Week 3 School Community Web Conference

The majority of this week's web conference focused on utilizing technology. Dr. Abernathy posed the question "How do we connect these resources with the community?"
Many suggested conferencing with parents using Skype, offering an Open Lab for parents and community members to use computers and email, utilizing Web 2.0 Tools, and Edmodo.

The majority of the 3rd through 5 grade teachers on my campus use Edmodo in the classroom. This is a wonderful tool for communicating with students and creating paperless assignments. The students love it! It is sometimes a little more time consuming for teachers than they would like because it must be monitored.

There is a great video on YouTube by Corning called A Day Made of Glass. Technology is advancing; unfortunately most of us are technology immigrants rather than natives. It's challenging to keep up with the latest technology and learn as quickly as it is advancing. Dr. Abernathy posed a great question... one that I will continue to ponder... "How do we connect these resources with the community?"

School Community - Week Two

Unfortunately I missed the Sunday evening Web Conference this week but thought I would write a few thoughts about this week's assignment. I spent a great deal of time thinking about the Partnership Proposal and decided to  focus on problem solving in Mathematics. I am proposing a series of parent / student evenings throughout the school year devoted to Mathematics and problem solving. During each of these evening events, parents of primary students will learn numeracy strategies and with activities to engage and support their child at home. Parents will learn the importance of using a number line, a hundreds chart, manipulatives, and build an understanding of the part/part/whole relationship of numbers by composing and decomposing numbers. Materials and directions for each of the activities, along with a demonstration and opportunity to participate in the activity will be provided. Parents of intermediate students will learn about solving multi-step word problems using a variety of strategies including the Singapore Model Method; parents will have an opportunity to learn how to solve problems with the strip diagrams since this is very different from the way ‘we’ learned problem solving. Parents will also be exposed to solving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems in ways other than the traditional algorithm.
I am hopeful my principal will let my 'dream' become a reality next year.