Apple Foundations Training Day #5 and Day #6

    As my time in the Apple Foundations Class comes to a close, it's hard for me to process through all of the thoughts and ideas that I have after all of this. I have learned so much, and I am in a whirlwind of ideas and project pieces.

     Today, I was challenged after watching this video about how we really should think about technology in our classrooms. I was encouraged by the emphasis on quality teaching, and that technology without good lessons is meaningless. If you have some time, I would highly encourage you to watch and re-watch the video below. Prepare to be inspired.





     I created a presentation using Haiku Deck with some of my thoughts after watching the video. Feel free to check it out!

Educational Challenge- Haiku Deck
   
     I am so very grateful that I work for a district that offers not only the technology you need to support your classroom, but also offers the professional development needed to really understand and utilize these great pieces of technology correctly.

     Education is changing and changing fast. Even though it is a little scary to think about where we will be even in the next two years, I hope that we decide to view these changes as exciting. Just think about all the new ways we can reach kids and really prepare them for the future. Each year, we are entrusted with developing and challenging several world-changers. I don't know about you, but I don't think we can afford to take this huge responsibility lightly.

Apple Foundations Training Day #4

     When people talked about creating iBooks, I always thought "How in the world do they have time for that?" Creating a whole book just to teach a certain lesson differently seemed a little drastic. When the tech trainers told us that we would be creating iBooks in day #4 of AFT, I was forced to actually look at the app. I'll be honest, I liked what I saw! I still was skeptical, though. I was trying to figure out how I could possibly use it in my classroom, and it still seemed like a  whole lot of work. I put my headphones in, grabbed my English curriculum, and went to town. A couple hours later, I had this amazing grammar book that was both interactive and FUN!

     My goal for this AFT is to try to make grammar more entertaining and meaningful for my students. I think that iBooks could be a valuable piece of this puzzle. I never want to be a teacher that tells students to open up their books and lecture them on things that are right in front of them. I'm just not that type of teacher. I'm still not an expert in all things iBook, but I'm excited to start using it in my classroom.

Until next time,

L

Apple Foundations Training Day #3

     I don't know how everyone else feels about Powerpoint, but I think it is so ten years ago! I try to avoid Powerpoint, because I can see the effect they have on students. It's like the moment you pull up a Powerpoint, the eyes of the students sitting in front of you glaze over. Today in AFT, we have been focusing on all things Numbers, Keynote, and Pages. Since I am forcing myself to just focus on English during this training, I focused primarily on Pages and Keynote. My head is
still spinning from all the different ideas I have with using these two tools in the classroom. I think of them as a Microsoft revamping, and I LOVE it!

     The first thing I worked on today bulldozing and rebuilding my very "wordy" parent letter for the beginning of school. I have included my "before" and "after" below.

   

Before

After

                           

     This afternoon, I really started to dig into grammar curriculum. I decided to ditch the whiteboard, Powerpoints, and worksheets and dive straight into creating a presentation using keynote. After lots of playing and toying around, I finally produced my intro lesson to my nouns unit. It's far from perfect, but I'm learning to be okay with imperfection. 

Until tomorrow!

-L

Apple Foundations Training Day #2

   The second day of AFT was filled with so much information as well as some technical difficulties. Even though I was having several issues with getting my iPad to sync to the internet and to just cooperate with me, I learned a lot from these challenges. I can't tell you how many times I have run into technical issues in my class, and often times, in the middle of a lesson. Technology is great, but we can't always rely on the fact that it will always work 100% of the time. I think a part of being a good teacher is being able to adapt to any circumstances or challenges that come up on the fly. Adaptability is so important in our field! So, even though I had some problems yesterday, I was reminded of this important lesson. I call that a win! 

    I was able to produce a fun introduction slideshow for my grammar unit. My focal point for this training is grammar. Even though it is such an important skill to learn, grammar can be very boring to students. I'm trying to figure out a way to make students see the importance of learning how to speak and write correctly in a fun way. I'm not quite sure exactly how to do that, but I'm having fun experimenting with different ideas this week. 

Apple Foundations Training Day #1

    For the next six days, I have the privilege of attending Bellevue's Apple Foundations Training. These days will be filled with tips and tricks of using iPads and Macbooks to implement quality education in our classrooms. I'm very excited to be challenged and stretched in my educational career. 

    Our homework for our first day of class was to create a screencast of our top six things that we learned that day. I decided to create a Prezi and include screenshots of the different features I learned about on my Macbook today.