Collaboration

     After our half day workshop, it became even more clear to me the power of collaboration. I am so appreciative that two of my teammates are in the cohort with me so that we can have useful, productive conversations. It also allows us to share ideas and benefit from the thinking/work we are doing. I also realized though that outside of my teammates I have so many amazing resources now outside of my own team. Working with other 4th grade teachers on that Saturday really opened my eyes to how much we can help each other moving forward. I shared some of my forms with them and how to use Flubaroo. They were so grateful not to have to reinvent the wheel and I was grateful to realize that we should reach out to each other more often. The blogs are allowing us to be inspired by other amazing educators, but I think it should become more than that. I think if there is a project or topic we are working on we should reach out to some of our other cohort grade level collaborators and ask what they are doing/have done in the past. If they have already created great lessons and tools to use, why not share those successes and save ourselves some work.
     With our time become even more elusive  and our lives becoming even more full with obligation, I feel like we need to start leaning on each other more. We all love to be creative and develop new ideas, but when time is not on our side we should use our resources. If we are expected to teach our children this concept, we should practice what we preach. Now I know personally this is easier said than done, I am horrible at asking for help. This though will become my goal, I want to reach out more to my colleagues outside of my building for ideas/resources that have really worked for them. It seems like something so simple, but I need to nudge myself to do it more often, especially with the use of technology making communication/sharing easier than it ever has been before!

Holy Moly! I Don't Have to Reinvent the Wheel :) Online Resources Galore!

     Amazing Online Resources I LOVE!

• Storyworks Magazine Online:  Oh how I love my Storyworks. Not only is this a great periodical with a mix of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, but they have branched out to include amazing online resources for teachers. An example was in last months issue they had a play called "Medusa's Head." Instead of just reading the play and responding to questions the site provided us with another amazing learning experience. They created a video called "Medusa's Perspective," which allowed the readers to see the same story from the perspective of the villain  It allowed us to have a great discussion on how different points of view can change our outlook on a situation, but it was also a great visual tool for the students to really see how Medusa can be seen in the wrong light. They were then able to compare and contrast the video to the play, which helped to deepen their thinking. My whole team raved about this experience in their own classrooms as well. Having the site attached to the magazine with pre-created worksheets, activities, and videos is such an amazing resource that doesn't create more work and planning for the teacher! 
• Pintrest: I finally bit the bullet and was introduced to the world of Pintrest. While great for recipes and fashion trends, the best feature of this website was its educational resources. Not only are there there chart ideas and inspiration quotes, but they really do have things to inspire you in every area of study. I love being able to look at something another teacher has already done that is tried and true and be able to easily reproduce it myself. I also like that it is another way for me to connect to my colleagues. One of my co-workers did the class on a Friday afterschool as an introduction for all of us newbies. This only took 30 minutes and we were able to play and create on our own. We are also given the opportunity to "follow" our teammates and see what they are working on and creating as well. I also liked the fact that I could create a personal account and a school account. This will allow me to stay school focused on my school account and will let me get recipe and fashion happy on my personal account. I have already found some awesome ideas that I can use for upcoming reading units of study and I can't wait to see what else is out there once I have more time to explore. 

     A random thought also came to my mind today when discussing parent involvement in technology use. I am wanting to maybe create a "Parent University" centered around technology that would allow interested parents to come and learn about some of the tech we use in the classrooms. We could show parents how to log onto their child's Google account so that they can access work at home and learn how to work some of it themselves. I feel like if we are all speaking the same "tech" language it might help parents to support their learning at home as well. This could also be something where parents could share what they are interested in learning and we could branch out from there. I will keep you posted on how this develops, because if we have success with it it might be something other schools could try as well (or are maybe already even trying). We could then share resources so that no one has to do extra work :) Just a random thought to end my technology filled day!