Thursday, September 24, 2015

Microsoft Office 365, Oh My!

I've been missing in action for a minute.  This has been a busy year to say the least!   Last year, without being a Google classroom, I used Google Docs, and Google Drive with my students.  This year our county began using Microsoft Office 365, so that meant learning something new - ah-gain! I must say that OneNote has great professional development videos to help you set up your class notebooks.  But I tend to like the personal touch.

In walks Sandra.  Our school was chosen to begin taking quarterly tests online this year.  The good thing about that is we have a tech consultant based at our school for the first part of the year. How sweet is that? Sandra has been sooo helpful.  Whenever she comes in our class, the kids give her a round of applause! She was there to help me walk my students through the process of logging on to their OneNote accounts. Now instead of 6 notebooks, there's just One Notebook . . . OneNote... Get it! :-)

Flipping with Fisher
I still use interactive notebooks; I haven't figured out to make digital foldables. But the more we use OneNote, the more I'm starting to see the power behind it. 

My students are learning to highlight the main idea (and the important information) in a passage. That's a skill I wish I had learned earlier in life. I used to highlight everything while I was reading as opposed to read first and then select what is important.  I guess it's not too late to learn a new skill. :-) They can take notes in the margin to summarize what they learn.  Yes, they could do this just as easily on a sheet of paper, but would they be able to find it 3 weeks from now?  

Flipping with Fifth

I just finished adding material in the Content Library for our unit on Rocks & Minerals.  I am making an audio recording for my students that need support reading the text.  And get this, with the click of a button I can record and insert a video recording to introduce the lesson and scaffold the learning for my students.  Talk about flipping a lesson!  

Flipping with Fisher
When we started our multiplication unit, students used the Collaboration Space to create a group chart. For homework, they found things in their environment that came in groups.  Then in class, they worked together to create the chart. This was their first experience using the Collaboration Space in OneNote

Flipping with Fisher

Students without parent permission also worked in groups.  They just used paper and markers to create their chart. Students can use the information in their charts to create a book similar to What Comes in 2's, 3's, and 4's?.

Flipping with Fisher
I only have about 5 more students that need to register for the free subscription.  In the meantime, I am putting the materials on Edmodo for them. I'm hoping to get the remaining parent permissions soon! In the meantime, we'll keep chugging along.

Flipping with Fisher

Goodbye!

Wow! I can’t believe I have not posted anything this entire school year! I’m not sure what that means. I have decided that I will be retir...