Course Reflection

   Now that we're at the end of our course, it's time to reflect on everything that we've done for the last eight weeks. I acquired some new tools, I got several new ideas, and I learned a lot! 

   My favorite assignment for this course was the video book trailer. I used Vyond.com to create a trailer for The Book Hog by Greg Pizzoli. It was a very easy tool to use and it was so much fun to have that chance to be creative! We work with summarizing a lot in first grade, but practicing writing summaries over and over again can become monotonous. Giving the students a chance to create a book trailer is engaging and also allows students to show their knowledge of summarizing! Vyond.com isn't free, hower, which is why I haven't linked my book trailer below. I was working with a two-week trial, but after my free trial expired they took away all access to watch the video. I know that we have access to other tools like Book Creator in our district, so I am going to familiarize myself with those in hopes of teaching my students to create their own book trailers! 

   I really enjoyed doing Flipgrid discussions during this class. It was a fun, different way to engage in a conversation when we weren't meeting face-to-face. Sometimes tone can get misinterpreted in written responses so videos help to combat that struggle. I think Flipgrid is something that my first-graders could do fairly easily since they're already so used to Seesaw. I plan on trying it out in my own classroom!
   Throughout this course, I have grown as a connected educator because I've learned how to use new tools and have stepped out of my comfort zone. And because I am more comfortable using these new technology tools, I can effectively teach my students how to use them as well!

Successful Communication With Families

   Let me tell you about the long, tumultuous relationship that I've had with newsletters for the past ten years. When I first started teaching, email newsletters weren't a thing. I typed out a double-sided newsletter every week, printed it, submitted it to my principal for approval, and then (if it was approved) I sent it home to parents in their child's take-home folder. It was time-consuming and I wondered how many parents were actually reading it.
   A few years later, I switched over to emailing my newsletters. It was slightly less time-consuming because I didn't need to print anything, but the format wasn't engaging and I still wondered if anyone was actually reading what I was writing.
   Fast forward to this year, and I have a hodgepodge of communication tools that I'm using with families. I use the Remind app to send reminders and quick updates, I use Seesaw for pictures and some school information, and I use e-mail for longer curriculum updates. I thought this new way of communicating would be less time-consuming, but it ended up being way more work to juggle all three communication methods.
   One of our assignments asked us to try out a different method for communicating with families. I decided to use Smore, which is a website that helps you create digital newsletters. I have to tell you, it is SO EASY to use! I love that the templates are professional and engaging, it's quick and simple to add pictures and links, and you can work on it bit-by-bit throughout the week until you're ready to publish it and send it to families. Also, it will tell you which parents are actually reading it, which I love! I created a sample newsletter for our class, and I'm so excited to use it all year next year! If you're burned out on newsletters, I highly suggest you try it out. And the best part is, they offer educator discounts! I've linked my newsletter below. Take a look!

Smore Newsletter

Creating Anchor Posters

   One of the biggest ways that this class has changed my way of thinking is through our copyright and fair use discussions. I didn't realize that many of the ways I was using media weren't supported by fair use policies (shh, don't tell anyone!). Thankfully, once I learned what I was doing wrong, we were given some assignments to teach us how to use different tools in order to create our own content that won't cause us to break the law.
   I used Google Drawing to create an anchor poster for our science unit about plants. I used nothing except for the shapes and images that were available to me through Google Drawing and I made my own diagram of a plant and its parts (see below). As you can see, the poster doesn't look professional and I certainly couldn't trick anyone into thinking that it came from a paid resource, but it delivers all of the information that I need my students to know in a clear and concise way. To be honest, sometimes those "fancy posters" can be too distracting and overwhelming and the content can get lost.

   I had never tried to use Google Draw on my own before this class, and I'm so glad that I was pushed out of my comfort zone to try it out! Not only do I plan on continuing to use it myself, but I think letting the students use it to create their own diagrams and posters could be really beneficial and engaging, too!

Using Graphic Design in the Classroom

  There’s a reason why the saying “A picture is worth 1,000 words” exists. Incorporating graphic design into the classroom is valuable because it’s an engaging way for students to acquire or remember new information. According to the following infographic, visuals are processed 60,000 faster than text. Therefore, using graphics with students in the classroom could allow teachers to present a great deal more information in a much shorter amount of time.

   The same infographic states that people remember 80% of what they see and do, as opposed to only 10% of what they hear and 20% of what they read. By including more visuals, such as graphic design, in the classroom, teachers are better supporting their students.

   The first signs of graphic design appeared in 79 AD with merchants advertising goods, and our country spends approximately 195 billion dollars per year on advertising. Sufficed to say, advertising is a field that seems to grow every year. I would like to find a way to help my first-graders learn basic design elements early on so that they can create visuals themselves. We are ending the school year with an economics unit in social studies to help the students learn about goods and services, and we will also introduce money in math around the same time. We will have a classroom economy where the students will perform jobs to earn money that they can save up and spend on different items or activities. I plan on asking the students to create a graphic design in Keynote to propose their ideas for jobs that they want to complete in order to earn money in our classroom. They will be required to create an image that shows 3 jobs they would like to perform, along with the amount of money each job should be worth. We will vote on which jobs we think would benefit our classroom economy the most, and those posters will be hung in our classroom for the students to reference throughout the unit.

   If you’d like to learn more about the value of graphic design, please check out the infographic referenced in this post! It has a ton more interesting information that I didn’t share.