New and Old Technology

My current district has quite a bit of technology. We aren’t one-to-one, but it seems like that we are heading that way. We recently purchased two new Chromebook carts at each of the middle schools I work at, for a total of four all together. Many teachers prefer to use the Chromebook carts and they are a hot commodity in both schools.

We did recently clean out a work room and found about five or six overhead projectors that had a thick layer of dust on them. Some of the older teachers had a laugh about them. I personally, have never taught with an overhead. I have always had access to a projector. Every classroom in the schools that I work at has at least a projector. Promethean boards are available on request.  From what I have gathered from my colleagues is that the district has money to spend on technology, but they are very careful about how they use it. Take the Promethean Board issue, they will get one for a teacher that feels that they will use it, but they recognize that many teachers will not use it in a way besides a projector screen. They did however, just buy every student and teacher a subscription to Google Read and Write. This is a fantastic add on to Chrome that has revolutionized how my students are writing. It is also a great thing for ELLs, Special Ed, or any students who may struggle with reading.

When I was going through school I saw the change from overheads to projectors. I remember when my social studies teacher had the projector on a cart we knew it was lecture day. He is the only teacher that I vividly remembering using a projector, many teachers used the overhead for notes. Even when I was at Eastern, professors were primarily using overhead projectors for notes. 

Blogs about Education

http://theclassyteacher.blogspot.com/ -- Mrs. Weaver is a middle school teacher in Little Rock. She details her day to day achievements and struggles within her classroom. While she hasn’t posted much this year, she has some great posts in the archives.

http://www.lessonsfromthemiddle.com/ -- Krystal Mills is a 7^th grade teacher currently who blogs about different ideas that she comes across and tries in her classroom. She also networks with other blogs so the entire site is almost like a one stop shop for middle school.

http://flippedclassroom.blogspot.com/ -- Delia Bush is a teacher at Kenowa Hills and teaches 5^th grade. She blogs about different ideas that she implements in her classroom. What drew me to her blog are the flipped classroom posts (which are deeper in the blog) and how she does it at an elementary level.

https://thisteachersings.wordpress.com/ -- This blogger is a music teacher and touches on publicly (which is why she probably doesn’t use her name) on issues that are hot button topics in education. Her most recent post was very interesting, describing what a 3% cut can do in education.

http://www.mrswatersenglish.com/ -- Mrs. Waters is a high school English teacher in Rural Oklahoma. She offers her insight on the educational climate and giving resources that uses in her own classroom.

http://www.globicate.com/ -- This is a great resource for global education. It is not recent, but like some of my other choices, many of the older posts are very good. This one struck a chord with me because as a social studies teacher I am constantly trying to teach my students to think outside of their community.

http://worldhistoryeducatorsblog.blogspot.com/ -- This is an excellent source for all things world history! It also talks about flip classrooms, which is a big interest of mine at the moment. It is geared more towards high school, but again, with a little tweaking it could be relevant to middle school.

https://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/ -- This is joint blog written by Stacey Shubitz and Anna Gratz. Ann is an editor for Heinemann Publishing and Stacey is a literacy specialist and was 5^th grade teacher at P.S. 171 in East Harlem, NY. They both contribute to the blog, which focuses on writing in the classroom.

http://6thsocialstudiesmcginty.blogspot.com/  -- This blog is kept by Matthew McGinty who teaches 6^th grade Social Studies. This is more meant for his students, as it details assignments for each day. I find it very useful because I am teaching 6^th grade social studies for the first time and having outside resources is great, especially the first time through the curriculum.

http://themiddleschoolmouth.blogspot.com/ -- This blog is written by a middle school teacher in North Carolina. This teacher uses interactive notebooks, which is interesting to me. While his blog isn’t very current, his past posts are good and it looks like he is starting to get at posting. 

Sources on Social Media

Twitter:

@pbsteachers – Sponsored by PBS, this account tweets digital resources and courses about education.  

@ronclarkacademy – Ron Clark is a Middle School teacher that opened his own academy and tweets about his classes, as well as about conferences he speaks at.

@shannapeeples – Shanna is the 2015 National Teacher of the Year and retweets many articles about education.

@edutopia – This account offers inspiration and resources to teachers on a variety of topics. The articles are useful.

@ellabredthauer – This is a teacher that is on sabbatical and posts a lot of great resources about ed technology and articles.

@rmbyrne – This is a Google Certified Teacher who retweets many articles about using technology in the classroom.

@mscharest – A teacher who retweets and tweets a about a variety of things that happen in her classroom. She also talks about her travels.

@huffpostedu – This account tweets articles that are about education, the good side of it as well as some of the not so good parts of it.

@ncssnetwork – This is the Twitter account for the National Council for the Social Studies. They post information about their organization as well as information about Social Studies.

@weareteachers – This twitter account offers inspiration and resources for the classroom.

Pinterest –

Eat.Write.Teach – This pinner pins many different ideas for the classroom, ranging from writing to organization.

NEA Today – This account is controlled by the NEA and posts a variety of resources that teachers at all levels can use.

Middle School Café – This account offers a lot of great resources for teaching middle school.

Middle School Matters – Another great account with middles school resources from core areas to planning resources.

Differentiation Station – This account has resources on differentiation in the classroom. It is slightly geared towards elementary, but many of the ideas could easily be adjusted for secondary.

Teacher’s Craft – Offers different pins on education and the boards a split by grade level.

No Failing Students – This pinner offers multiple boards that are great for differentiating for struggling students. It is definitely geared towards vocabulary.

Youtube:

Crash Course – This channel has 10-15 minute videos that cover a variety of world and US history topics.

Maccabeats – This is the channel of a Jewish Accapella group and they sing about important holidays and traditions of Judaism. While not a traditional way getting information, this channel was the best thing that I found to teach the traditions to my students. And they are still singing these songs.

TED Talks – Ted talks always provide great information on a variety of topics.

Professional Organizations

The first organization that I found that would be relevant to my classroom teaching is the National Council for Social Studies. This is the largest association in the country that focuses on social studies education. There are several tiers of membership available according to the online application. As a students, a retired teacher, and a beginning teach the cost is $43.  For a regular membership it is $72 for one year or $130 for two years. A comprehensive membership is $85 for one year or $145 for two. A regular membership includes the choice of subscription to Social Education or Social Studies and the Young Learn, plus Middle Level Learning and TSSP; conference discounts and other membership benefits. The comprehensive membership includes everything the regular benefits include and alos bulletins. It is not clear what the bulletins are from the application. There are also different benefits according to grade level, which I found helpful because the organization is recognizing that different grade levels have different challenges. For example, the benefits for middle school teachers can be found here. The 2016 NCSS conference will be in Washington, DC, in December. The theme will be “Civic Learning and Cultural Inquiry in a Changing World.” The cost for the conference is not up yet, they are however currently accepting proposals for programs.

Their twitter handle is @NCSSNetwork

They can also be found on Facebook by searching National Council for the Social Studies.

The second organization that I found was the National Council of Teachers of English. Like the National Council for Social Studies, there are several tiers of membership for NCTE. There is a standard membership ($50) as well as a student membership ($25). There is also an option to be a “Green Member” which offers a discount at both tiers for receiving publications via email versus print. The major difference between the student membership and the standard membership is that a person that is part of the student membership cannot vote on issues in the council. An individual membership includes many things.  an online community where teachers are able to connect. They also include an option to receive a variety of journals published by the NCTE. For example, middle school teachers may opt for the Voices from the Middle publication, whereas a high school teacher may prefer the English Journal. Like the National Council for Social Studies, I like how the NCTE distinguishes between the different levels of teaching. Along with webinars, the NCTE has an annual convention. This year’s convention is November 17-20 in Atlanta, Georgia. The theme is the Faces of Advocacy. The cost of the conference is not available at the moment, they are accepting proposals for programs.

Their twitter handle is @ncte.

They can also be found on Facebook by searching National Council of Teachers of English.

The NCTE also have Linkedin, Pinterest and Instagram accounts.

The state level organization I found was the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL). This is an organization that “helps educations identify sound educational practices related to technology.” Unlike the preview two organizations it does not cost anything to join MACUL. The benefit of joining this organization is that it provides a variety of conferences and workshops, communication, and publications, awards and grants, reduced rates on discounts on courses and other online resources and professional networking. This year the conference is in Grand Rapids at the Devos Place. It will be in March on the 9^th,10^th, and 11^th. This year’s conference topic is Engage Learning. The cost to attend the conference is $195 before 2/23/2016 and then the price goes up $245 after that date. There are special rates for single day rates, student rates, as well as for specific workshops. Those prices can be found here.

Their twitter handle is @MACUL

They also have social media accounts on Facebook, Linked In, and Instagram.

About Me

Hi! My name is Abbey and I currently teach middle school social studies and English at the two middle schools in South Lyon. I also teach beginning adult ESL to Adults at night twice a week in Walled Lake. Generally, Sunday through Thursday I am incredibly busy and I catch up on real life on Friday and Saturday. I am certified 6-12 social studies, history, and English and am working towards a K-12 certification in TESOL by December.

I do my best to integrate technology in my classes when I am able to. I completed my student teaching at Pathfinder Middle School in Pinckney and was there the semester their district went to one to one with Macbooks. I was fortunate enough to utilize the computers in my unit for student teaching and used layered curriculum in a way that let the students explore using their new technology. The students and myself had a lot of fun with the end products. Currently in South Lyon, I have access to Chromebook Carts as well as multiple computer labs and ELMOs. I like to integrate technology using Socrative and Kahoot for review games, as well as having my English classes respond to prompts about independent reading books on a forum on my website. I have also used Aurasma, which the students had a lot of fun with. I could have a Promethean Board installed in my classroom this year, however there is a high probability of me switching classrooms at the end of the year, so I am waiting to hear the final word on that. While I enjoy having access to Chromebooks, I would really like to have tablets for my social studies classes. I feel the tablets off a little more options in terms of creativity with the apps that are available. 

So the image I have uploaded is an Aura, It is used with the Aurasma app and students hold their device up to the image and something else pops up. In this case it's a Maccabeats video. If you haven't heard of the Maccabeats, they are a Jewish acapella that sings about different Jewish holidays. The songs are very catchy, so you have been warned. This image was used in a station about the Jewish holiday, Purim. There were also had two other images that linked to websites about the holiday.