Shelly Fryer Blog Post Reflections
Shelly Fryer is a phenomenal teacher that we can all learn valuable lessons from. I'm going to review four of her blogs in this post, but first I want to briefly tell you about the person behind the reviews. Shelly Fryer is a teacher at Positive Tomorrows school in Oklahoma City, OK. Shelly teaches 3rd and 4th grade students in a 1:1 iPad class. She has over 20 years of experience in the education field. If you want to find out more about Shelly and the inspiring work she does, click the button below this text to go to her page!
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Inspired By Dwayne Reed: Welcome to Room 108
The first blog of the four I'm going to review is called "Inspired by Dwayne Reed: Welcome to Room 108." As I read through the post and watched the video created by Dwayne Reed which inspired the video created by Shelly's class, I was overjoyed by the positivity I saw in both videos. What was most inspiring to me as I read over this blog was that Shelly showed a prime example of how important it is for teachers to find great ideas and utilize them in their own classrooms. Dwayne presented a wonderful video that ended up being the theme song of the year for Shelly's class. So why not make your own version of the song? What a great activity for the children to participate in! Not only did Shelly show an example of using the ideas of others, but she also demonstrated the need for teachers to find outside resources for their children. Cindy Scarberry is a music teacher from the OKC area who worked with Shelly's students on music throughout the year. Cindy helped the students make the song which allowed Shelly to add the video to it. What a great example of fantastic resources coming together to make an impacting product! This song project is certainly inspiring for me as a future music educator and can provide great ideas for teachers of all content areas. Check out Shelly's blog post "Inspired by Dwayne Reed: Welcome to Room 108 by clicking the button below. Also, check out the videos of Dwayne Reed's "Welcome to the Fourth Grade" and Shelly's classes song "Welcome to Room 108" below.
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Building Relationships with Students #GSPD
You might be wondering as you read the title of this blog post, what does #GSPD mean? It stands for Global School Play Day which is an event that Shelly's class participated in for the second year in a row. GSPD is a day of school where children have the chance to participate in unstructured play. What I found so interesting about this event while I was reading Shelly's blog is how intelligent the play was. Children were acting out businesses and making resumes. They had no guidance in what to do, they simply made it up! Not only does having children participate in an event like this help them form and exercise their creativity, but it also helps them with their relationships. Children had a chance to creatively interact with each other and learn how each other works. In a school setting, children don't always get a chance to really discover how each other works outside of the educational setting. This event gave them this opportunity. When I reflect on school growing up, I realize that the best friendships I had from school were not fully formed within the buildings walls. The majority of my friendships were built on out-of-school activities where I got to interact with my friends in play. I learned how those people click and was able to make lasting relationships with them. Yes, school helped. But it was through those fun activities we did outside of school that those bonds were really made. With the knowledge that the children in Shelly's class are homeless, having a day like this that allows them to interact in play that they may not get outside of school is a wonderful thing. Check out Shelly's blog about GSPD and her classes involvement in it by clicking the button below.
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Technology Projects for Enriched Assessment
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Reading this blog post by Shelly is certainly encouraging as technology begins to make advances in our classrooms. I am glad that Shelly is sharing thoughts on how to integrate technology, such as iPads, into the classroom because students engage more in technology than ever before. Our students often come to school with knowledge of how to use technology efficiently. So, why not tap into their abilities? In this particular app, I saw something that has caught my eye throughout Shelly's page. What caught my eye was an app called Seesaw which is an online learning journal that students can use. It has easy functions that students should not have too much trouble with. Seesaw gives students so many ways to engage with material between pictures, videos, text and much more. Seesaw is also easy to share with parents which gives them a way to track part of what their students are doing within the classroom. Technology makes so much sense for our students to start using. In the classroom, technology opens a whole new world of possibilities that students have never had before; such as, Seesaw. Check out the video to the right which talks about how the Seesaw app works. Also, click on the link below to access Shelly's post "Technology Projects for Enriched Assessment" so that you can see more of what she is doing to get technology in our classrooms.
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Technology 101 Skills for Teachers
Reading though this blog post made me really happy to see the direction technology can take in the classroom. Often, I believe that society sees technology as being something very negative towards students and their education. What Shelly has demonstrated in this post is that the exact opposite can be true. Students can learn how to use technology beneficially and there are many ways teachers can help. Shelly stresses the importance of understanding that one of the best ways that teachers can help their students understand how to use technology is to be good consumers of it ourselves. This is accomplished by taking the time to properly learn how to navigate apps, upload YouTube videos, and so much more. Once teachers have mastered how to use their own technology, they can more easily teach it to their students.
The most important part of using technology in the classroom is to remember that it is a means to celebrate student creativity. Take a look at the video to the right. This is a great example of how students have still exercised creativity while using technology. Students have created a presentation and then shared it with the world using YouTube. How inspiring is that? Using technology is such a great way to help students engage in activities that they find meaningful. It is the job of teachers to learn how to get them there. Click on the link below to access Shelly's post "Technology 101 Skills for Teachers." I think you'll like and be inspired by what you read! |
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Shelly Fryer certainly has some inspiring work. Teachers, please take some time to look over her page and find ideas that you can integrate into your classroom? How are you using technology to help create a better learning environment for your students? Click the link below to access Shelly's website.