As an Educational Technology Coach, one of my goals is to share the great work of some the wonderful teachers who work with me. This year I have had an opportunity to work with Angel Chamberlain, ELA Teacher at Columbia Middle School. She has integrated technology in the past, but has increased the use this year.
Mrs. Chamberlain has provided a variety of opportunities for her students to use technology in her classroom. We first created a Google form to collect pertinent information from the students. We set up the form to collect the correct APS Google email from each student. Then we used the
gClassFolders script to create and organize individual folders for each student. Those folders are shared with Mrs. Chamberlain so that she can comment and give feedback to the students. A class view folder is also created and shared with all students. Mrs. Chamberlain adds resources and links for her students to this folder.
In addition, Mrs. Chamberlain created a brochure template and shared it using the Doctopus script. Students then shared the document with their group members so they could collaborate with each other. She has used this collaboration idea for several projects this year. In fact, one day when a student was in detention, he was still able to work with his partner through use of Google docs, When students are working on collaborative projects, they benefit from instant feedback from the teacher. Mrs. Chamberlain can see what they have written, and she can comment as they work. The students are able to see when she has entered the document and is commenting. They are able to make corrections once she points out errors. In addition to improving their collaboration skills, students are also improving their written communication skills.
Another Google script that Mrs. Chamberlain is using on a regular basis with her students is Flubaroo. She creates vocabulary quizzes using a Google form and shares the link in the class view folder. Students can then click on the link and take the quiz. Mrs. Chamberlain differentiates the quizzes based on the student's ability. After the quiz, Mrs. Chamberlain is able to quickly run the Flubaroo script to grade the quiz and send the individual results via email to students.
Mrs. Chamberlain is able to remind students about the quiz or send other messages to her students by using Remind 101. She set up accounts for her students for this purpose. She has had a positive response from students.
This falll, Mrs. Chamberlain also started using Class Dojo in in her class to help
manage behaviors. Not only did she use this, but she also incorporated class assignment with it. When her students were learning about descriptions and characteristics, she had
them create their own avatars in Class Dojo.
This past week Mrs. Chamberlain created a vocabulary card template using the Frayer Model. She will be able to use the template to customize the vocabulary lesson each week and then share it with her students.
My favorite things about working with Mrs. Chamberlain are her willingness to try new things and her creative way of thinking. Every time I work with her, she has a new idea about something she can do to make things better for her students. I admire all the great work she does.
