In Class Portfolio

Here are my in class portfolio materials! 
Bio Poem
Graphic Organizer
Lesson Cover Page
Lesson Plan
Class Blog--Integrated Technology Activity
Wordle Model
Rubric

10 Website Evaluations

MrNussbaum

• Grades 2-5
• Student Resources
• Subject area: Math, Language Arts, Reading, Science, Social Studies
• Audience: Teachers, parents, and students

This site contains lesson ideas, activities, student games, and teacher resources for all classroom subjects grade 2-5. This is a well organized site that demonstrates easy access for teachers as well as students.  It also is starting to match core standards to the activities on the website.


Education.com

• All grades
• Teacher resources
• Subject Area: Math, Language Arts, Reading, Science, Social Studies
• Audience: Teachers

This site is an excellent compilation of activities, experiments, worksheets, and printable center games for all ages.  The website is easy to manage, allowing you to break down by grade, topic, and subtopics.  It also includes get-to-know you games and icebreakers for the beginning of the year activities.


Read Write Think

• All grades
• Teacher Lesson Plans

• Subject Area: Math, Language Arts, Reading, Science, Social Studies

• Audience: Teachers

This site contains hundreds of lesson plan ideas for teachers to use.  You can search lessons by grade level, resource type, learning objective, and theme.  This is useful for mini lessons as well as unit studies.  There are many excellent ideas that are adaptable for any grade level!

A Revolutionary War WebQuest

• 5th Grade
• Student interactive learning site
• Student WebQuest (with teacher lesson plan page)
• Subject Area: Social Studies
• Audience: Students (with teacher lesson plan page)

This site is a wonderful WebQuest idea for teachers to use with the Revolutionary War.  Links are given for students to research a certain aspect of the war with a partner.  Rubrics are provided along with standards for the unit.  

Teacher Vision

• All Grades
• Teacher Resources

• Subject Area: Math, Language Arts, Reading, Science, Social Studies

• Audience: Teachers

This is a perfect site for all teachers to find interactive bulletin boards, unique lesson ideas and quick printables for all subject areas.  Also, this site provides professional development ideas and links to education articles to spark new teaching ideas and strategies.There is an annual fee of $40.00, however the information available is extensive and worthwhile.  The plethora of information is perfect for new teachers and experienced teachers looking for fresh ideas.  

A-to-Z Teacher Stuff

• All Grades
• Teacher Lesson Plans
• Subject Area: Math, Language Arts, Reading, Science, Social Studies
• Audience: Teachers

Looking for free lesson plans, teaching tips, printables, and more?  This is the website for you! There are thousands of pages categorized by grade level ranges, themes, and subjects.  It is a teacher generated website and is a free resource for all educators.  It also includes discussion forums for teachers to connect and discuss relevant topics about their classrooms.

Tips for Teachers

• Grades K-5
• Teacher Resources
• Subject Area: Math, Writing, Reading, Social Studies
• Audience: Teachers

This website is filled with center ideas, free printables, book lists, and general classroom tips.  The site was created by a 4th grade teacher who now teaches 2nd grade who wanted to provide a free resource for unique teaching ideas to be shared.  This is filled with fabulous ideas that can be adapted to many different elementary classrooms!

Scholastic

• Grades K-5
• Student Resources and Teacher Resources
• Subject Area: Reading, writing, social studies, science
• Audience: Teachers & Students

This portion of the Scholastic website provides interactive student activities that explore a range of topics and classroom subjects.  Study jams provide small video clips about different topics (i.e. the water cycle).  There are also unique interactive activities that allow students to use technology to outline stories, analyze characters, and connect to classic literature.


Soft Schools

• PreK-8
• Student Interactive Learning Site
• Subject Area: Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Science
• Audience: Students

This website includes many interactive games and practice activities for students to use for all subjects.  The organization of the activities allows for easy manipulation for students.  This would be a great site for early finishers or even practice at home.  

IXL Math

• PreK-8
• Student Interactive Learning Site
• Subject Area: Math
• Audience: Students

This is an excellent website aligned to the common core math standards that gives specific practice to students. There is immediate feedback for students to learn from their mistakes.  It encourages risk-taking and is an interactive way to practice math concepts taught in the classroom.  This is a great source for students to use either in school or at home.  There is a membership fee for $10 a month or $79 a year.  The membership allows for standards goal setting, teacher reports, and student tracking.However, you can use the site practice without paying.  

Dialogue Poem with Lauren

My Dialogue Poem with Lauren

Complex Text Question #1

Complex thinking and single-tasking are definitely skills that needs to be taught to this generation of students.  Kids seem to naturally learn how to multi-task and change mindsets very quickly.  You could say that the digital world teaches by modeling, but it appears as a natural "caught" process.  Single-tasking takes a bit more effort these days.  Students are used to having many stimuli coming their way all throughout the day.  However, if we want students to achieve mastery at critical thinking, we need to teach how to focus on one task at a time.

            Nevertheless, unbothered focus can be a difficult task to teach.  Most students these days do not naturally engage with complex thinking—they need to be coaxed into it.  That is why the open-ended questioning techniques before reading allow for a purpose and focus for students.  Also, as we know, activating prior knowledge can help spark their brains to what the text is on.  Giving a context can help students make sense of the complex text as they are reading.

One major difficulty with single-tasking is that in our students’ worlds there is little purpose or experience with deep, uninterrupted thinking time.  Teaching, scaffolding and practicing this skill will help students achieve success.  We can provide this opportunity within our own classrooms.  Thankfully technology can provide wonderful avenues for communication and deliberation on topics, however we want to be sure we are providing enough time for students to think of ideas on their own—not just copy their peer’s opinions.

Wordle Bio Poem

Wikipedia Friend or Foe?

At first glance of the title, I immediately concluded that Wikipedia was indeed a foe to the teacher.   Until reading this article I had always assumed it was unreliable because it was a live document.  However, after reading and discussing the article, I have concluded that Wikipedia can actually be a wonderful tool to explicitly teach to our students about research writing.  After all, it shows the true meaning of research--to question and seek answers.  True research is adaptive in nature, and this website can help facilitate a lesson on how to conduct research and validate your sources.  I loved some of the ideas that the author introduced.  One of those ideas was using the website to activate prior knowledge and then spark more questions.  While my fifth graders are a bit young to be changing research documents, they are at the perfect age to question further as well as evaluate sources.  I also loved the idea of using Wikipedia to compare with other documents. 

Another interesting aspect to think about is that some book sources are filled with biases that deem them unreliable as well. It’s easy to point a finger at Wikipedia for the vast negative attention it has received.  However, we need to be careful in our instruction so that it focuses on evaluating all different types of resources.  Just because a book is published does not make it a valid source for research. Critical analysis is a crucial component to our research writing instruction.

Finally, it is important that we do not just assume students understand the pros and cons of Wikipedia.  It is our job as teachers to explicitly teach how to utilize the website along with how to validate other sources.  Like the entirety of the internet, Wikipedia can be another friendly tool when used (and taught!) appropriately.

My Technology Timeline

On October 17, 1986 I was born in Durham, North Carolina where I entered the age of information.  Little did I know that I had emerged among a time of instant gratification and rapidly growing technology.

My first actual encounter with technology was with my radio and cassette player.  My siblings and I would record our favorite songs, and then record ourselves singing in between the songs.  Some time we would even record ourselves as the DJs, introducing the songs we loved the most.  However, it wasn't until I was in the 4th grade that my family got our very first taste of the computer world--we bought a word processor!

Of course, the word processor was not the initial introduction to typing that most people had (such as the typewriter), but it certainly was mine.  I couldn't wait to type my school reports and watch the little white letters pop up on the screen.  From then on we moved into a Dell computer, complete with Microsoft programs such as Word and Publisher.  This was where my technology skills soared. 

When I was in middle school I can remember learning how to type (anyone else remember asdf jkl; ?) and we had speed drills to practice our typing abilities.  Although I became experienced at typing fairly quickly, I remained adamant about writing on paper first.  I loved to journal and write my narratives by hand, and the technology seemed intimidating to me.  I insisted that I couldn’t get my thoughts out while typing; I had to write by hand.  While my peers were quickly navigating the internet and finishing homework two times faster than I completed mine, I felt reluctant to give in to the technology world.  You could have classified me in the avoidance stage.

It wasn’t until college that I learned the significant positive effects typing could have on my writing.  With online journals, class blogs, blackboard, instant messaging and of course the beginning of social media, my life changed dramatically.  I was on my laptop most of the day, typing notes in class and communicating with peers online.

While I am not the most technologically savvy in my family (that role belongs to my older brother!), I feel that my competence has helped guide me in my education. If I tinker with a device or website for long enough, I can usually figure it out.  The key is finding the time to learn as well as prioritizing the usage of technology available to me.


Interestingly enough, I didn’t get a cell phone until college and to this day do not own an IPAD.  However, I have slowly gained an appreciation for the changes our world continues to make.  I finally have a Nook and I hope to one day enter the wonderful world of the Mac.  Until then, I am content to learn more about the new technologies that come about each year and incorporate the technologies available to me in my own classroom.