Archive for category Tech

My First Unconference

Posted by Jennifer Bernatow-Parsons in Tech, Trying something new, Uncategorized on February 7, 2016

I attended edcampDenver today and I am feeling reignited with new tools and ideas for my classroom.  If you’ve never attended, mark your calendar and get to one as soon as you can.  Instead of the standard conference sit and get, we made the sessions ourselves this morning after arriving.  Each session was a great conversation with ideas flowing from all parts of the room.  Thank goodness we took group notes because my head was swimming with everything I wanted to try in minutes.   I’ll be going back every chance I get.  But for now, I’m heading back to playing with my new discoveries!

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THE TEACHER IS ALWAYS A STUDENT.

Posted by Jennifer Bernatow-Parsons in Trying something new on September 20, 2015

Having created a blog in Blogger and using it for several years, I was under the mistaken impression that using WordPress would be a similar project.  I was so wrong!  I have struggled a bit with finding the things that I needed to include and posting links, rearranging my tabs, and a myriad of other things. However, tonight I can say I am feeling much more confident about my ability to organize my content and present the products that I would like in a way that makes sense!

Learning new things by trial and error has always been my preferred method and this was definitely an example of that.  It keeps my very humble to feel the frustration and victory of learning something new.  Reminding me that I need to be patient with my own students who sometimes struggle with things that are new for them.  This week, we have been practicing navigating to our classroom blog and they have been feeling these same types of feelings.  I feel like I should share this experience with them and talk about how we all have to persevere!  The victory is always worth it.

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THANKS YOUTUBE!

Posted by Jennifer Bernatow-Parsons in It works!, Trying something new on September 19, 2015

I have used videos of different phonics and math skills regularly on my classroom blog for a couple of years now, but have not explored having my own channel to any degree.

This week, I had a few short videos of our class that I wanted to share on the blog and through a bit of trial and error in posting, I found that it was easiest to upload them onto my channel and then embed them into Blogger.  I like the ability to set the privacy of these videos to unlisted, as it isn’t my intention to share them beyond our classroom blog audience at this point.  However, I can definitely see a purpose at some point in posting videos for a wider community, in order to communicate and get involved in educational pursuits and communities.

I have always posted a ton of pictures on my blog but my goal at this point is to add more video as well. I feel like having my own channel will be a great way to do this and to keep my content organized.  I’m excited to continue to explore this tool.

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MY LATEST SUCCESS – WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

Posted by Jennifer Bernatow-Parsons in It works! on September 9, 2015

If you’re not using remind.com to update/communicate with your parents, I’m here to remind you that it’s a great idea.  One way texting?  I’ve never seen fundraiser materials, school forms, and homework come back in a more timely manner!  I admit that I heard about it awhile back but didn’t fully listen because my first graders don’t use phones.  However, I’ve also noticed that six year olds are not reliable couriers.  This is solving a lot of problems for me!

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