I had the pleasure of working with Shannon Foley, Librarian Extraordinaire at Cedar Creek Elementary School, for several years as an Ed Tech. I learned way more from Shannon about technology than she ever learned from me and she helped to make my transition into Eanes ISD as an Ed Tech a wonderful experience.
Oh how I love the power of Social Media. Here is an example. Laura Wright, Third Grade Teacher at Eanes Elementary and the 2016 Iditarod Teacher on the Trail, is a believer of growing her Personal Learning Network by connecting with people via Twitter.
Mrs. Simmons 's 5th Graders dug deeply into fables this week and I was lucky enough to see the lesson in progress. Thanks, Mary Ann, for inviting me in! 1. The students made noticings (observations)...
This is the second Socratic Seminar that I have had the privilege of observing in Mr. Matus's class. If you are not familiar with Socratic Seminars, click here for some background information.
About a month ago, Margie Brown, the Ed Tech at VVE, shared a post that she had written on a project that Nancy Abell had done in her GT Classes at VVE. In an effort to help her students understand the concept of Memes, Nancy helped students create Memes which encouraged positive behaviors across the campus.
Each year in EISD, the 5th Graders on each elementary campus are lucky enough to experience 3 days at Live Oak with their teachers and their Westlake High School Teen Teachers. It is an experience...
I was able to be in the library these last two days to witness a most amazing Social Studies lesson on Christopher Columbus by our Third Grade Teachers: Maci Shannon, Drew Watson, Natalie Higby,...
Last week, 10 staff members from Eanes Elementary traveled to Arizona for Solution Tree's Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at Work Institute. During the day, we attended sessions and Keynotes and each evening we gathered to debrief the day. The conversations during those evenings that the 10 of us had began with questions to use as starting points and quickly developed into wonderful discussions about education in general and the PLC work being done on our campus in specific.
This is such a creative use of the sketch-noting/visible thinking approach! Thanks for capturing their ideas in such a fabulous post, Mrs. Smith! Also, thank you, Mrs. Simmons and Mrs. Dodge, for thinking outside of the box on this and applying it in a great way to support student learners!
EE Principal, Lesley Ryan and I, have spent a lot of time this school year delving into Visible Thinking/Sketchnoting in its various forms. Lesley is a wonderful mentor. She is incredibly creative and positive and has been the perfect teacher/encourager for me in this endeavor. I started this journey very much with the attitude that I was not at all artistic so how could I take this on? With Lesley's help, I have made some real progress in overcoming my fears and having more of a growth mindset about this.
Natalie Brewer shared this book with her 4th Graders recently. Each page discusses the feet of a different animal and how those feet function to help the animal survive.
Students then chose an animal and wrote a brief narrative about what their day would be like if they woke up with that animal's feet.
Another part of the assignment was to use Pages to make a photo that combined their own body with the feet of the animal they were writing about. I modeled the process for them and they were off! Take a look at some of the examples below!
