Posts

Makerspaces and STEM/STEAM

    A makerspace is exactly what the name entails:  a space for creating; a space in a school designated for students to make something.  I enjoy  this  definition of it, particularly the emphasis that it is more about the mindset than the actual space itself, to create and explore interests further.  Ideally, the space would be one where it is conducive to collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking--all skills that students need to hone as 21st century learners.        It seems as though an effective makerspace varies, but it ultimately comes down to budgetary constraints and supplies.  Thought it seems as though many makerspaces are equipped with 3D printing, that is not always the case, as evidenced by the makerspace created by third grade students .  As the teacher and the one who has control over aspects such what supplies can be made available to students given the budget, some stick to materials such as newspaper, rubber bands, tape, popsicle sticks, plastic spoons, a
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Personalized Learning

      It was always important for educators to be familiar with accessibility features on the technology available to them, but the reality of pandemic teaching is that it has exposed the disparities in communities and learners with accessibility.  Just a short 10 years ago, much of the assistive technology that was and has been available to learners is free (e.g. voice-to-text features, audio/read aloud features/closed captioning) .  From personal observation, it seems as though when many educators think of technology our minds immediately question, "How much does it cost?"  As pointed out in one of our course videos, there is a lot of existing, free technology available (Logan, 6.1).  The free label should be an important incentive for educators to explore what is available.     As an ELD Specialist (whose district does not have a budget for us), who also teaches students with IEPs, I have by necessity always explored the free options first.  Before elaborating more on that
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Video Conferencing in Education

      Video conferencing is definitely overused in our current remote learning world, and I know I speak for many educators who have done everything from fully remote, to fully in-person, and everything in-between when I say that we are all longing for connection.  While these are my general thoughts, and while I have many colleagues who are ready to completely turn off their livestreaming equipment and not have to post materials on Google Classroom (and I understand where they are coming from), I may be one of the few educators who is hoping that we won't saying goodbye to aspects of this entirely.       Some positives (specific to my context) are the lack of travel involved.  As one of seven specialists in a district of 14 schools (this is the only school year we have had seven of us), we have always had to meet in person.  While we love working with each other and genuinely craved these in-person connections since we are the only one who does what we do in our buildings, it was
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Using Specialized Search Tools: Google Scholar

    In Google Scholar, the features on the left side are search for articles under "Any time" (to search by year, with the option to customize the range), "sort by relevance" (date), include, patents, and include citations.  The feature on the right side are "My profile" and "my library."  The feature on the left are more self explanatory:  being able to filter results based on date and year, or to customize the year of publication for resources.  The "my profile" and "my library" features are not as self-explanatory, but when utilized, can help make the researching process occur much more smoothly.   "My profile" is for individuals who may have articles/publications that they want tracked.  "My library" is helpful when researching different articles and an individual clicks on the star icon to save it to their library.  This is essentially akin to bookmarking, and so it allows the user to then reference al
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Using Technology to Communicate with Students and Parents

  Using technology as a means of communication with my students' families has been of utmost importance, even pre-pandemic. Due to the advancement of technology, most of my students' families prefer electronic forms of communication to paper, phone call, or in-person. Since the majority of my students' families are non-native English speakers, they have voiced that the electronic means of communication are preferred because they can more easily get these messages translated. Translation apps such as Google Translate and the like are simply tools and are not reliable, so this is both a strength and a weakness of digital communication; however, this is the technology on which what many of my families rely. I have personally found TalkingPoints to be another effective app for communication, but have never tried it for larger pieces of information that need to be communicated. A major strength of digital communication is the ease with which to communicate. With smart
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Using Blogs in the Classroom

     As a K-12 English Language Specialist whose teaching assignment varies from year-to-year, I would have to be creative with the ways in which I utilize blogs in my classroom.  Since my current teaching context is in the K-6 setting, I will mainly focus this post on that for fear of the longest blog post detailing all the possible ways I could use it in the classroom/as an educator.     It would probably be best for me to use it as an electronic newsletter of sorts, and in a perfect world, would love to use it as a means to communicate with parents visually what we are doing in the classroom.  I could see this as possibly being monumental for many of my students' families since many of them want to know how else they can help their child(ren).  Visually showing them what we are doing can provide insight and spark ideas for ways in which they can help their children.  It can also put a visual to what is mentioned in parent meetings and conferences.  I would have to keep posts rel
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