Kindergarten Pond Getting Techie!!

I have spent the last two days at our county's Digital Renaissance Summer Conference!!  (If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen a lot of tweets with #digrensc.) I am on fire and ready for school to start so I can share all this fabulous tech with my kiddos!!!

( 2nd, 1st, and Kindergarten representing with our Superintendent!)

Here is just a taste of what I learned from the past two days:

Kevin Honeycutt 

Have you met this guy? If not, you are missing out. He is an amazing teacher with so much to share!!! Check out his web page and YouTube channel.

My  five major takeaways from him were:
1. Relationships are important between student and teacher! Teacher empowerment comes from being trusted, how you feel when you are learning is how you remember the learning – emotion cements learning and leads to launch moments!!!!

2. We need to teach ourselves and our students to "Learn to Love to Learn". We should all be "self-updating software" continuously improving and learning on our own.
3. Be prescriptive! Make the tool fit the students.

4. Don't be secret geniuses!!!! Share! Social media is like a jar of lightening bugs, the more you have the more you can see!!!
5.  Find the teachers you want to be like then stalk follow them! Learn from each other!

Kindergarten Tech (using 1 to 1 iPads)

Here are some fabulous apps I discovered:
Brainstorm & Brainstorm Companion (to use whole group, students respond to a question or prompt and then "flick" their answer to the teacher's iPad which can be displayed on the board)
Stage (allows you to use iPad as a document camera, it also have tools on the side to annotate and more)
Eggy Words (sight words game)

Using Popplet in K

Beginning sounds sort - (reading center) Letter cards on desk with a lot of different picture cards to sort (ex. Letter b card on table, find the pictures that begin with /b/, take photographs of cards and add to Popplet)

Students take a picture of self and then add adjectives around the picture

Students take a picture of self and add pictures of all the other students and type in their names

Essential question – so that everyone can share their answer: students come up and answer on the  board or on the iPad in a center

Facts about a topic - written or pictures

Pre-writing - answer questions to prepare to write a narrative

Using QR Codes in K
Record reading, writing, and singing to send home.
Teacher record leveled readers, add QR code to the book, students can follow along in the book as they listen to the story.
Multiple uses during reading centers - memory, sight word review, sound matching, word writing - using the QR codes to check work.
*Great sites:
www.recordmp3.org, www.qrcode-monkey.com, www.qrstuff.com

iMovie 
Let me begin by saying, Eric Lee from Technology in Motion (Jacksonville State) is amazing! He is so knowledgeable and patient. This is the second time I have attended a session of his and learned so much each time! (I attended his iMovie session last year and then updated my OS system and iMovie changed.) I plan to make a how to video and share with you very soon for my students and to post here!

Google Drive
I have used Google Drive in the past as a file sharing tool but oh my goodness, Drive is so much more!!! I may not use it to it's full potential with my students but it will definitely come in handy with our new collaborative planning!!!

And last but not least, I WON AN IPAD MINI FOR MY CLASS!!! I am so excited and so thankful!!! Thank you to all of the people that presented and organized this amazing conference!!!

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