Introducing Me...Again!
Image Source: Personal Image
Hello, blog! Long time, no write. If I did the math correctly, it has been exactly 623 days since my last post on Miss B. Multiplies. In that time, I have: 1.) completed my master's degree, 2.) moved (again), 3.) re-enrolled at Dominican University to complete my technology specialist endorsement, and 4.) (almost) completed my first full week of the 2024-2025 school year. For those of you who I haven't connected with before, hello! My name is Kelly Barker. Check out this word cloud I created on Mentimeter to learn a little bit more about me!
Currently, I work as a special education teacher for grades 4-6 at an intermediate school in New Lenox, IL. This is my third year working in this position and my fifth year teaching overall. When I stop to think about it, I am shocked at just how fast time is moving! I started teaching in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and very quickly had to learn how to integrate technology into my every day teaching. While everything about my first few years of teaching was challenging, I can look back on them and feel a sense of gratitude. Those first two years inspired me to return to school, further my education, and learn more about how to improve myself as an educator as we move further and further into the digital age.
As a 27 year old and a 21st century teacher, my use of technology is two-fold. Personally, I use technology to connect with family and friends that live out of state and keep up with various types of social media. I consider myself to be a "content consumer", rather than a content creator. While you will rarely catch me posting on X, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, I spend an almost embarrassingly large amount of time on these platforms in my spare time. My TikTok doom scrolling has gotten so bad that I had my partner set up a daily time limit through Apple's Screen Time function. Spoiler alert: it hasn't worked as well as I hoped it would. I fear sometimes that I'm becoming as chronically online as some of my students!
Image Source: GIPHY
In my classroom, I use various types of educational technology every day. My school is very fortunate to be 1:1 with student devices and provide teachers with a Macbook and an iPad, as well as projectors, Apple TVs, and a multitude of online platforms and subscriptions to enhance our instruction. I am very familiar and comfortable with platforms such as Classlink, Canva, Google Classroom, iXL, and Reflex (just to name a few). I am also proud to be the unofficial "tech girl" to my lovely special education teammates and spend time helping them out with our educational technology platforms and devices when they encounter a problem or when we are implementing new and exciting programs as a team. When examining how I use technology with my students, I realize that we are very regimented in the way we use technology during instruction. Due to my use of station teaching in the classroom, my students get a balanced exposure to traditional paper/pencil activities and technology based subscriptions in ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies. As a special educator, I am making it my personal goal this year to learn more about using various types of assistive technology with the hope to implement some tools in the classroom to help my students overcome challenges with decoding, spelling, and writing. My team and I were lucky enough to attend professional development on using AT to assist with reading prior to the end of last school year and since then, I've just wanted to know more and more! One of the tools that I was fascinated by was a device that looked like a highlighter, but when passed over a line of text, would read it aloud to students. Technology like the C-Pen Reader 2 would be an absolute game changer for some of my students in terms of their ability to work independently and their confidence in the classroom. Even though I feel like I know a good deal about using technology in the classroom, I am excited by the prospect of expanding that knowledge during this term!
Welcome back Miss B! Way to go on all your accomplishments. I am finally finishing my masters after a very long journey. I received my ELL endorsement at Dominican through a grant in 2020 and now four years later I have the opportunity through my new district to have the final four classes paid for to get my Masters! I am so ready! I too work in a district that provides 1:1 devices and many forms of technology for us teachers and I feel so grateful. I do agree with you that there needs to be a balance. Kids still need to hold a pencil, write on paper, color, and read a real book.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of questions about the technology you said you were very familiar with through your proffession. What is Reflex and iXL?
Hi Teresa! Reflex and iXL are two learning platforms my district uses for independent work and guided practice. Reflex is focused on helping students develop fact fluency for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. Every day, students have a goal to practice for enough time and with enough accuracy to earn their "green light" on the platform. We have school wide programs to help motivate students to have as many green light days in a row as they can. iXL is a reading and math platform for students to practice skills from Pre-K all the way up to 12th grade. Students have to take a diagnostic test to assess trouble areas and areas of strength for reading and math. Based on their performance, they gain a library of recommended skills to work on that will either help them bridge gaps in knowledge or enrich what they already know about a topic. There are awesome skill plans you can assign to students to work on and many textbook companies even have tailored skill plans that align with the scope and sequence of a given curriculum for teachers to use to supplement instruction. There are also game areas for both ELA and Math to practice skills while keeping students more engaged!
DeleteHello Kelly! I remember when I first started teaching back in 2007 and how challenging it was at the time. I can't imagine starting my first job in 2020. How challenging that must have been and kudos to you for enduring and growing from it. I give a lot of credit to the new wave of teachers out there who are so well-versed in technology platforms, tools, apps, etc. What is your favorite platform to use in the classroom? I remember when PowerPoint was the newest and greatest tool! I currently use Canva at my job and love it, but I want to learn more as well. It's wonderful you are searching for new ways to incorporate assistive technology in your classroom. The gadget, C-Pen Reader 2, looks like an amazing tool. I just recently learned about a new tool called Book Creator. On the website, it mentions that it's accessible for students with special needs.
ReplyDeleteHi Lisa! I think Canva is a tool that I find myself using a lot because I can create things on there, but also use the Canva whiteboard feature to collaborate with my students. I haven't used the whiteboard feature too much with them, but it's a good thing to keep in my back pocket for different activities and assignments where I want to keep a closer eye on what students are working on and give them the ability to collaborate with their peers. I work in a Google-based district, so we use Google Classroom as much as we can, but all of our curriculums are also fully digital and accessible through our Classlink portal. iXL group jam is a really engaging platform I use with my students, especially when it comes to reviewing skills as a whole group. I can get real time feedback on student performance for a selected lesson and can control the level of difficulty for the questions students receive based on past performance. I also really love using Gizmo to have students engage in online science labs! It allows them to explore something they would otherwise not be able to experience and makes learning a bit more hands on, which is a great thing!
DeleteThank you, too for the tip with Book Creator! I will definitely have to check that out! :)
DeleteHi Kelly!
ReplyDeleteIt is a pleasure to meet you! It sounds like you and I have very similar teaching timelines. I too started teaching right before the pandemic. The 2019-2020 school year was my first year. What a year to remember! Your first year is already challenging as it is, and then having to learn how to teach completely online incorporating so many different types of resources was not for the weak. I learned a lot about myself as an educator during this time period and I think it only made me that much stronger of an educator.
I use many of the same tools in my teaching as well! Canva is my best friend. I use it for everything! I also utilize IXL a lot! It such a great tool to personalize learning. Something I just learned about IXL with my new district is IXL offers a skills plan. You can input your students MAP scores and IXL will come up with a plan of skills specific to that students based on their scores. It is a game changer. I highly recommend trying it out.
Hi Ashley! Yes, I love the iXL skill plan feature! We just adopted a new reading curriculum for special education that utilizes MAP testing for placement in the program. With this new program, students will have to take MAP three times per year to measure growth as opposed to AIMSWeb (the program general education students use for reading). I would definitely be interested in checking out that feature for a MAP skills plan- thanks for the tip! :)
DeleteHi Kelly,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, nice to digitally meet you. I love the energy that comes through in your post, and congrats on all of your recent successes. You seem to have a ton of knowledge of tech and use it for good. Though sounds like you'd argue maybe some of your doom scrolling isn't "for good." It's a battle for sure that you're not alone in!
That C-Pen Reader looks and sounds incredible. Does it do it's reading through headphones too? I mean, if every student who needed it had one of those, talk about amazing. It reminds me of Google Read and Write, but even that can be a bit cumbersome sometimes. I'm trying to learn more about assistive technology as more and more English Leaners are starting to enter our district and our teaching staff needs some good resources to help them acclimate. I imaginee they'd use many of the same as Special Ed. Open to any ideas you've got!
Thanks for the post!
Hi, Adam! Thanks for your response- I love that you are also interested in learning more about various AT tools. It does look like students can use headphones with the C-Pen Reader device, which is great. I think this would be a really powerful tool for EL students because the pen has the capability to give definitions and pronunciation guides for singular words that are "highlighted". I will definitely keep an eye out for more tools and ideas and share if I find anything else that seems promising!
DeleteWelcome back to blogging, Kelly! Thanks for the great re-introduction to your experience with technology both in and out of the classroom. I'm looking forward to exploring it with you this fall.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Looking forward to working with you again! :)
DeleteKelly, I am in a similar point in my teaching career (I just reached four years) and I completely understand how you feel regarding the time passing by so quickly. I feel so new to this career and also like I have been doing it forever at the same time! It is a fun and strange place to be in our careers I believe. Best of luck this school year!!!
ReplyDelete-Taylor Gallop