Texas Teacher Tired

Throughout the last five weeks, I was challenged to dive deeper into tech 2.0 tools. Of course, I use some technology apps in my classroom, and I have been personally practicing with some of the trending social medias and apps. Nonetheless, I had never really sat down and just researched and moved from app to app to app. Having a discussion with fellow peers about this really enlightened me to all of the new and engaging software available for classrooms.  While I came across many fun and engaging apps, the one important aspect that I decided to keep up front was how it could align to our curriculum. I was very impressed with the apps like Boddle , that allows you to chose the TEKS structure, assuring me that the skills being practiced were intentional. I also really like the student diagnostic features. While picking out the TEKS and assigning certain students one on one skills practice is more my preference, I see the benefits of diagnosing the students and allowing the program t...

Hyper for Hyper Docs I never realized there was a name for the way our classroom was evolving. I knew after the pandemic that teaching would never be the same, but now I don't know how I would teach without it.  I think back into my beginning years as a teacher.. ~que the dreamy music~ how did we operate without having slides? It was much harder. I mean, we had slides.. like you could make a "death by PowerPoint" presentation, but that just wasn't the vibe. I guess we just wrote on the white board, projected worksheets with the doc. cam. and stood up there and talked. I remember when the district was trying to force us to use apps and incorporate technology like padlet and seesaw . At first the task was daunting. Not only was I doggy paddling through the days, but now you want me to learn something new, teach it, and use it daily in the classroom?! 2025- If the internet goes down, we may as well go home. We are delivering daily instruction with the use of HyperDocs....

  You're making a TikTok for SCHOOL?!   (<----Click the Link Please!) Roaming/ searching around with YouTube is not exactly new territory for me, but posting and creating with it is. Last semester, I was very surprised at how easy it was for me to edit and post a read aloud I had made. I played, re-recorded, critiqued, and fretted this assignment for a week, even all through a summer vacation.. ( drove the kiddos 14 hours to Destin Florida ). On the day I posted it to YouTube, I quickly realized its abilities. Next time, I'll skip the third party apps.  So, for this assignment, I am adding things to a playlist.. come to find out.. I already had several playlists and I didn't even realize! One thing I had encountered with the YouTube playlists is that, when I'm trying to save videos that I want to include in my daily slides for lessons- It will NOT let me save it to a playlist. Hmmm..   like for example: In my fourth grade RLA class, we are about to write our firs...

 WOW! The amount of cool things AI can do is fascinating. I knew I could virtually try on shoes and see furniture pop up with the little amazon feature, but I didn't realize I could ask Chatgpt to redecorate my whole house! What a game changer! I would really like it to link the furnishings so I can just add it all to my cart and be done with it. But, maybe one day soon!  Something else I tried was this viral- roast this picture. Id heard of people posting a family picture and asking chatgpt to roast it, so I gave it a try! it was absolutely hilarious! But.. too embarrassing to post on here. Apparently we look like a bunch of "Honkytonk Red Necks!"   My favorite thing I did this week was make action figures for myself and family members. I had seen this trend and really wanted to spend some time playing with that. It did take several days, as chatgpt only allows you to request so many images in one day. Also, I had to fine tune the figures and the accessories around ...

 So, today I did a thing. I googled myself... all.. day.. long! while I was slightly disappointed, I wasn't actually surprised to not find any personal information. I did find some related information that could possibly be bread crumbs for someone who really didn't know me and was investigating. However, I still feel like its reaching.   The assignment was to conduct a "vanity search", and yes, I went ahead and googled that first just to make totally sure I was understanding the expectations. I first tried ChatGpt- but nothing. Apparently its not appropriate, which is a great thing! With everything that AI can do- like roasting people in pictures summited, I am very glad Gpt cant help anyone go looking for me. Instead, the response was, "I’m sorry, but I’m not able to help with locating or sharing personal details about private individuals. If you’re trying to learn more about someone’s educational or professional background in a legitimate and respectful way, h...

Here is the link to my Youtube channel!  

  One of the most important fourth grade standards is inferencing. One of the most incorrectly answered STAAR questions in fourth grade is inferencing. This skill is something that students actually do almost daily, and without even realizing it. I have come to believe that the reason so many of them struggle with knowing when to infer, is just that- they don’t know the question is asking them to infer. Once we get our students to first understand what the questions are asking of them, they are more likely to answer correctly. I've created a detailed unit plan focused on teaching inference skills, a critical reading comprehension strategy that often challenges students. The unit takes a gradual release approach over three weeks, moving from explicit instruction to independent application. However, given our new Amplify curriculum, we do not have three weeks to teach this skill. So, I will now condense the lesson plan into four to five 20-minute mini lessons. I have also added tec...

 Chat conversation with Claude AI:  click here to view A few weeks ago, chatting with a bot was a new goal for me. Now, I'm not sure what took me so long to discover how helpful this tool really can be. While using Claude AI to help me brainstorm my teaching philosophy, I was for the first time able to think about my own approach to education as an individualized idea. I realized that I have been trying to place myself into one of the boxes, which is very unlike me. For this assignment, and the many other times throughout my three degrees in education, when asked to create a teaching philosophy, I felt like I had to pick out and label my pedagogical approach or chose which learning theories I believe in and use. This was always difficult for me because I feel like my style or approach to life in general is so eclectic. A few semesters ago I decided my view was Humanitarian. Teaching several years in the inclusion setting at title one schools, I was always very focused on perso...

                        Teaching 4 th grade with Technology   A few years ago as part of a teaching incentive program, we were challenged to add a new technology from a list of approved platforms into our classrooms during stations. I chose to use SeeSaw, and I have been using it ever since! It’s a fun and free website that teachers can create, share and assign engaging lessons on the student’s computers. One of my favorites that I use every year was created by another teacher. It’s a very simple poetry practice. There are several words in boxes that the students can drag and drop into place to create their own poem. I have edited my copy to change the theme from time to time. For example, the original template has fall leaves in the back ground and all of the words are related to fall. This year we are just starting poetry in February, so I have edited the assi...

 January 26, 2025 Here is a link to my conversation with a chatbot: click here to view My initial response to having an assignment to check out a chatbot was… excitement! Chat options are something I have only lately begun to utilize and trust, and even as an elementary teacher- I really haven't had much experience with the relatively new technology of chatbots.  I actually do feel confident in the information that was provided by the bot. I believe this is because of the content. If I didn't already have a bachelors degree in child development, I may have been more surprised by the outcome. I was personally happy with the answer to my last question, which was about my own children not having a phone. I may have screenshotted that to use as proof during the next family meeting!  I think the prompts provided by the assignment were effective to the chatbot. I did not have to rephrase or add context to my prompts to get better output, particularly when asking follow up quest...

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  Amber Reynolds ETEC 524 Tech Play 1 2/28/2024   1.        Wix : When I searched create your own wiki page, I thought I was going to build a free website. I did like the way it began with an AI chat- which was optional. I chose the chat option and it asked me several question about my purpose and ideas for the website. When I got to pick out the name I wanted for the website is when I was prompted to either sign up for a 30-day trial, or go ahead and pay now for the service of creating the website. I don’t think I will be using this to build my portfolio. It seems like I will need something with less options, that I can simply create for school purposes. Also, If I can find something that’s 100% free, that’s the way for me! a.        As I answered the prompted questions, I was immediately surprised at the title the website gave me, which was educational consultant, and also immediately began to build phra...

  Week 6 Techplay #2 3 creative apps 1.        Flipgrid : What I liked personally about this app is that it is google certified, so my district will allow it to be downloaded for classroom use, which makes things so much easier. Also, it is very easy for me to access the students work. When the students post videos or photos, I am able to see them in a nice organized layout. I just click on each one to view and I can respond immediately with either video, audio or text. a.        2 examples of potential student work I would design using this app:                                                                ...