As first year teacher in the Hartford Public School system, I didn't know what to expect from the MassCue conference on Blended Learning. It was the first time I heard about this style of teaching. I was curious about what it had to offer and how it would change the dynamics of my classroom. I wanted a structured environment but one that would cater to students needs and diverse ways of learning. Schools have limited digital resources. However, I am lucky to be in a district that has provided students with their own computers. Students don't have to rely on the limited digital resources in the building and they can use their computers daily to research, complete online reading comprehension tasks and explore the online world.
In my Reading classes I use stations to incorporate the blending learning approach. Students in my reading classes use the online program ThinkCerca to read/listen to stories and answer comprehension questions. They are also read independently and work in a small group to complete a comprehension task. On the other hand, my Seniors use the computer to research topics for their Senior Capstone Project. They are currently typing their proposal letters, finding credible sources and creating annotated bibliographies using their personal computers.
I attended many workshops geared towards Reading and Google. I thought it was important to find resources that were related to the subjects I teach and sources I use in my classroom. Reading is an area that I am an expert in, but I am always looking for new ways to motivate my students to read. I wanted something more current to keep track of my students reading and help them make progress. I attended 2 workshops and networked with someone about reading programs that I could use in my own classroom. The first workshop I attended was about transforming independent reading. The workshop was run by two individuals who were passionate about transforming the way we keep track of reading and student's progress. One of the individuals was the publisher of Read 180 and created the book wizard feature for Scholastic. He was branching out and created an app called Moxie Reader. This app, geared towards students reading levels, would track reading and progress. Because I have many students in my class that struggle with fluency, I was interested in learning about a program called Read Naturally. This program, which could be done with paper/pencil and/or on a computer, allowed teachers to progress monitor students on fluency. Students also worked independently to read passages and improve fluency. The presenter also taught me a good strategy to use with my students to help improve their comprehension. I was able to use this strategy with one of my reading groups and it was very helpful. Although they did not offer a workshop, I did network with an individual that offers a program known as MyOn. This program, like Moxie Reader, allows teachers to monitor reading. In addition, it provided benchmark assessments to monitor progress in reading. All 3 programs are great and would be a great addition to our school. They would provide resources for reading intervention and also incorporate the Blended Learning approach.
With the implementation of Blended Learning, students at my school were given their own personal Chromebooks. These Chromebooks are used on a daily basis in all classrooms. Although I am familiar with Google Chrome, I was unfamiliar with some of the features we are required to use in the classroom. Google Classroom, Google Docs and Google Drive are some of the features of Google Chrome that I am currently using in my Capstone classes. Google Classroom allows me to post and receive work from students. Google Docs is used to submit and revise/edit papers. Google Drive is used to keep track of documents I create and also to receive any paperwork from my students. Because it was the first time I was using these program, I attended many workshops on Google. The first one was about providing feedback using google drive. In this workshop, the presenter gave me useful information about Google Docs, including how to provide suggestions/comments, grading papers using rubrics (OrangeSlice) and adding 'add-ons' to Chrome to help me in monitoring and revising papers. You can check out resources from this workshop here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XriuugEm9bXZepJGMqwV3xEf58gD8iDwoMDYrjIcxyg/mobilebasic
As far as the reading sources, I have not had the chance to use them this week. However, it has opened my mind to all the possibilities for programs and resources I can use to provide intervention for my reading classes. The Google workshops provided resources I could use in my Capstone classes to help students through the process of completing this graduation requirement. I am currently using the add-on (OrangeSlice) to create rubrics to grade my students proposal and annotated bibliography. I also included the Draftback, chrome extension, to monitor students revisions on their proposal letters.
Besides these workshops, I also attended another one called LinkIt! that talked about how to collect data within schools to "improve the strategic use of data and enhance the efficiency of data-driven processes at the leadership and classroom level."
