ensure that students and parents have access to it. As students share work, give constructive feedback and record your feedback in your own data files. There are many assessment programs out there that may also be helpful, but because this book features creation-based lessons, we focus this text only on formative assessment options in relation to NOW lessons.
CONNECT WITH US ON TWITTER
Meg Ormiston:
@megormi
Beth Hatlen:
@MrsHatlen
Kristy Hopkins:
@HopkinsKinder
Kirstin McGinnis:
@kirstinmcginnis
Lissa Blake:
@D60HolmesTech
Nicole Ring:
@NicoleRing58
Conclusion
Our team comes from three different school districts in the Chicagoland area. Collectively, we have more than one hundred years of experience in teaching and integrating technology. To better tap this experience while collaborating on this book, we created our own personal learning network (PLN). Many different definitions of a PLN exist, but we like this explanation from Karla Gutierrez (2016):
Your PLN is where you gather, collect, communicate, create and also share knowledge and experience with a group of connected people, anywhere at any time. It is developed largely through social media, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and blogs, helping us form connections, grow our knowledge base and develop ourselves professionally through continual learning.
Our own PLN served as the glue that kept us connected throughout our work together. You can follow it on Twitter @NowClassrooms or using the #NOWClassrooms hashtag. You can also follow us individually on Twitter by following the accounts listed in the margin. Finally, you can keep up with our work on our blog (http://nowclassrooms.com/blog). We know that technology tools will change after this book goes to press, so we want to share and continue to learn with you on our blog and through social media. Think of our team as your personal professional development network.
This journey is just beginning, and we can’t wait to see what your students create, build, and share using digital tools. Communicating beyond the classroom is a theme throughout this series of books, and we will show you why sharing student work creates a broader audience for feedback and how to actually manage this in an elementary classroom. Soon, your students will beg you to tweet a picture of their work and then follow up with you later to find out how many retweets they have. Students will fill their digital portfolio and share their work with parents at home. Collectively, we love the way technology allows families to connect with teaching and learning. We could never go back to teaching in a classroom without digital tools. They help motivate our students to create quality work because more people see their work beyond the classroom.
We look forward to hearing about your students’ success!
CHAPTER
1
Learning Technology Operations and Concepts
Long before any students use classroom technology, you must establish its purpose and function within your curriculum. Students will use these tools to communicate, collaborate, think critically, and create. These skills—the four Cs—will help them form meaningful connections with what they learn.
With such a powerful purpose, integrating technology tools into your classroom requires a little bit of setup. Some technology departments will lay out all the details for you and provide quality professional development in advance, while others will require you to independently implement the technology deposited into your classroom. We have organized practical ideas to help your implementation succeed, regardless of your circumstances. After you establish your initial organization and follow the short lessons in this chapter, your students will take the reins as they use technology to learn and soar.
In this chapter, we first discuss the introduction of digital devices to your classroom. We then offer some lessons you can use to familiarize students with the basics of operating their device and using common LMS tools like online storage to upload and manage their work. We designed the lessons in this chapter to establish routines and provide your K–2 students with basic technology and platform literacy. We want students to understand basic processes first and learn content more fluidly later.
Introducing Devices to the Classroom
Tablets, computers, interactive whiteboards, and tech toys are cause for much excitement in the elementary classroom and are fabulous tools for education. Knowing that they have their own device gives young students in 1:1 classrooms a great sense of independence and ownership of learning. In a shared technology setting, where you might have carts of laptops or tablets, students will learn the procedures for picking up and storing devices. You can dispense with any fears you may have about your students’ readiness to responsibly use these devices. With proper guidance, structure, routines, and maybe some durable cases, you can trust K–2 students to take care of and control their devices.
TEACHING TIP
Before you give students devices, plan a process for labeling and distributing the devices. You can use a picture of the student on his or her device, color-coordinated cases, student IDs, and so on. As long as the process enables students to easily find their device in the devices’ storage space, any organization system can work.
Your administrator or technology department should have a general plan for device distribution, but you need to discuss with students appropriate use in the classroom so they know your expectations. If you are lucky enough to have one device per student, the device and the carrying case still should have labels. Some districts use student identification numbers or pictures on their device cases. Although the district might have labeled devices through a district inventory process, the system it used may not well-serve young students. In a K–2 classroom, an age-appropriate system using pictures often works best.
TECH TIP
Add each student’s picture to the lock-screen background on his or her tablet or computer. Students can do this independently by taking a selfie of himself or herself (see chapter 2, page 35, for lessons on taking and using photos). This makes finding their devices easy for all students—non-readers included.
In the rest of this section, we cover storing and securing devices, choosing apps for devices, and teaching students to responsibly use their devices.
Storing and Securing Devices
Once you have the devices in your classroom, the question becomes, How will we store them at school for easy access? And, if they go home, What process do we have for that? If the devices remain in the classroom, then charging devices creates a challenge due to the need to plug them all in. One solution is to use portable carts with charging and security options, but these quickly become expensive. Some other ideas for
