New paths, new adventure

This summer has been a summer FULL of 
change,

           excitement,

                      anxiety,

                               reflection,

                                         growth and

                                                     lots of prayer.

It all started in May with making the decision to try something new and shake up my world just a bit by deciding to move my 1st grade classroom to a new building in the district. For those that know me well, I am extremely flexible, but a lover of big change I am not. Despite my typical personality traits, I was excited for the new adventure. I dug in and began packing my classroom, digging through age old resources and pitching what I hadn't used or even looked at in eons. It was amazing what I was holding on to and for what reason?

No clue!

 

The week after school was out, I finished boxing up the last of my things and my husband and 2 sons came to school with the trailer and we began the daunting task of hauling everything out of my room, loading it on to the trailer, driving 9 minutes down the road and unloading it all into my new room. Over the course of the next week I began unpacking things into the cupboards when I got word that I would be moving into a different room due to a resignation. 
No problem... I stopped where I was at and decided to wait until the cleaning crews were done to move things to the new room which was just one room over. 

Fast forward 1 month and one life altering email later and I am once again packing up my classroom, but this time, to bring it all home and store it in my basement. 

Yes, I am taking a leap of faith and am leaving the classroom to take on the role of a Digital Learning Specialist. This is a new position in our district and one in which I can help to impact the technology usage of many teachers and students, not just my own classroom of 21. 

This decision did not come easily, especially since I do love the classroom and the connections that you are able to make with students and their families; but sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone to continue to grow, see the magic, and reignite the passion and dreams that you have for yourself. Coming from someone that is not a risk-taker in a lot of ways, changing my career path in this way is not something that too many people probably saw coming! The image to the right really hit home for me and helped me to take the plunge. 

I am so very excited to see where this new position will take me, but even more so, I am SUPER excited for what this position will be offer to the students and staff of the 2 buildings I will be working in! 
So- here's to a new year and BIG changes! I will be continuing to blog about the things I am doing, but the posts will be covering a wider-range of grades now, not just 1st grade. I hope that you will continue to follow along on my new journey!

Summer PD and beyond

Summer always seems to go by way too fast! There's NEVER enough time to complete all of the items on my bucket list (clean out the basement, redo the gardens, clean out the boys' closets)

or maybe,

 just maybe,

my goals are a little too lofty, OR I'm procrastinating since none of those projects really appeal to me even though they all need to get done at some point.

One goal that I do make sure to accomplish each summer however, is a little bit of Personalized Summer PD. What better time than a couple of rainy, super duper humid days to surf the blogs you love to read, explore a new site or 2, connect with, I mean really connect with members of your PLN, and find the time to read a few books while sitting in the air conditioning wishing it was a little bit cooler out? Or better yet, sitting on the patio watching the kids swim in the pond while sipping on a cool glass of lemonade with this view as your backdrop??

 Ahhh... the joys of summer PD!

As usual, I purchased more books than I was able to read this summer, but hopefully I'll have time to continue reading over the next couple of weeks and even once school starts (that's debatable and never seems to happen, but I'm going to try hard this year for my own sanity). Many of the books that I purchased had a common theme- integrating digital literacy into the classroom and for anybody that knows me, that's no surprise. 

My favorite book of the summer is one that wasn't even on my "Gotta Read" list as it literally was just released in July.  Innovate With iPad by Karen Lirenman and Kristen Wideen (both Apple Distinguished Educators working with primart aged students) is an absolutely fantastic resource for K-4 educators looking for practical and meaningful ways to integrate technology into the learning environment. Once I read the info about the book, I knew that I needed to order it and move it to the top of my "Gotta Read It"list. I was super excited when just a couple of days later my mailman came walking up with a package from Barnes and Noble. I knew right away what it was and I was like a kid in a candy store as I opened it! 

As I began to page through it I was excited to see that the ideas are presented in a very easy to follow format. The book is not set up as your typical "read it from cover to cover" format but rather is set up in a way that you can take what you like and leave what you don't. Looking to take some baby steps this year and want specifically for math? Go to the math section and peruse through the ideas. Keep in mind though that as you look through the other sections and your creativity starts to perk, you'll find ideas in the other content areas that you'll be able to tweak and bring into math as well.

Example of a beginner level literacy lesson

What I love most about this resource is that even the most novice tech users will find this book to be a great resource! The lessons are not overwhelming as they are laid out in a very easy to follow format. Check out the example to the right. 

Each lesson includes the following information: 

• grade level (easily modified for any grade), subject area
• iPad comfort level (ideas from beginner to advanced- don't worry, there are PLENTY of examples for beginners!)
• suggested apps
• quick tips
• lesson extensions and... 

BONUS:
downloadable task cards for immediate use! 

Shared with permission from Karen Lirenman

To the right you will find the task card that aligns with the lesson shown above. Each of the task cards are set up with easy to follow directions and are basic enough that you can easily use them and make your own little tweaks. For example, I could easily use the task card below with my class but at the end I would also let my class know that I also want them to upload their final project to Seesaw.

 The task cards are available on the Innovate with iPad site and are simple to access with the code included in the front of the book. When you access them, you will be taken to a Google Drive folder to view or download. A couple of thoughts on the task cards- you could easily display these with a projector, include them in a SMARTboard document (easy way to then add your extra tweaks) or print them off for groups of students to use.

This book has a variety of examples from multiple content areas including math, literacy, science and social studies. As I said, this book has many practical, easy to implement ideas and is one that you can look at today, do a bit of brainstorming to make it fit your curriculum, and walk into your class the next and implement the idea. If you want more information and student examples check out the the Innovate with iPad website

Final thought-
I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to increase their knowledge of meaningful technology integration in the elementary grades. I guarantee you it will be one of your well-loved, dog-eared books by the end of the year!

It's been a long time coming...

When I started this blog, back in 2011... yup, WAY back in the day, I didn't put much thought into my blog title. To be honest, this blog was supposed to just be a way for me to reflect on my teaching and digitally document some of the things I was doing in my classroom for evaluation purposes.

 Little did I know all those years ago how important this blog would truly become to my growth as a reflective educator. Who would have thought that others were actually interested in what I had to share and had questions about what I was sharing. I have built some fantastic connections with educators from around the world, in part, because of this simple little blog. It's nothing fancy~I haven't paid big dollars to have someone create a template, it's just been 'lil ole me playing around with the settings to create what I like (boy have I screwed things up and learned a lot from all the experimentation) Plain and simple, this blog has simply been a labor of love.

With all good things though, sometimes we need to reframe, rebuild, or remodel and that's where I am at after all these years. For several years now I've wanted to redo the look of the blog and change the name, but the inspiration, creative juices and TIME just weren't there. ( the red, traditional, teacher and apple motif just wasn't cutting it!) This summer though, much has happened and I am entering a new chapter in my career as an Elementary Digital Learning Specialist. This change prompted me to find the time to update the blog and after a lot of reflection, I even came up with a new name. The purpose and target audience of this blog has twisted and turned and turned like the bends in a river over the years but the main theme has always revolved around digital innovation so it seemed fitting to me to re-title the blog, 

"Digital Meanderings"

I'm excited about the new look, title, and general feel of the blog and am excited to continue sharing what I learn as I make this transition to my new position! 

Here's looking forward to another 5 years of connected learning!

It may not be New Years, but...

It may not be January 1st but it's a new SCHOOL year and with that comes time to reflect and do some goal setting. It's always about this time of year when I've had just enough rejuvenation that I begin to get super excited about the adventures that the new school year will bring: meeting a new class, seeing former students, chatting with colleagues that you haven't seen in a couple of months, the excitement of new school supplies- you know- cool new pens, maybe a new piece of decor for the classroom... it all makes me happy!!

Along with those things, I always begin to ponder what goals I want to make for myself. How will I stretch myself to become a better educator? I love the Sketchnote below by Sylvia Duckworth that lists 15 things every teacher should try. I've shared this on Twitter a couple of times over the last year but have never shared it here on the blog so here it is!

For some, these ideas may seem overwhelming and for others these may feel very basic, but so many of these ideas can be personalized to where you are at as a learner and your technology comfort level. Without even realizing it, many of these ideas probably already have some overlap into what you are doing in your classroom. For example, my classes have participated in many of Jen Wagner's, Projects by Jen activities which fully encompasses #5 above. If you're a novice tech user, you may want to check out her site for some super projects that will not stress you out but will enable you to bring great collaborative learning to your classroom. The great thing about many of her projects is you can put as much or as little as you want into them depending on your class, the time you may have and your comfort level. On the flip side though, you can really let your creativity run wild with some of the projects as well and they tie very nicely into the curriculum.

Along with many of these projects you will have the opportunity to connect with another class via Skype or Google HangOut 

There's #6!

Connecting in this way allows your students to see that students around the world are no really no different than they are. My community is not very diverse at all and so this opened doors to us that many of my students may never get to experience. In addition we were able to authentically increase our geography skills as well. Doing a GHO or Skype session is really quite painless and the benefits are phenomenal to say the least.

How many of you are using Kahoot? This is a great way to gamify your classroom. Not everything all day every day has to be gamified... just spice things up a bit with a Kahoot game here or there. We use them in my class to review math concepts, practice math facts, comprehension questions after a good read aloud, and even for our iPad License quiz at the beginning of the year. They are super easy to create and kids LOVE them... It's a no-brainer 

You've just covered #10!!

By no means am I trying to check off as many of these items as I can, put find one that puts you a little bit out of your comfort level, stretches your learning just a bit and make it your goal. Your students will thank you for it and you'll have accomplished adding another tool to your toolkit or even better- you'll have  found another way to embed meaningful technology into your curriculum.

As for my goal... last year my kiddos used Seesaw (absolutely phenomenal, game changing, can't say enough about it) as I worked to create digital portfolios. Overall I would say it was a very successful year and something I want to continue to refine. This year though I want my students to branch out just a bit more and share their learning through blogging. So my goal this year is going to revolve around #4. The best part is, Seesaw offers the ability to blog right in the app! This should make the workflow easy and allow me to help my students hone their blogging skills. I'm excited to see what we'll be able to do with this and the connections that may come of it!!

What's your goal going to be this year? 

Ready, Set, Go!

Wow! It's hard to believe that it August already! Seems like forever since I've blogged, but with good reason- It's been an extremely busy summer here! I won't go into ALL the craziness, but one of the biggest was that I moved my 1st grade classroom to a new building in our district.  Talk about being amazed at how long it takes to pack and move everything, but even more eye opening was how much stuff I truly have and how many boxes I needed! Oh. My. Gosh! What was I thinking moving to a new building??

My classroom went 

from this....

to this! 

On a positive note, it provided me with opportunity to do a lot of purging! I can't even tell you how many trips I made out to the dumpster! Despite the mess of it all, it will be great to connect with new families in the small country school that I am switching to. I'm excited for the new adventures that the new year will bring.

Speaking of dumpsters, this was my backyard just a few weeks ago. Another of the crazy, unexpected things that took place this summer. Our roof sustained hail damage and needed to be completely replaced.

What. a. mess! 

So, here we are... just a few short weeks away from a new school year! There are still a few crazy things on my plate and I can't get into my new building until August 11th, so I've been busy with some Personalized Summer PD! I attended EdCamp Global (#ECG2016) and participated in several fantastic sessions! I've also been participating in various webinars- everything from great uses of Seesaw to using BookCreator in multiple content areas to Google tips and tricks. My mind is swimming with all sorts of new information and I'm continuing to mull over how I can best take this information and apply it into my curriculum. I am a firm believer that tech should not be used for the sake of using tech, but rather to enhance and transform learning!

I also played around with and learned how to use a couple of new sites this summer. Buncee was the first site I played with. On Buncee you can create, present, and share multimedia presentations. I used it to recreate my ABC's of first grade for my new school. I'm thrilled with the way it turned out and am excited for parents to be able to easily access this through my classroom blog, The Dog Blog

I also started playing with Adobe Spark. What a fantastic site to use to create beautiful social graphics! I can see this being a wonderful way to create visually appealing slides for some of my presentations. I really love the way this one in particular turned out!!

So with 3-1/2 weeks left of summer break and knowing that part of that time will be spent setting up my classroom, I can honestly say that with the exception of #10 below (I'm not a coffee drinker) I have enjoyed each and every one of these 12 things this summer! #7 is always near and dear to my heart and I so appreciate having the extra time to dig further into things that during the school year get put on the back burner. 

I hope you enjoyed your summer break as well! Did you get to enjoy most of these as well?

 Here's looking forward to a great new year!

Quick side note: 

#EpicPals will be starting again in the coming weeks. I am currently working on getting the September boards ready to go.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

To all of my fellow teachers, THANK YOU for everything you do day in and day out to make a difference in the lives of children!! Our job is one that brings with it MANY different facets, but the joys and celebrations that we are able to witness on a daily basis are truly a blessing. Personally, I can't imagine doing anything else in life. 

I hope you have a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week! Know that you ARE appreciated even though you may not hear the words every day.

In honor of this week, everything in my Teachers Pay Teacher store is 20% off from May 3-4th plus you can receive an additional discount by using the code: CELEBRATE