Student-Led Coferences Digital Portfolios

What is a student led conference?

It's just like a parent-teacher conference except it's ran by the student!

The student gets to be engaged by sharing their own progress to the parents. They can prepare for these conferences. The students are in charge of sharing their academic progress, their classroom behavior, and what they do in the classroom each day. I believe that this really allows the student feel responsible for his/her learning. This type of conference can begin as early as KINDERGARTEN!

I listened in today in class to two of my classmates that presented on this topic. This is something that I would have never thought about before.  Although this may take more time and effort than a normal parent teacher conference, I believe that it is so worth it. If the students know that this is coming, I feel as if it will give them more of a goal to want to present later on to their parents. Here is an example of a teacher led conference.  

Along with this, they shared about student digital portfolios. This is something that I would love to incorporate into my class someday. Students are able to take pictures and document their own work using a program called Seesaw. Seesaw allows the teacher to keep up with all of the student’s work and it will send a notification of all of the students work to the child’s parent when something new is uploaded to the app. The students can access their portfolios through a QR code or a Google account. I really enjoyed the easy design and use for students. They shared that students at the age of five are able to use this program. I feel like that is the most important part of every student driven app. I believe that the student should be able to use the program with ease. This program is great to be shared at student-led conferences. It is easy for the students to flip through and share with the parents all that they have learned throughout the semester because everything is documented in a systematic way.

Overall, both student-led conferences and online digital portfolios like Seesaw are great things that I want to implement into a classroom of my own someday. I feel like there are so many options these days on allowing our students and or future students take part into their own learning. Sometimes as teachers we need to sit back and just see what they are getting out of things. Often times, we try to take charge into telling them what they will get out of something. Students need goals and something to give them a feeling of self accomplishment. Self accomplishment is such a big thing in the classroom. It allows them to feel more confident in working towards anything in the classroom.

Nearpod for Teachers

Today in class we learned about the app Nearpod. Even before this presentation, I LOVED Nearpod. Nearpod is a way to engage all of your students on devices when you the teacher has all of the control. Something that I learned today was that Nearpod can take you and your students on VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS!!! Seriously SO cool! Nearpod can connect any class in so many ways. Actually, Nearpod can be used in pre-k-college classes. It’s super easy to create and use! Nearpod will allow you to ensure that every student is engaged because you can receive real time answering from your students. With Nearpod, only you see the answers from the students. If a student clicked on the wrong answer, only you and that student would know. I really believe that this helps with the confidence of our students. Also with this your classroom communication will rise because they are so engaged with one another. In my opinion, classroom engagement is a big thing. I know how easy it is to “tune out” while sitting in a class at any level. With Nearpod you can have hands-on engagement the entire time. With this, Nearpod can be accessed through an ipad, a phone, or even a desktop computer. 

 

Check out this video of Nearpod! 

 

I hope to use Nearpod in a classroom of my own someday. I love this idea for 21st century teaching and learning. It is a great way to have an engaged classroom while getting immediate feedback from your students! 

  

Nearpod also has premade lessons. This goes along with the virtual field trips that I mentioned earlier. Today we logged in and saw the pyramids in Egypt! Other options include things like underwater, landmarks, mars  There are free premade lessons as well as lessons that you can buy to use in your classroom. In the ones that you create, you can use short answer, drawings, multiple choice, and fill in the blank. It will immediately let you know what each student put in any of these! I feel like a big push these days is immediate feedback. Our students are used to getting things at the touch of a button so they expect everything that way. With Nearpod it can be that way!

Another great thing that was mentioned about Nearpod today was that class can be taken outside of the classroom. If you have a student who is sick at home, but can’t stand to miss work. All they need is the class Nearpod login and it’s like they are there! Nearpod is changing classrooms is a great way. The options are so great in how you can use this in a classroom of your own. While reading articles online like this one, I read that teachers were using Nearpod to have class when their students were snowed in! The students may not have like that too much, but the teacher was determined that class would indeed go on.. thanks to Nearpod that is.

“Nothing in school matters as much as the quality of teaching our students receive.” – United States Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan

Using iPads to Improve the Social Skills of Children With Autism

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a wide range from high to low functioning disorder of the brain. The brain works differently than a normal brain. Difficulties of those with ASD include social skills and verbal skills. According to the video that we watched in class, the little girl with autism related this spectrum to a number line meaning it ranges from very minor to severe. In class as well I gathered some facts from the presenters about ASD. These include: 1 in every 68 children are diagnosed with ASD, 40% of people with ASD have above average intellectual abilities, and 33% of those have difficulty communicating with others verbally.

One great way of assisting those in our classroom with ASD is with… wait for it… iPads!! Yes, iPads are a fantastic way of assisting these students in ways that we never thought was possible before. We learned in class from a presentation that iPads have the ability to increase socialization in inclusion classrooms between all students. When children diagnosed with ASD are provided with iPads in the classroom, it becomes easier for those students to communicate with others in class. iPads have also been proven to increase academic success for students diagnosed with ASD. 

One of the apps that they shared I am very passionate about and that is Kid In Story. Often times, children with autism have a difficult time in preparing for situations as well as knowing how to act in them. Kid In Story allows you to express behavior and environment details  in a more interesting way. Children with autism can easily read these social stories over and over again. The best part about this app is that you can insert a picture of the child into the story. This allows it to feel more personal to the student.

• Created by an award-winning team of designers and developers closely collaborating with parents, speech and language pathologists, and educators

                   

• Developed for children with autism, down syndrome, ADD, ADHD, auditory processing issues, and cognitive disabilities

• 21 in app story templates

• This app also gives you the option to create your own book. This will allow you to upload any picture from your phone, the internet, or tablet for your background. This option allows you to create a story about any situation or environment. The free version includes all 21 templates, but does not include the create your own option.

• Unique image detection technology

• This image detection technology will remove the background from any picture so that it is only the child being placed into the book.

• Voice recording

• Each story page has text at the bottom. There is already text in the pre-made pages, but the words can be edited by you to fit the child’s needs. By recording your voice or the childs voice, it helps those who may not can read yet.

• Allows the child to be in the story

• This allows this app to become personal. Children with autism will greatly benefit from seeing themselves in the situation or environment over and over again so that they can feel comfortable when the time comes.

Children with ASD struggle with things that we often take for granted. We have a hard time reaching out to those with no voice. An iPad can actually give these students a voice in ways that we never thought possible.

Find some more great apps for ASD here!

SMORE Newsletter- Jumping on the iPad Bandwagon

Have you ever head of SMORE?? Okay, not the kind of s'more that you eat.. although those are pretty great as well. I'm talking about the website SMORE! SMORE allows you to design beautiful newsletters with ease. Seriously, it is super easy to add any links, photos, videos, text, and so much more. The version that I have used was free, but there are many price options for a SMORE account as well as an option for educators. The educator version allows you to have certain privacy features that you would want for your classroom.

With SMORE, you can create classroom newsletters with ease! You can have a daily, a weekly, or a monthly newsletter. The choice is yours because you have an unlimited amount of newsletters to create. As a teacher candidate, I find it neat to check out things like this for future use. I honestly loved how quick and easy it was to create and how easy a simple shared link could be accessed. I really hope to use this in my own classroom someday. I would love to be about to send out creative and attention grabbing newsletters that the parents would actually want to read. This program is actually so easy that even your younger students would have no problem using!

Another great thing about SMORE is that not only you can design them, but your students can as well! I think this would be a great way to present book report projects! This really takes the creativity to the next level in a 21^st century classroom. We are very fortunate to have programs like these at our fingertips. Along with creativity, SMORE allows you to use so many different templates and options. You can even create your own. This would allow the students to personalize their pages to allow them to express what they wanted to share or discuss. I believe that it is so important to not set limitations on creativeness in assignment. SMORE allows you to be as creative as your heart desires.  

Classrooms are in need of more and more ways to share information with others. SMORE is a fantastic way of doing this. Here is a neat idea… What if you allowed one student a week (or month) to create your classroom newsletter? This would allow each student to feel as if they are a part of something that they can have control of. They enjoy doing things that they know they can be apart of. I think this is a great way to get the students involved. SMORE will allow them to learn about links and embedding in such a easy and fun way. Our students today are our future working citizens of tomorrow. We must equip them both academically and in the ways of technology.


You can check out this video below by K. Butler, or you can click on the link below to take you to the SMORE newsletter that I created myself! Enjoy your SMORE!

All About iPads In the Classroom

Candy Corn Math

Candy Corn math! In my practicum classroom, I did a math lesson on pairing numbers in numerical form, word form, and object form. To do this I used candy corns! The students loved it (and getting to eat the candy corn at the end)! I gave the students the number in the word form to practice writing and they were pretty much able to figure out what number it was on their own! This was great for my kindergarteners!

Autsim Speaks at JSU!

This last week at Jacksonville State I had the opportunity to speak at the 2nd Annual Autism Conference along with five of my classmates and my professor. This was something that I will never forget. It was an absolute honor to speak on such a huge topic. My group and I presented apps that are great for students with autism. We presented apps to current teachers, classmates, JSU personnel, parents, and parents with children on the autism spectrum.

 The conference allowed us to gain ideas on we can do as a future teacher that may have students with ASD in our classrooms. As future educators and JSU teacher candidates we understand the importance of creating a comfortable and welcoming learning environment for ALL of our students.

Scan this QR code to gain access to our apps and app descriptions!

Retell Lesson

In my kindergarten practicum classroom, I did a retell lesson. In a retell lesson the students tell the sequence of events from the story back to you. This is a Alabama state kindergarten standard. For this lesson, I used the book called The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything. This book is so much fun!

 To allow the kids to retell the lesson to me, I used a felt board and an app called pic collage. The app allowed the students to build the scarecrow from the book in the order that the clothing items came along. The students also wrote what happened at the end of the book and drew the picture themselves!

He scared all the birds away!