My Journey Through Cool Tools and Beyond

Although I did not accomplish as many activities as last year. Each one I explored more in depth and applied with my staff and students for longer time with more complete activities. What I have especially enjoyed about cool tools is that each year the materials are new and relevant to the needs of the students and the staff. I know that I enjoy being a forever learner and I was able to share that love with my students and staff this year as they shared these lessons with me.  I am so grateful for such an amazing and invaluable resource and I hope to have the opportunity to continue learning next year as well. Thank you for all you do !!!

This activity was beyond helpful for myself and the staff . There are so many resources that I had to stop going teacher to teacher to tell them about them and I just made a file them according to projects I knew were being used and gave the resources out individually as the teacher's came seeking resources. Many teacher's were using similar products but appreciated having it all in google and being able to use them across curriculum- instead of having to toggle between different apps. We also discussed that gone are the days that google is a dirty word among educators. There is no limit to what you can achieve within google and our school has become a google school. So, this stretched us to commit even a little more to what google had to offer. My buried treasure in this activity was the discovery of Shake Up Learning. I have so many ideas bookmarked that if I retired in twenty years I would never get to them all. I am so excited to continue exploring the many possi

When asking my third and fourth graders about apps they were quickly versed in games that they were allowed to download onto their parents phones but were unaware that the apps on chrome books were considered apps. They just assumed that the computers came that way and had no idea that they could have these on their home computers. I borrowed from different areas of our school ipads, chrome books, tablets,desktops and laptops. This gave students the opportunity to see what each electronic had to offer. They spent 3 weeks using different types of electronics and apps and then were asked to pick one and tell me one project that they could complete with the available apps on their device type. By the end of the three weeks students were thinking beyond games to videos, news reports, science displays, virtual field trips, art, and ebooks and poetry.  Students also started coming in with names of apps that they liked using at home because they were exploring independently. One b

SOCIAL READING AND BOOK STUFF The Concept of Social Reading originally brought to mind reading for pleasure. As I learned more I realized that especially on the elementary level this was a concept that I had never explored. Everything I tried to develop became too structured and reflected pair share reading. This was too much like school work. Then I tried s digital book club but it was still too teacher led and not a social setting. So then with my 3rd and 4th graders I provided a venue in both lab and library who just wanted to talk about books they liked to meet. At first they just met and it was total chaos but as they started to listen to each other they decided they really wanted to share and read books. They realized that they had interests in things that they had never even thought of. They suggested books for future book orders and  explored places they could read them online for the time being. The amount of teachable moments that developed out of the opportunity t