Look Inside My Class

This year has been one of the most successful years in implementing technology in our classroom. My students were able to see the value of using technology as a tool, rather than just another platform to study vocabulary words or take quizzes and tests from our book adoptions. This has been a year where I have let the students take more ownership of their learning and simply provided them with the basic knowledge of Scratch and Makey Makey kits. The kiddos worked so hard this year and were blew me away with their creations. They enhanced their learning science learning through programming interactive STAAR Reviews, that is right, interactive. I was amazed with what Santiago developed for our class to help the students review their Water Cycle vocabulary. Next, we had another student write a code to detect conductors and insulators using Scratch and the Makey Makey Kits. The days of me having to replace light bulbs may be over, maybe. I was floored when he showed me the program in class. We also recreated a Smart Water Bottle that measures fractions, where the students simply tried to replicate a video that they saw using the Makey Makey Kits. We did not have the exact materials used, but the fact that they all came up with solutions to the problems and had several runs and they did not give up is the biggest pay off for me. The students have learned resilience, perseverance, collaboration and higher order problem solving skills that will help them as they move on. One of the biggest things this year also has been that the Harvard Scratch Edu team reached out to us and interviewed us because they saw and heard how we are using Scratch in other ways other than just play, we are using it as a tool to greater enhance our lessons.Link to Scratch Harvard Edu Interview. In this article you will see our Interactive STAAR Review and our Conductor and Insulator program.

In reality, this has been a big learning year for me. I learned how to be more a facilitator than a dictator in my class. I provided the students with tools to help them solve problems and I saw their creativity take over and come up with amazing solutions to our lessons. I am proud of the hard work my students have put in this year and I certainly learned so much more from them this year.