*Photo courtesy*


I saw this article pop up on my Facebook feed today. Have you ever heard of the website called Mashable? It's a tech-news website that covers the latest "news, information & resources." (http://mashable.com/about/)

They published an article today entitled "14 Google Tools You Didn't Know Existed." I decided to check the article out to see if any of these Google Tools could be utilized in the classroom. For the past year and a half, I've been utilizing Google Docs and Google Drive and both have come in handy!

There were a few I found that could possibly work:

Schemer - A website that shows you things to do in your local area. The article recommends this as being a great tool for travelers. Of course the teacher in me thinks this would be great to use for virtual field trips!

Google Fonts-  Google has made 629 fonts available for private and commercial use. How cool is that!? I will definitely have to use it in the near future for this website. I think a great idea would be to allow students to choose their own font (readable, of course) and use it to write stories in class.

Google Developers- I briefly checked out this website and have bookmarked it to explore it a bit further. The article says that Google Developers is multi-faceted.  It allows you to internationalize websites and give live presentations of tutorials. I'm thinking this would be a great tool to use for a Flipped Classroom concept.

Google Keep- Google Keep connects to your Google Drive. (Google Drive deserves a separate post in itself, it is a wonderful tool!) Google Keep lets you store memos, voice memos, pictures, and check lists. This would be a great tool to use for group projects. Students could store their pictures, make memos, and utilize check lists in order to gather information.

Above are some of the goodies that came to me in the mail this past week through Amazon and Half.com. I had some graduation money to spend (thanks Dad and Mom!) so I thought I would get a jump start on adding some good educational reads to my collection. I'll be adding these to my Goodreads account.

Have you ever tried Goodreads before? It's a great website for book recommendations. I will link my account here once I start up my education Goodreads account. I can't wait to read all of these! I am currently reading a young adult read "City of Bones" by Cassandra Clare. The movie is coming out in August and I am really excited! I am also reading "Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness in Room 56." So far I really like it. The book is written by Rafe Esquith, an educator who taught in the Los Angeles public school district. He shares methods and practices to use in the classroom. I look forward to discussing more about these later. If you are looking for educational reads, I highly recommend trying Half.com first. This source is great for school teachers on a budget who can't always afford to pay the publisher's price of a book. Plus, the books get recycled from one owner to another :) Who doesn't love that!?

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of participating in an all day workshop at Rowan University for education majors who would be graduating in May. I was very excited to attend my first workshop as an educator and now that I've gone through the workshop, I am excited to implement some of the strategies I learned about into my own future classroom!

"What is a responsive classroom?" According to the Northeast Foundation for Children, Inc. "The Responsive Classroom approach is  a way of teaching that fosters safe, challenging, and joyful elementary schools. Developed by classroom teachers, this approach consists of practical strategies for bringing together social and academic learning through the school day." (Responsive Classroom Introductory Resource book)

 A lot of the elementary schools I've observed in the South Jersey area have some form of morning meeting. Morning meeting is a time that is normally set at the beginning of the school day. This is a time where the teacher and students sit together (ie: on a classroom rug) greet each other, go over the daily schedule, and perhaps discuss  certain strategies or participate in a mini-activity regarding a subject area they are currently working on. This particular strategy is one that I think is very important to implement in the classroom as it is a time where the students can sit together in a more intimate setting and work on strategies that help to envelop what  a learning community is.

The Responsive classroom workshop emphasized how important it is that students have this particular time to  be "active and explore" their classroom environment.  During the workshop, I got to interact with the workshop participants by modeling how a morning meeting would be conducted. The  presenter of the workshop was a former elementary teacher who gave us great strategies on what we could do during morning meeting such as using different  morning greetings ie: Going around the circle, having a student be greeted by the person sitting beside them the student responding to that greeting, and then having the student greet the other beside them until everyone had gone around the circle.

There can also be other greeting strategies implemented such as this:

I loved how this particular teacher goes over expected behavior and suggestions to the students in order for this strategy to be implemented effectively and safely. In a responsive classroom, students get the opportunity to hear why they will do the activity, have it modeled, and can reflect back on the activity.

Another aspect we discussed in the responsive classroom is using energizers. Prior to this workshop, I was unfamiliar with the term and perhaps you are too. Energizers can best be described as "brain breaks." A responsive classroom means that learning is a social activity for our students. Students need to be given "breaks" throughout the day. This can be done with lots of activities. Here is a great video that shows some of these strategies:

As you can see, these strategies don't have to take long at all. At most they would take about 2-3 minutes. If you would like to see more strategies, click here.
I like this particular strategy because there are lots of ways to implement energizers in the classroom and we all know that sometimes the students (and even us) need a moment to get out of our chairs, recharge our brain, and stretch! I understand this now more than ever having just completed  my student teaching in a preschool and first grade classroom. Those little ones have a lot of energy and as one of my cooperating teachers told me, "Be prepared to have a lot of tricks up your sleeves!" I look forward to seeing which energizers I will be implementing in my classroom.

Other topics covered in the workshop consisted of talking about discipline and interactive learning structures. Wow! I didn't expect this post to be so long but I learned a lot within 6-7 hours :). I will briefly go over each. The workshop participants modeled different scenarios of discipline between a teacher and student. The responsive classroom method emphasizes that both the teacher and students share power and control. I'm sure your eyebrows are arching up by now. Stay with me here.... this strategy stresses that both teachers and student "build on their capabilities." It is the teacher's job to respect the child, proactively discuss expected behaviors with the students and model  so that students are visually aware what the boundaries and expectations are. It is also a teacher's duty to implement "logical consequences" and give the student flexibility to learn from unexpected behavior and regain their "self control."

It is a student's responsibility to engage in a positive manner with teachers and their peers. They should trust their teachers. (I think this is a big aspect and one that I would like to touch on later in a different post.) Students should strive for self-respect and learn to abide by rules set forth for the classroom. In my classroom, I want to set it up so that the students create some of their own rules and consequences. I believe this is a great way for them to be engaged  and take ownership for their actions in the classroom.

During the workshop I also learned about various ways I could make my classroom more interactive. I had implemented several of these strategies in my own teaching. At Rowan (the college where I graduated from) there was a heavy emphasis on differentiated instruction. Switching your teaching style up a bit to meet all student's learning needs. Small group activities, utilizing sensory materials, allowing time for plenty of practice (this can be implemented in morning meetings) and give students an opportunity for reflection and feedback were all highly encouraged.

If you have a chance to attend a responsive classroom workshop, I highly encourage it.
                                                         

*citation source* Responsive Classroom Introductory Overview Resource Book