Mrs. Slaviero's Blog

  My reflections this week are all about leveraging technology to positively impact students and their learning. My Language Support Historians built community by creating and viewing persuasive newscasts about the geographical regions that make up the United States. Students had the choice of using either the TouchCast app or the new (to me) green screen technology in Apple iMovie.  Writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills were practiced and community building occurred when viewing. Each student wrote two compliments for each video (including their own video) and shared out.  My US History 8 Historians are in the midst of researching their National History Day projects. Classes are combined every hour at this point in the project so I get to interact with close to 300 students! It's so exciting to hear how they are interpreting this year's theme (Breaking Barriers in History) and the subjects they're researching. Last year I kept noticing that I...

It's been a bumpier start to the school year than previous years. I'm not writing this to complain, but rather to state that the wait for this week's developments has been worth it. This has been a week of wonder for me. My Language Support students are getting more acclimated. I'm hearing them talk about "our school" and claim ownership of the many opportunities they've had to represent us and our school community this quarter. What also warms my heart is the way they are seeking independence in their learning in our History classroom. They will begin to grow as learners even more now that this is becoming our norm. Small gains, such as one student finding the theme song to the current events news program we start our class with so that he can use it in his newscast project, mean so much. The US History classes are beginning National History Day projects in earnest this week. I'm meeting my colleagues' students now that we are combini...