TIES reflection

TIES was a whirlwind! I was a big fan of Monday's Key Note speaker. There was a lot of technology to absorb. I think I most appreciated the poster session venue in which you could just go up and talk to someone or ask questions. You can zero in on the information you need and not sit through information you already know.

Take aways:
lots of apps: 30 Hands, iwrite, Showbie, plus the ones I already know and use
ideas: using google forms as a self-evaluation after a performance,
a new way to organize for parent communications: make your own app with appmakr.

I already had a presentation set up because I did the poster session but I have since added to the site some things that I want to use. I'm excited to share it with my colleagues.

https://sites.google.com/site/mrsprowellspresentations/specialist-classroom-and-digital-learning

December Reflection Part II

Had I been blogging this year (see the previous post as to the reasons for this) I would have been writing about my nodes.

Yep, you read that right. This fall I was diagnosed with vocal nodes. Luckily, it was caught early enough that the doctor thought I could fix the problem with vocal therapy and avoid surgery. Whew! What a relief! The most interesting part of the diagnosis was that the problem seemed to pop up in the summer and, as the school year went on, got better.

What!? Nodes that get better once a teacher starts teaching? How can that be? Well, apparently, my singing voice is very well trained. It was just my speaking voice that was a disaster. And after going back to my church job as a choir director on Wednesday nights, a summer filled with multiple family reunions and play dates with kids, and just the talking involved in parenting, I had damaged my chords enough that I was noticeably struggling to sing. It was frightening! How can I be a Music Teacher without my voice! Not only that, singing is just part of who I am. To lose the ability to sing with ease was horrible.

Now, thanks to weekly voice therapy with Carol Roe at the voice clinic at Park Nicollet, I have my range back and can sing with much less effort. I am also learning to speak with more resonance. At the end of the month I go back in for a follow-up appointment with the Doctor to see if the nodes went away. I am still struggling with serious vocal fatigue by Friday but I am hopeful that I will be better than I was in the fall and that these lessons will stay with me so that  I don't have to go through this again. Ever.

December Reflection Part I

Well, its been a very busy year. A phrase that immediately comes to mind is: Be careful what you wish for! Last year I was so devastated that I saw my students only once a week and their musical exposure was so reduced. This year, I get to see my students twice a week again but for 50 minutes a session rather than 45minutes! Hooray! This is a good thing...

If you're sensing a "but..." you are right. While I am so blessed to be able so see more of my students, the added 5 minutes of instruction in every class every day has resulted in 30 minutes less of prep time each day. That's 350 minutes of prep time a week that I have been accustomed to for 14 of my previous years of teaching that I suddenly don't have. In addition to this loss of time during the teaching day, I am also trying not to stay at school until 5:30 or 6pm (trying to be a present mom) so I don't have the luxury of after school prep time I used to indulge in.

Let's just say it's been an adjustment.

At a teaching conference in my early years, I heard a presenter say, "As teachers, your plates will be very full. If something falls off the plate and it was important, you will hear about it. But if it falls off the plate and it wasn't...that's one less thing to worry about." Well, obviously, blogging has fallen off the plate. In fact, much of my technology integration has suffered.

But, there's another "but..." because tomorrow is my first day of a 2 day TIES conference. Not only am I attending but I am also presenting a poster session. In preparing for said session (thank goodness for the workload relief day!), I have been forced stop flailing about in the water, lift my focus from the immediate, and look again at a bigger picture--specifically, my technology plans as plotted out in the Tech Cohort last year. I'm really getting excited about some things specifically geared towards music teachers tomorrow and Tuesday and am hopeful that this immersion in tech will spill over into my everyday teaching.

Kid's say the greatest things!

 School has been in session for a week and a day and I am just now finding time to sit and write a reflection on what has happened so far. 

Observations: 

1. I sort of like starting school before Labor Day because we get all the procedure and expectation discussions out of the way then have a 3 day weekend and are ready to jump in and learn. 

2. This year I have one Kindergarten class, one first grade class, and one fourth grade class (instead of the full load of each grade). I have a full load of three each of second and third grade classes and four 5th grade classes as well as two Continuous Progress third/fourth grad classes. It is very odd to prep for K, 1st, and 4th only to teach the lesson once. I'm so used to having 3 or 4 times with a lesson to refine it. An unexpected bonus of this schedule is that we can pace it to however the class needs it paced without the pressure to be in the same lesson all across the grade level.

3. Kids say the greatest things. A kindergartner just asked me if I wanted to come to his birthday party. It is a costume party, he told me, and I would have to dress up as either a ninja or a princess. Priceless!

Socrative is my New Best Friend

Wow! I've been using Socrative these past 2 weeks and it is so powerful! In a 3rd grade lesson I was doing a Kahoot quiz which went really well. When we were done we didn't have enough time to do both a new Brainpop and another Kahoot so I decided to do a dipstick test to see what the students remembered from the video and quiz. Students are in groups of 2-3 and just answered the socrative questions in teams. I didn't require them to put in their names but I might next time. I selected short answer and set it to unlimited answers then asked what they learned about Brass instruments. Great feedback from kids. The second question was what they remembered from our super fast presentation of Orchestra Hall behavior expectations. When done, I sent a report to myself of the answers which showed up in spreadsheet format. So. Cool!

Another successful day with iPads

Again, I used iPads in all three morning classes. I am so inspired about the potential use of these devices. It completely opens up motivation, participation, possible assessment, interaction with partners in new ways... My brain is exploding.

Anyone know anything about nearpod? I'd like to try that next.

What a great day--the iPads are amazing!

Today I used the iPads in three classes and it was AMAZING! Everything was done in groups of 2 or 3 students:

• The third graders watched a Brainpop! video about Strings. We are preparing for our field trip to Orchestra Hall and completing the curricular goal of identifying instrument families and instrument names/sounds. Then they took a kahoot quiz that I made this morning by using the brainpop! quiz and typing the questions and answers into the kahoot quiz maker. The kids had so much fun they asked to do it again (to get a better score). How incredibly motivating!!
• Fourth graders used iPads for recorder karate and I did some testing. This is still the messiest feeling iPad activity for me because I am still working out the kinks, making sure they are on task while also testing kids one on one. But I think its getting better every time.
• Fifth grade was the most fun for me because, after working on 5th grade recognition songs, we got out the iPads and just played and played with Socrative. The kids would say, "let's do a true or false!" then I would make up a true or false question ("true or false, I clapped the rhythm on the board correctly.") and they would answer. We did T/F, multiple choice, short answer, and exit card. What fun!!!