Class News

What’s going on in Room 24? We have been working hard in room 24. The students have been doing their absolute best when it comes to reading, writing, and mathematics. We have been reading stories about learning. We read a story called “First Day Jitters” about the first day of school, as well as “Wolf!” which is a story about a wolf learning how to read. These stories connect with our students because they are still getting used to being third graders. We have been working on our writing skills the past few weeks. Together, we were able to write a five paragraph piece about one of the students in our class. We are currently working on a piece about wolves. In math, we are working on addition and we will move on to subtraction. We are learning different strategies to help us understand addition. Students are using counters, mental math, and number lines to help us add numbers.

E-mail

If you have a question or concern that needs to be addressed immediately, please e-mail me at sheshaa82@gmail.com. I will try to respond as quickly as possible. :)

Welcome to my blog! I haven't been keeping up with it very well, but I hope that you are able to use this sight for diferent purposes. I will be listing different resources for my students to try. The first one I would like for my students to visit is www.educationcity.com. This is a site where students can practice third grade skills through games and fun activities. I will be sending home their passwords so that they can access this website from home.

Blogging...third grade

I've taught third grade for three years, and I am just starting to understand the importance of using technology in the classroom. I have been thinking about how I can use technology during my reading class. I have one iPad and four laptops to share between 34 students. With limited resources I think group projects are the way to go. I've seen a few colleagues use computers to record response to literature writing. The student will write to a prompt and record themselves to see whether the writing makes sense. I would like to do something different. I think that computers can be used to make commercials using editing software found on the laptops. Mini-movies can also be created as a reenactment of the story. For some reason this never dawned on me. Has anyone used iMovie on laptops? What have you created?

EDMODO...collaboration using a social network site

    I recently saw a Facebook post that included a picture of a student passing a note to another student. The caption read, "Kids nowadays will never know the fear of being caught with a note and having the teacher read it aloud to the class." The reason why I found this amusing was because today's student communicates through text message, e-mail, Facebook, or MySpace. These students are showing an example of "doing things differently" (Thornburg 2004). Instead of putting pencil to paper, students are putting fingers to device for communication. We as educators need to take advantage of the technology being used by our students.
   I have been interested in using a new social media app called, Edmodo. This app is like Facebook for the classroom. Teachers can communicate with other teachers about what works in the classroom. Links are shared, ideas are given, and open collaboration is underway. Teachers also have the ability to communicate with their students inside and outside of the classroom. Teachers can post links to videos or educational websites for students to access after the school day is over. Students can join groups to work on assignments together, while the teacher facilitates. Think of the possibilities!!
  Has anyone else used Edmodo in their classroom? What are some exciting features that you use often? What are some things you've done with Edmodo?
  If you have never tried Edmodo, here's the link: www.Edmodo.com
Enjoy!:)

Resources:

Thornburg, D. (2004) Technology and education: Expectations, not options. (Executive Briefing No. 401).
Retrieved from http://tcpdpodcast.org/briefings/expectations.pdf

My first blog post

Zombie teacher is a blog combining my love of zombies and teaching. Pretty straightforward, right? As a graduate level assignment, I was asked to create a blog that integrates technology into the classroom. Creating this blog was my first step toward using 21st century technology. My incorporation of zombies into this assignment, was my way to personalize it.