Mrs. English

    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

      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

      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

    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