Sweet in Second

     This week I'll be talking about Pic Collage and Pic Collage Edu. If you've heard the term "app-smashing", this app is a top pick! It can be used in conjunction with tons of other apps and resources.      I discovered Pic Collage a few years ago when I first started using  Seesaw  (click here to read my previous blog post). The only downside was that there were lots of adds and pop-ups, which can be unnerving when you teach 7-year-olds! Only recently did I discover Pic Collage Edu. The great thing about this app is that it is FREE! There are some paid features within the app but they are not necessary for your students to be able to get creative.       What I really love about Pic Collage is the ability to use the app along with other apps to boost student creativity and out of the box thinking. I often use it for reading or math responses which my students can then post on Seesaw. Here is an example of a math respo...

This week on Erin's  blog post , she's talking all about resources to help your students identify fake news. This is not a topic that is super familiar to me because my students don't do a lot of researching without guidance from me. However, it is relevant even at the elementary level. Our students are constantly being inundated with information from television, social media, apps, and more. While it is hard for even some adults to identify fake news, it is even harder for kids. They don't even recognize the fact that someone might not be telling the whole truth about a topic. On this week's blog, Erin talks about some great ways to teach your students how to recognize when a source is trustworthy or not, especially when it comes to online sources. There are eight specific resources she mentioned...you can check them out  here  on her blog. These would be especially useful for 5th grade and up! 1. iCivics News Literacy Unit 2. Website Evaluation 3. Debatin...

     This week we have dabbled in using Khan Academy. After starting to read Blended, I realized that I have already started the process of using blended learning in my own classroom (Yay!). During math workshop, I have started some of my higher achieving students on Khan academy. This is an online math program that allows me to challenge my kids who are ready for 3rd and 4th grade math standard practice during our math rotations.      While I love the ability to reach my higher achieving students, as they can sometimes be the forgotten group of kids, we have run into a few kinks. Right now, the only devices available to us are iPads. We have found that some of the "fun" features, like building avatars after earning points, are not available on the iPads. While this might not deter older students, those fun features are definitely needed to motivate my 7 and 8-year olds. A few of my students are intrinsically motivated enough that they simply enjoy the ch...

The blog I am following this semester is written by an educator I originally began following on Instagram.  Erin  is an educator who is passionate about integrating technology into classrooms K-12 and sharing her ideas with other educators through various social media platforms. She shares things like lesson plans, resources, reviews, and tips for iPads, Google, and other devices used in the classroom. On her latest blog post, she shared tips and tech resolutions for educators in the new year. These tips include ideas like: #1 Go to inbox zero - clearing out email and creating settings so that emails stay close to zero throughout the year. #2 Organizing Desktop or Drive Folders - This can be done by using color coded backgrounds or folders #3 Digitize Lesson Plans, Calendars, and Notes - use Google, Onenote, etc #4 Back up Your Files - iCloud, external hard drive, or One Drive #5  Clear Cache & Disable Auto Fill on Your School Computer - this is done to keep yo...

One app we love in room 125 is called the Seesaw Learning app. This week we used Seesaw to demonstrate our learning in our science station. Students posted a picture of the items they sorted into the 3 categories of solid, liquid, and gas. Then the students posted a picture of their sort and recorded narration to explain their thinking. They also had the option of taking a video while sorting to show how they sorted the items into the categories. This app also has the ability for students to comment on others posts within the app. I love this feature because it allows for my students to practice digital citizenship along with their everyday learning opportunities. I can go through and approve, grade, and comment on each student's post as their assignments are turned in. What I really love is the access parents have to their student's learning within the app. Parents are given a code and a login so that throughout the year, as their child posts their work, they can like and ...