Vicki's Tech Hub

As educators, we are always looking for innovative ways to engage our students and enhance their learning experiences. Recently, I embarked on a creative journey with some students by incorporating stop-motion animation into a geometry lesson. This project made learning about shapes fun and allowed students to express their understanding in a dynamic way. Why stop-motion animation? Stop-motion animation offers a hands-on learning experience that fosters creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. By animating shapes, students can explore geometric concepts in a visual and tangible manner. It also integrates technology into the classroom in an accessible and educational way, preparing students for the digital age. The goal of this project was simple: use stop-motion animation to create a short story that incorporates various geometric shapes. Each student group was tasked with designing a story and scenes using shapes they had studied - squares, triangles, rhombi, trapezoids, and ...

Today I want to talk to you about an innovation technique called PedTech. At its heart, PedTech blends pedagogy (the art of teaching) with the latest technology to create more dynamic, interactive, and personalized learning experiences. It's not just about using technology in the classroom; it's about revolutionizing how we engage with students.  PedTech includes everything from digital platforms that streamline lesson planning to immersive tools like virtual and augmented reality that open up new worlds for our students. Imagine a history class where students can virtually visit ancient Rome or a science lesson where they can experiment in a digitally simulated lab–these are the possibilities with PedTech! Photo Credits: A.I. Created image in Ideogram by Vicki's Tech Hub Integrating tech into teaching is about selecting tools that enhance your teaching style and fit your curriculum goals. Feeling comfortable and proficient with these technologies is essential, so ongoing ...

 I know the name of this blog is Vicki's Tech Hub, implying everything I do will be tech-related. Sometimes, the best instruction and practice is for tech-free learning. That is the case for this blog post.  A few weeks ago, I was in first grade working with the students to research and create an animal habitat. The students were then to write an informational paragraph about the habitat they created. I noticed almost all students (36 out of 40) struggled with creating a topic sentence. So that led to this week's week-long unit on creating topic sentences! This was a tech-free unit where 1st-grade students learned what a topic sentence was, heard good examples of topic sentences and drew the topic, then through a series of gradual release of responsibility lessons, students created topic sentences based on interesting images.  Day 1 On the first day, I read non-fiction books with excellent topic sentences as examples. We discussed what the rest of the paragraph would talk...