Final Reflection on the Digital Learning Challenge

It has been a great year of learning!  I am so glad I completed all nine challenges of the "Digital Learning Challenge."  I have learned to incorporate so much technology into my teaching and even set up a classroom blog titled "Reading Rocks & Math Matters."  If you'd like to view my classroom blog go to the Swift River School home page and click on "Links."  This will take you to my blog. 

With Title One money I was able to purchase an ELMO document camera, projector, and laptop to use in my classroom.  This has been amazing!  No more making charts and laminating, or writing problems on the board.  Just slap up the page and zoom in as much as you want.  Write on the paper or write on your white board.  Want to show a video about hurricanes before reading a story?  Just hook up your laptop to the projector and show the video right on your white board.  I used my laptop and projector to introduce Reading Street vocabulary, to show videos, and to practice math skills with fun games.

I learned how to make a Voki of myself to introduce a lesson and our Book Swap, and then had my fourth grade students make a Voki to tell us about the invention they researched.  I learned how to put my photographs to music using Animoto.  I learned how to make a Podcast using Garage Band, of my first grade students reading a Reader's Theater script.  I learned how to use Wordle to make word clouds after reading all about whales. These are just a few of my technology highlights. 

My final thoughts are...if it wasn't for this challenge, I wouldn't have found all these cool ways to incorporate technology into my teaching.  Technology Rocks!