Why are students not creative?

I hear it over and over again, mostly from educators, students aren't creative. Hearing this would make me angry because I truly believe that students are creative, but their creativity is not the same as ours was when we were there age.

This year, after teaching students I had taught before for two years, I have a new bunch of students. I think these first two weeks of school has been adjustment period for my students, as they realize that I'm not like other teachers. For example, this week I assigned a project for my students to make a poster about any city in the state we live in. After going over the requirements, I asked the students if they had any questions and one child raised her hand. Her questions was this, "I'm confused as to how you want this poster to look. Are you looking for a rock band style poster or the information organized a certain way?" And for the first time, I realized majority of my students were not creative and the reason why they were not creative is because teachers have dictated every step and appearance of their project, and more than likely this became a factor in their grade.

My answer to my student was simple, I want the poster to look the way she wants it to and not the way she thinks will make me happy. After all, this project is a reflection of her and the type of work she produces. As long as the required elements were on the poster, the poster could be put together any way she would like it to. When I said this, you could see the children's brains going to work and this child in particular told me that she wanted to make her poster into a big brochure. That never even entered my mind as an idea for the poster! When I looked at my students this time, I saw CREATIVITY!

So, if you really wonder why students are not creative ask yourself if your assignments allow them to be creative?

How I became a 1:1 iPad classroom?

This question was recently tweeted to me and unfortunately with twitter's 140 character limit, it makes it hard to answer the question fully. So, tonight I just wanted to explain how this happened for me.

A year and a half ago, my school began the Race for Education. For those of you who have read some of my other blog posts, you have heard me mention this before. I apologize if the information seems repetitive. Well, to encourage teachers to participate, we were told that 100% of the money we raise could go towards our classroom. That year, I made it a mission to bring in some new technology in the classroom. I raised around $800 my first year and purchased an iPad using that money and put the rest of the money towards buying a new table for classroom to replace a broken computer desk. So, this is originally how the iPad entered the classroom.

This past school, I started the first half of the year with just one iPad. And honestly, it was amazing seeing what just one iPad could do in the classroom. The PTOwas seeing some of the things that were going on in my classroom and decided that with our two big fundraisers, an annual auction and the Race for Education, they could afford to fund a class set of iPads. I was asked if I would be willing to take on this mission and like most teachers reading this blog, I said yes. So, half way through the school year I became a 1:1 iPad classroom. Along with purchasing a class set of iPads for my Fourth Grade class, every teacher was given an iPad to use in their classroom as well.

This upcoming school year, my school has purchased another class set of iPads for the Fifth Grade. We hope to continue purchasing another class set every school year, but again we are only able to afford to do this because of our fundraising.

QR Code Job Chart

It seems like just yesterday, I was finishing out last school year and now I'm already preparing to go back to work and teach a new group of students. I am really looking forward to a new school year, I have a lot of new things to do with the students and can't wait to see how they like them. One new thing that I have added to my class this year is a QR job chart.

So, here is how the QR Job Chart works. If you look in the bottom left of the picture you will see a piece of orange. That is actually an orange envelope that I have attached to the wall. At the end of the day, all QR codes are placed in the envelope. This year, students will have a new classroom job everyday, instead of keeping it for a week. When students come into the classroom, they will take turns getting a QR Code out of the envelope and then placing it on their number. I attached velcro to the back of the codes and on the calendar, that I have turned into my job chart. Students will then take out their iPad and prepare to scan for their job.

There are a number of free QR Code Reader Apps that are free for the iPad, the one viewed in this photo is Qrafter. As you can see it is easy to use for students and gives a quick scan, but will not create QR codes unless purchasing the Pro Pack. However, if you do want students to make their own QR Codes on the iPad, you can get a free app called Easy QR. Both apps are available on my students iPads for them to use. 

Once the student scans the QR Code, it will show the student what their job is for the day. 

So, I know many of you are probably wondering how I will know who is doing what job for the day because it seems like I would spend a lot of wasted time trying scan all the QR codes to figure this out. So, with this job chart, I created the job "Job Manager." This person is responsible for scanning all the codes with their iPad and using a google form (with one of the extra classroom iPads) will just check off which students have what job. I will then be able to access the form as an excel sheet and quickly be able to keep track throughout the day. However, it is up to the Job Manager to make sure all jobs are completed by the end of the day. 

Have questions? Use this QR Code to email me, post a comment below, or follow me on twitter @21educator.

How my class got a new mac mini!

I went in today to tutor at school. I'm not fully sure what I was thinking on scheduling myself to tutor after returning home from an awesome trip with @mollymittura. Last Tuesday morning, we got up at 2:30am to get ready to fly to Boston to attend the BLC 12 conference from Wednesday through Friday. Then on Saturday morning, we took a bus to NYC and that evening took another bus to Mt. Laurel, NJ. On Sunday, we went to visit Philadelphia and then went to Atlantic City. We came home last night. It was so much fun, but a little exhausting. I think if we do this again, I may rethink the amount of clothing I bring because after the first few hours I cannot even begin to explain how heavy my backpack felt carrying it around NYC and Atlantic City. Thankfully, we did not have to carry it around Philly. Sorry, got a little bit off right there, but back to the story, since I was at the school to tutor I found a lovely new shipment of iPads and a new Mac Mini for my classroom.

When I speak to people about my classroom and I mention that I run a 1:1 iPad program. For people who do not have them in the classroom or have not seen them in the classroom, they are amazed, and are quick to say that they wish their school had the funding to do a 1:1 iPad program. But the truth is, is that I teach in a very small school and money doesn't necessarily grow on trees for us, so how are we able to fund this program? Simple, we have a Race for Education.

For the past two school years, every Spring students and teachers mail out letters asking relatives, family friends, etc. to sponsor us in running/jogging/walking for one hour. And the one thing the PTO was great about was motivating the teachers to take part by allowing us to use 100% of the money we raised to purchase items for the classroom. Okay, I'm not sure how motivating it is to all teachers, but I send out at least 100 personalized letters for this fundraiser. Last year, I raised enough money to purchase an iPad for the classroom. In this past school year, the parents enjoyed seeing what we could do with one iPad that they decided to use some of the money raised from the Race for Education to purchase an entire set for my classroom.

This school year, I raised over $1,000 to purchase things for my classroom. I allotted money towards a new Mac Mini, web hosting, digital camera, tripod, and green screen. All these things, were purchased for my students to use in the classroom. My expectation with these new tools is to teach my students how to create a classroom website and maintain it on the Mac Mini, use their iPads to link their blogs to the website, and create a news station and share what we do in the classroom. I'm also tossing around the idea of starting a podcast.

I guess what I am hoping to get across to my readers in this blog is, don't use the excuse we don't have the money for that. If you really want to see your school or classroom become a 1:1 program, it is possible. The Race for Education is great fundraiser because the school keeps 100% of the donations and you will find many people are very generous for this fundraiser, especially when they receive a handwritten note from a child.

Skype in the Classroom - Teaching From Afar

Recently, I attended the BLC 12 conference in Boston. If you have any interest in 21st century education or technology in the classroom, I would recommend that you attend. One of the sessions I attended while I was there was a session on Blogging for Your Students given by Sylvia Tolisano. You can follow her on twitter @langwitches. While sitting in her session, it gave me the inspiration to write a blog post that I meant to put on here before the end of the school year. Unfortunately, towards the end of the school year, I had a lot on my plate. I had taken some time off of work to help with my father because my father was very ill. Needless to say life was rather busy after returning back to work with wrapping up the end of the school year and being in charge of printing report cards for the school, but after sitting in Sylvia's session, I realized that I had this great idea that I should share with other teachers.

As I stated earlier, I am the teacher responsible for printing report cards for the entire school. Before you start thinking that this a a huge task for a teacher, please know that I work in a one track school meaning we have only one grade per class. However, the first and last time printing report cards for the year does require a larger amount of time. This means that usually the first and last time we get ready to print report cards, my class will have a substitute. My classes are usually pros when it comes to having a substitute because I teach the students how to run the class. In fact, this past year, they told one of the substitutes that she was not doing something correctly and took over the lesson. The substitute said she was amazed at how little she had to do because the children did everything. So, while I do not worry about the children's behavior for a sub, I do feel that I miss out in hearing some of their discussions on different lessons that are taught in the classroom while I'm out.

At the end of the year, I gave my class a choice of two books to read for the last novel of fourth grade. The students in the class chose to read On My Honor, despite my many warnings of this being a very sad book, this is the book they chose. While many will find this a depressing book, it opens up a lot of classroom discussions: lying, making right and wrong choices, peer pressure, etc. So of course, having to work on report cards, I was a little discouraged that I would not be in the classroom to listen to the discussions that needed to take place while reading this book. Then I realized with all the technology out there, even though I'm not in the classroom, I could still take part and listen. 

The morning of having to work on report cards, I went to school early, so I could install Skype on the iPads. I put one child in charge of running Skype throughout the day and inside the office I sat with my iPad next to me and a pair of headphones to hear the students. Since there are a number of people who come in the office, I was thankful for the mute button that Skype offers. I instantly fell in love with Skype, not that I didn't love it already, but I loved that it offered me a chance to be a part of my class when I wasn't in the classroom. It gave me a chance to hear the students discussions, to ask them questions, and it also gave them a chance to ask me questions when needed. 

iPads, Macbook, iMovie, and iDVD

When I go in other teachers' classrooms, I tend to find some of the cutest crafts. I am beginning to feel like my craft gene was replaced with a technology gene. Last week, all the craft gened teachers were in full working mode making the cutest Mother's Day crafts. I was left trying to figure out what I was going to do, when it suddenly occurred to me, use technology to create a gift worth keeping that has never been done before for the mothers. 

The assignment was to write a poem and create a video using the iPad where they read the poem to their mother and wished her a Happy Mother's Day. I wanted this to be something that the children could said they made all by themselves. With that said, there were all kinds of videos: videos of students looking down at the iPad, up the nose shots, weird angled shots, etc. I didn't say anything because this was their Mother's Day gift. After the students created their video, I showed them how to upload their video to my MacBook. 

The following morning, I took the first student that came into class and showed him how to use iMovie to put text in before his movie and then export the movie to iDVD. In iDVD, I showed him how easy it was to pick out a menu background and burn his DVD. After the first student was done, I had him teach another student. This actually worked out great, I taught only one student and the rest of the class was able to create their DVDs without my help. 

More on Class Dojo

I know I have blogged about Class Dojo already, but I absolutely love their program. Recently they have done something that my students have been begging for without me even writing to Class Dojo, STUDENT ACCOUNTS!!! After a week of using class dojo in the classroom, my students were asking if there was any possible way for them to access their points at home. A few months later, their wish has come true and now every child in my class can access their weekly points and see why they have earned points. Another awesome feature is the ability to change their avatar, which has definitely become a huge hit. Student avatars seem to be changing on a daily basis.

With a 1:1 iPad classroom, it was easy to get the student accounts started. Thankfully, everyday my students are becoming more and more tech savvy. I went through the basics of how to get them started and for the most part they were able to set up their own student accounts. Way to go fourth graders! I had a couple students who had some difficulty, but I have learned a little comment that makes life so much better in a 1:1 iPad classroom. "Yes, I will help you, but you are going to have to wait a few minutes." Within a couple minutes, I start hearing, "Never mind I figured it out." Before people start thinking I am a mean teacher, my goal of making the students wait is to see if they will attempt to figure out how to solve their problem on their own. I find that with certain students in my class, they will automatically try to figure out how to do something on the iPad without my encouragement, but there are a few students who will not attempt trying something new on their own and causing them to wait will encourage them to try, especially when other students are commenting on what they are currently doing. I'm not looking for my students to be able to do everything on their own, but I am looking for them to try.

I think I have gotten a little ahead of myself, so let me rewind here rwrwrwrwrwrw. Just in case you didn't know rwrwrwrwrw means rewind. One of my students used this in her journal today, entertaining, YES! When I introduced student accounts to the class, I told the students I had exciting news for Class Dojo. Before I continue, you should know that my class has mixed feelings about Class Dojo. The students who always wear the correct uniform, have their homework done, get their assignments completed on time and follow classroom rules love Class Dojo. The ones that have some difficulty throughout the day are not big fans, because it forces them to be good students! Now you understand why I love Class Dojo! But when I announced student accounts, all the students were excited.

The first day with student accounts did not work out as well as I had planned. I currently project www.classdojo.com onto the Activboard and use the mobile.classdojo.com site on the iPad to give and remove points quickly anywhere in the classroom. Unfortunately, there was a small glitch in the system yesterday and students could not see their points on their iPads using their personal accounts. Although I will say, the fact that the children could design their own avatar by changing their monsters body design and color was enough to make them happy.

Today I tried a different approach for Class Dojo. I used the Class Dojo app that isn't available yet in the app store, but hopefully will be soon. The app is very similar to the mobile site but makes it easier to see all your positive and negative behaviors because they fill up the entire screen. Today the children were able to see the points they were receiving throughout the day without me projecting Class Dojo. This is great because there are times that I need to project something related to what we are covering in class and students cannot see their Dojo points. Usually, when this happens students get a little antsy and will start requesting me to show their points, now they can see their points on their own iPad without me having to stop a program that we are currently using with Activboard. For example, today I was using Poll Everywhere and it was easy for students to submit their answer and then view their student account on Class Dojo if they wanted to monitor their points. This usually happens when they hear the positive or negative sound chime in the speakers. They want to know if they were the one to earn or lose a point.

I must say that since the start of student accounts, Class Dojo has been awesome for help. When I mentioned wanting to start the student accounts they responded telling me to let them know if I need any help. Yesterday, I replied mentioning the fact that the children could not see their points. They apologized and explained that they were having some server issues and that they are working on it. For a free program, Class Dojo really goes above and beyond.

Follow Class Dojo on twitter @classdojo.

Busy, Class Play, and QR Codes

I feel bad for not posting in a while, especially since I just started this blog. Things have just been a little busy, but I was reminded earlier today that that is how the month of May works. In a school setting, May is the month of getting everything in before the end of the school year. Tonight, I'm a little exhausted from a busy week:

Monday: Afternoon faculty meeting, followed by P90X with my friend Molly
Tuesday: After working all day, I gave a one hour private tutoring session, followed by a 40 minute run, Volunteer Appreciation Dinner for the parents at the school, which was followed by a PTO meeting (Needless to say, I left the house at 7:30am and arrived home at 8:40pm.)
Wednesday: 1/2 hour math tutoring session, 30 minute bike ride, 30 minute run, 1 hour Zumba class, and P90X with Molly
Today: I went to school early for a conference before the school day started, had a 1 hour private tutoring session after school, then went on a 50 minute run

I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow. :) I love Fridays!

This definitely has been an unusually busy week for me, and it doesn't help that on top of work I'm training for the Marine Corp Marathon in October and my first triathlon in August. During the mean time, I tend to run at least one local race a month. Although, training definitely takes up a lot of time, it is a great time for me to think and hash things out while I'm out on runs. I tend to do my best thinking while I'm out, I think because I don't have any distractions with the computer or cell phone.

Well, I wasn't really sure what to write about, so I think I will brag about my students. Today my class performed in the play, Red Writing Hood. It is a fractured fairytale play that incorporates many other fairytales and nursery rhymes. My students have been practicing for at least a month on this play. The students had to audition for the their parts, memorize their lines, and they also learned to ad lib.

My fourth graders did such a wonderful job with their play, that they received many compliments from parents, teachers, and students. Each year, I try to do something special with my class, last year I rewrote the lyrics to the Brady Bunch Intro and the children sang the Dooney Bunch. They performed this song for the school talent show and also danced the talent show act from the Brady Bunch Show, Keep On. Of course, the third graders were very impressed with today's performance of Red Writing Hood and were already asking what play they were going to do. It left me thinking, what am I going to do next year? Do I have the students put on another play or do we do something completely different?

On top of the play, I had the students help with as much as they could on the bulletin board in the hallway. The class voted on the background color and the border they wanted. All the students used their iPads to take pictures of each other. Afterwards each student selected their favorite picture to post on the bulletin board and printed them using the new color laser printer in the school. I must say I'm rather impressed by the quality of this printer. The students also wrote their own autobiographies and turned them into QR codes, which were posted in the bottom corner of their picture. Let me just say right now, our bulletin board is the talk of the school! Students who are not in the fourth grade were asking what a QR code was and how do we make them? After scanning one with my iPad yesterday for students in the hallway, I quickly found myself scanning all the codes.

Well, it is rather early, but I think I'm going to call it a night and get some much needed rest before school tomorrow.

QR Codes

I have never thought about using QR Codes in the classroom until I attended a conference in Baltimore. Of course, I sat there thinking, "Why didn't I think of this?" I tend to have a go-getter personality, so I sat at this conference contemplating how I was going to use QR Codes in my classroom. Since then, I have developed a QR Code job chart for next school year and how students could use them for getting the homework. Currently, students are testing, which means no homework this week, so we aren't able to test out the QR Codes for homework, yet.

However, next week my class is performing a play for the school, Red Writing Hood. It is a cute fractured fairytale play, that incorporates many of the fairytales and nursery rhymes all in one play. The children all have a part in the play and had to memorize their lines. Wanting to make this small 20 minute play seem like the real deal, today we worked on autobiographies to post on the bulletin board in the hallway. But instead of posting the actual autobiography, I taught the students how to create a QR Code that we will post by their picture and part.

At first the students, were a little puzzled as to if this would actually work. So, I created a demo QR Code using http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ to link to our school website. I projected this code onto the Activboard took out my iPad and scanned the code. Some of the students were a bit questionable as to if this would actually work, could the iPad really scan off the Activboard? Within a couple seconds, everyone was viewing the school website off of my iPad. Hooray, I had won the students over on creating their own QR Code.

The students worked eagerly to write their rough draft, which I approved for the next draft. Tomorrow we will finish our final drafts, take pictures, and create QR Codes for the bulletin board. This will be the first time the students have used QR Codes in the class and I am excited. How do you use them in your classrooms?

I love Edmodo

Shortly after I began FLIPPING my math class, I began having my students use Edmodo as a means of commenting and leaving questions on what they were learning in the videos I post on youtube. Edmodo instantly became a class hit because to my fourth grade students, it looks like facebook. My students are at an age where they still have some play that imitates the adults around them, especially their parents. Before we became a 1:1 iPad classroom, students used to create their own paper iPads because I had one, paper laptops with brands based on the brand of laptop their parents owned, and paper smart phones. Since many parents are on facebook, the children have this natural attraction to it. Honestly, the mentioning of facebook can make a lesson more interesting. Take for example run-on sentences, I told my students that most of the posts my friends post on facebook are one long run-on sentence. On that specific day, we pretended that the sentences we were correcting were facebook posts.

Getting back to Edmodo, Edmodo was easy to setup, the children were able to register themselves (without an e-mail address), and with little help from me were able to easily navigate through the website. Like facebook, students may upload a profile picture, but since this is the first year I'm using Edmodo, I have limited my students to only using the clipart pictures found on the website already. You can use Edmodo for a variety of purposes: communication, polls, tests, etc.

I use Edmodo currently just for my FLIPPED math program. For homework, I post a video on youtube, that I link through my classroom website on the lesson we will cover the following school day. The students are expected to go home, watch the video, and then go on Edmodo to either post on my wall what they learned in the video or send a private message about what they did not understand. The following day in class, I will focus on reviewing (anonymously) the questions students sent me. Because the homework is as easy as watching a video, most of my students will watch it within the first hour of returning home and then post on Edmodo. When I arrive home I will take a quick five minutes, read the posts that students write and either tell them they did a great job or ask them to expand on what they posted by asking them a question. Before I go to bed, I will check Edmodo one more time, for any students who may have completed the homework later in the evening.

Although, I currently use Edmodo just for math, I do have plans to use it in a variety of other subjects. My next goal is to add Edmodo to my reading program to allow students to discuss the novel we are currently reading in class. The one thing I have found with my math program is that if a student posts onto my wall and I return back with a question, I will get a number of students responding to the question I posted, not just the student that I originally asked. So, I really feel that Edmodo will be a benefit in many different subject areas.

There are a few rules I put in place for my class when I started Edmodo, they are:

1. You must write in complete sentences.
2. You may not use acronyms, e.g. lol, jk, brb, etc. 
3. You may not post or send information that is not school related. 

How do you use Edmodo in your class? Are there any rules you have with using this website or iPad app?

How I use Poll Everywhere

My fourth grade class is running a 1:1 iPad pilot program, meaning currently every student in my classroom has an iPad. This idea started when I raised money through a school fundraiser, Race for Education, and purchased an iPad 2 for the classroom. Before the iPad came into the classroom, our technology consisted of a computer that was probably being used new when I was in high school. Okay, so I'm not that old, but still, it was time for some upgrading.

With the money I raised, I was able to purchase the iPad 2 and a computer table to replace our old table which was broken. The iPad quickly became a favorite item in the classroom, the students were excited to use it and even with one iPad everyone was engaged. I still remember my class playing Rocket Math multiplication and all the students screaming out answers, which caused my principal to walk into my room one day and be surprised by seeing a classroom full of engaged students. 

Shortly after, I was asked to begin a 1:1 iPad program for the fourth grade class. What is exciting about running this type of program is the students' excited about learning. Slowly, I have been transitioning the students to doing more and more with the iPads, but we originally started using the iPads with one website, Poll Everywhere. 

Poll Everywhere is a free website and takes less than 30 seconds to register, just like the website says. Trust me, even though you can use the website without registering, you want to register, so you can preload your polls and reuse them. 

The main way I use Poll Everywhere is to review students homework. Currently, I teach a math FLIP program, and the polling gives me a better understanding of whether or not students understand the concept for the video I posted on youtube the night before. The way it works is I post a question with multiple choice answers and project it onto the Activboard. I ask students to submit their answers using their ipad. Each answer choice has a special code to type into the ipad, so that it sends directly to my poll. Typically, the first time I post the question, I will not receive the correct answer for 100% of my class. Instead of taking over, I ask the students to discuss their answers with their group explaining how and why they chose their answer. Students rethink their method based on hearing how others solved the problem and then resend their answer to the same poll. I would say 90% of the time 100% of the students will send the correct answer. 

This method of teaching works great in a 1:1 classroom and can also be used using a simple cell phone. The reason why I love using Poll Everywhere in this way is because there seems to be a huge concern that if we put technology classroom, it will cause our students not to socialize with others. But my goal as a 21st Century Educator is to use the tools of the time, while fostering an appropriate social atmosphere for my students and Poll Everywhere allows me to do this.

Class Dojo: A Fun FREE Behavior Program for the Classroom

I haven't used Class Dojo all school year, I actually started shortly after returning from an A+ Educator conference in Phoenix, Arizona, where I first heard about www.classdojo.com. Most of my students and I fell instantly in love with Class Dojo. Yes, I did say most! Some students had a hard time adjusting to Class Dojo and even tried to rebell against the system for a while (these are the students who need Class Dojo the most), that is until they realized that they control Class Dojo not the computer and not me. When the students who rebelled against the system realized this, I didn't have any problems with them getting their assignments done, calling out in the middle of class, and being a disruption in the classroom. Trust me give it two weeks and you will be hooked, if not on the first day.

Class Dojo is really easy to set up. You put in your students, make some modifications on the behavior points, and maybe you are feeling really good and decide to pick out little avatar monsters for each one of your students. If you are lazy like me, you just leave the ones that the website picks. Really, why make extra work for yourself? 

Now, you are ready to begin the day with Class Dojo. I open up my class on the website and project it using my Activboard in the classroom, this way all the students can see their little avatars and their positive and negative points. Throughout the day, I carry my iPad around the classroom and use mobile.classdojo.com as a remote to control the website. This makes it convenient to be anywhere in the classroom and give both positive and negative dojo points to students. Because in order for Class Dojo to really work, you have to be able to control the points at any time or any place, or students will realize that it is okay to cut off if they know you aren't going to take away their dojo points.

At the end of the day, Class Dojo creates these beautiful pie graphs on each of your students that can be emailed out to their parents. Come on, you have to love that! I used to stamp colored dots on calendars and when a child didn't have a good day, write why they received the color they did. Now the chart is easy to email and hey, you don't have to write a long note on the child's behavior the parent can already see that they were talking out, constantly out of their seat, not completing their work, not wearing a proper uniform, etc. Trust me, if you aren't using Class Dojo in your classroom, you should be, it's FREE, teachers love FREE!

A 21st Century Educator

My name is Jestine and I'm a fourth grade Catholic school teacher. I absolutely love my job, sure some days are harder than others, but at the end of the day I still love what I do. The past year, I have dedicated a lot of time towards studying about 21st century education. Already a fan of technology, I guess 21st century education became a natural attraction. Now that I am adapting my classroom to a 21st century classroom, I could not imagine teaching using traditional methods. 

In the past year, my classroom has made a huge jump from the traditional classroom. I currently run a FLIPPED math program, 1:1 iPad program, and use a number of iPad applications and websites to engage my students. I try to attend as many conferences as I can to learn the latest education trends. This year, I have attended an A+ Educators conference in Phoenix, Mid-Atlantic Technology conference in Baltimore, and am excited to be attending the BLC 12 conference in Boston this summer.  Every conference I go to inspires me to adapt the way I teach to meet the needs of my students. 

I hope to use this blog, to discuss websites and iPad apps that I use in the classroom and how to easily incorporate them within your own classrooms.