#YouMatter Day

A few weeks ago I saw my friend, who is the art teacher at my school, post on one of her mentee's Facebook about how awesome she was.  Earlier that day I had read Todd Nelsoney's blog about a #YouMatter day he did in his class. It was super easy and had a lot of potential. I put it in the back of my head as something I could do.

Then when I saw the Art teacher's post I jumped in and suggested that we do a #YouMatter day at school. They jumped on and next thing you know there was five of us sitting in the art room Monday morning planning it. 

The plan was simple. I outlined what Todd Nesloney did and sent out links to Angela Maiers' Tedx talk. Then we waited until May 27th, last Tuesday. That morning I had several excited teachers stop by to thank me for the idea (which I totally just stole). That morning my kids watched the video, discussed noticing people who are making significant contributions, and started writing letters. 

At one point a fifth grade teacher brought his entire class to my room, came in, and modeled how to deliver a letter.  This was awesome! Not to mention the inspiring letter he wrote to me. 

I had planned on getting my students to sign the #YouMatter wall that our art teacher put up at lunch time.  However, they had to squeeze in because the paper was full by lunch! There was even a line to sign the poster!

As the day progressed there were teachers from first through fifth grade participating. Just think, as a third grade teacher, I matter to students is 1st-5th grade. One of my favorites thanks me for dressing up as Ash Ketchum for our global field day (to represent Japan). He said it helped restore his love of Pokemon. 

Letters continued to trickle in throughout the week. Teachers began discussing how to leverage this new found motivation. Here are some pictures of what two fifth grade teachers were inspired to do. 

What a great day! When will you schedule your #YouMatter day?

Connecting

This week I was super connected. I loved it and have probably done more work in a single week than I had all year. The best part of all was it didn't feel like work. My passion for being connected and collaborating is making my job easier and I'm much more effective. 

This week I finished writing poems for a collaborative eBook with a few teachers in Ohio and another one in North Carolina. https://twitter.com/theipodteacher/status/468036008874082304 It was an awesome experience and showed me how simple and easy collaboration can be. Not to mention during the project students were motivated and wanted to do their best. Several were sent back to make revisions up to five times. There was no frustration, but just determination to publish an excellent poem. I want to thank @PrimaryTeachNC, Kate Haris, and @theipodteacher for helping this happen. 

I also took some big steps in using PBL more effectively. I had some local training done by my district and completed a course through PBLU on driving questions. This was quite an undertaking, but was actually fun. I even made time to plan a PBL unit around the novel Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel starting next week. I have learned a lot and hopefully the successes and mistakes in this new unit will help more. 

There is a lot more too, but those were two of the highlights from this week in being connected. One other smaller one is that I got a few kids excited about Pixel Press after learning about it on the #2guysshow. We will see where it goes. Next week I'm going to try to squeeze in some creative writing and use he ColAR mix coloring sheets. I have also started a #youmatter movement at my school thanks to some inspiration from @techninjatodd and his blog post http://nesloneyflipped.blogspot.com/2014/05/youmatter-day-2014.html. We will be ironing out the details tomorrow morning. I saw a neat idea on Twitter with area and perimeter designing your dream bedroom. My students need to review those concepts so I'm glad I found that idea. Finally, I need to start planning an Augmented Reality scavenger hunt. I want to do it, but just need to find the right content to work it with. 

It is amazing how driven I am to complete my own self directed projects as a teacher. I really need to spread this passion with my students. It is all from being connected and feeding off of the passion from like minded educators. I am really motivated and just wish I had more than four weeks left to inspire my students this year. Then again ISTE this summer is going to be awesome and transform my teaching even more. 

I want to be the very best

Here it is! My first big jump into Augmented Reality.  Thanks to my Twitter PLN.  Three shout outs need to go to @kinderMI who is going on this journey with me although she might be doing a bit better at this point.  That probably helps me gain more inspiration form her.  Then the two guys @TechMinock and @techbradwaid for providing plenty of passion and inspiration. 

Now let's go back through this process. About a month ago I decided I needed to find people who were passionate about the same things as me.  I was getting really defeated by not being able to find anyone in my building.  I finally dove into twitter.  I found some chats, the two guys, more people for my PLN, and Aurasma.  Then my creativity took over.

How was I going to implement it? My kids have 1:1 but with Dell laptops that are probably close to ten years old using Windows XP, and they can only use IE 8 as their browser.  How was I going to put AR in their hands?  Well, I started to encourage them to bring their own devices in. I have at least six kids every day with a device capable of running Aurasma. During the process we had a lot of issues with connecting and getting triggers to work. Luckily, the kids have dove into this and helped me stay excited.  One student even had his mom create him an Aurasma account and has been making auras at home for fun. 

Now that we had some devices and had gotten it to work once in class and now we needed to design the bulletin board on Japan. The kids first had to defend how Pokemon was connected to Japan and then connect to a Pokemon. I figured this would help them connect with one piece of the rich Japanese culture instead of just memorizing countless facts and traditions.  The kids enjoyed it and once we got past drawing Pokemon pictures they really connected to the Pokemon.   In addition to containing these videos of kids explaining their poke on choices they added five life lessons that you can get from Pokemon on the board.  Inspired by some other Pokemon bulletin boards I found on the web.  Be careful when you google for Pokemon bulletin boards.  You will find the life lessons examples, but most of me are about not catching them all (referring to STD education). That isn't something I think I should be teaching third graders. 

Our first major barrier came the week of finishing the bulletin board.  Our school turned off the public network in the classrooms so students had to connect to the BYOD wifi which blocks a connection with Aurasma studio and required a lengthy login process. Luckily I made some time after school and tried to set up the triggers using my account in my iPad. This transferred over BYOD. I'm not sure why the same triggers wouldn't work when doing it in my studio account, but anyway I got it working again.   This is after several emails trying to trouble shoot with my media specialist, who is awesome. 

So the big day came and went and anyone who saw it was impressed and inspired.  I even had one teacher tell me how she is so excited and her kids with learning disabilities are so excited about AR. I know I have inspired at least one other teacher to improve her practice by using AR so that makes this adventure a success. That and anytime my kids have free time they ask to go watch the videos on the bulletin board.  

Next week my focus shifts to writing poetry for a collaborative ebook we are taking part in. I think my next big AR project is going to be a scavenger hunt.  I'll probably get my two kids with their own iPads to even set up the whole thing. What advice can you give me in taking this on? Even resources I could adapt for third grade would be fantastic. Help me find out what is next in AR. 

Now for the title. I think I know what my goal is as a connected educator. I want to be the best. Although after reading Drive I realize it isn't about being he best, but about working toward mastery. I have a long way to go and am not sure of the path. So I guess I'm asking my PLN to help me. Help inspire me, guide me, and help me find what is next to get better to become the best educator I can be. Instead of a Pokemon Master I want to work on becoming an Education Master. 

I'm not sure how this post will turn out. I'm writing it on my iPad because I think this may be the easier way for me to blog without completely removing me from my family. I've had to stop several times to let my 13 month old son play with my iPad. Fortunately for me his attention span isn't long so he moves on quickly.  Finally, happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.  Especially my wife and my own mother who I should probably call. 

A letter to myself on the first day this year

Dear Mr. Donnelly,

You have a lot to learn this year and probably don't think you have the time or energy to do so. You do have the time and energy. First of all, become more active on Twitter. Once every few days for five minutes won't connect you at the pace you personally need to stay passionate. Second, you really know what you are doing and want out of this career. Don't let negative people tell you it won't work or stop you. Be on the look out for negative people and keep listening to the positive ones.  Find more like minded educators on Twitter. Twitter will reignite your passion and help you see the direction you want to go in. Become connected and spread your thoughts and passions while taking some from others too. 

Read to Achieve won't be that bad, but everyone will worry too much about it and forget to have fun. Make sure you have fun. The kids will get sick of the passages and you will constantly try to make them more engaging and not stressful. Don't worry too much about it.  Plan fun and engaging lessons and sneak in the passages.  It is much easier than reworking your style to something it isn't.  

Read the book Drive before Christmas break. Take more risks and ask forgiveness not permission if you have a good idea. Start the Pokemon research earlier and make it a once a week thing.  Add in augmented reality sooner.  More than half of your students have devices that are faster than the ten year old laptops they get. The laptops are great, but use them to create.  Take advantage of the student personal devices too. Don't just assign a bunch of problems because that is the same as giving a worksheet which isn't always best. Use the technology to create, publish, revise, and reflect. 

One other thing that will help is to sleep train your son.  He gets it in three days and is down at seven every night.  Do it before Christmas break. It will be great to put him to bed them join a Twitter chat, write a blog post, or spend time with your wife. 

Sincerely,

Yourself in May

Project or Worksheet? Augmented Reality in my classroom and more

This week I had students watch some instructional videos on Fractions.  Specifically equivalent fractions, whole numbers as fractions, and comparing fractions with the same denominator.  When they arrived in class if they had completed their notes they were allowed to choose.  If they did not do the assignment they had to complete it and work on my "worksheet".  Now the two choices were what I call a project and a worksheet.  The project one day was for them to create 5 examples of equivalent fractions including a model and number line (Here is an example of one creating 3 examples comparing fractions).  The worksheet choice was to complete an assignment on ScootPad related to the same topic.  It provided students two ways to show mastery. It allows them to show mastery in a way they choose, but isn't a project where they present to an authentic audience nor is there a driving question.  If I can find a way to make these project more authentic it would help improve student learning.

I feel like the project piece of this assignment needs some work.  I'm wondering how to strengthen it and make it better, but still something kids can get done in a day or two.

What I'm going to try to do next is make this work for part of my reading block.  Introduce the skill, and have students work on a project or worksheet.  The problem I found last week is that most students chose worksheet.  If they chose project they ended up wasting time or got distracted and didn't finish the project therefore never demonstrated mastery.  I think I need to do daily mini lessons in this that model the type of work and thinking for a project instead of a worksheet.  Then my students will see the skills modeled daily and be able to apply those skills to their work.

Also this week students have finished planning our bulletin board for global field day.  I plan on making it interactive with Augmented Reality.  I also need to come up with an Augmented Reality scavenger hunt before the end of the year using Aurasma.  Does anyone have any advice on where to start with that? Tips or tricks I can use to avoid any pitfalls? 

My next question is how can I improve my blog?  What should I change about the layout?  My goal is to change or add a few things a week.  I still need to find a specific direction for this blog.  Maybe add in some pages.  I started on this to become more connected and reflect.  I am doing both of those things right now.  How can I improve?