First Week of School

   We just finished our first week back at school. Of course, California decides to have a heat wave with some nasty humidity… but we survived that and a couple of earthquakes to shake up the start of the new school year.

   As I embark on flipping my classroom, I’ve researched tools and am continuing to develop my PLN (personal learning network). PLNs are expanding the PLC mindset in the 21^st century as the world is flattening. Setting a tone and providing a welcoming classroom is important. A week or two before school began I came across Pinterest- LOVE it. Pinterest is a website that you can “pin” items you come across the internet that you would like to note and categorize. You can also see and share ideas with others on Pinterest.  This has been a goldmine and great to see so many teachers engaging in PLN. One of the ideas that I came across was “Facebook” bulletin boards. I ran the idea past friends and some of my great student helpers and they loved the idea. As students returned, this year’s and students from the past, they had many positive remarks on the classroom.

   What to utilize in flipping? I have some resources I’ve used in the past and some I’ve discovered this week that I decided to give a try. See my earlier posts for some of them. There are many ways to flip a classroom. I began by utilizing a Prezi with a xtranormal and C-SPAN video to introduce and give the rational behind my flip. This is a brief introduction and one I have posted on my class website for my students and parents. For me, flipping is not just about using tech tools in the classroom. My school site is not 1:1 and not all students have smart phones. While we will be using tech tools, I will also use more classroom time for history labs- thinking like a historian, examining sources, writing seminars, and other application activities. The sage on the stage will move to the students on the stage. This will move my students into the skills and standards laid out in the Common Core State Standards.

   Another part of setting up my classroom is establishing organization for the students. Of course I remind and write down the homework for the students. However, students don’t always remember or write down their work. In the past, I’ve sent students a text reminder from my email. However, this week I came across a better tool… Remind101. Teachers can sign up for an account and create classes. Each class has a code that students send a text to register. Teachers can type a homework reminder and sent it then or later. This is MUCH easier than the way I was doing it with gmail. This week I registered my students in less than 5 minutes for those that want to voluntarily receive the reminders. We tested out in class and the students thought it was cool. This week we will be setting up gmail, Google Docs, group Weebly sites, edmodo, Capzles, StudyBlue, and Scoop It accounts. Doing this in class at the computer lab takes two days initially, but makes the rest of the class management for students and me much easier. I suggest creating a Google form (in Goolge Docs) for students to enter their user names and passwords for the sites you use and register for and to maintain for easy teacher access over the year- I placed mine as an assignment in Edmodo. A lesson I learned this past year with students forgetting their passwords for their gmail, VoiceThread, and Glogster accounts.