Tech Tool

With the unexpected two days off of school I was able to play around with some tech tools I've been wanting to try. I signed up for a website called showbie (www.showbie.com). This website is like a dropbox where I can send my students attachments and they don't have to sign up with an email. It works like this: I signed up with my email and I create classes. Each class has a class code that I give to my students. They go to the website and put their name and the code and they can access what I've posted. I can post assignments and attach pdf, keynotes etc. The students can access whatever I post and then upload their work right to the folder.

I forsee myself posting articles or other pdfs and having students access it through showbie. Then they can open the pdf in adobe reader or noteability and write over it, take notes etc. Then they can turn in whatever they wrote on the pdf to showbie. With our copy budge limited I think this would be a great tool to share articles/files with my students. I also think they will be able to access and annotate more files than they were able to before. I signed myself up as a student as well just to practice and it was very simple to use. We have shared Ipads in 5th grade but I don't think that will be a problem since they have to login each time anyways. I am excited to try this new tool and I think my students will be able to access more learning tools.

Triumphs and Troubles

Triumph: Back to school for two days before another 2 days off from the cold was a success. The students were so well behaved and ready to work. It was great seeing them and I could tell they were ready to be back also. Although we needed to take a few more brain breaks than usual, we got a lot done those two days we were back. Hopefully the great behavior continues after 2 snow/cold days off!


Trouble: We are starting an intensive reading program during our WIN time. We are going to be grouping students by ability and picking a theme to create a unit around. I chose to focus on the Olympics. Although I am finding a lot of good supplemental articles and books it has been really hard to find an anchor text I could use for book groups. I was hoping to find 1-2 chapter books that were fiction that were Olympic or sports themed. I think I settled on a couple but I have to see if they are good read. Any ideas on sports related chapter books at a 5th grade level would be much appreciated!