Author: Carrie

I'm Carrie... momma, wife, mismatch sock wearer, Special Education teacher, author, doodler, idea Sharer, inspiration junkie and learning enthusiast! I think life and learning are HECK AWESOME!
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Donning My Shield

My phone’s screen illuminated… Alex Iwashyna has shared with you on Google+ It said, “Love this….”

“hummmm…that interesting. Maybe I’ll read it,” I thought. “Nahhhh, I’m too tired.”

A little voice whispered to me… go ahead and read it.

I clicked on the link.

“What the heck is this?!” I grumbled to myself. “What is Alex sharing?!”

Then I began to read and suddenly I felt like I was meant to have seen the article.

Golda Poretsky, the author, shared her “deep spiritual practice of Not Giving a Sh*t.” This has to be a joke, I thought. She wasn’t joking, she was quite serious! She went on to share her struggles with others who judge her by the way she looks instead of getting to know what she can do.

“Well… I am not over weight so how is not giving a shit about what others think of my weight going to help me? What the heck did Alex get from this?”

Then Golda wrote, “If you notice that you’re holding yourself back from doing something you want to do because of other people’s opinions, it’s time to get on board with this spiritual practice.”

…suddenly my heart became heavy.

For weeks I have been owning others words. Taking them, holding on to them, letting them weigh me down, letting them define me, feeling captured and trapped by them, thinking that it was me that needed to change so their words would change. My efforts to improve my listening skills (really listening to others…not just hearing others) and trying to learn from what they communicated to me left this huge giagantic painful weight that I just could not shake.

After reading the post I realized (and Golda speaks to this too) I don’t want to not care what others think or not listen to others. I need to be selective in what I let in.

Golda closed her post with three techniques for starting my own practice of Not Giving a Shit… 1) Just say it…”I don’t give a shit!” 2) Energy Bounce visualizing the negative energy bouncing off of you 3) Feel Love And Gratitude For Those That Support You recognizing and feeling the gratitude and love that is in your life.

So while I know learning to balance caring with not giving a shit and relearning to own all the goodness in my life will not be an easy task, I feel like a gigantic weight has been lifted from my heart. I am now armed with a new tool that will empower me to decide how much I am going let others opinions or negative feelings decide how I feel about myself.

Sheild

I’ve got my Shield and I’m going to learn how to use it!

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Discovering Edcanvas

Using technology to engage my students in independent learning is a huge humongously big deal. Independent activities and self guided learning, because of my students learning weaknesses, is extremely challenging and often not possible.  A consistent goal of mine is to provide them with tools that allow them to independently access information of taught materials and tools that allow them to independently practice and improve a given skill completely independently.

This week I discovered Edcanvas and oh momma the potential and awesomeness is ridiculous!

Edcanvas is an online resource that allows teachers to collate resources into a single page for students to access.  Edcanvas’s easy to use fomat allows you to easily drag and drop  resources from sites like Flickr, Google, YouTube and even your Dropbox.  It also has the flexibility to allow you to add text.  Not one to waste a great tool, especially when I know it will be excellent for my students I could not wait to try it.  To say I was excited to try it would be an understatement!

. . . . . . 

My Math students had taken notes on Changing Decimals to Percents and had done a few practice problems.  Using Edcanvas I made a Canvas with YouTube videos on how to do the concept, a copy of the completed notes (in case they needed to access how to do the concept during the activity), several questions to check for understanding and reinforce important steps and ten practice problems. One more thing…to ensure that my students could be as independent as possible when they used Edcanvas I also created an Edcanvas worksheet/ note sheet to go along with my lesson.

‘CLICK‘ picture to go to link 
where you can download a PDF of the worksheet

 
The worksheet would make sure my students knew they were going to be held accountable for their work, it would kept them on task  (expecting them to note what type of information was being presented), it would keep them an organized and give them a space to record their answers.  More importantly, using a consistent, structured tool every time we used Edcanvas would increase my students independence and success every time they used it.  The next day my lesson was ready and I shared the link for my Edcanvas with my students via Edmodo (super simple to do with Edcanvas’s share option that allows you to share using multiple social media tools with just one click). 


The lesson was a huge success and quickly became a part of our weekly Math lessons! 

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Week #2: Perfecting Student Access

The iPads where in full force this week. This week the expectation was that class work, assignment notebooks and homework would be done on the iPads.  With my students, teaching assistants and the iPads ready, (and state testing almost done) we were ready to put  the iPads to work! 


Monday– my students were still learning to navigate the Goodreader software. We continued to focus on teaching them to organize their materials in it ex. Labeling worksheets and putting them in the right folders. During my language arts lesson I introduced the drawing tool in Goodreader. Teaching my students to realize and identify that they do not always have to type, sometimes using the technology to hand writing is the better and more efficient choice. 

Tuesday–  This day brought me the question…What do I want materials do I want my students to type on the iPad?  Do some of their assignments/work have stay good old paper and pencil?  If my students take notes on the iPad for Math and do their Math homework on the iPad how can they can not have their notes right in front of them while doing their homework (something they often have to be able to do to remember the steps/information).  I had to seriously think about what would and would not be completed on the iPad and again contemplate… Do some of their assignments/work have stay good old paper and pencil?

Wednesday– Hump day proved to bring some solutions. First, I decided that notes and information gathering during class would be the primary support the iPad.  A decision I was just ok with, but not completely satisfied with.  Next,  it was time for me to start thinking out of the box…especially if I didn’t want to settle on just using the iPad to take notes.  

For example…
When completing their Social Studies homework, if a student needed to look at their notes to help recall information they had to close the homework document they were in,  open the notes, find the information they needed, remember the information, close the notes, reopen the homework sheet and typed them in their answer…ugggg This many steps proved to be too challenging for students who were using their notes to help support short term memory weaknesses.  How could I make it so they did not have to close and open documents and so that I didn’t have to cave and have them go back to printing out their notes?   
Solution: using adobe I was able to merge (import) both the notes and the homework documents into one file. This will give my students the ability to move between both with just a swipe and not have to close, open, close, and open. I was able to use this same solution  with our paragraph organizer.  I was able to merge (import) the paragraph organizer with a blank document. 

This way my students could continue to use the organizer to manage and organize their paragraph ideas and only need to swipe between the organizer and the space they typed their paragraph on.  


With a lot of the kinks worked out Thursday and Friday allowed my students to use their iPads throughout the day with fewer hiccups and road blocks.  Class assignments and homework were completed electronically.  Our new grading system (grading on the spot, providing instant feedback on assignments, being paperless) continued to be an efficient grading technique.  Our new grading system continues to save us a lot of time and has taken away a lot of wasted steps we had in place before.  Most importantly, the direct feedback to each student regarding what they did well and need to improve has been highly effective, allowing each student to know instantly what they might need to improve on and even more importantly making them just feel plain old good about themselves and their work when they do well!

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I’m Cheating on My Blog and It’s Your Fault

Three weeks ago EVERYTHING changed.

EVERYTHING changed and it is all your fault!

You see when I first started blogging I was terrified.  I knew I wanted to be part of this space, but I was terrified.  I was terrified to share to much about myself.  Terrified of what others would think.  Terrified I might mess up and post something really stupid.  I was terrified, but I did it anyway… I wrote.

Then you came along.

You came.

You read.

You shared.

You commented.

and suddenly this world that was terrifying and unknown became fantastically beautiful.   The fear I’d had about sharing too much and revealing my identity was replaced by confidence.  Now this world is full of amazing new friends, a fantastic community of woman I have come to adore and only wonderfully fantastic experiences.  Slowly everything I feared disappeared and this space has become a heck awesome place share, create, write and have fun!

So three weeks ago I did it…

After months of creating and designing it was ready.

The words flowed from my hands, easier and freer then I have ever experienced.  The passion and expertise I had for my craft did not let me down.  Before I knew it words filled my page.

I hit publish.

For the first time Carrie, Special Education teacher shared her voice as the deeply passionate Special Education teacher.

and I just want to say  THANK YOU!

Screen Shot 2013-03-15 at 3.02.12 PM

I am very excited to share this new adventure with all of you.  It is because of what you all have done for me that I even felt brave enough to share my voice on this new space.  While I know most of you do not come here to read about special education,  education or teaching tools, from time to time I will share with you here my affair with my other blog.  Quite frankly,  it is a part of me I am deeply passionate about, I am giddy to be writing there and it is something I am very proud of!

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Week 1: Unexpected Crazy Perfection

You know those weeks that you walk into your classroom thinking I have everything planned. 

You’ve checked your ToDo list, your calendar, run through the second ToDo list in your head and think done, done and yes! 

This week was one of those weeks….or so I thought.

This was it. THE WEEK!!! The iPads were going to be handed out. It was finally here. All my prep, hard work, planning was finally going to be unleashed on my class. Little did I realize that my giddy excitement had left me unprepared for one thing…. The one huge gigantic duhhhh thing you fail to remember.   It was ISAT testing (Illinois State Achievement Testing)… Yep!! Happening this week. I had giddily waited for for three weeks.   By the time I finally connected the dots all I could say to myself was uuggggggg what the HECK were you thinking Carrie!!!  Introduce iPads to your students during ISAT week!  (I was even totally prepared for the testing week).  What can I say…I blame my giddy excitement.

MONDAY– It was THE day! It was the day I was going to pass out the iPads and start teaching my students to utilize all their technological goodness. Only I did not prepare for the entire tech team to be out at the ICE Conference for two days. That meant that the iPads were not going to be ready. UGGGGGGGG I thought for sure my students would string me up by my toes and give me a major guilt trip for not having them…. no one even asked! 

TUESDAY– brought us a snowday… wooohooo 

WEDNESDAY– State testing day for our school. An error in ordering had left students on my case load without testing materials, leaving me with a two hour block of time I needed to fill with my students while the rest of the building tested…ugggggg (that word is becoming my mantra) and seriously! I sat at my desk siggghhhing at the situation. Scanning the classroom as if it had answer, my brain tries to process what was happening. Suddenly, my eyes connected with the cart of laptops and iPads. The iPads were ready. They were READY. THEEEEYYYYY WERE REEEADY!!! Before I knew it I was explaining to my students that were we not having testing. After i answered all their questions about why and how and what if I told them that today was the day they were getting their iPads. 

“You mean to take home and use all the time?!!!!!!” 

“Yes!!! To take home and use all the time!!!!” 

 …Instantly this unexpected… this uuuugggggg moment became two hours of uninterrupted instruction on how to use, navigate and interact with the iPad. 

It was unexpected fabulousness! 

Those two hours gave me an opportunity to flow from one iPad lesson to the next. No interruptions. No passing periods, no announcements. I introduced them to Dropbox. Showed them how to load materials from our Dropbox into Goodreader (if you have iPads and do not use this you are seriously missing an incredible tool. It IS my student’s binder). We logged into their Edmodo and Google accounts. We explored and got to know each apps functions and ways. My teaching assistants and I smiled and giggled as we watched our students look at their iPads, realize what they can do, realize the new skills they had and see their eyes widen and their smiles over take their face. It was absolute awesomeness!!! 

As we wrapped up the two hours by asking our students to fill out their assignment notebooks I looked at my class, smiled and waited for it. I watched as a couple of students start to stand to get an assignment notebook sheet. 

 “What ya doing?” I asked waiting for my student to make eye contact with me. 

“Getting my assignment notebooks sheet.” 

“Reallyyyy?!” I said, totally over exaggerating my smile.  I held my smile waiting it to happen 

{Wait for it} 

{Wait for it} 

“My assignment notebook is on my iPad!!!!!” 

“Yep!! No papers!” I smiled!

 {roaring infectious giggle} 

 “THIS IS SOOOOO COOL!!!!” 

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY our tests showed up and testing happened. Now not having my usual instructional time began to once again make me think uggggggg what was I thinking. This is an awful week to roll out the iPads. As our testing sessions ended and our modified schedule played out I began to realize that this week could not have been more perfect to do exactly what I had done. The modified schedule coupled with the general expectation of reduced, if not any homework, because of testing gave me freedom. It gave me the freedom to break in all the apps I wanted my students to use without the pressure of a full on class lesson. It gave me the freedom to give a worksheet for my students to try doing at home on the iPad instead of a packet or complex assignment. It gave me and my students time to connect with the iPad, my new expectations, their new mind set and the freedom to work through all the ins and outs and what ifs. 

It was quite a week! It was totally unexpectedly amazingly unplanned perfection! 

I’m exhausted!!

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Getting Ready…Pre-Week #2

Last week was my last week prior to {insert nail biting paired and gitty excitement geeeee} the big day… The day the students get their iPads.

I wasn’t the only one excited either!  I heard at least once or twice a day, “When are we getting the iPads (insert blank stare at me… Light bulb going off) Oh yeah next week.” Followed by frown and shoulder slump.

We are all incredibly excited and the anticipation was high!!! 

My goals for this week were pretty straight forward… prepare and change.

Prepare… I needed to label each iPad with names and numbers, collect the last of the permission slips/ technology agreements and finalize what apps I wanted on all the iPads.

Change…I realized needed to completely change how I took time to evaluate homework and my mindset about managing it.  You see until last week the homework I assigned was collected at the beginning of the period it was due. The time left was dedicated to instructional time. If I was going to go all in and fully embrace being an iPad classroom, which to me also meant almost completely paperless, I needed to seriously change how I was doing things.

The Change…First, I developed a template. I needed to make a  paper template I could use to record assignments on and that could easily be transferred into the grade book. It needed to be easy enough for the teaching assistants I work with to use and record assignments on for their groups. Second, I needed to change how and when we graded papers. I can’t exactly collect 11 iPads and grade the papers, nor did I want 10 PDFs times 6 periods plus a day being dropped in my Dropbox. So I had to compromise with myself and give up a bit of class time to grade papers. I didn’t, however,  want grading to take more then 5ish minutes of any class period. 


So with these very strong plan in mind, I ran my class as if it was a paperless classroom and prepped my teaching assistants for the changes to come and this mindset.

Here is how things went…
Monday– I payed attention to my habits, reminding myself of what would be paperless and what would not. I took note of places in our classroom routines I would need to leave time for corrections.

Tuesday– I was well aware of the changes I needed to make to my habits. I worked hard to grade papers on the spot. Grading them, collecting them and then…gasp! throwing them away… Paperless yo!  I took mental notes of the routines in our day and the improvements I still needed to make.

Wednesday– By this time my students had become accustomed to having papers graded on the spot. I began to share with them their scores immediately and have them fix errors on the spot (if their was time).  I began to realize that by collecting and grading homework separately, wanting to save precious instructional time I may have been missing priceless re-teaching and reinforcement opportunities. I was also missing chances to share with my students my recognition for their hard work and what they did well on in their work. I also realized that if I was allowing my students to make corrections for better grades (something I have always done, but usually as homework and after the score had been recorded in the grade book) I also needed to record the initial score of the worksheet and the score of the worksheet after correction.  This would ensure I documented my students initial performance on work.  

Thursday– Our usual stack of collected papers was next to nothing. My teaching assistants reported that the template made transferring scores into the grade book simpler then ever. I determined that all of our data collection in relations to my student IEP goals would be done on paper. We would continue to collect it, to ensure we had documentation and record of their performance as it relates to their goals.

Friday–  We were excitedly on our way to a almost paperless classroom. I was happy and proud of the hard changes we made. I was embracing our new mindset and modeling that change can be exciting and well worth it!  I was absolutely giddy with anticipation for the big week ahead!!!

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I Had A Bad Dream

February was not my favorite month this time around. Life brought me experiences that made me angry, doubt things and just plan old sad. It gave me tales that I so desperately wanted to write about but couldn’t because they went against my blogging rules…don’t write when your emotional, don’t write anything you wouldn’t say to someone in person and don’t write about others very personal experiences unless they are your own.

So I struggled.

I needed to write. I needed to share but I hated the words that needed a space and I wasn’t happy. I was ashamed and mad. I was ashamed that I didn’t have answers and mad that sometimes we make mistakes that cant be fixed quickly. I was ashamed I was not finding the good in all of this and I was mad I couldn’t find a way to share it here so you could be here for me.

Then one night this happened…

As I slept a green picturesque hillside was decorated with red and white checkered picnic blankets. My friends giggled and talked as they soaked up the sun of this picture perfect spring day. Sips of the perfect red wine and nibbles of creamy cheese filled their stomachs. I smiled in all the joy that surrounded me. A blonde haired man approached our day. His hair sleeked back. His peach suit perfectly polyester, unexpectedly fashionable and oddly handsome. He whispered to us and coaxed us. His words made us want to come with him, follow him, trust him and we did. Then as instantly as we had trusted him, his eyes became crimson and his teeth transformed into fangs. Our happiness was instantly replaced by terrifying fear as our naive necks were plunged into. Our picturesque hillside was suddenly filled with fear. By body shook in fear and I began to cry… Nnnnoooooooo!!!! I screamed then suddenly awoken from my sleep.

I didn’t go back to sleep that morning.

I knew all the moments that had made me mad and frustrated and just plan pissed in February but I could not wrap myself around why I was so unhappy.

As the warm shower water flowed over my body that morning my mind searched to make sense of it all. Then as clearly and vividly as my dream had come to me the answers appeared too.

I wasn’t happy with things… duh right!! But what would I do next? Stay unhappy. Let what is, be? Well if you visited here enough you know that answer… hell no. Instead I would be patient with myself. Give myself some slack and reflect. Reflect on what had happened this month. Learn from what had happened, try to work on me and take time to understand others better.

So here I am working on me… imperfect, mistake maker, willing to change, still learning.

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WTHHLB (Where The Heck Has Laverne Been) #2

Creativity has been oooozing for me and so have my opportunities for design. This time I got to work with teacher and it has been (has been because I am not quite done with one, but I’ll let you have a peek). Anytime I get a cance to work with woman and help them set up and create their spaces it is moving. Blogging and finding my voice has been life changing for me. So have the friend I have made. Each time I help another design their space I warmly smile because I know the same possibilities await them on their adventure.

This first blog I designed for a friend and fellow teacher who is a … Of all the designs I have created this one came the fastest to me. Channeling my inner Jen I was easily able to create a space that fit her personality,who she is as an educator and what she wants her blog to stand for. And to top it all off her tag line (I’m a tag line creating freak. Get out the thesaurus and weave words together in creative and fun ways! My kind on fun)… We hit it out of the ball park!!!

EDimageThe second design I worked on…errr…am working on…errr I finally finished!  It was also for another fellow educator.  This one has been a labor of love. Tweeks and updates and changes and more changes and thinking it worked and then realizing it wasn’t just right.  Unlike Jen’s, this design, has not come so simply (and after Jen’s I was kind of disappointed). Randee’s vision was very different then Jen’s.  She wanted to start a community for fellow teachers to share and talk. S he had a vision, but is also very ambitious about what she wants to offer fellow teachers. She is eager to inspire, connect and bring out the best in fellow teachers.  I wanted to create the perfect space for that.

EBimage

It has been a fantastic journey and wonderful chance to work and connect with teachers.

So while I may not be here…

I am always busy creating!!

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The Portable Lesson #1

As I prepare for my classroom’s journey as a 1:1 iPad classroom I find myself thinking very differently more frequently then usual.  Aside from trying to predict what it will be like to be a 1:1 iPad classroom (that is a whollllleeee other post for another day) I have began to think how I can integrate my own iPad use into my classroom more frequently.

How can I model technology use more?

How can I use my technology to enhance my instruction more?

How can I utilize my technology during my instruction to better support my students learning needs?

Suddenly it hit me today in the middle of one of my math lessons….

retaining instruction (even with notes) is difficult for my students

their mastery of a concept significantly increases when I pair homework with reinforcements/informational videos

my current method of making videos is too time consuming

I am already using educreations as the whiteboard on my iPad with Reflections to display notes during instruction

I also write math notes, model problems and give examples

Soooooo…. If I become more conscientious of my use of educreations app.  If I create a new slide instead of erasing the slide each time I start a new problem, all I would need to do is add my own narrations and I would have a video my students could watch at home. 

So today during my math lesson…I added a slide each time I gave my students new information, an example or a new problem, after class I added my own slides, I taped my narration to go with the information, I added a few questions at the end and I had a educreations video done in less the 10 minutes.  I also had video of that days of instruction for my students to watch with questions that I could assign for homework that night.  A video with questions at the end that will reinforce my instruction, keep them engaged and monitor comprehension of the concept right at their level.

 

and you had one incredibly excited teacher!!!!
 
*in case you are having trouble viewing the video ‘CLICK’ here for the link 

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Getting Ready….Pre-Week #1

Today it began.

I did it.

I shared the letter with my students introducing the 1:1 iPad classroom we were becoming.  Excitement filled the classroom. Question after question came from their mouths and it all became real to me.

Parent Letter

This was really happening.

So as eager students go home to share with their parents the news of this fantastic opportunity I plan and prepare the technology.

My Fancy TO DO List

With a week left to prepare for the big hand out I am…

  • Assigning students to iPads
  • Labeling iPads with students names
  • Making sure all the iPads have the apps I want on them…I am starting with Dropbox, Goodreader, Edmodo, a whiteboard app, Google app and Paperport Notes
  • Making sure each student has the necessary accounts
  • Preparing a file with most used PDFs ready to be shared with each student’s Dropbox

In between preparing the iPads and having excited students eagerly return their technology agreements I am also running though my daily schedule trying to predict and anticipate any glitches I need to prepare for.

                                                                                   

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Talking to Strangers: Linking Up Again

TalkingToStrangersIt has been too long since I have talked to strangers.  As a matter of fact I realized the other day that I have now been blogging for over two and a half years now…wow…two…and…a half…years.   I suppose that means I missed my anniversary six months ago…huh?!

I can’t believe it.

During these last two and a half years amazing things have happened for me…

I was a contributor for Just Be Enough.  My best friend and I shared a blog.

I’ve been to two bloggy luncheons (Girls Lunch Out).

I have shared my voice at the Kir Corner, Wednesday’s Woman and Great Expectations

I have co-written several mad crazy fun posts with Abby.

I taught my self graphic design and fell in love with the creative outlet it gave me.

I rediscovered a long lost talent and started to draw again.

I discovered within myself a woman who loves words, loves the pictures they paint and smiles at the experiences it shares.

I have been dragged in from my corner outside of the blogosphere huddled in lock down tight security fearful of sharing too much and discovered a world of in the blogosphere that is phenomenally, fantastic, beautiful, supportive and just plain amazing woman who encourage and make me feel like I am safe to try new things and put myself out there.  A group of woman I now proudly call friends.

My creations are seen, my words are read (by someone other then me…),  they were shared,  heard and I thought….

I thought all of this was enough.  I have thought that it was enough for a long time now. Continue reading “Talking to Strangers: Linking Up Again”

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6 Seconds of Fun

Friday night twitter introduced me to a whole new wonderful social media medium.

6 seconds of magically looping infinite addicting fun!

…and I am IN LOVE!!!

It is called Vine.

Vine is an iOS mobile service app that lets you create and share beautiful, short looping videos. It’s life in  6 seconds of looping motion.  To me it is a fun and whole new way to share life with video and I can not wait to see where it goes!  Here are a few of the ones I have made so far…

Saturday Night beverage

  Continue reading “6 Seconds of Fun”

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