Teaching Mrs. Ryan

  How many of you have tried digital break-outs, or any kind of break-out for that matter in your classroom?  If you haven't I promise you are missing out on a fun way to engage your students in their content while making those brains work on some serious critical thinking skills!     After spending $$ on my favorite website ( TeachersPayTeachers of course) on digital breakouts I decided I really needed to learn how to do this myself.  Especially when I couldn't find the exact item I'm wanting.  Let's face it... it's hard living in a Common Core World when I work in a TEKS environment!  Common Core and Texas Essential Knowlege and Skills (TEKS) are pretty different and most of what I tend to find is catered to Common Core.  Time for me to "BREAKOUT!"     I would like to tell you that I spent a large amount of time researching and putting together my first break-out but let me be honest with you... I didn't have that time ...

   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 ...

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...

Summer is in full gear and I am in slow motion here lately.  I had surgery earlier this month and am still doing recovery so I'm spending a lot of time in the house.  One of the things I wanted to do was make my lessons more discovery based this year, find creative uses for our technology, and get out of the textbook.  I've been scouring blogs, websites, twitter, and everywhere for inspiration and I've found some pretty cool things that I'm going to incorporate into class this year.  One thing I want to do is make my own pdf's that I can download into my Good Reader account for students to use in class so that they can email me work instead of the LOADS of paper I ended up with last year.  But they can't just be normal Word documents converted to pdf because that would be too easy, and I want something with a bit of pizazz.  So I started scouring more websites, viewing YouTube tutorials to create the elements of things I've seen that I like and during thi...

It is that wonderful time of the year when teachers and students alike get to take a HUGE break from school and relax.  For us, its time to sweep out the cobwebs, shove in some creativity, and of course get some much deserved R&R. I look all over for inspiration because lets face it... sometimes my brain is fried!  All the classroom management, grading, test making, lesson planning, I get excited when I'm on target and look all over the internet to find great ideas for making it even better.  There is no shame in this!  Ok... I have no shame about doing this! HA! Today, I'm going to share my awesome resources :) Teachers Pay Teachers is a great resource for finding all types of lesson plans, activities, power points, tests, Common Core Resources, and so much more.  The cool thing is this stuff is MADE BY TEACHERS, and tested out in their classrooms.  Prices for your favorite selections range from FREE on up.  You can earn credits for fre...

     It has been a busy time since I last posted about my NCTM conference.  Since then I've gotten my students hooked on Mathletics and we have successfully added Mathletics to our curriculum arsenal.  Currently I am using Mathletics as a warm-up for students in the classroom, but we are also using activities and lesson plans to get students engaged in learning in a whole new way.   Just after getting Mathletics on board in school, I headed to another conference.  This time I went to a Differentiating Instruction conference held by SDE .        Honestly, I wasn't really excited about this conference.  (1) During my graduate program and even during undergraduate studies, that is all you are taught.  You are taught to differentiate instruction and how it needs to happen, ways it needs to happen, and why it needs to happen.  DI, DI, DI... do it is what that needed to stand for.  (2) My collea...

Since my NCTM conference, I've been working with the people at Mathletics to get a new fun app into my students' hands, and in exchange, I get a great tool for myself.  For those that aren't in the know, Mathletics , is a very cool way to get your students involved in math by answering curriculum related questions in which they earn points.  Students can also compete answering questions with other students from around the world for points.  These points can be used to buy cool things for their avatars such as new hair and clothes, or they can be saved up for certificates and leader board recognition.  This is how I am using Mathletics in my classroom: 1) Each Sunday I look over the weekly lessons and assign activities for students to complete each day; I also give them an alternate textbook assignment they have the option of choosing just in case their are problems with internet connections. 2) Each day in class, students play their Mathletics App to warm-up i...

       As I embark on my last month of school there are so many things going on.  I am looking at making a move, working, looking for work, and I've made my final decision on my research proposal.  Initially when I started this program, I knew that I wanted my research to focus on creativity in the classroom.  I changed from that to how lack of creativity produces apathy in students, and completely jumped to my current topic dealing with mathematics and intervention on a Tier 3 level.      I am in the midst of writing a research proposal that focuses on the effects of the position I now hold in a rural East Texas school.  I was brought in as an outside contractor to provide math intervention services for students identified as "struggling" as well as additional intervention for special education students in the 3rd and 4th grade.   My participants come to me for 45 minute increments in a small group settin...

Today I did do a lot of the work that I needed to but did not get it all finished.  However, I did till up my mother's garden today so all was not lost.  What I did accomplish today though was working on my blog post summaries and finishing the discussion questions I was assigned to do with 21st century learning. I spent the majority of my morning reviewing videos about how our schools have fallen behind in updating their methods of instruction due in part mostly to the lack of practical application.  Outside of the classroom students have cell phones, computer access, MP3 players, Ipods, Iphones, television, etc.  All manner of digital media is at their fingertips until they walk into their classrooms.  They are expected (for the most part at least where I am from) to put away the cell phones, sit in nice neat rows, and listen to lectures given with illustrations on the wall.  There is no stimulus and no technological exchange going on in the room. ...

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 ...

I am currently attending East Texas Baptist University to attain my Master's degree in Education with Elementary Certification.  This is my first term for the program and by this time next year I will be close to graduating.  1st - I have to do this blog as a classroom assignment. 2nd - My goal is to continue this blog throughout my master's program. 3rd - I am going to chronicle what I am learning, what I am messing up, experiencing, wish I wasn't experiencing... an expose' if you will. 4th - This is a Christian university.  I WILL be posting about Jesus Christ.  My faith is a part of who I am and what I'm doing. I think that is about all.  I've already attended my first class.  It is a Law course about legal issues within the public school system.  My second class for the week is Teaching with technology.  Which is why I am here. So... my blog will be about as the title suggests "Teaching Mrs. Ryan"... about how to be a teacher ...