Great Handout Creator-Smore

Recently my school tech department gave me a new Chromebook, and I spent some time perusing apps. Among other things, I was looking for an easy, seamless way to make eye-catching handouts. There are so many cool infographics and neat looking handouts around these days, I thought I could make some for my students. -That turned out to be a pretty tall order! I found this app, Smore via a Twitter post. It's easy to use, and makes beautiful "flyers"!

***After writing this post, I discovered that Smore is actually not free. When you sign up, you are allotted five free flyers. After that, you have to pay. They do have a discounted educator rate.

Here is a practice handout I made that I think I will actually end up using with my freshmen: 

Here is the Tweet where I found information about Smore. If you are interested in the concept of app smashing, it is really informational!

SMASH these tools to MAXIMIZE P/T/S communication & increase ENGAGEMENT for ALL! #21stedchat http://t.co/2yviPPQDne pic.twitter.com/arDa69Pcrz

— Lee Araoz (@LeeAraoz) July 27, 2015

Bulletin Board Ideas

I have been working on some ideas for my classroom bulletin board. The goal is for the board to brighten up the space and be meaningful for my students. I am hoping to involve my students each time I change up the board. Which, let's be honest, will not be often. So, since I will not be changing it up more than three-four times a year,  I want it to look really great.
Here is the first idea I am going with:

Turn Over a New Leaf

• Freshman do a journal entry about what they want to do differently this school year
• Seniors do a quote activity: find quote on Quote Garden (a great site!) and share it with a small group
• Freshmen choose a word to represent what they’re going to change and put it on a leaf, seniors write their quotes on leaf bordered paper--both are added to bulletin board
• Occasion: start of the school year

To see more ideas click here.

Character Shift Chart

I have mentioned that I was reading Deeper Reading by Kelly Gallagher; and I have finished it. What a great resource! Right now I am teaching summer school and I wanted a good way to assess students' understanding of the novel Speak. Using an idea from Deeper Reading, I created this great Character Shift Chart, perfect for demonstrating understanding of the development of protagonist, Melinda. View the chart here

Genius Hour & Passion Projects

I am in full-on summer research mode. I came across this great idea first on Edutopia. Apparently the Genius Hour originated with Google; they allow their employees to use 20% of their time on anything they want. Educators have taken this idea and run with it as a way to give students more control over their education. I LOVE this idea! I am trying to think of ways to use it in my classroom. I think it could be a really neat way to liven up choice novels. HERE is where I found an idea of how to use this concept in the English classroom. (If it doesn't take you right there, you are looking for "Project Inspiration.")

Deeper Reading

I am reading Deeper Reading by Kelly Gallagher, and really enjoying it. Because of his great, deep discussions about the way students read, I wanted to brush up on Bloom's Taxonomy. I came across this really helpful graphic. To view the teacher's website where I found this graphic, click here. (I have bookmarked this site for future use!)

Education Buzzwords: Reading Strategies & Skills

I was recently doing some research on literacy related topics when I came across this article, "Clarifying the Differences Between Reading Skills and Reading Strategies." The authors' have identified two often used buzzwords in English/ELA/Reading education and have clarified their meanings really well in this article. My general take away is this: reading skills are what readers do automatically, and reading strategies are what readers do intentionally. In addition to this clarification, this article offers some great insight for instruction. Even though the concepts and discussion are geared toward earlier readers, the instructional points can be applied to any grade level. Click here to view this article.

Vanderbilt Center for Teaching

I have to share that the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching website is amazing! I stumbled upon it as I was looking for ideas for my end of year student feedback survey. There are so many excellent ideas on this website. One aspect of fascination for me at the moment is mindfulness in the classroom, and they have a great section devoted to that topic. This site is intended for new teachers, but there is such a wealth of information teachers, regardless of how far they are in their careers, could find something to inspire them with ideas for their classrooms. Enjoy!

Favorite Online Resources

The 'Information Age' is a great time to be a teacher! I have been working on exposing myself to new avenues for teaching ideas, and here are some of my favorites right now:

Pinterest

Not just for recipes! (Although it IS great for recipes.) The selective teacher can get great ideas for his or her classroom. Some of my favorite Pinterest finds are close reading ideas, simple classroom management fixes, and graphic organizers. You can view my "School Stuff" Pinterest board here.

Facebook

Facebook, really? Actually, I follow some great resources on Facebook such as Edutopia, NPR, PBS, and more. Facebook has a new function: you can save links that you like from your newsfeed so that you can come back to them later. I have come across great articles to use in class via Facebook. 

Edutopia

I discovered Edutopia through Facebook. Some of my teacher friends on Facebook kept sharing links from Edutopia, and I started following the page as well. -Tons of great ideas for K-12 teachers. One blog post with great reminders for all educators is "5 Highly Effective Teaching Practices." I find that having access to new teaching ideas daily keeps me extra thoughtful professionally, which leads me to doing things in my classroom that I am really proud of. 

Newsela

My direct coworker introduced me to Newsela, and it is fabulous! If you are looking to differentiate reading in your classroom, this is a great way to do it. Although, SIRS also lists the lexile level with their articles, Newsela is curated like a news website, so students can easily browse or search their website. It is less intimidating than a database like SIRS, so it is useful for casual research or younger students. Also, SIRS does list the lexile, but Newsela articles are actually rewritten by staff writers to lower lexiles than the original articles.

So, those are my four favorite teacher info. avenues of the moment. I have recently joined Twitter and Google Plus. I have followed a bunch of education websites, associations, educators, administrators, and educational speakers on Twitter. I have done this very recently, so I can't comment in depth on the professional merits of Twitter. My first impression is that it is a tool for self promotion and that other platforms, where I have more control over what I am seeing, might be more useful to my needs. I have yet to scratch the surface with Google Plus; I am hopeful that it will meet the professional connection aspect that I thought Twitter would have. 

My favorite things to teach.

I have had the opportunity to teach 9th & 11th grade English and a 12th grade elective, Oral Communications. So far some of my favorite things to teach have been The Crucible by Arthur Miller, writing short stories & research papers, and the graduation speech. There is something really exciting about teaching something for the first time, but I also really love to see new students react to things I have taught several times. It is fun that every time I teach something I learn something new because of what the personalities of my students bring to the content!

Some things I hope to teach some day are To Kill a Mockingbird (of course!) and Richard III (he is just a delightful villain!).