Teaching with Google

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 classroom. In addition earning professional development credit is a benefit to every teacher.

Comments

Inspiration and a Smart Pen

I finally figured out how to work my little interactive white board tablet in my room. I used it on Friday and my kids loved it. I like it to, and it was really my inspiration behind getting my Echo smart pen. When trying to figure out how to use my interactive white board tablet (we will call it IWBT) I thought well I'll just google it and go from there. Turns out... it isn't made anymore. Never the less, I was able to figure out what I was doing, and it is great for my classroom. It operates a lot like a Think Pad. At any rate, I've seen several blog post referring to smart pens and LiveScribe on several blogs I subscribe to and I thought I would check it out. I found an Echo pen in Best Buy and fell in love. I was on a spending splurge today and decided this was going to go one of two ways. I either was going to get an iPad, or a Smart Pen. Well... I got the Smart Pen. So I've been sitting at home and right now...

Spiral Review In All Its Glory (Decimal of the Day)

The school district I am in has cumulative tests covering everything taught each six weeks. The twist is, these tests are made by administrators and not teachers. This really isn't a problem to me. It is a learning tool for me and a teachable moment for my students on the importance of all material covered in class. We as teachers can really get bogged down in the variables of a test like this. By that I mean, oh the test question was worded funny or well they were only given one chance to show mastery on this, my students are _______ fill in the blanks, thoughts, and reasoning. The one thing my school district did was have us put our scores up standard by standard right next to every other teacher in the district who had to teach the same thing we did. My oh my did I fall short! I say I fell short even though I had great reasoning as to why my scores looked the way they did... but upon further reflection ...

The Day After....

I will have to admit that my first night of Technology in The Classroom was quite daunting. It was a million pounds worth of information crammed into 3 hours of time after I'd been working ALL day. My strategy was simple: 1 - Take lots of notes. I have had the priviledge of having Dr. Thompson-Price in an undergraduate course and I will be the first to say I love the way she teaches. She is interesting, VERY passionate about what she's teaching, and funny. I can definitely think of worse ways to spend 3 hours of my time! Other than information overload I think I survived pretty well. I created this blog while I was in class, set up my electronic portfolio, and learned about some really cool tools! Here are a few sites I learned about: Weebly - You can set up a web page REALLY easily and do so in different formats. Best part of this was obviously it was FREE. You can monitor how my portfolio is coming and even access my blog from there ...

Teaching Mrs. Ryan

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