Thing 31: Final Reflections & Whats Next?

One thing that I have already used in my classroom is Bitmoji in the classroom. I stated in one of my posts that I would print out Bitmojis to label different parts of my classroom. I have done this for my classroom library, where homework is handed in, as well as other places throughout the classroom. My students really liked this and thought it was a lot of fun. This sparked a conversation about Bitmoji with my class and they seemed very eager to make their own for school. It will be fun to create a bulletin board with my classes Bitmojis next year! The only challenge here is I will need to have the students fill out a form for what they want their Bitmoji to look like and I will create them at home. Our school doesn't allow the Bitmoji website.

One thing I have already used in my personal life is Over Drive with the public library system. I am an avid Audible listener and using this has saved me a lot of money!

I did not get the chance to introduce Book Creator to my class yet. I still look forward to the training on August 30th. I really think this is going to be a big motivator for my class next year. It will be exciting to provide different forms of media to my students as a way to write and tell their own stories. We start the year off writing narrative stories so Book Creator will be a perfect tool for my students to use! I have shared this with one of my coworkers who plan to attend the Book Creator webinar with me!

I enjoyed learning about everything on my own on the computer! The email reminders were very helpful as my schedule can get pretty busy. I took a few online classes in grad school so I was very familiar with this type of learning. I love any opportunity to bring more exciting technology in the classroom. Students are increasingly interested in media and using their Chromebooks in the classroom, so this training was a perfect way for me to find more options to do that! 

Thing 17: eBook Creation

I first was very interested in Book Creator for the Web in the Elementary Classroom. There is a free webinar on August 30th that I am likely going to attend. I too am interested in the prospective ability for students to collaborate on the same book at the same time. I love the fact that you can have a free library with up to 40 books. I never have more than about 27 students so this is perfect for my fourth graders! I am curious as to whether you can print these books and delete them so students can create different books later on for free, or even if they can be deleted so my following year classes can also create books for free. Lasty,  I like that Book Creator has a comic feature where students can create and publish comics. I have several students in my class this year who are really into making their own comics. Especially with Graphic Novels gaining such popularity, students could be encouraged to use the comic feature to create their own graphic novels, or as a way to respond to graphic novels that they read.

Story Jumper is also a free and easy to use tool that I explored. I like that you can record your own voice to read the story aloud. Also, it is pretty cool that parents have the option to view their child's story online and purchase a copy of it if they choose to. Here is my practice Story Jumper book: Ms. Manaher's Practice Book . I had a lot of fun playing around with this tool and find it very user friendly, especially for my fourth graders.

Thing 14: Bitmoji Fun

I had a lot of fun exploring this activity. Bitmojis are becoming increasingly popular with students old and young. Because of this, I felt that there would be a lot of cool ways to use Bitmoji to catch students' attention. One idea that I thought of would be to create a bulletin board using different students' Bitmojis for my next year class. They could use them to illustrate different work they have done (i.e. a true story they have written, or facts they have researched on a certain topic) and use the Bitmoji as an attention grabber to get people more interested in checking out the work they have done. I also thought it would be a neat idea to use my own Bitmoji to label different areas of the classroom (i.e. where homework is handed in, classroom library, etc). I also thought that perhaps when we do our book fair at school, students could print out their Bitmoji and tape it near a book they may recommend to other students in their class/school. 

An idea that I found when exploring this activity would be to use my own Bitmoji as a way to respond to student work (i.e. the A+ Bitmoji above).  I am open to so many ideas now including decorating my door using Bitmoji, and even creating self-adhesive stickers with Bitmoji! How exciting!

One thing I am reluctant about would be allowing the students to search their own Bitmojis. I know there are some that are inappropriate for the age that I teach (9-11 year olds). Our school does have the Bitmoji website blocked, so I would need to take on the task of creating their Bitmojis and uploading a select few appropriate options for my students to choose from.

Thing 20: Social Reading and Book Stuff

One thing that caught my attention was Over Drive with the Public Library System. This is something I would be interested in using in my personal life, in place of Audible. Also, I thought it would be a fun new way to get students interested in books with the use of technology.

The second thing that I found interesting was Audio Recordings. I thought this would be a helpful tool for students to talk about a story they want to write, and play it back to help them write it. Often times it is easier to tell a story out loud before taking on the challenge of writing it down on paper.

I checked out the "5 Tips for Using Book Creator for Reading Responses" and got a lot of great information from this. Teaching in a fourth grade classroom I am always looking for new and exciting ways for the students to have opportunities to respond to the texts we are both reading in the classroom and they are reading on their own outside of the classroom. Daily Journals and Video Reflections would be a great thing to incorporate into our daily ELA time. This not only will aide in their understanding of the text, but also aide in their ability to write about what they are reading by recording their voice first, and replaying that so they can then type up a response in paragraph form.

Lastly, I noticed the Free Books to Title One Schools. I thought this would be an awesome way to get books in students home for both children and parents to enjoy. Instilling a love and interest in reading books at home would be a great way for students to follow this example and carry it back and forth from school to home.

Thing 1: Getting Started

Hello bloggers!

My name is Gillian Manaher, and I am a fourth grade teacher at Abraham Wing School. I am looking forward to learning about different Cool Tools technology to incorporate into lessons and projects with my students! I am eager to learn different ways to keep my students engaged using technology in the classroom!