The Journey of Presenting at a Conference(for the First Time!)

Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center at http://goo.gl/mN130I

    Before I even started teaching almost three years ago,  I attended conferences about education, technology, working with students with special needs, and bullying.  I have always enjoyed learning and applying what I have learned at conferences in the classroom.  I never feel like I leave a session at a conference feeling like I learned nothing.  I even idolized many of people that I have seen present and it inspired me to step outside of my original thinking of "I will never be one of those people talking in front of others."  I always told myself that I was too shy to present in front of groups of people or I was afraid that I would make a big mistake and look silly presenting.

    This year I decided that I would attempt to present at a conference.  I originally was thinking about presenting at MACUL(Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning) Conference in Detroit in one of their Spark Session but I wasn't sure what I was going to present on at that time.  There is so much I wanted to share, I didn't know where to start.  That is when I thought about MACUL's Mobile Learning Conference that I attended last year.  They had smaller sessions compared to the large groups at MACUL Conference.  I thought it would be a great place to start.
    It was hard to decide what topic to talk about at a conference but then I remembered...Co-Teaching with Technology is not talked about much.  Co-Teaching and technology is something I do an a daily basis at Albion Community School in several different classes.  I am passionate about keeping my students in the least restrictive environment and using a variety of tools to help them succeed.  I knew this is something I would love to share with others.  I also thought it would be amazing if I could get one of my co-teachers to co-teach this session with me.  That is when I submitted a session to talk about co-teaching and technology.

Source: https://mobilelearningconference2015.sched.org/
Screenshot of the description of our session

    A couple of weeks later, I received an e-mail stating that my proposal for a session has been accepted.  I was more than excited.  I told everyone I knew that I would be presenting at a conference with some great co-teachers.  I had a lot to do.  I had to decided with my co-teachers how to present the information we wanted to share.  I spent many days over Spring Break pulling together pictures and screenshots of our students works.  The co-teachers and I also collaborated several times over Facebook.  We then decided to set up a meeting at Panera Bread to discuss the slides and other tools that we wanted to add to our slides.
    Once we came back from Spring Break, we had 4 days to make sure we were ready to present at the Mobile Learning Conference.  I have always thought it was important for students to teach others about what they are learning and doing in the classroom.  The 4th grade co-teacher and I decided that we would select a couple of students to explain how to use some of the tools we use in math on a daily basis.  When word got out that the students were going to be recorded and it would be posted on the internet, everyone in her class wanted to make a video.

Student Explains Front Row Education- Frontrowed.com 

A Student Explains IXL- IXL.com

     Once Friday came we were ready to go.  I felt a little nervous but I went through my presentation enough times that I knew I could do it.  When we arrived to Kalamazoo RESA, Donna, the co-teacher that was presenting with me, and I checked out the room that we were going to present in.  It all felt real at that moment.  This was going to be my first time talking in front of a group of people I didn't know.  Yes, I have presented at PDs at my school but this felt like a different world.  I was ready and I knew that I could do this.  I knew what I was going to talk about and I had a desire to let others know what cool things my students were doing.

Donna and I right before we presented

    9:45 rolled around and the presentation began.  Donna and I ready to go.  We had QR codes posted around the room for access to our presentation and I tweeted the Google Slides out on Twitter.  We team taught during this presentation.  We took turns talking about things we were doing in our classrooms.  Once and a while we would add on to what each other was saying about the presentation.  It was a great demonstration of what co-teaching looks like in the classroom.  People asked questions and gave comments about what they are doing in their classroom, and also gave suggestions for what else we could be doing.  It felt like we were having a discussion with the people that came to our presentation.

Small but very involved group!

    When our session was over I knew I wanted to present again.  I enjoyed sharing what we were doing in our classroom and talking with others about what they were doing or could be doing in their classroom.  Some people even told me if I present once, I am going to want to do it again.  They all are right.  I will be presenting again in Chelsea at the Chelsea School District Early Childhood Technology Conference.
Check out our presentation on Co-Teaching and Technology here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WLHyI73hZOPCLLC3enY1koPBmBqwe5uXF6slQDiFwjc/edit?usp=sharing

 
    

Questioning is Learning

Source: http://pixabay.com/en/foot-question-universal-being-450370/

    Students are always asking questions.  Some people, especially parents and teachers, don't like kids asking them questions.  Questions can make adults feel like they are being challenged by the child or inadequate because they don't have the answers.  Questions can be viewed as annoying or a time to say, "just do what I say," or "listen to me because I...."  I can sympathize with some adults, sometimes too many questions can get overwhelming but if we view questions as students wanting to learn about us, the situation, or even what to do next time, our views on questioning will change.

Source:  Matt Reinbold on Flickr at http://goo.gl/05DSOO

    I believe, and I know many other people agree with me, that we should celebrate questions.  Questions represents that they want to know more and wanting to know more means they want to learn.  Isn't that one of our goal as teachers, or even adults, is to teach or be great role models the younger generation?  If we don't allow students to question they may become gullible and uninterested in all the beauty of the world.  We want the youth of our world to ask questions and explore.  That is how they develop and understand who they are as a person.  This will help them find their place in the world.  As adults we should support our kids and students exploration through questioning.  

     Sometimes I feel like I am being asked so many questions from my students that I can't keep up!  I always respond with "I will keep your question and get back with you."  I even had my student write their questions down on the board or Post-It but then I had to make mistakes by losing their question or someone accidentally erasing their question from the board.  The best answer I had to this problem was technology.  I decided at that moment I needed to create a Wonder Wall.  I created the Wonder Wall on Padlet.  This is a place for students to post all their question they have.  We then take time every other week to research and explore their questions.  If they can't find the answers to their questions, I will then help.  I have even jumped on Twitter to ask ColAR app questions about a bird on one of their coloring pages and received a response from a creator of the app.  The Wonder Wall is also a great place for us to record our research results and share it with the other classes.  The students have found the Wonder Wall to be very helpful and powerful.  Students no longer feel like they may forget their question or afraid to ask a question.  They now can just post it to our Padlet and we will get to it later.  I am welcoming my students questions because I want to encourage them to learn through questioning.

    

A Hunt for Adjectives

     Students in my 3rd grade resource room have been working hard on reading, writing, and identifying adjectives.  We looked for adjectives in sentences we were reading in books.  We described pictures using adjectives.  We described things we saw in our lives around us using adjectives.  We used the ColAR app and describe our coloring pages that came to life.  We even used our 5 senses to talk about adjectives by eating food like grapes and pop rocks(I will post more pictures soon).  Soon, we will be learning about cocoa (because that is something our students wanted to learn and we posted on our Wonder Wall) and trying out.  I am pretty sure we will be talking about adjectives then too(they don't know what REAL dark chocolate and cocoa tastes like).

Students on a hunt for adjectives

    One of the projects we did to wrap up our adjective unit was go on an adjective hunt.  Each student was given an iPad and sent out into the school for about 7-10 minutes in search of things they wanted to take pictures of to describe.  To manage the time they took on this activity, I had their timers set up on their iPads, so they knew when to return to class. Students LOVED this activity.  They had so many pictures.  I had to convince them to only choose between 4-6 pictures.
    Once the students picked out the pictures they wanted to use, we listed adjectives to describe their pictures.  The graphic organizer for this activity is located at http://www.fcrr.org/studentactivities/v_007a.pdf. When they completed the list, we edited it by checking their spelling.  We practiced sounding out the words and finding word patterns in the words. If they did not know how to spell it completely, I taught them how to use spell check features using technology like Google.  I had the students see if the picture of their item matched up what they were trying to spell. 

    Finally, when they had their words spelled correctly, I had the students get onto pizap and text to their pictures.

    Pizap was very easy for my students to use.  They really enjoyed the all the creative features that were available on Pizap.  Some of the students edited one picture with me and could upload pictures from the computer onto Pizap quickly without my help.   On a side note, As student were working on finishing their project a student said, "Miss Breneman, are you going to post this on the internet?"  I said, "well, of course!  You guys are doing such a great job at this."  He responded, "Well, good!  Are you going to post it on Twitter?"  I said excitedly, "Most definitely!  I have to tell the world how awesome my students are.  You guys did all this hard work and had fun doing it, might as well share it!"  He smiled.  I could tell that he found more value in doing this unit now that he knew people outside of the school would see his finished product

    When the students were finished with editing their pictures, I had my Maymester student from Albion College record the students introducing themselves and their pictures.  I gave them an option of a scripted introduction or they could make up one of their own.  Many of the students wanted to do the scripted recording this time.  I think next time I am going to tell them they have create their own script.  Since this was the first time around, I wanted my students to feel comfortable speaking.

    When all pieces were finished, I pulled all the videos and recordings together and created a video using iMovie.  The video turned out great!  Please take a moment to view it and feel free to comment on their video on this blog.  I told my students I would share some of the comments that I get about their video.