Home Visits

This summer, I attended the Model Schools Conference with my principal and two co-workers. Schools from across the country participated and gave presentations on innovative instructional strategies. South Heights Elementary out of Kentucky shared how they engage their community into their school culture. Home visits are just one of their many strategies. They make it a big deal before the start of school every year. It's a community event.

So, this year my school is trying it out. My co-worker and I have called all of our students asking their families for just 5 minutes of their time to introduce ourselves as their new 4th grade teacher. I was able to successfully contact 3 of my families. Today, I met a student at McDonald's. The smile on his face was priceless! I'm hoping to meet more of my students before the start of school.

The home-school connection is lacking in our culture. Community schools no longer exist. Families are more transient and everyone wants to stay private. There is a saying: It Takes a Village to Raise a Child. We need to cling to this now more than ever. In the meantime, I will continue to build relationships with my students and hopefully make an impact in not only their lives, but in the lives of their families too!

Becoming Edmodo Savvy!

Last school year, I was technologically upgraded and it was much needed! Our school became immersed in professional development centered around technology. It was overwhelming at times, but now I have tons of online resources to refer to in my classroom. One resource I really want to learn more about is Edmodo. It's an educational website with a social media platform for teachers and students. I have met a countless number of teachers who use Edmodo religiously in their classrooms.

A couple of weeks, I received an email about Edmodocon 2014, an online professional development conference with educators from around the world. I registered and it has been an impacting pd experience. Not only did I get to participate in a conference in my pj's, but I was able to listen to teachers from all over the world talk about how they are using Edmodo in the classroom. Edmodo has so many capabilities beyond what I could have ever imagined. Here are just a few of my favorite sessions:

Leveling Up Student Writing with Badges
From Tech Illiterate to Tech Savvy: How to Foster Non-Cognitive Skills in Edmodo
Solving D3: Data-Driven, Differentiated Instruction

Being a PBL newbie, my plan is to dive right in and become Edmodo Savvy! There's so much technology out there and it's easy to get scattered. Edmodo seems to be a great central platform. We'll see what happens!