Open Education Resources: Sharing is Caring

In the TEDxNYED Video with David Wiley, he talks about the importance of open education. He begins by defining openness in education as being synonymous with being generous. He goes on to say that openness in education is the only way to do education. I completely agree with this statement. Since STEAM does not have Common Core or state standards yet, I rely a lot on the lesson ideas of other teachers. I am very thankful that teachers who have developed their own lessons have been willing to share them for free. Starting out as a young, new teacher, paying for resources does not usually fit into my budget. Going off of being a new teacher struggling to pay for bills let alone resources, it is hard to share my resources for free. Websites like Teachers Pay Teachers, make it easy to sell and share resources. I am guilty of only choosing the free resources that are provided on this site. So this makes me wonder whether the TPT site is a great way to share resources or is it creating even more of the "anti-share" or "mine" mentality. Comment below or tweet me about your thoughts, because I really don't know how I feel about it anymore. 

I can understand the "anti-share" mentality. We feel that since we have worked so hard on our lessons, sharing with anyone else lets others take credit for our work. We also feel over-worked and under-paid at times that we feel that we deserve a monetary supplement for our resources. As mentioned above, I'm not sure how I feel about this idea anymore. After watching the video of David Wiley, I have begun to realize that sharing your ideas doesn't make you lose your credibility or ownership of a lesson, it provides a plethora of ideas given by other educators to improve your teaching. It can also open the door to communication between educators in your field, in return giving you resources that they can provide. Isn't learning what we are here for? We want it to happen in our classroom with our students, so why shouldn't it happen among teachers as well? Even though we may feel that by sharing we are losing ourselves or our work for nothing, we can walk into a generous amount of tested resources. What are your views on Open Education Resources and Sharing? Let me know below. 

You can expect me to talk more about this topic in the near future. I am looking forward to hearing your responses as this has been a rather grey area for me.  

Talk soon!

Dare to Un-Chair: Challenge Accepted

In October I received an email about a new blog post from my favorite website, "The Art of Education". This blog post was titled, " 5 Compelling Reasons to Get Rid of Chairs in Your Room". This title really intrigued me, so I decided to check it out. After reading the 5 reasons that removing chairs from the art room, I decided to give it a try with my next fifth grade class. At first, the older students complained about having to stand but then they began to really enjoy not having chairs. My younger students immediately liked it because they are able to reach their projects much better than when using tables and chairs that are big enough for the upper-grade-level students but not small enough for them. 

After four months of having a chair-less classroom this is what I have noticed:

1. Behavior problems have decreased, attention during lessons has increased. 
• Many of my students are paying better attention by standing and listening to me because they are able to move and stand comfortably in awhile that best suites them. This limits student distractions. I have watched some of my more difficult students strive in my class ever since I have taken away the chairs.
2. Project quality has increased.
• Since the removal of chairs, I have found that the quality of work students turn in has dramatically increased. I don't really have an explanation for this. Maybe they are getting more blood flow to their brain or able to work at an angle that is better, I'm really not sure. All I know is that the work has been so much more creative and at a higher quality. Which at an elementary level, is hard to achieve. 
3. Your colleagues will either walk into your room and think you're a genius or walk in and think you are crazy. 
• Whenever someone who doesn't know that I have decided to remove the chairs from my room walks into my room, one of two reactions occur. They are either horrified and worried that someone must have taken my chairs and I should try to get them back, or they think its a really cool idea. When my principal walked in the first time without students I think he was skeptical, he did the infamous, "mm hmm" and walked out. Now that he has watched the students in progress and has realized a set-up like this is the pure definition of differentiation, he is a believer and supporter of the idea.  

It was definitely a risk to remove chairs from my classroom, but I am definitely glad that I did it. Now, I let the students have a choice. Some students will grab a chair but usually they prefer to work without one. I have enjoyed the creativity that has come from my students in this classroom setup. I'm looking forward to what's to come. I encourage you to take a risk in your classroom, you never know what may happen. 

Using the Internet to Benefit Teaching

In the last post I mentioned that I was building my professional learning network or PLN for my graduate class. Even though creating a PLN was a requirement for my class, I am beginning to see its importance in my professional development as a teacher. My last post is a good example of how through someone else sharing a lesson idea, my mind was able to think of a lesson that would benefit my STEAM classroom.

As I am exploring the world of blogging as a teacher, I am beginning to see the benefits and complications of sharing my work. In a world that is abundant of social media and technology, I feel that it only makes sense for teachers and leaders to use these outlets to share their work.  Sharing online comes with a lot of responsibility. In my undergraduate studies we were told that all of our social media needs to maintain a professional atmosphere. As educators we are constantly under a microscope in the community because other people put their trust in us to lead and teach their children. When posting in a blog, it is also important to maintain professionalism. Deciding what to share and what not to share is a big component of maintaining a professional environment. In the STEAM field, I find it difficult to find lessons that are purely STEAM. I can easily find STEM lessons or art lessons, but rarely find ones that combine the two. Sharing lessons that worked in the classroom can help other educators by providing ideas. Also sharing what may have been tried but did not seem to work out can also help a teacher not repeat the same mistakes. 

I think using blogs and social media is a great way to quickly get information into the world. With social media, comes great responsibility. It is important to be cautious about releasing anything personal in your professional network, especially when it involves children. When using a video, it is especially important that the proper measures according to the school district have been followed.

I hope to share more of my ideas on this blog and in my PLN. I have definitely benefited from others sharing their ideas with me, so I want to do the same.   

The Superb Owl: A STEAM Lesson

If college had no cost, I would be a life-long student. I love learning, I especially enjoy going back to school to get my master's degree. So far, every class I have taken has been beneficial and interesting. the past couple of weeks I have been attending a class on Instructional Technology. It has been really interesting and I have enjoyed establishing my professional learning network or PLN. In attempt to establish my PLN, I have begun reading blogs from many different educational sources. I use Feedly.com, a website suggested by my professor, to filter all the topics that interest me into folders that make finding information easier. While on Feedly, I found a blog called, "The Superb Owl - A Science Lesson With a Super Bowl Theme". I watched the video the blog shared and decided to create my own STEAM-inspired lesson to teach my kindergarten and first graders the week after the big game.

The "Superb Owl" idea came from the wonderful minds at the blog "Free Technology For Teachers". The article starts with a video on the superb owl. I started my lesson by asking my students if they watched the Super Bowl and if they had a favorite sports team. After assessing the class through a quick class discussion we watched the video. 

After watching the video, we discussed the important physical features of owls. I listed what the students came up with on the board. We talked about big eyes, a beak, feathers, and ears. I drew an example of an owl on the board. After we talked about owls I encouraged the students to think about what kind of activities they enjoyed. We made a list of these on the board. Some examples were swimming, soccer, football, cheer leading, gymnastics, etc. After our list was created I encouraged the students to draw an owl and turn it into doing something that was human, comparing this to the video. 

So far, my students have only drawn the owl as an athlete with a pencil. One of the requirements of the drawing was that it needed to take up the entire page. Next week I plan to have the students add color to their drawings. Once I have finished projects I will post a picture. 

My First Post

Hello digital world! My name is Elizabeth but to the 950 students I see a week, I’m known as Miss James. I currently teach S.T.E.A.M. for the elementary (kindergarten to fifth grade) students in my district. For those of you who are unfamiliar with S.T.E.A.M. it stands for science, technology, engineering, art and math.  A typical day for me is seeing a couple classes of all six grades and teaching them a fun and creative project that explores the concepts of science, technology, engineering and math.

Aside from teaching, I am pursuing my master’s degree in art education with a K-12 Licensure from the University of Akron. I graduated from Baldwin Wallace University with a bachelor’s of science in early childhood education with the 4-5 endorsement. Changing my major eight times before becoming an education major actually prepared me to teach S.T.E.A.M. My previous majors included forensic science, digital media, an art minor, and a couple others. The main three I listed provided me with introductory classes in forensic science, two-dimensional design, drawing and computer science, all of which I adapt and include in many of my lessons.

Beyond a classroom, you can find me on the soccer field. I coach U-10 girls’ soccer, mostly year round. When I’m not coaching, I’m playing on my own adult league. I am very passionate about soccer. It has been a part of my life since the young age of 3. I hope to instill the same love for the sport in all of my girls through coaching them. I would love to see them continue their soccer journey through high school and even beyond.

Now that you know a little bit about me, let’s talk about social media in the classroom and outside the classroom. First I will tell you about the social media I use. As of now, I don’t use much social media in my class but I find Weebly and Google Classroom to be great tools that enhance my teaching and parent communication. Weebly is a blog site that many educators use. I use it as a way to keep my parents informed of what their children are doing in my class and to give parents an opportunity to volunteer their time to help with different special events. I also use Weebly as a landing site for my students, so they can find different links we use in class, without having to type in a long URL.

Google classroom is another great tool that I use in my classroom. Now that I have netbooks instead of Chromebooks, I will admit I do not use it as much as I did last year. It is hard for elementary students to type in their full email rather than just their username, a requirement of a Netbook over a Chromebook.

In my personal life, I am constant user of Pinterest and Snapchat. I also have accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr, I use these sparingly. Pinterest gives me so many ideas, from classroom management, to lessons and even what to make for dinner. It has such a variety that I can always find something new to add to my board. Snapchat I enjoy because I live a great distance from many of my friends and family, this app lets us see each other briefly without having to block out a chunk of time for a video chat.

Now, let’s go back to social media in the classroom. At 25, I am not far removed from the teenagers in high school today. I also grew up while technology was beginning to take over the world. I remember when the original social media of Myspace came out and AOL Instant Messenger. As a teenager, many of my social interactions with my peers would end with a conversation about either our away statuses on “AIM” (AOL Instant messenger) or what we saw someone post on Myspace. After reading “A Teenager’s View on Social Media” from the blog Backchannel, I have found that teenagers still have the same mindset about social media, they just have more options. Coming from an elementary teacher’s perspective, what the author says about his peers using Instagram above everything else is also true about elementary aged students. I hear many of my students talking about their Instagram accounts. another popular account for them, according to the author, is Snapchat.

As an educator, I feel that it is important to be familiar with social media. Being informed about the different apps and websites available increases my app database but also helps me to monitor appropriate conversations and content in my classroom. In another blogpost, “My FavoriteTeacher’s Use Social Media: A Student Perspective” written by Katie Benmar from the blog Education Week, she talks about how her attention is much better on a teacher who uses SMART Boards or allows them to use their social media in class to enhance their learning, because chances are if they are not paying attention they are already on their social media anyway. I agree with this statement. I have a very short attention span, I can easily lose focus and get caught up in something else, unless I have a task or am watching something that is attention grabbing, like a new technology. The only downfall of using my own social media in class as a student would be that with my short attention span I could easily get distracted by the other things that are not related to the lesson showing up in my newsfeed. I feel that many students can relate to this problem, so instead of enhancing a lesson with social media, it has actually made the students even more distracted.

I feel that when using social media it needs to be a school specific or class specific source, rather than using a personal account. With a strictly school account, it limits the distractions for students and also provides a safer learning environment. Of course, there are still going to be students who abuse their privilege of using social media in class, this is where knowing about the social media your class is using is beneficial.