Class Dojo Review

It is hard to teach when your students are out of control and are disruptive to the classroom environment. You can spend more time disciplining students than you do teaching. This is unfair to the rest of your students who need you to dedicate as much time as possible to their academic success.

Personally, I feel that you must have an arsenal of techniques and strategies to effectively manage your classroom. If you have been teaching for any time, you know that what works one day can be a disaster the next.

If you have a tried and true strategy that has less than desirable results or you may want to start your new school year off with something new, it may be time to add Classdojo to your arsenal.

Classdojo uses technology to track a student's behavior. For those of us who love to implement technology in our classrooms, this is another way to engage the students in their learning environment. You can assign each student an avatar and administer either a reward or consequence from your computer, smartboard, or even more convenient your cellphone.

Students are able to monitor their status as they go through the day. As students see their results on the screen it prompts them to correct any unwanted behavior or continue in a good behavior that has been recognized. No student wants to be last or have points deducted on a video game and they are not going to want to have a less the stellar review projected on a board.

Classdojo is just one more tool that can effectively help you manage your classroom. With a few short signup steps, you will be on your way to a more tech savvy way to give your students the most productive classroom experience.

TourWrist Review

Last week I attended the Virginia Department of Education's From Vision to Practice Conference. During a session facilitated by iSchool Initiatives, a wonderful group of young people from Kennesaw State University, who are touring the country demonstrating how ipad apps can be used in the classroom, introduced us to the app TourWrist.

The TourWrist app is, in my opinion, a great app for two reasons. First, the app allows students to view other parts of the world. They can see landmarks, schools, businesses, entertainment, and other points of interest, all without leaving the classroom. It exposes them to elements beyond their community, circle of friends, and imagination. It shows them things that they may not see in everyday life and sets up discussions or comparisons of elements that are typical everywhere and elements that are not.

This tool is also wonderful when used as a writing prompt. Students can write about what they have observed or what was missing or not a part of the shot. Students are visual and instead of writing a prompt on the board, they can view their prompt using the TourWrist app. They can create a story about a portion of what they saw. For example, one person viewed a tour which looked like some sort of costume party. They could write about one character at the party, the host of the party, or they could be creative and write a complete story around what they have viewed.

I would recommend that educators explore this app and find ways to incorporate it into their language arts and history lesson plans. It is a great way to incorporate technology that our students are already using and expanding their experience beyond the classroom.

Carrot Sticks and Gooru Math Websites

Carrotsticks.com

Carrot Sticks, a Mathematics based website for elementary students, grades 1 -5. Students can create their own characters and used them while practicing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. The site provides several levels of difficulty that students can advance through and allows teachers to track their progress. In addition teachers can differentiate according to the students' needs by starting them on a level that is conducive to the child's level of learning.

The site is free to teachers giving them unlimited access between 7am and 3pm and has very good rates for those that would like to subscribe.

This is a great website for the learner that has difficulty remembering basic math facts. This site provides rigorous practice in a format that students can relate to.

Goorulearning.org

Gooru, a Mathematics and Science based website for 5th - 12th grade students. It offers students and teachers a variety of featured resources to include a discussion board, videos, interactive activities, websites, and slides. It is also has digital textbooks, animation, a note taking tab as well as assessments for student learning. Teachers can setup their students by using the classroom feature.

The information presented is based on the Core Curriculum Standards as well as California Science Curriculum Standards.

For these and more math websites click on the link below.

http://www.pearltrees.com/switch2teach/mathematic-websites/id4553214

Please give readers your feedback on these websites or if you know of others send your suggestions to authorsmouthpiece@gmail.com or respond to this post.

Sharing Our Resources

During every teacher meeting/training that I have attended, teachers are more than willing to share the resources that they have found and used in their classrooms. Many of these resources include websites that allow students an interactive experience in the topic that is being taught. Some websites even allow teachers to assign graded activities and track students progress.

I have listed many websites in my book, Corporate to Classroom: A Career Switchers Guide to Teaching, but there are new websites being introduced all of the time. That being said, I am going to change the focus of this blog to share some of the websites that I or others have found useful in their classrooms.

If you have a website that you have found useful, please email authorsmouthpiece@gmail.com or respond to this entry and I will post in full or in part your experiences.

I will post one or more reviews or informational blurbs every Sunday. Let's help our students learn through mediums that they use daily. Technology is helping our students and teachers keep up with the times.

See you Sunday!

Do Not Lump Our Students Into One Category

It is a sad turn of events when an educator starts to lump our children into one category by making haphazard statements that every child of a certain race, ethnic group, or physical or mental disability cannot accomplish what other groups or communities can. This educator is indiscriminately grouping all of our children together instead of looking at their unique strengths and abilities.

Some of our students may not have the exposure or rich experiences as some of their counterparts. It should be our mission to give them exposure and rich experiences by weaving it into our lessons. Make every day an interesting and exciting journey into ‘undiscovered’ topics. Pull out all the stops, grab their attention and take them on an adventure! Reading alone is okay but bringing that book to life is better.

Our students, even those who lack in exposure, are on different levels of learning. Figure out their learning styles and deliver your information in a way that they can receive it. We must meet them where they are, finding common ground, and taking them to where they can stand on their own amongst their counterparts.

Do some of our students have great deficits? Yes. With all of the focus on assessments is it hard to find the time to give them what they need? Yes. Do we need to overcome those challenges and find ways to make the most of every moment that our students have with us? YES.

For those of you who may have forgotten, ALL of our children CAN learn!!! Will you be the one to invest time, energy, and your resources to ensure that it happens? Will you be the one to choose to not focus on the deficits or behaviors but focus on the possibility? I hope your response is a resounding YES.

New Year, New Zeal

Writing the blog and the book is an outlet to encourage the masses that although we face many challenges we cannot give up on the dream. We must get to the final act and be able to look back and say that we gave it our all. We will beam with pride and relief as we watch our students go to the next level, ready for the new challenge.
This is the time when we need to hold ourselves accountable for what goes on in our classrooms. Yes, I know you may not have everything you need or want but that is irrelevant. You must press pass that and find ways to give your students what they need! Leave the pity party and get in the game! Renew your zeal and passion for teaching. Become contagious and the leader that your school so desperately needs. It's up to you!
Craig Harper list fifty things that highly successful people do, here are four:
7. They rarely complain (waste of energy). All complaining does is put the complainer in a negative and unproductive state.
21. They don’t believe in, or wait for fate, destiny, chance or luck to determine or shape their future. They believe in, and are committed to actively and consciously creating their own best life.

26. Their desire to be exceptional means that they typically do things that most won’t. They become exceptional by choice. We’re all faced with life-shaping decisions almost daily. Successful people make the decisions that most won’t and don’t.

37. They are resilient. When most would throw in the towel, they’re just warming up.

Do not give up on yourself or the students that you teach. I hope over your break you have taken time to refocus and renew your mind. In the midst of the battle sometimes it is hard to know whose winning, but as long as you keep fighting for the one everyone else has given up on, you win!
Have a great new year!