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Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Teacher Tech Tuesday

Updated 2019

Here you will find my main Teacher Tech Tuesday posts and this is the place to link your TeacherTech posts too! We all love tech and teaching let's share about tech that helps us teach. It could be an old post or a new post about technology in the classroom or technology that helps you prepare for the classroom. 

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Here are some of my newest/updated posts


Older posts 

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Throwback Thursday- Common Core PowerPix

I first started working on switching the official WBT PowerPix with CA state standards to Common Core standards in 2011. I want to be clear NONE of these PowerPix were created by me, they are all a part of the grade level PowerPix that are on the WBT ebook area. The original PowerPix reference the California State Standards and all of California and many other states are now following the Common Core standards. I used a digital scrapbooking program, My Memories Suite, to modify the  PowerPix to reference the Common Core Standards. The originals had the PowerPix and teacher notes in one file. In the files I made there is one file of the Pix for ELA and one for Math for each grade level to be printed in color and/or shown on your LCD projector. There is a separate file of teacher notes, one ELA and one Math for each grade level, that can be printed in black and white. I have my PowerPix in sheet protectors with the matching teacher notes slid in the same sheet protector so that I can hold the PowerPix up and read the teacher notes :)

Here is a little explanation of what is on each PowerPix. I have simply changed the California State Standards to the Common Core Standards and formated the Teacher Notes to be one page for each PowerPix.
You can learn more about using PowerPix from Coach B's webcast below and from wholebrainteaching.com 


 Below are links to the Common Core PowerPix I currently have finished. If you are at a school that does not use Common Core or teach upper grades that I have not finished PowerPix for be sure to check out this post for the JPEGs of the PowerPix. PowerPix are one of my favorite WBT tools and I hope that these updated PowerPix and Teacher notes are useful.

ELA PowerPix with Common Core Standards 

 Just click the picture to download the PowerPix and then grab the Teacher Notes from the Goggle Doc.




















Kate Bowski has 3rd Grade Reading and Writing PowerPix HERE



.

Math PowerPix with Common Core Standards 

 Just click the picture to download the PowerPix and then grab the Teacher Notes from the Goggle Doc.








Kate Bowski has 3rd Grade Math PowerPix HERE

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

WBT Wednesday- Classroom Rules

Updated for 2020


This all still applies but there is a 2020 Rule 5 update! Rule 5 is now "Make our dear team stronger!" See all the gestures, including for the newest Rule 5 HERE

The classroom rules are the first cornerstone to me of Whole Brain Teaching and Step 5 of WBT FastTrack.  Classroom rules are usually one of the first things you teach your class on the first day so they are one thing that is not easily changed after the beginning of the school year. That said if you are looking at this information and it is not the beginning of the year changes are your classroom rules are not working so don't be afraid to switch to these rules. 

The best way to master WBT Basics is to teach the Five Classroom Rules. I LOVE the Five Rules because they cover every possible issue that may come up in class with Rule 4 and Rule 5. 
Here is a great set of Rule posters from the official WBT TpT store with the Diamond Rule and updated Rule 5
EDITABLE Bitmoji Whole Brain Teaching Classroom Rules

 Before the Rule 5 update, I used the posters shown in Chris Biffle AKA Coach B's first book, Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids.


Here is my Diamond Rule Poster
The Amazing Andrea Schindler who is on the WBT executive board and runs the Kindergarten Facebook group showed me one rule I do add, The Big Rule: ALWAYS Listen to your Teacher when they are Talking! This rule is key for our younger ones because they can't follow directions they didn't listen to. Here is a PDF for you to use for The Big Rule, just click HERE to download.

There are many posters on TeachersPayTeachers in different themes. These posters should all be free, just search WBT or Whole Brain Teaching. I like having my posters printed and laminated before the first day. To build community and buy in I have my students share out different ways we can follow the rules and ways we would be breaking the rules to create an anchor chart. You could also create posters with your students and guide them to creating these rules. 

Here are  2 videos on the Rules with the updated Rule 5 with WBT Executive Board member Heidi Martin

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Teacher Tech Tuesday- Twitter

updated June, 2019

Today's Teacher Tech Tuesday is all about Twitter. TTTTT, lots of T's!

Now I am NOT a Twitter expert, far from it but there are a ton of great educational chats on Twitter so I had to join and start learning and it is not too hard at all. No really!

First you need to sign up for Twitter. 
I find using the computer easiest with Twitter so go to https://twitter.com/ and you will see something like this on the left and click the sign up button or go straight to  https://twitter.com/signup








The hardest part here is picking your username but the awesome thing is you can change it later so just pick something and get tweeting, you can change it later :)  







Now that you are on Twitter it is time to find some super cool peeps to follow and chats to follow. 
I am @TKwithMrsO and I love #wholebrainteaching , #WBTchat , # and #TeacherFriends
The @ goes before the username and the # is the hashtag.
#wholebrainteaching #WBTchat are on Whole Brain Teaching, be sure to follow  WBT Executive Board member Sarah Meador @MeadorScience
#WeAreCUE is the hashtag to follow for all things CUE, Computer-Using Educators
and #TeacherFriends is a great group organized by Debbie Clement, @KweezleQueen and friends
Both #wbtchat and #TeacherFriends use to have chats on Tuesdays at 6 PM Pacific/9 PM Eastern and while the chats are no longer every Tuesday these are still active hashtags.
Do you have a favorite Twitter chat?

Even if you can not make the chat live you can search Twitter for the hashtag and still read the tweets, tweet using the hashtag and of course follow all the cool people that participate in the chats.

I recommend typing the hashtag #TeacherFriends  and #WBTchat in the search box and following the people tweeting in those chats. To follow someone simply click on their name and click the Follow button that will pop up :) 

Now if possible it is fun to follow Twitter chats live. You CAN follow a chat from the main Twitter page but I find it hard to do. It is just not user friendly to me on the main Twitter page so  I like to use TweetDeck on my laptop.

With TweetDeck you can make a column just for the chat and it will automatically load new tweets for you, something I can't do on the regular Twitter page. Once I have set up my TweetDeck all I have to do is open https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ and I am ready to go with the chat column already setup :) Here is a screen shot of my TweetDeck years ago but it still is my go to way to read tweets


I am all set up to follow #TeacherFriends and #WBTchat as well as read my regular Twitter feed :) Now I am all set to read the tweets live for chats or catch up later. I hope this post was helpful and you feel ready to tweet and I can follow you :)