Skip to main content

A Standards, CPALM, and Newsletter Smorgasbord

For 6th Grade, I am most comfortable with the ELA standard regarding using online resources for definitions and synonyms. I have been using such websites for many years now, and it would not be hard to adapt to more student-friendly ones. The Wordsmyth website gives the part of speech, different definitions, some basic synonyms, and what words it was derived from. This puts everything into one place, unlike Dictionary.com. The standard I am least conformable with is using multimedia aspects to "clarity information". I normally find that adding in a bunch of fluff can actually confuse and distract the student, so the struggle for me will be to use multimedia effectively. The standard suggests using graphics software, audio recorders, and move creators. For some subjects in history, it can be helpful to provide some cultural context in music, art, and video/audio clips, which would fulfill this standard.

One of the resources I have found helpful is the list of standards, which can be found in the grade's files and part of the subject they apply to. As a young teacher, having this long list of standards will be a good reference for lesson plans. The best part, however, is if you click on the standard, the page provides three "access points", or other standards the standard quickly connects to. Eventually, a giant state-approved standards map can be made for the entire subject! The website also offers some professional development courses, and I signed myself up for a "Literacy across the Content Areas" course. I believe that a high level of reading comprehension and writing is vital in all the classrooms, so I am very interested in this course. 

The skills I learned from the Newsletter Design assignment were how to create a newsletter format on my own, what content should be included (some vocabulary, notes to parents, general warnings and suggestions), and that they take a while! I put a lot of time into the design of it, and I was pretty happy with it in the end. I did have a lot of colors in it (I just got too excited, picked a color scheme, and ran with it. I like the idea of color-coding different types of content, so I will stick with that. Since it is a lot of paper and work to print copies for students to loose, I think I will email it out. The format I created doesn't really work for an online newsletter, so I will go with a simpler format. Although a newsletter is a nice alternative to the emails parents receive frequently, it's more work for both the teacher and parent to communicate through a newsletter. An email can be quickly formatted, it is easy to read, and it is easy to respond to. Overall, I enjoyed the assignment, and it has given me the opportunity to think about how I wish to communicate with parents. 



Comments

  1. Lukas's Blog fa19October 1, 2019 at 7:33 AM

    CPALMS is a big library for teachers in Florida. Unfortunately, a lot of teachers are not aware of them.
    BTW, I really have to say that I enjoyed reading your blog every week! Excellent!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Diigo, Blogging, and Pinterest Knock-Off (Yes!)

I was surprised at how easy it was to use Diigo as a group annotation program. I liked how I could highlight and annotate a website while also seeing others' comments. I think the Diigo group page is a little hard to navigate and understand, but it is still manageable. I think I might try Diigo in a classroom setting, because more and more annotations and group work happens online. It also saves time and paper for the teacher, which would work well for less important assignments. I have liked blogging, but I prefer to use Twitter as my primary PLN. I don't mind guided blogging, but I don't think I could do this without the topics given to me! I reflect better through physically writing information and making my own notes on my thoughts. With blogging, it feels like I'm talking into a void but without the privacy of my messy handwriting; at least with Twitter, I'm interacting with more people and am able to receive more information. A Web 2.0 tool that can be use...
Post a Comment
Read more

I LOVE TWITTER, Website, and Assistive and Adaptive Technologies are IMPORTANT

I have really enjoyed using Twitter. I go onto it once or twice a day, and I always find an insightful article or tweet. Between this class, EDF1005, my observations, and Twitter, I'm expanding out into the education world; I've learned about classroom management, helping struggling students, and being observed by administration. The benefits of using Twitter are that there's a lot of teachers on there and that a lot of conversations are happening in the comments to clarify, argue, and defend. I haven't had any issues using Twitter yet because there are a lot of resources and posters are willing to answer questions. From the Web Design assignment, I learned about what can and what should be on a website, because I hadn't thought about including supplementary work alongside the normal course content. I like the school websites because it is the simplest way for everyone to view the content, but they do take a fair amount of time to create a good resource. However, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

ILP Participation- LinkedIn Learning

Voice Thread Video For this ILP, I participated in a LinkedIn Learning video on the different types of assessments. I generally enjoyed the experience, for the website was easy to use and the video was a good introduction to the topic of assessments. The main topic was on the difference between formative and summative assessments, and the teacher stressed the importance of using these assessments as a way of communication between the teacher and the student. Through their work, students communicate to the teacher what they do and do not know, and the teacher can communicate back through helpful feedback. I did not like how fast-paced the video was, and in the future I will look for videos that are longer and more focused. I will definitely use LinkedIn Learning again for my personal professional development. 
Post a Comment
Read more