Practicum Week 7

February 25, 2019 - 2hrs.
Today, Dana Siegmund, Keith Weaver, and I continued with our collaborative planning of the hyper doc for social studies. We finished the unit on Louisiana Purchase and continued working on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Our main conversation was around how to incorporate a technology element into the sharing of research information. We discussed using Tour Builder to map the route that Lewis and Clark took to Oregon. The class would be put into groups of two and they would choose from 10 prominent locations on the trail. Their task would be to write a journal entry from that specific location using the information they gathered from curated online sources. Students would locate information regarding the climate for their particular area, different sights they would encounter, and hardships they endured. Time was also devoted to searching for online resources.

On a side note, I introduced my fourth-grade collaborative class to Flipgrid. I used it as a formative assessment to measure the students' understanding of the differences between the northern and southern economies prior to the Civil War. Overall, the students did a great job. They showed a great deal of excitement with creating their own videos.   

March 2, 2019 - 4hrs.
What a fantastic way to end the week. I spent this Saturday morning attending Edcamp GA held on the campus of UGA(#EdcampGA). The morning was broken into four sessions. I attended Virtual Reality in the classroom, Unconventional Google Classroom Ideas, Robots and Elementary Math, and Digital Hoarder. Throughout the morning, I gained great valuable knowledge that I can incorporate into my teaching. The most interesting session was on virtual reality in the classroom lead by Dr. Chris Greer. He spent time explaining where he sees VR as having an impact on public education, provided links to virtual reality videos on YouTube, and let attendees use his Oculus Go. This was my first time experiencing VR and it was pretty amazing.
The other session that I found extremely useful was Digital Hoarding. This session provided different ideas for curating digital content. I found one tool particularly impactful, Wakelet. For me, this is a new curation tool that I can see myself using right away. I envision organizing digital content for a given a math unit or as a digital portfolio for students. I am very excited about the possibilities of this tool.
At the other two sessions, I learned valuable ideas for using Google Drawing, Edpuzzle, Tinkercad, Doctopus, Symbaloo Learning Paths, Classroomscreen, and how Ozobots can be used in a math classroom to teach concepts like area and perimeter.
Another important element of the morning was networking with ed tech specialists from the region and from higher ed (UGA and Georgia College). This was time well spent.

Practicum Week 6

February 18th - 7 hrs.
Today I spent our district professional learning day with the media specialists and instructional technology specialists of Clarke County. The PL was lead by one of the two instructional technology specialists. Topics included creating plans and protocols for next year, creating a media specialist handbook, budgets, discussing needs at each level, "refreshing" 7-12 Chromebooks, book challenges, and the best ways to get ready for the upcoming statewide assessments. I spent downtime talking to the middle school media specialist team regarding their use of technology, their role as a technology leader in their schools, challenges they face, and how they are involved with different initiatives within their schools. My greatest take away from the meeting is the lack of focus our county has in regards to technology. Many media specialist voiced concern that they don't know who they can approach with their problems. One media specialists shared that she is frustrated with the regression our county has taken over the last two year. One way her school has compensated for a loss of instructional technology support is to form grade level teacher technology teams.

February 20, 2019 - 8 hrs.
What a great experience! I spent the day at Whit Davis Elementary School with Clarke County's Instructional Technology Specialist Dana Siegmund and his wife Carrie Siegmund, Director of Instructional Technology for Northeast Georgia RESA assisting in the management of a Breakout EDU experience for 3rd graders. (Prior to two weeks ago, I had no idea what a "breakout" involved.) Back in December, the third-grade classes at Whit Davis began a cross-content unit focusing on the impact of cell phones on gorilla habitats. Today was the Gorilla Breakout. It began by getting each of the four "zones" set up with the same four clues and supplies. At the beginning of each session, students were put into four groups of four or five, an overview of the task was presented, norms for the session were established, and directions were given. The students were given 30 minutes to solve the clues to find the combinations to the locks.
Overall, the students worked very well together to solve the clues. Most groups were finished with about 3 minutes to spare. However, no group solved the breakout without using their two hints. In order to use a hint, all members of the group needed to agree on its usage.
It was a great experience to see two technology specialist run this session.

 

Practicum Week 5

February 11, 2019 - 2hrs.
This afternoon I scooted over to Barrow Elementary School for another day of planning with Mr. Keith Weaver (4th-grade teacher) and Mr. Dana Siegmund (Clarke County Instructional Technology Specialist). Today we continued our planning of the upcoming Westward Expansion Unit for social studies. Today much of our collaborative planning involved a discussion of how to improve the hyperlink doc and what would be the best method to get students to create content related to the educational goals. To improve the document, we decide to have all the fourth-grade team members review the links and add any that they believed would enhance the learning opportunities for the students. In regards to student-created content, we decided that giving the students the options to use Flipgrid or SeeSaw to produce a video showcasing their work would be best. Mr. Siegmund has agreed to return to Barrow and provide some instruction to the students on how to use these tools.

Once again it was great to see how collaboration can take place. I have yet to see teachers in my school take advantage of Mr. Siegmund and what he can offer their students. My hope is that I can influence some teachers to reach out to Mr. Siegmund and utilize his wealth of knowledge.

Practicum Week 4

February 6, 2019 - 8 hrs.
Today I took a one-day "sabbatical" from my duties at Chase Street Elementary and spent the day at Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School here in Clarke County. An interesting sidenote is that I taught at BHL for five years when I first moved to Athens. The school has changed dramatically. Over the past two years, the building has been renovated. Even though the exterior looked the same, the interior was completely new. This includes the media center which is run by Ms. Shonda Foster. The media center no longer looked like just a library as I had remembered. Now, besides having books, there is a maker space, a study section, and an open classroom. Within the library, there are movable pieces of furniture allowing for flexible learning spaces. Despite these more modern elements, I was surprised by what I didn't see, computers or technology for students to access. This became more of a shock when I learned that there was not a computer lab in the building. For the record, there was one during my time teaching at the school 10 years ago.
I spent my time with Ms. Foster talking about technology between seeing every 6th grade ELA class throughout the day. I spent time talking to the SST (Student Support Teacher) about her role in the building. Most schools have an SST and their job is to assist in managing the student devices as technology issues arise. Clarke County began a one-to-one initiative about five years ago under the former superintendent who placed an importance on technology.
It is evident that Ms. Foster loves her job and is passionate about what she does. I left BHL with a smile on my face knowing how fortunate these students are to have such an amazing role model, teacher, and resource at their disposal.

February 8, 2019 - 3 hrs.
Today I got to see first hand how our Instructional Technology Specialist teaches lessons. Today's observation took place at Whit Davis Elementary School here in Clarke County. Over the week, the students in third grade have been learning about gorilla habitats. Their assignment was to create a habitat using paper, cardboard, natural elements such as leaves and sticks, etc. They also were required to complete a worksheet that outlined the key elements. Today was their day to present. After each group presented their habitat, Mr. Siegmund led the students through slides on Pear Deck. Each student logged into Pear Deck and answered 5 responses on the habitat presented. They included, "Will this be a safe habitat for gorillas?", "Will this habitat be healthy for gorillas?", and "Will gorilla be happy in this habitat?" Once all the students responded to a question, Mr. Siegmund had students share which elements they believe supported their selection. The last slide required the students to finish the statement, "I liked ...." in a text box. This gave the students the opportunity to reflect on the unique elements of the habitat created. These responses were projected onto the board and Mr. Siegmund randomly highlighted responses. However, he was constantly reminding students to provide specific details by drawing attention to those responses that provided supporting evidence. This was repeated after each presentation. The students became more efficient with answering the questions and they improved their written responses as more presentations occurred. Mr. Siegmund's use of technology to engage students and strengthen their understanding of habitats was fantastic.

Gorilla Habitat