Partnering Pedagogy

Marc Prensky's book Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning is a great read. I am inspired by this new way of thinking about a classroom and hope to implement partnering in my own classroom soon. If you are a teacher or a pre-service teacher, check out this video to get a quick overview of Prentsky's Partnering Model.

Flipped Classrooms

This week I learned a lot about flipped classrooms. I also got to use some new tools to make an animated video. I won't on on about all of the details about flipped classrooms because I hope you will watch my video which I have added below.

I will take a moment to say that I think it is important to embrace new technology and know what tools work best for what you are doing (in and out of the classroom). As I was undertaking the task of making this animated video, I tried out several different programs before making the decision to make it with powtoon. There are better programs out there for sure, and of course there are easier programs. I had to make some decisions about what would work best for me and help me achieve the end result I wanted. I feel like this is a great lesson about technology. We all too often look for the first, the most extravagant, or the easiest option. This is just a reminder to "work smarter".

Using Glogster to share what I learned about 21st Century Skills

Although I consider myself competent when it comes to technology, I am always learning something new. I had never heard of Glogster before last week. Glogster is a website that allows you to create a digital poster with text, photos, web links, videos, graphics, and music. Watch the video below to learn a bit more about Glogster and how glogs can be valuable in the classroom.

I hope you found that as inspiring as I did. I am constantly amazed by how technology can be used in the classroom. Students need to be challenged to use the tools we have available to aid with authentic learning.

My glog was about 21st Century Skills in the classroom. When I first thought of 21st Century skills, I immediately thought of technology. However, technology is far from the only important skill that students need in a 21st Century world. My project was researching the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) and what they found to be needed of students of today. As part of that research, I took a look at a report "Are 

Check out my  21st Century Skills Glog!

Summer Programs

There are many great summer programs in the area and I was lucky enough to help with one in Tanner, AL for the past two weeks. Our theme was camping and we had a great time learning about animals and all things camping. Here are some pictures of the wonderful artwork our students made for the hallway.

Crayon Art

Yesterday, I had to turn in an "art project" for one of my classes and I chose to go the simple (and crafty) route. I LOVE to do crafts, but I am really not very artistic. Meaning I can assemble things together to make something cute, but I can not draw, paint, etc. When I was in school I loved art and especially loved those projects that took little artistic ability like collages. For this project, I immediately thought of all of the crayon projects I have seen on pinterest and was eager to try making one of my own. I did mine on foam board rather than the traditional canvas and it worked well. Here is my attempt at a melted crayon masterpiece.

It was quite fun to melt the crayons. I used a heat gun and found it a bit too hot, but I would definitely do this again sometime. I think this would make a fun art activity (although time consuming) for older students. If you try your own crayon art, post a picture, I would love to see it!

Building a blog is a lot of work

So I have done this blogging thing before a bit and I am super excited to be jumping into a fun blog about all the great thoughts, ideas and creations I have swirling around my head. But it is a ton of initial work to get everything set up. I have found some great information from fellow bloggers and I will share those as I go on. The first thing I did was create my header. I used Publisher so it wasn't so very difficult.

I made some contact cards last month and I used a silmilar design since I am IN LOVE with polka dots and chevron. I had one created using a pennant banner but decided I liked this one better. Also, I wanted to come up with some creative blog name, but there are a million teacher bogs and I thought simple was best. So, My Teacher Mrs. Thrasher was born. I hope you like it and I hope I have some good information to share along the way.