EdCamp Detroit...Connecting = Invigorating

This week has been a LOOOONNNNNGGGGGG week.  4 weeks of state testing done for two different grade levels wrapping up.  7 different guest teachers and 10 hours of lesson planning done.  I was beyond fried!  I debated staying home today.  Sleeping in.  Snuggling with my 2 1/2 year old.  Being lazy.  But I made a committment to #EdCampDetroit. So, I dragged myself out of bed WAY to early on a Saturday morning and I am so glad I did.

I needed this. I needed #EdCampDetroit. I needed to listen to other teachers share their successes AND their failures.  I needed the rich converstations about kids and learning.  I needed the hugs of old friends. And the smiles of new ones.  I needed to laugh with them. I needed to know I wasn't alone in my struggles.  I needed this....I needed Edcamp Detroit! 

I needed to be refueled by amazing teachers and their stories. I needed to hear about new tools and tricks to try in the classroom.  I am no longer dreading the last few weeks of school. Instead, I am looking forward to them. Looking forward to ending a challenging year on a positive note.  And thanks to EdCampDetroit and the connections I made today I am energized, invigorated and ready to rock the last few weeks of this school year!!!

Perseverance!

Today was one of those days that the technology pieces didn't fall nicely together...but in the end it all worked out!

My fifth graders have been learning about tall tales and exaggerations.  Yesterday they wrote their own exagerations and today the plan was to go to the computer lab use Tux Paint to illustrate one of their exaggerations, and post it to their blog.  Seems like a simple process but there were multiple steps to it.  Before we headed to the lab I walked my kids through the project in the classroom showing them step by step what they were doing.  We were at the last step in the process...posting to kidblogs when I got this awesome message:

Of course this didn't just happen once it happened a few times.  My kids thought it was hilarious! 30 fifth graders laughing at me as I fumbled with trying to figure out what was going on wasn't my idea of fun! Of course I could have gotten frustrated and stopped...but we mustered through it.

Instead we made it to the lab.  They did a fabulous job using Tux Paint for creating their illustrations.  They mustered through the print screen, copying to power point, cropping the image and saving it as a picture.

The lesson of the day was perseverance...keep going.  Even when 30 fifth graders are giggling at you because a silly error message comes up on the monitor.   I figure I taught them a lot about problem solving today!

Here are a few of the finished products or head on over to our blogs and check them out.  Leave a comment or two as well!

~Melanie

edCamp Grand Rapids

This last weekend a crew of us from PCCS got up WAY early in the morning and headed to Grand Rapids for Ed Camp Grand Rapids.  The night before I was like a little kid on Christmas Eve. The anticipation about the amazing day that was doing to happen was too much for me I couldn't settle my mind and therefore couldn't get to sleep at a decent hour.  I was incredibly amped to spend the next day with educators from all over talking about education and even some technology in there too!

EdCamp Grand Rapids definitely met and even exceeded my expectations!  It was a fabulous day of learning and networking!

The first session I attended was facilitated by my friend Pat Harju (@scout7).  While Pat and I had never actually met before she's been a twitter friend of mine for quiet a while. It was awesome to meet her in real life!   She does some amazing things with her second graders.  Her session was all about skyping and then blogging.  Skyping with students is something I've never done before.  Pat listed quiet a few resources that she uses. Her students have skyped with some authors and have done some mystery skypes as well.  Here's Pat's presentation about Traveling the World with Skype.  The rest of her session was all about blogging, and some how not sure of the specifics, but I was up front taking control of her computer sharing some of the things my kids do on their blog.

Thanks for letting me hijack part of your session Pat!  It was definitely one of the highlights of my day!

During the second session my partners in crime; Aimee, Emily, Kristi and myself facilitated a presentation on the Tech Tuesdays for elementary teachers we started in our school district.  Prior to arriving at edCamp Grand Rapids we had one brief teasing discussion that we should present.  I think our discussion lasted maybe 30 seconds. But as we stood in front of the session board that morning we felt compelled to share what we had started.  While we didn't have a presentation prepared, we shared our TechTuesdayTeachers Blog and TechTuesdayTeachers Wiki and used those as our talking points  It was a fabulous discussion.  We found out that other educators had started tech tuesdays but only in one building where there were maybe 2-3 teachers attending which made it hard on the one who was facilitating.  We got some great feedback on what we are doing and I think we inspired a few others to try organizing a tech tuesday on a larger scale than they might have tried before.

Lunch for the day was on our own and our PCCS group used the time not only to grab some grub but to talk about the sessions we all attended.  It was awesome hearing what they choose to go to. By this time my brain was already spinning.  But in a good way.  We also found out that we had been invited to present about our Tech Tuesdays to our districts Ad Council (big meeting with all of the administrators)! YEAH!  

Emily and I spent session 3 tweaking our Apptastic presentation for session 4.  We had a moment of panic when we realized that Ron Houtman, one of the organizers, switched us to the ustream room.  While we were prepared to facilitate a conversation for those physically present I think the idea of people watching us on the internet was a little unnerving, at least it was for me!  So after a few "holy cow" moments, Ron switched us back to a normal room!  Thank goodness!  Our presentation went well here and it was neat to see what other apps that people were sharing.  There were a couple like: puppet pals, tinker box, ibrainstorm, Tour Wrist, and Sock Puppets that I can't wait to check out.

Overall it was an incredible day.  And while it was a LONG day I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I had some amazing conversations with awesome educators!  Oh and I almost forgot...they gave away some great prizes too.  I came home with a years subscription to Simple K-12.    If you want to check out all of the tweets from edcamp check out the archive of tweets.  Great stuff!

The PCCS Crew!

Tech Tuesdays

This week we had our send Tech Tuesday for elementary teachers in Plymouth-Canton.  It was absolutely amazing!!   Our sessions this time were on blogging and interactive whiteboards.  My best guess is we had in the neighborhood of 60-70 teachers and administators who are passionate about learning and incorporating technology in their classrooms.  It was incredible!!

We had a group of teachers exploring blogs with my friend, MaryBeth (@mbrevesz) and then 4 rooms open with the Interactive White Boards (IWB).  We started the IWB session with everyone in one room talking about the basics and then quickly split into 3 different groups.  Teachers got to choose what room they wanted to go to based on their comfort level with the IWB.  Teachers were super excited to share what they knew and to learn from others!  It was a win-win situation!

I am so blessed to be able to work with some amazing people in planning these Tech Tuesdays...Aimee (@bellarenti), Emily (@everbeke) and Kristi (@kristiberry).  These ladies are incredible and are uber passionate about education and integrating technology! If you aren't following them on twitter yet you need to.

We started a blog as another way to share the great stuff that is happening at TechTuesdays. I can't wait until our next TechTuesday we already have the high school computer lab booked so we can host our very own TechTuesday Showdown.

~Melanie

Our Class Tweets!

One of the "new" things I'm trying this year is a classroom twitter account (@graysfifth).  Each morning I log into our class twitter account on one of class computers.  Then, throughout the day the kids can tweet about what ever they want, when ever they are moved to do so.  So far the kids have tweeted about what they are looking forward to, something they are interesting in, or their favorite part of the day.

We've also been able to connect with other classrooms near and far.  We even connected with a few classrooms from our school district.  When one of my students tweeted about our upcoming math test @FarrandRoom21 tweeted us back.  My kids were so excited that someone read their tweet and asked them a question!

Our classroom twitter feed is also on our class website.  Which gives parents another glimpse into our day.  A few of our parents are even following us and responding to our tweets.

Reading their tweets at the end of the day has become one of my favorite things to do.  It has been incredible to see what they feel inspired to tweet.  It definitely reminds me how important the little things are, even to 5th graders.

Pushing the Envelope

When I was in high school I was a member of the alpine ski team.  I remember before each practice our coach always said to push the envelope of fear each time you make a run on the course.  Get closer to the gates, take a more direct route to the gate, be more aggressive, etc.  There were times that I'd crash and blow out of the course, but there were plenty of other times that I had my best run ever all because I pushed the envelope of fear!

This year in my twelfth year of teaching I'll be pushing that envelope of fear.

1.  I'm doing away with rewards in my classroom.  I've done a lot of reading this summer and a lot of thinking.  In the past I've rewarded kids for just about everything: turning in homework on time, completing homework, being a bucket filler, etc.  But the thing I've found is that handing out rewards took a lot of time away from my teaching and they really didn't work in the first place.  This year I look forward to being able to spend less time managing rewards and spending more time with my students.  Am I scared a little? Um... YES!

2.  This year will also be the first time that I'll have a student teacher. And that scares me to death.  My biggest fear is will I be able to share my students?  Will I be able to share their successes, their funny stories, and their quirky sense of humor?

3.  Trying things I've never tried before.  Participating in the Global Read Aloud, Blogging, and creating a class wiki are just a few of the things on my list this year.

I strongly feel that in order to be a better educator I need to push myself to try new things.  Will I be successful?  I hope so.  Will I stumble? Probably.  But even if I do I will get up, brush myself off and give it another try.  This year I will push my envelope.  At times it will be uncomfortable but in the end I know it will be worth it.

It's Worth It!

The building I teach in is a K-5 building and being a 5th grade teacher it is rare that I get to see my students once school gets out.  Every once in a while I'll have some students come back to visit the next year.

About a month ago I was asked to come and speak at a volunteer recognition breakfast for one of our science units.  They also asked for some students to attend and speak.  Right away I sent out some emails to the students that just left my room in June.  Well, they all had orientation for middle school and couldn't come to the breakfast.  Since they were no longer an option I reached out to two former students.  Both of them were super gracious and took a morning out of their summer vacation to talk about a project that they had done two and three years ago.  

During their brief speech in which they talked to about 40 engineers this morning about the project I was blown away.  The students spoke from their heart about their experiences like it happened yesterday...not two or three years ago.  Spending the morning with them reaffirmed that all of the hours put into lesson planning, prepping, teaching, and building connections with the students are totally worth it!