Numbers 1.3

Another Excel sheet!  This one involves some descriptive statistics for 8th grade reading test scores.  Surprisingly the girls had a higher average test scores! Virginia falls solidly in the middle compared with other states.  There are 24 states above us, and 24 states below us.  With and average score of 267.2 we are only 10 points below the highest state.

Here's the link to the whole Excel document. Numbers 1.3

Self Portrait

This was a fun activity, and it was easy to do.  However, I'm struggling to see the applications for my classroom.  If I taught art that would one thing, but I don't.  My second graders would really struggle with this type of activity.  I'm also having difficulty embedding the image I created.  So hopefully the link works!  In case it doesn't I was able to embed a picture of what one would look like.

This is mine!
Self Portrait by Jess Cable

You can try making your own here!

Jing Screencast

Part of my job is to mentor new teachers in our building.  I often have to show them how to use the software and technology our district uses.  So I decided to create a screencast to show teachers how to input grades in our GradeQuick software. I'm having trouble actually embedding the video, but you should able to find it here.

Numbers 1.2

Today I converted the number grades from the previous Excel document I posted to letter grades using the IF function.  While I did not previously know how to use this function, I didn't find it difficult to use.  However, I don't think I will ever use this function of Excel because as I mentioned before my school district has an online grade book software program that we use called Grade Quick.  It does all the calculations for you!  Also, my school district is moving away from all Microsoft products due to the expense and migrating everything to Google Docs.  I would like to know if all the same functions that work in Excel also work in Google Sheets. Any thoughts?  Comment below!  Oh, and here's the link to the updated Excel document.

Jing Graphic

Jing! I had not heard of this software before!  How cool.  Here's the image I created to help teach my students the parts of a letter.

Diigo

Have ya'll heard of diigo?  I hadn't, but I'm glad I know now!  First of all it is a great research tool.  It allows you to highlight and annotate sections of text while you are reading.  It also allows you to save articles as bookmarks and tag websites or articles for future reference.  Second, you are able to share your bookmarks with other users.  Finally, diigo is able to recommend articles and websites based on what you bookmark. This really seems to move the web forward.  It's like the 2.0!  It's a place to find new knowledge and information and share that with a community.  Now not only are you just reading and thinking about an article online by yourself, but you can share your ideas and thoughts with others who have common interests.  It allows you to bookmark websites and share them with friends who have similar interests instead of just storing websites on whatever machine you are working on (this is my favorite aspect!).  I can't tell you how many times I lost all my bookmarks because they are just saved to the machine I'm currently working on.  I look forward to seeing what other people share and creating a collection of research and resources to use!

Here's the link to my diigo library so far!

I'm currently using Google Chrome, but I don't have any browser add ons, so I was a little nervous about installing this.  However, I found that it was pretty simple to add-on the diigo extension to my Google Chrome browser.  As soon as I installed the add-on I was able to start bookmarking and annotating whatever I was reading.

Numbers 1.1

Excel is a spreadsheet application that allows you to crunch numbers and create a visual of your data.  I find excel to be very tedious and I rarely use it in my classroom or for personal use.  This assignment used excel to help calculate grades, which if you don't have other options available is certain a tool you could use.  However, Frederick County Public school uses an online gradebook called gradequick, which calculates all of our grades and averages for us.  It also tells you minimum and maximum scores automatically.  It's so easy!  So with all of that said, I am not a huge fan of Excel, but I managed to complete this week's assignment.  Link below!

Numbers 1.1 Assignment

Jeopardy

So we've all heard of Jeopardy, and understand the premise that participants answer in the form of a question.  I have to say that this was a little harder to create than I thought it would be because you do have to think backwards.  My second graders will really love playing this as a review game at the end of the quarter.  However, an idea for using this software for high school teachers is to have their students create their own jeopardy games.  Not only will it be a great review for them, but it will also challenge them to think backwards.

Here's a link to my jeopardy game: jeopardylabs.com/play/q1-social-studies2

Word Clouds

Have y'all heard of these?  They are so cool!  I once received one framed as a gift.  It was all about teachers.  So cute!  Anyway, I've known about word clouds for a while, but never considered using them in my classroom.  I've also never played around with it or created a word cloud.  So I started this assignment by googling "free word cloud generators".  One of the first links that popped up was a great blog with the top 5 free word generators.  It explained what each one was and how to use it.  I used the first one in the list called Word it Out. 

 This the world cloud I created:

It was very simple to use and allowed to to change the fonts, colors, and size of text.  I liked that it was easy to manipulate and allowed you to regenerate the image multiple times.

So how would you use this tool in your classroom?

In second grade we spend the first few weeks of school answering these questions "What is an author?", "What is a scientist?", "What is a mathematician?" in order to foster the idea that students will be all of these things during the year and thus how they should act while doing these activities.  So I decided to ask them "What is a scientist?" and I typed what each student said into the generator and then created the image.  The students were amazed with the image.  We talked about why some words were bigger and some were smaller, and how it all worked.

I liked using this tool and I think it worked well to engage my students as well enhance their understanding about what a scientist does.

Here is a link to a great article I found with more great ideas on how to use word clouds in the classroom.

Do you have other ideas on how to use this tool in your classroom?

Are Learning Styles Meaningless?

Learning styles are complex.  When I was in middle school (about 15 years ago).  I remember taking an assessment to try and determine my learning style.  At that time there were only 3 to choose from, auditory, visual, or kinesthetic.  Today there are 7, which can all be traced back to those 3 main categories. 

They say you are usually a combination of several.  So with all of that in mind I would hypothesize that I am mostly auditory/visual/solitary.  I took a few free online assessments because even though I had a pretty good idea what my style is I was curious to see if I was right!

First I took the VARK assessment.  According to this assessment I have a multimodial learning preference.  My scores for each category were all very close thus giving this result.

I also took a learning syles assessment that has more categories.  I also had similar results to the VARK assessment with high scores in verbal, visual, and solitary.

So I was right! Yay!

But what does this mean?  Who cares about learning styles?  

A recent article published by Pasher et al. (article) posits that learning styles do no matter at all. He acknowledges that people tend to have one or two ways that they prefer to be presented with information.  However, he says that this does not have any effect on education and learning in general.  Based on my learning style results I would tend to agree.  I was not high in any specific learning style, rather at similar scores in all categories thus, promoting the idea that learning style does not effect how I learn since I don't fit into a specific category.  I would also tend to agree based on what I see in my classroom.  Second graders have a difficult time telling you how they like to learn best.  Therefore I use a variety of strategies that cater to multiple learning styles throughout my lessons.  I find that presenting material in more than one format helps keeps students engaged throughout the lesson.  Also I've found that specific subjects tend to have certain strategies that fit different learning styles better.  For example, science and math are best taught using hands on experiences and manipulatives which would lend itself better to people with kinesthetic learning styles.

So what do you think? Are learning styles meaningless?

Why Blog?

Audience. Community. Presentation. Comments.

So I'm pretty new to this whole blogging thing, but I've followed a few blogs for several years here's what I think so far.  People create blogs for various reasons.  Some people have opinions and ideas that they would like to share with the world whether the world wants to hear it or not.  Some people create blogs to share ideas and thoughts with others as part of a community.  They require comments and sharing from the audience so that the whole community may learn and grow together. Still others create a blog for themselves and see it as more reflective.  They do no require comments and their audience does not matter to them. Blogging for the purposes of a class is unique because it is not voluntary and must meet course requirements.  It is also publishing your learning in a public venue.  

I considered starting a blog at the beginning of my career as a way to reflect on and share what I was doing in my classroom, but feared that I wouldn't have time to keep up with it.  Now I have started a blog.  When I first began I was at a loss of how to address my audience (To be honest, I'm still figuring that out).  I've decided to keep this more narrative and steam of thought. As I continue through this class I will be doing a lot of reflecting on how I use various web tools in my classroom.  I am hoping to share ideas with an audience of my fellow classmates and anyone else out there who is interested in my thoughts.  I am also hoping to develop and foster a sense of community with my fellow classmates as we will all be exploring the same tools. I would appreciate any comments and feedback, so we may share our learning.  So with all of that being said I have a few questions.

What blogs do you follow?  Why do you follow them?

I follow several women who are primary elementary teachers.  I love reading their blogs and getting new ideas for classroom set-up, activities, new strategies.  I feel a part of a community of learning and sharing when I read and comment on these.  Some of my favorites are:

http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/

http://fun-in-first.blogspot.com/

http://www.stepinto2ndgrade.com/

Top Web Tools

In December 2014 the Edublog published a list of the best of the web in education.  I found the list of top free web tools to be very interesting.  I had heard of many including:

This is one of my all time favorite apps!  I'm not going to lie, I may be slightly addicted to Pinterest.  I use this app for all aspects of my life, but I mostly use it for planning lessons for my classroom.  It is so easy to hop on Pinterest and search whatever topic I am planning for new and creative ideas.  

My school district recently made the jump to all things Google.  While I am still learning all the components and possibilities available to me, I have to say what I know is simply amazing.  I can't wait to discover what else I can do in Google!

Symbaloo has recently replaced my portaportal website.  It allows you to collect all your favorite websites and apps in one place for students to use and explore.  It is a great organizational tool for your classroom!

I am familiar with Dropbox, however I do not use it for classroom purposes.  I mostly use it for sharing pictures and videos with friends and family.

Do any of you use these tools in your classroom?  How do you use them?

I had heard of a few other tools from the list like Padlet and Class Dojo, but I don't currently use them in my classroom.  I'm hoping to learn more about these tools throughout the course of this semester.

 

Do any of you have any advice or thoughts on how to use these apps in your classroom?

I hope you all enjoy your long weekend and are able to relax!

~Jess

Introduction

Hi everyone! My name is Jess Cable.  I can't believe I started a blog!  I teach second grade at Apple Pie Ridge Elementary School.  I just began my 7th year of teaching!  I moved to Winchester 6 years ago after graduating from King's College.  I was born and raised in New Jersey, but I'm happy to call Virginia home now.  I love to teach math, which ironically was my worst subject growing up.  Some of my hobbies include crafting, reading, and photography.  I am excited to learn about new technology available to use in my classroom this semester. 

Happy Blogging!