Thank You Aviva!!!!

Aviva, Aviva, Aviva – I hope you can hear my admiration in this. I am so impressed by what Aviva is doing with her students. I want to take her class!! Can I regress, please, please, please, please!!!!

These are the sites that when you read them, you get inspired as a teacher to do better for your students. Learning about the different tools allows you as a teacher to empower students to become responsible for their own learning. I say thank you to Aviva and to all other teachers who are so willing to share their learning’s with others. We can only grow as professionals if we are willing to share and learn from each other.

Aviva’s site contains numerous ideas about how to incorporate technology tools into the classroom which in turns allows for students to practice reading, writing, arithmetic, collaboration, communication skills, and creativity skills – just to name a few. Being a secondary teacher, you may think that I would not be able to apply much of what Aviva is doing for her 1^st and 2^nd graders. Oh how wrong that it to assume this. I can easily see using Twitter with my 9 – 12 graders to help increase their writing skills as well as their etiquette skills while being on- line. The unfortunate thing right now is our district is apprehensive about using Twitter in the classroom. I am working at it though, and I am one that does not give up. I am going to have to share the video administrator Justin Tarte created called, "Why Educators should be using Twitter- Justin Tarte" - Thanks Aviva.

It is also very inspiring to see all the tools she is using with her students as collaboration activities.

Group Blog

Narrative eBook Project

Kindergarten Around the World

Like Aviva, I am using  Edmodo in my classroom. I have been using it as a classroom organizer of assignments, due dates, and notices as well as a way to communicate to the students, other teachers and parents. I never thought of having the students use it as a writing tool. Thank you Aviva!

I am also using a blog in our classroom, Kidblog. It has become another important tool in our classroom. I will be moving toward using another program next year, but started with the simplicity of Kidblog to see how it would work in our classroom. I have been pleasantly surprised at how engaging the students are with it and how they look forward to the next blog. They have never complained about blogging but they seem to complain about writing papers even though the questions are not questions and/or responses are not composed differently, they still are doing the same work. Overall the students have enjoyed posting their ideas, thoughts and learning’s. Next year, like Aviva I will have the kids create and run the blog posts and replies.  

Aviva shares so many ideas that she is doing in the classroom that can be tweaked to your content or grade level, your imagination is the only thing that will hold you back (or your district at times, but don’t let that stop you from exploring options). Thanks Aviva!

The one thing that caught my eye on Aviva’s site, and that I have been thinking a lot about lately, is how to make a virtual connection in our classroom. I want the student to experience the world outside of their “world.” I have been thinking how and with whom we can Skype with. I have ideas and have been reaching out to others and I am sure something will happen.  But recently a new, more exciting idea came to me when I was playing around with our new iPads. And then after reading Aviva’s site about how she had become a virtual mentor, something clicked (very excitedly I will say). What about having my students become Mentors to younger kids either within their districts, community, and/or world? If I can find the right teacher, we can set up times where the students can talk with each other on a one-to-one bases as well as group conversations. WOW! And for my students of Early Childhood Education, they can apply what they are learning by the interaction they are having with their Mentees. I thought of using the iPads. so they can have more of a personal arena, of course it would be nice if the connecting students had iPads. but it is not necessary. Oh and of course right now we don’t have Wi-Fi, so Skyping may have to be the tool of choice. But it can work…..time to get networking.

This is when I say Thank You to all the Aviva’s out there that share their ideas and allow us as teachers to become creative about the learning process.

What do you think about my idea? Do you see any concerns about trying this? Do you have ideas of how I can network this idea? What did you find of interest from Aviva’s site? What things can you see yourself using in the classroom and how will you tweak it toward your content or grade level?