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Shimotsu Elementary’s First Annual #IGNITE Code Camp On the week of June 5th through June 9th we held our #IGNITE Code Camp at Shimotsu Elementary. This turned out to be a wonderful week long event that helped introduce our Shimotsu students to code through the use of Google CS-First, Scratch MIT, Makey Makey Kits and Ozobots. How it all started: This is the first year that started a full on after school code club. I was introduced to coding through Hour of Code. Later on, as I attended TCEA in 2016, I saw how coding was something that can help kids grow and enhance their learning. I was amazed as to how many schools started implementing it throughout Texas and we were falling behind as a district, let alone as an elementary. This school year I offered to start a code club without knowing what do or how to start it. I was troubled and puzzled because I was not sure where to start. However, I had already started using Scratch MIT the previous year in my class, so we just natura

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

I was recently introduced to Swivl's IO platform. I am always looking for technology that will not only benefit my fifth grade classroom, but also benefit me as an educator. Let us face the fact that as educators we are not fond of having people come and observe us other than our principal for our yearly observation. One of the problems of not having more observations is that we never get any feed back from others. As educators, many of us are set in our ways and do the same thing every year thinking that what worked 10 years ago may work today. I understand that in some cases it may, but we also have to realize that the education system is continually changing and our learners are very different from year to year. Using Swivl's IO has allowed me to observe my students as we go through presentations. The video that is attached to this post is using Swivl's IO in a minimum way. Due to technical difficulties in our network infrastructure, I was not able to connect multiple de

Today I was working 1 on 1 with Mr. Alvarez who is a kindergarten student at Shimotsu Elementary. We sat down and worked through several of our Scratch cards. Mr. Alvarez's reading level has not fully developed, but he adapted very well to sight words, and color. He had no problem inputting positive and negative numbers either. Although, he may not fully understand the math or terminology, the use of colors and numbers were simple enough for him to work through the cards and start developing his Scratch skills. Please click on the link:   Abdiel Using Scratch

Recap has been a tool that I have been very pleased with. I have enjoyed being able to set up a journey for my students to follow as we go through our lessons. This is a short video of what we have done in my class.  What I have noticed is that my classroom level of discussion has grown by leaps and bounds. The students enjoy watching the videos and reading the articles which allows for great interaction and discussion with my students.  I stumbled upon recap at TCEA 2017  and I had the opportunity to Beta test this new version of Recap and it has been one of the most useful tools that I have used this year. 

In my eleven years of teaching, I have seen education change significantly. I am always trying to find new ways to help my students by enhancing their learning. Recently, I have started using Bloxels for my science and social studies classes. This video game creator has been great in allowing my students to create, collaborate and learn. They design their own games that deal with the topics we are currently covering. This is an example of a food chain science game that was created.