PPS Instructional Technology

I think, as educators, we can all agree that “the process of composing is, in a nutshell, critical thinking”. That particular quote is from our own Collin Nuismer, ELA teacher at Central Middle School. I definitely could not agree more. That is why I was so excited to hear about the work he is doing with his students, or more accurately, the writing his students are doing. For example, here is an excerpt from one of Collin’s student’s, Elizabeth, and her writing from a prompt about volcanoes. the Earth shakes, the mountain trembles, on the verge of eruption smoke billows from it’s dark maw, blocking the sun, casting a shadow on the world lava spews upward,  raining fire from clouds of grey ashes,  gleaming bright in the gloom. (For Elizabeth’s full piece and access to her other writings, follow this link .) She, in addition to all of Collin’s students, is composing a large percentage of her writing on a web platform called, Write About . In fact, his st...

Our next post in our Learning Together at MACUL series, Sheila Clothier shares her MACUL experience as well as some great tech tools for supporting our readers. Sheila is a fourth grade teacher at Central Elementary School and is one of our Chromebook 1-to-1 Pilot teachers.  When you talk to Sheila, she will be the first to tell you that teaching in a 1-to-1 environment was a huge leap of faith for her.  She is an amazing, gifted teacher, but has never claimed to be on the bleeding edge of the tech world.  Anyone who states that they can't use technology in their classroom only needs to sit down with Sheila for 10 minutes or walk through her room and you will soon realize that tech isn't all that scary after all!  Here is Sheila's blog post on her MACUL experience.  Thanks for sharing, Sheila! I was amazed with all the possibilities of using technology in the classroom with language arts. During the conference, I refreshed my understanding of Google Cl...