Very Good Grasshopper

So...being new to 4th grade classroom management has been something that has kept me up at night.  Not that my students are running around like wild little monkeys! I actually think I have very good classroom management, but I've never really had a set tool that was used in the classroom.

Some of my fellow nut jobs...er...4th grade teachers use a positive/negative system.  At first I really didn't like the idea. (Mainly because there was a lot to keep up with!)

But then a fellow (super) blogger came to my rescue. It's like she jumped into her phonebooth, changed into her red and blue pajamas, and saved me from the ledge I was dangling from! Well...not really like that, but close.

Ginger Snaps posted about a website called Class Dojo.

It is a classroom management tool that works through their website that can be projected for the whole class to see. But the interactiveness (is that a word?) is not the coolest thing about it.  This site is most awesome because I can give positives and negatives through my phone and it will *bing* up on the screen!! I don't have to say a word!

(Not real students!)

If a student is on task I simply select that student and give them a positive for being on task and it will show up on the SmartBoard. That way the students can see who is getting the positive and for what. The past two mornings have been wonderful! Whenever my LBKs get a little off task I simply pick one that is working hard and give them a positive and everyone settles down. Not a single word was spoken. (It's really fun to do it when I'm outside of the classroom!)

Not only does it do all this but check out the weekly report I can print off and send home...

There are some improvements that need to be made but my initial review is that this is a wonderful tool for classroom management. I'll let you know what I think a few weeks from now.

Until next time,

Mr. A


Tweet

Collaboration-Day 1

Ahhh...Google Docs. Who doesn't love it?! (Well, I know a few. But they don't love tech of any kind.)  Now, I'm hoping to help my LBKs fall in love with it.

Today was Day 1 of our collaboration slide show project.

We have been studying the 13 original colonies and I have been racking my brain as to what we could do for a final project. So, off to do a search with no map...only a destination. With my trusty laptop by my side (well, on my lap...it's close to my side :-P) I went venturing into the world of the online educator and came up with...nothing.

Don't get me wrong, there was T-O-N-S of stuff out there. But I could never find anything that really struck my fancy. So, to Google I run. And as always they had the answer...Docs!

So, I divided my class into three groups for the three colonial regions.  Then each group divided up the project into the assigned sections and off we went following the yellow brick road to the computer lab. No, there were no lions or tigers or bears but there was one really grumpy teacher...

I linked up each slideshow project on our class website and off we went! They were excited to see that they could work on the same project together. In fact, I had some issues with some of my sweet LBKs going on someone else's slide and messing with them. Once we got settled down they really seemed to take to it, but all we could get done was a brief intro and they got their title on their page.

As we progress we are going to discuss more about aesthetics and animation...but for now we have our titles!

I'll keep you up to date on how this goes because this is my first experience teaching how to do a slide show and this is most of the LBKs first experience with making a slide show.  I love it when we get to learn together!!

Until next time,

Mr. A


Tweet