I've Been Discovered

Thank you Teaching Blog Addict!
A little background... I am currently enrolled in an online class through William Woods University, Missouri. One class assignment was to expand my PLN (Personal/Professional Learning Network). I gave several different forums a whirl. I started following more educational people on Facebook instead of just friends and family, I joined Twitter (for the second time in my life), tried out SecondLife (immediately quit that one... seemed like a huge time waster to me), and also started doing more blogging and started following more blogs. Oh and I've tried to find more educational pins on Pinterest. Through expanding my PLNs I've found that one cannot feasibly try to keep too many going at once and be successful at all of them, at least not me anyway. I also have a husband, two kids, a teaching job, Master's classes, and I'm trying to find my body back by exploring something called "fitness" for the first time in my life (see my personal blog for fitness motivation). :) So through this exploration time I've decided (again) that Twitter is not for me. Even though I've heard of how useful it can be to educators for so many uses inside and outside of the classroom, I'm still thinking I'm going to pull the plug on it again. I decided that my niche is in blogging. I don't like to be limited to only a few words here or there (I tend to have a lot to say.) :) With all of that being said, it brings me to today. While catching up on the blogs I'm following in Google Reader, I came across one by Teaching Blog Addict that had a post for new bloggers to submit their blogs for others to discover them. This was exactly what I needed and exactly what I did! I don't like doing all of this blogging and not having anyone read it. So tonight while multi-tasking (aka doing homework and being distracted by my PLNs which were meant to help me), I checked my blogger to see if I've had any pageviews today. To my surprise, I did. Several of them at that! This is just what I needed to kick me back into gear with blogging. So here I am with an update on the technology use in my classroom.....

My 5th graders are still working on their webquest about roller coasters. My main job with this assignment has been mediation! Some of my kids are really struggling to be respectful to other students opinions. They were working with their expert groups yesterday and today and several students in the groups wanted to do more arguing about what should happen instead of just making something happen. So many of my students are used to the teacher always telling them what to do and them not really getting much of a say of what goes on that it is tough for them to switch rolls and have a say, but also have to be open to other classmates opinions. I can tell they need more practice with this! Otherwise, the webquests are going very well. I can't wait to see how the finished products (roller coasters and presentations) look.

My 6th graders are still expanding on their world maps. They are plotting points of volcanoes and earthquakes that they researched and discovered, drawing in plate boundaries, labeling boundary types, labeling plate directions, etc. Their maps truly are looking awesome. I'll be posting pictures of the finished products!

I broke some exciting news to my 6th graders at the end of last week. Through my expansion of my PLNs I also came across the opportunity for students to Skype with a Yellowstone National Park Ranger, so that's exactly what they will be doing. It won't be until March 12 (that's the soonest date they had available that worked with our schedule), but we are all extremely excited. I've never Skyped with my students before. I have only Skyped in my personal life with my husband when he is working on the road, so that our kids can see and talk to him as well.

That is my update for current happenings in my classroom. More frequent posting to come, I promise! I'll make sure it's worth your while to follow my blog. I'll keep posting technological help and ideas that I come across. I'll be posting one big help in a few minutes.