visit when I travel.

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.