As expected, our original project plan has evolved some. My teammates and I worked together to create differentiated math stations. Our project plan was to have laptops at one of the stations. We had curated a collection of various math game sites that we planned to make available on laptops. Due to a delay in the availability of laptops, we have not yet been able to have laptops as one of our stations. Despite this, I still started math stations a few weeks ago and have established routines and expectations with the children. Today, Cathy delivered laptops to each of us! Now we will be able to begin using laptops for math games during station time.
When my teammates and I realized that there would be a delay in getting laptops for our classrooms, we began to think of other ways to incorporate technology into our stations. As a tech leader for our school, Amy Finnen has an Ipad in her classroom. Her students are able to use this during station time. We decided to write a grant asking for two Ipads for each kindergarten classroom. Our hope is that each kindergarten classroom will be able to have at least one Ipad to use for instruction and stations.
Another part of our project was to create a kindergarten team channel on You Tube. This is a way for all six kindergarten teachers to share You Tube videos without having to send an email with the link (as we had done in the past). We are all able to add and view videos on our You Tube channel.
The last part of our project has been to use Twitter as a reflection tool at the end of each day. During our afternoon snack, the students share important parts of our day as I Tweet them. This has been a very engaging tool for students, and for their families. I did not anticipate having such a positive, enthusiastic reaction from both students and parents. Through Twitter, we can quickly reflect on our day while giving parents a snapshot of what their children did at school.
My goals for the future with this project are to implement technology into our math stations (first with laptops, and hopefully with Ipads) and to continue to develop a collection of You Tube videos.
