Grants are a great way to get extra money for your classroom! With budget cuts on the rise, grants are what lots of teachers are turning to for supplies needed in the classroom. I know that I find myself being quite creative when it comes to materials needed when I don't have the funds to get them. Luckily, we still have a small budget for our classrooms that allows us to buy needed materials. We are also lucky enough to have a great PTO that reimburses us for $100 of our own spent money on classrooms materials. Of course, we have to provide a receipt but I'm guessing that many of you can agree that $100 is pretty easy to spend when back-to-school shopping!
I checked out some of the grant resources provided by my teacher and there were a few that I really liked. I also want to share of some other resources that I'm aware of. I have never applied for a grant before, but I've seen so many teachers who have been blessed with a grant. My coworker was recently awarded with a $1000 grant for educational resources where she purchases reading/writing/math games to be used during center time. The resources her students now have are worth way more than their price tag! When I taught Kindergarten, a coworker of mine was awarded grant money to purchase LeapFrog Letter Factory videos for all of the incoming Kindergarteners to take home, plus one for each classroom. I had a student who came into Kindergarten knowing zero letters or sounds and thirteen days later-after watching the video twice a day-he knew ALL of his letters!! I was amazed and so thankful to have the resources!
Adoptaclassroom.org was a great site for teachers to create a desired classroom need posting. People then donate toward the cause and the teachers get 100% of the donations to purchase materials discreetly. The aspect that I REALLY liked about this website is that you get to see videos/notes from the result of donations. It also looked like the the teacher gets to send feedback to the donors. I know if I were donating, I would greatly appreciate the acknowledgement of my donation, especially in this economy... I would use this resource! It seems easy to use and easy for donors to use.
Vernier.com is a website that provides you with a lists of grants and detailed requirements for the grants. I could see myself using this resource. One resource on this page that I really liked was how to write a grant. For someone who has never written a grant, but hope to someday, this is incredibly helpful! The 10 tips on the side of the page were especially helpful. Tips like being specific, factual, and realistic are practical tips that could help me when writing.
I teach in the Olathe School District, which works with the Olathe Public Schools Foundation to offer mini grants. These are the grants that I am most likely to try for. I support the Olathe Public Schools Foundation. They do amazing things for our poverty-stricken children and to support teachers.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
Collaborative Technologies
The first element that I considered when beginning the decision-making of integrating collaborative technology was the collaboration program that I’d use. For my lesson plan, I chose a wiki, but there were many other choices such as Voice Thread, Smile Box, Flickr, etc. I chose a wiki because of the versatility of wikis. With a wiki, I could have a template developed and students can work from what I’ve developed. I also like the aspect that my students can be working on the same wiki at the same time. I reviewed the “Tips for Using Educational Wikis” on page 83 of our text. One of the tips for using educational wikis is to consider access. You’re going to have to decide who will be accessing it and what type is most suited for collaboration. Another concept that I considered was the audience. I know that the audience for my student’s collaboration will be their classmates, their families, and I’ll send out the link to other teachers to view. Limited technology availability was also something I thought about when planning. Since this particular project requires seven groups to create a presentation on a famous American, then had to plan to find seven computers for use! The most available option was reserving the school laptop cart for certain times. The school laptop cart’s schedule isn’t as busy as the school’s computer lab. If I chose to do this project after March then the laptop cart would not be available. Since I have young students, I’d have to plan time before we actually begin working with technology outlining my expectations for posts. We would spend some time discussing what’s appropriate to post, what’s inappropriate to post, and how much to post.
The great thing about wikispaces.com is that it’s a free educational workspace! All the teacher and students need to do is sign up and use it responsibly. Because Internet access can get pricey for a home, I would be sure to never require students to work on the wiki at home. I would always invite family to view what their child has done. I would welcome them into our school before or after school to view the wiki if they had Internet restrictions at home.
Future implementation:
The first project that I want to implement will be a famous Americans project (the one I slightly mentioned above). I currently do this project where I divide my class into about 6-7 groups of 3 and I assign each group a famous American such as Martin Luther King Jr. The group is responsible for researching important information that is outlined in a checklist. After the research is complete, they prepare to present all of the information on a poster. With collaborative technology, I plan to replace posters with a wiki. In an attempt to be more attentive with class time, I would like to collaborate with the computer technology teacher and have the students practice using a wiki during their technology class. When we use the wiki in class, the students would be more familiar with the technology. I also really like VoiceThread. I could see using this to post vocabulary words for the week and students could add sentences using the words. I could also use this at the beginning of the year to help introduce families. I’d really like to also look into doing something like e-pals where my students can communicate with others from a different school or state and even work on a project together!
The great thing about wikispaces.com is that it’s a free educational workspace! All the teacher and students need to do is sign up and use it responsibly. Because Internet access can get pricey for a home, I would be sure to never require students to work on the wiki at home. I would always invite family to view what their child has done. I would welcome them into our school before or after school to view the wiki if they had Internet restrictions at home.
Future implementation:
The first project that I want to implement will be a famous Americans project (the one I slightly mentioned above). I currently do this project where I divide my class into about 6-7 groups of 3 and I assign each group a famous American such as Martin Luther King Jr. The group is responsible for researching important information that is outlined in a checklist. After the research is complete, they prepare to present all of the information on a poster. With collaborative technology, I plan to replace posters with a wiki. In an attempt to be more attentive with class time, I would like to collaborate with the computer technology teacher and have the students practice using a wiki during their technology class. When we use the wiki in class, the students would be more familiar with the technology. I also really like VoiceThread. I could see using this to post vocabulary words for the week and students could add sentences using the words. I could also use this at the beginning of the year to help introduce families. I’d really like to also look into doing something like e-pals where my students can communicate with others from a different school or state and even work on a project together!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)