First Days

As the first days of school approach, we aim to set the tone for our classes and to get to know our students. Many have shared ideas about ways to approach these initial days.

• Edutopia offers ideas under 4 four categories in this post, Building A Positive Community in Any Classroom. Many of these ideas work for other times of the year as well. 
• From 26 Questions Every Student Should Be Able to Answer pick a few and decide how to adapt them to your classroom setting.

• Shaelynn Farnsworh, an educational blogger with a focus on literacy, shares these ideas Kicking Off Back to School With Camera Fun. As a camera buff, I illustrate one of her ideas, creating a 6 Word Memoir alongside a personal photo. 

• In the post 8 Back-to-School Ideas That Will Get Students Learning and Laughing, Katie Dunn recaps some classic icebreakers. 

November Learning, an organization founded by famed educator Alan November, provides these videos of educators offering their ideas found on this website page,  "First 5 Days of School."

Watch These Cute Kids React to Older Technolgy: How Far We Have Come

This video speaks for itself, so watch and enjoy. Feel free to leave a comment.

You Love Coffee, Try EdCafe

Listen to Katrina Kennett explain the EdCafe model, a great way to engage students in the learning and leadership process. Given she is the pro at explaining the process, I will just pass the baton to her without further ado.




Now that you heard and seen the demo and explanation, what do you think? How do you see this model as applicable in the classroom or for other learning environments?

First Weeks of School

http://news.verizonwireless.com/news/2013/08/back-to-school-week-first-graders.html

Lots of teachers and educators have been sharing ideas for the first days and weeks back to school. Here are some.

1. Beginning the School Year, "It's About Connections, Not Content," written by Jackie Gerstein, offers lots of neat creative ideas to point the focus on the students and them connecting with one another. I love her suggestions. Do you?
2. Live Binder is an online tool for collecting resources in folders for easy accessibility. In this Live Binder, "First Five Days," assembled by talented teacher Joy Kirr, you'll find a bundle of ideas. To use the Binder, note tabs across the top; each opens a binder with resources. 
3. "You Only Get One First Day of School" despite its title offers tips for the first few days. 
   
4. Erin Olson's blog post "First Day, First Week" offers several ways to greet students the first few days. 
   
5. Katrina Schwartz's "10 Ideas to Get those Back-to-School Juices Flowing" is not just for the first dew days but for any time of the year.  Each heading is a hyperlink to access additional ideas. For instance, the heading "Why Read Reading Aloud"  leads to details about this strategy.
6. "How to Tackle Digital Citizenship During the First Five Days" helps with developing school climate and classroom atmosphere for tech use and in general. 
7. The "Brave" video is an excellent discussion starter, especially for students in upper grades. 
8. First Five Days video produced at Alan November's Building Learning Communities is embedded here.
9. "
10. School Year Hopes" is another post about setting a positive classroom climate. 
11. "A Must Watch Back to School Video Guide" showcases eight videos, both for teachers and students.
12. One of my favorite teacher blogs for finding ideas to implement in the classroom, especially at the elementary school level, is Pernille Ripp's Blogging in the Fourth Dimension. Just recently, she posted: "Small Reading Ideas," with lots of small ideas but really they are big ideas with lots of potential to add to your classroom and students' interest in reading.

Looking for more places to find additional ideas, use this hashtag to search on Twitter, and check the feed over the next few weeks for ideas. #1st5days Twitter remains an excellent way to keep current and spread your wings for professional development and forming a personal learning network (PLN). Here is a screen capture of some tweets found on #1st5 days.

Don't forget to share your own ideas for the opening of school and getting to know students and parents, and to let us know which ones of the ideas explored above appeal to you.

7th Grader's Personal Learning Environment

In case you have not caught this video of a 7th grader explaining her personal learning environment (PLE), I am posting it now to open up discussion about how students can and will learn using digital tools. Incidentally, this videos was posted to YouTube in 2009.


 

Little Kids, Big Potential

In browsing through blogs this week, I found a link to this video in Abbey Menard's blog post, "Whoa." I clicked on the link and recognized the name of the teacher, Mrs. Cassidy, who posted the video to YouTube in 2010. It's amazing to see what these students were doing back in 2010, not that long ago, but at a time, when many teachers were barely having their students blog, use wikis, or try Skypes.

Granted Mrs. Cassidy has considerable experience with the tech tools and has them in her classroom for students to use, but most of all, the message is that these students are communicating and learning in new ways. View the video, and take a few minutes to leave your reaction.

Thanks to Abbey for posting the link to the video. Visit her blog for other information. Busy as a Bee.

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Coincidentally, just today a tweet came across my Twitter feed that linked to a recent blog post Mrs. Cassidy wrote on the Innovative Educator blog, 5 Rewards of Teaching Young Students to Blog. If you're not convinced about the power and potential of teaching young learners to blog, you might check the post. Perhaps you agree with some points and disagree with others. After checking her blog post, 5 Rewards of Teaching Young Students to Blog, let us know your thoughts. Do you see rewards in teaching young students to blog? What issues do you see in young students blogging?

The Voice of the Active Learner

Scott, Boylen, the teacher whom two of the sections of Integrating Technology and Literacy hooked up with for the KidBlog exchange, posted this video on Twitter. Thought I would share it with you. Am interested in your reaction to it. The connections with Scott's classes will continue, but now the Manchester Cohort will also (maybe?) set up their own KidBlogs for the students in Iowa to write responses.

Okay, those in the cohorts, what do you think would make a good topic to use for the Manchester Cohort students to use for their first post on KidBlog?

So, here's the video Scott shared. How do you think his 7th and 8th graders will react?