Teaching Mrs. Ryan

   First let me start out this post by saying, this is somewhat of a rant, and somewhat of a timeline that I've been through to find new things, cool things, and in some cases I may have bitten off more than I can chew!    I've been blessed to work at schools with plenty of technology, but not all technology is created equal.  More recently my challenge is making the Chromebook compatible with all the STEM projects I want to do for my students.  Recently we embarked on a Zoo creation project.  Students have spent the last few weeks researching zoos, animals, and habitats.  My ultimate goal was have students create a habitat using SketchUp and put that 3D habitat into a playground using the software Playing Mondo .  It is a bit of an ambitious project, but the student will be able to do so much with the Playing Mondo (PM) software as time goes by that I knew I wanted to try everything I could.  Enter the dragon... or Chromebook in my ...

Teaching with a lot of tech is a huge goal I have for my Math/STEM classroom.  The importance isn't just to say I'm using technology, but to bring real 21st Century skills into the learning environment while I'm still ensuring growth in my content area by covering my state mandated standards.  It doesn't matter what your state standards are, technology in the classroom is a must. Currently I am working on training with Google.  They have a really great program for teachers to get free professional development, and when you are done, you can be a certified Google for Education expert.  If you are on Twitter, you check out Google for Education's page and follow it. A really cool thing I learned today: Icognito Windows for Chrome - Who knew that you could make what you are doing private on a public computer!?  I sure did not. Whether you consider yourself tech savvy or a beginner, these are really great tutorials to learn about Google tech in the classroo...

Our school was selected to participate in Google Expeditions.  How awesome for a small East Texas school to be visited by a tech giant and chosen to participate.  Let's be honest, if you google "Google Expeditions" you will see that they have been all over letting schools test out their new app, but they are all schools in big cities.  We were so lucky to have such an amazing district STEM coordinator that is always looking out for exciting STEM opportunities for our students.  During the expeditions, my students used View Master Virtual Reality viewers with cell phone devices.     I WAS BLOWN AWAY. I was excited, my kids wanted to do everything even though we only had a 20 minute window per class.  I knew I needed to check into this more. December:  I had visited the View Master website and of course checked out how I could get one of these off of Amazon .  And then I just let it drop back into the back of my brain as teachers tend ...

Every year when students are counting those days left of summer time fun, teachers are going back early.  We have to get our classrooms ready and of course training.  Tons and tons and tons of training.  In fact, I've started my training 3 weeks before students come back to school and MAN am I learning a lot!  We just got done with some fabulous STEM training done be Dacia Jones (@dacia92 if you twitter) from Durham, NC public schools.  I encourage you to check out her blog over at Discovery Education HERE   Like many STEM conferences we learned about cool projects we could try out with our students, but she also helped to facilitate and grow our little STEM program that for 5th graders is in its infancy.  She organized and helped us get lab coats, helped us with grant writing, gave us great resources and information, and did it with an energetic happy smile everyday regardless of the tech difficulties we sometimes hit (WIFI issues blah!)  That ...

Let me be honest.  I live for the summer.  I always knew teaching would be the perfect job for me because when I wasn't a teacher and spring hit... oh it was so hard to sit still in an office.  The last job I held before I taught was perfect for that!  I was able to turn off my fluorescent lights and open the blinds and let the natural light come in, and I would make excuses to visit clients so I could get out of my cubby and go!  Now, I just wait for that last school bell to ring and give my goodbyes for the year to my students and plan on a summer of organization, exercise, dieting, travel, crafting, sleeping in, and a new me.  Oh yeah, and I always intend to blog so much more. Reality is, I do a little bit of all of those things, and sometimes I even feel I've accomplished something, but partway into the summer...I get bored. There I said it!  The nerd in me gets bored and I start researching cool technology and thinking about all the new things I...

In addition to getting ready for a wild new year, it is always wise to take a look back and reflect on what you could have done better, what worked, and what didn't.  Of course you can't forget that when a new year of school arrives, there are always PLENTY of changes.  The one thing I've learned is that change is always taking place whether that is administration, teachers, students, or curriculum.  I can almost put a tick mark on everyone of those categories, but change doesn't mean bad things. This year I have a new curriculum and so far I'm having a love/hate relationship with it.  I love the differentiation, the technology inclusion, and the rigor.... I'm not loving the bugs within the program.  I feel that the textbook company should not have launched this platform if they weren't ready with the same features as the older platform, and if they weren't sure that they had all of their lessons in the correct spot!  Nothing is more frustrating than a...

I think we can all relate to that time when we finally can have some much needed rest to recharge our creative batteries.  Let's face it, teaching can drain you!  Beyond the politics, the standards, the classroom diversions, there is this need to be the most innovative teacher you can be.  I know I'm always looking for more creative ways to teach the same old boring lessons.  This week my goal is to post some of the cool things that happened in my class prior to Christmas break.  I'm going to review an app I used as a teaching aid, post some pictures about a project we did, take a walk through NearPod (which I'd like to use permanently in my classroom), and revisit Mathletics.  I'd also like to get some feedback on a project I'm working out in my head.  I want to do a project with Legos, statistics, data gathering, functions and modeling... an all in one project.  I have a couple of classes that I'd like to experiment with, just to see how they ...