Celebrate - Using a new technology - TodaysMeet

Today I celebrate using new technology. I returned to school on Monday after being out last week Wed-Fri. Instead of teaching my students, I was a student myself at Teachers College. I attended their 2nd Annual Digital and Media Literacy Institute.

During the keynote by Heidi Hayes Jacobs, she suggested picking an app or a technology and trying it out for the week. In that spirit and because of the modeling of this website during the institute, I picked Todays Meet.

On Monday, I introduced it to my students through a read-aloud and called the "room" Readaloud212.

On Tuesday, a student asked if they could "say something" about their independent reading using Todays Meet. Duh! Of course!! So I set up the 2nd TodaysMeet room called IndepReading212. I set the room to stay opened for a month and for the rest of the week, reminded the students to "say something" about what they read that day during independent reading time in the IndepReading212 room.

On Wed, two girls picked the 2 copies of I Survived the Shark Attack and started reading it as a "club". I asked if they wanted me to set us a TodaysMeet for them to jot down their thoughts to share with each other. They loved this idea so I set up a room called CarolineEllieBookClub.

On Thursday, it was library checkout time. I asked if anyone else wanted to form a book club. I suggested that they could find multiple copies of books while at the library. MANY wanted to, so I set up six more rooms to hold onto book club discussions.

On Friday, another class joined my room for a lesson that ended 10 minutes early. Whenever I have time like this, I like to fill it with a read-aloud. I quickly created another room on TodaysMeet called MadelineReadAloud and had all 44 kids access the link. And in honor of Ludwig Bemelmans' birthday, I read aloud his book, Madeline. All in the room were engaged, enjoying an old favorite while using an iPad to jot their thoughts about the book on the TodaysMeet page!

I celebrate that I tried using TodaysMeet this week.

Form helps!

I awoke knowing I had to pack and head home. I've been in NYC all week attending the 2nd Annual Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Digital and Media Institute. My head is spinning and so ready to explode. The thing giving me comfort is that it is almost summer...a time for me to play and explore and try all the things I became aware of this week as the best literacy minds shared!

Then I read Margaret's focus today on DigitLit: Form

The institute ended with a celebration involving an Ignite Session. Ignite was described in the Welcome email as:

Finally, during the last day of the institute, we will be offering an Ignite session. For those of you who are new to Ignite sessions, they are participant led presentations, which are very quick and packed with information. Like its older sister Pecha Kucha, Ignite is a presentation structure that has a strict time limit which forces the speaker to be precise and thoughtful about what to include and how to show it. It is completely voluntary. In an Ignite session, presenters will have 5 total minutes to present. They will have 20 slides, each slide automatically moving on after 15 seconds. We will offer a sign up for the Ignite session on site and will have a limited number of slots available.

You can prepare your presentation ahead of your arrival at the institute, or you can plan it based on what you learned during your week with us. If you are interested in learning more about Ignite, you might want to watch a sample. Here is a link to Penny Kittle’s Ignite session at NCTE 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zp‐GUaX2ow . Additionally, if you would like to learn how to create your own Ignite session, you might want to check out these tips:http://scottberkun.com/2009/how‐to‐give‐a‐great‐ignite‐talk/

As I read this in the email before arriving, I thought how I could share about blogging - my own experience, as well as, the story of my students' experience with Kidblog since March. I had some ideas in my head so when once at the Institute, I signed up to give one.



Wednesday evening I started gathering ideas, photos, jots of why I love to blog and how amazed I was by my students' blogging experience during the month of March (which I posted about on this blog a few times in March!).

After sitting in a day of workshops, I also thought I needed a structure to my Ignite presentation (all the wonderful staff developers had done this so well as they presented). On the first day, Colleen Cruz shared the research by Brian Cambourne on Conditions for Learning. This list seems the prefect lens to use to share my blogging story.



I was thinking of this list as the lens to see my story through but as I read Margaret's DigiLit#24 post today, I realize it is also the FORM. I wholeheartedly agree, FORM matters, no matter the writing genre. Seeing my story through the conditions of learning allowed me to share my love of blogging across 20 slides in the 5 minute format.

I need to head to the bus station now and will plan to add MORE (like the link to my presentation!) to my post on Tuesday to the TwoWritingTeachers. But just had to celebrate now with Margaret, a day to celebrate FORM!!!

P.S. Despite being SO nervous to present, I included my favorite bloggers in my presentation. Having you along helped me to be brave and IGNITE!!

Two slides I shared:

All Aboard - Next Stop TCRWP Digital and Media Institute!!

I'm on the train!!

It's taking me from Union Station in DC to Penn Station in NYC.

Then I'll take the 1 Uptown and get off at 116th/Columbia University stop

Where I'll head 5 blocks to TC's Guest housing.

Wednesday I'm observing reading and writing workshop at PS158.

Then Thursday-Saturday from 9-3pm I will  happily learned from Colleen Cruz in a large group and Lindsay Mann in a small group and have an option to attend a closing workshop each day. I'm also being encouraged to try to present Ignite-style during Saturday's closing.

I'm on the train!!

I'm excited to learn from the best all at the 2nd Annual TCRWP Digital and Media Institute!!

Be sure to check out my tweets (@sally.donnelly1)

and I promise to take good notes and share what I learn!!

Celebrating Poetry Writing using Online Poet Websites and Kidblog

Looking back on teaching writing last week in 3rd grade, I see it as a week with not enough time. We had a special science unit to share, led by a resource teacher, so something had to give. Instead of a good 45-60 minutes of Writing Workshop, only about 30 minutes happened. However, looking back, I can celebrate that with wonderful online poetry models and with the tool, Kidblog as a place to easily draft our poems, LOTS still got done during Writing Workshop!!!

First, I placed links to 6 poets in Google Classroom and each day held a 4-7 minute mini-lesson where I simply clicked on one poet's website and shared one of their poems. Then I suggested that my students try either to draft their own poems now or continue to read more poems, searching for more inspiration. Then I sent all off to work as poets.

Our Google Classroom page looks like this:

For example, on Wed, I shared how Amy reads the Wonderopolis Wondering of the Day and then write and posts a poem related to the wondering (Thank you Educators Collaborative for sharing Amy last Saturday so I could learn about her and her The Poem Farm website!!) 

Wednesday night,  I looked on my class Kidblog and saw that Lucas was inspired to write this after he noticed that Amy had written a 26 line poem about Compost, starting each line with the letters A-Z:

and a day later, Lucas' poem inspired William to begin drafting this:

All because Amy showed us the ABCs of Composting inspired by What is Fertilizer?!!!

On another day, I shared J. Patrick Lewis' page of POEMS/RIDDLES that looks like this:

Next thing I see on Madeline's Kidblog page is this:

I also shared Kenn Nesbitt's poem, Joe the Emoji!

My students already have been using emoji to tell their stories and I wrote about it  HERE. 
Now they are having fun writing poems and songs using lots of emoji. My class regularly takes movement breaks using GoNoodle as our guide. Now the songs we move to there are being written in emoji on Kidblog!! Here's one example:

I recall one of the Poetry presenters during the Saturday Educator's Collaboration Day say that when she hears teachers say they don't have time for poetry, she will fire back, "Do you have 20 seconds to read aloud a poem?" Last week, I did not have the time to run a regular hour-long Poetry Writing Workshop. But my students proved to me that just being exposed to a poem, a riddle, or a song for a few minutes was all they needed to write some fun poetry!!

What poetry are YOU sharing TODAY during National Poetry Month?!!

Be sure to make the time! You'll be amazed at what gets produced. 

Celebrating - Connections to Smart Educators

Saturday, I celebrated connecting to smart educators by posting to Ruth Ayer's Celebration blog. (If you are looking for another place/day to post your writing, I recommend this!!) Today I am posting my expanded revision of this same post! 


Maggie Beatty was my small group staff developer at TCRWP in 2010. I learned so much from her that summer and I stayed connected to her brilliance through #TCRWP and then when Kate and her began their Indent blog.

When they posted asking for real problems writing teachers experience, I thought why not. I'll send them one or two.

How fun that this week, they posted their first video sharing a practical way to solve a problem by making and using a DIY (do-it-yourself) Literacy toolkit page with a small group or during a conference.

Why so fun?

THEY PICKED MY PROBLEM!!!!!

Take a minute and watch their brilliance HERE!!

Immediately after watching the video, I sent it to many of my literacy teacher friends who wrote back, just as excited as I was!!

And then of course, this video inspired me to use my Michael's coupon  on Sunday to purchase MY TOOLS.

My first page is written!!

Next update - my reflection on using it with students!


I continue to celebrate connecting to smart educators!!!
I can't wait for the DIY Literacy book to come out.
You can pre-order it HERE

#31 - I did it - 3rd year in a row!!

I did it!! I completed the March Slice of Life Writing Challenge
for my 3rd year!!

DAILY I made a post - that's 31 posts.

DAILY I received comments - a total of 215 comments in all!! (Thank you!!!)

DAILY I left comments for 5 new slicers as part of the Welcome Wagon, as well as, for the handful of Slicers I now feel I know because I regularly read their blogs (like Margaret and Erika) and for those I have now met in person (like Fran, Tara, Julieanne, and Michelle) and for my two friends (Fran McCrackin and Marilyn) and best of all, for my daughter (Anne)!

Looking over my daily posts, I see that I wrote:
4 poems
10 small moments
7 big idea essays
7 times I wrote, inspired by reading another Slicer's post
9 moments were school moments
4 posts were in response to a writing tip shared while spending the day learning at a Lucy Calkins conference
5 times I wrote about my class using Kidblog for the first time this month

At no time this month did I struggle to have something to write about. I think it is because I tried, for the first time this year, to just live as a writer and use something from the day to drive my post.

I also know I got so much energy to keep writing because my students were also writing up a storm!!!
Thanks to much assistance from Margaret Simon's and a Middle School colleague and my daughter, Anne, I was able to launch Kidblog with my 23 students.

Today we celebrated with an ORANGE PARTY.
Today my Kidblog DASHBOARD reads:

We graphed our posts and comments.

We reflected on our work.

Best of all, we used the very cool Blue Sky Studio in my new school to gather in. We easily airplayed Kidblog stories from our iPads to share our favorite post written this month. What a magical hour. The students picked and I "read their writing like it was gold" as Lucy suggests! And we just enjoyed hearing the stories that only we can tell!!

I can't thank the TwoWritingTeachers enough for providing this March Challenge. Looking back, I realize I have read so much this month. I have written so much this month. And most of all, I have surrounded myself with writers!! What a perfect month!!

"Come have fun playing here while your learn."

Today the architects of my new school are visiting. They hope to capture through interviews and just watching, what we think about the space they designed for us.

What do I think? What should I say during my interview?

The building they created is quite unique. Along with just being brand new, it screams "Come have fun playing here while your learn." This is loudly shouted when you leave my 2nd floor classroom and walk to the center of the 2nd floor and see THE SLIDE!

When I bring friends to see my school, they ask right away, "When do you use it?" And my reply is, "We just do." The slide is just another way to get from the 2nd to the 1st floor. My class knows that it does take a little more time to wait your turn to go down. So it is a choice. Those that really want to get outside for recess to play tag, usually take the stairs. Others say it is worth the wait. All understand that the slide is just another fun way to move in our very unique building called our school. I have come to realize that the beauty of having this feature as a permanent part of the building is that it isn't a reward. It just gets used because it screams, "Come have fun playing here while your learn."

The building also is designed to allow for tons of natural light in the classrooms and the hallways. I've worked in other schools where I've had no windows at all in my classroom or just a few. Here the outside is brought in throughout the entire building. I can't quote the science of why this is important but I can anecdotally share that I feel better in this building. I feel better because the building allows me to see the sky regularly as I have fun learning inside.

Finally, the building is designed with lots of open gathering spaces. I will admit that this is still something I am learning to figure out how to use well. As a teacher, I'm used to planning lessons and teaching them WITHIN the four walls given to me called my classroom. But this school is different. Now my students regularly spill-out into the hallway. Since the wall to the hallway of my classroom is glass, I can see them as they learn outside the four walls of my classroom. Fun chairs and stools dot the hallways, providing fun places to sit and work. Other spaces throughout the building provide spots to gather and collaborate. Many spaces, I will admit, I still need to explore with my students. And I will, as my mindset of what "my classroom" is, broadens. Really, my classroom at Discovery Elementary is THE ENTIRE school building, a building designed in my opinion as a place to PLAY while learning.

My new school, Discovery ES, truly screams, "Come have fun playing here while your learn."

Thank you, VMDO Architects!!