This week I explored Shelly Fryer's educational blog. While Shelly has a special knack for arts and technology integration in the classroom, she really has done it all. An author, speaker, advocate, and teacher, Shelly has already established a name in the education world. What especially struck me is that she currently teaches 3rd and 4th grade students at an elementary school for homeless children in Oklahoma. While her accomplishments are impressive, the heart behind it is what really stands out in my eyes. A blog post I found particularly helpful was "Technology 101 Skills for Teachers". As an A Plus Schools Fellow, Shelly works to train teachers across the nation for mastery in a variety of skills: arts integration, curriculum, experiential learning, multiple learning pathways, enriched assessment, collaboration, infrastructure, and classroom climate. This post in particular focused on an important piece for each of these: technology in the classroom. Whether we want to admit it or not, technology is now an essential part of how we teach and assess, what we teach, and establishing a healthy classroom environment, one that encourages creativity, innovation, and exploration. In this blog, Shelly explores some practical means of doing so. Below is an example of a project that she had students link with QR codes. What an awesome idea! Perhaps what I appreciate most from this post was Shelly's encouragement toward "app literacy". While we are used to focusing on the importance of reading and writing literacy, we often forget that technology has created a whole new medium with which to communicate. Multimedia is becoming the norm, not the exception. If we are to prepare our students for skills they will need in the workforce, then we need to be integrating technology into our lesson. One of the main ways we can do this, as Shelly explores, is through the applications made available to us through tablets such as the iPad. Before we can use them, however, we need to know how they work and which are appropriate for school settings. Overall, I really enjoyed exploring Shelly's blog. She has a lot of wisdom to share! I appreciated, as well, that Shelly presents a well-rounded library of information for educators. Recently she posted about her class's participation in Global School Play Day, an initiative that, although is organized with technology, recognizes the importance of making time for children to play and pretend without the intrusion of screens. While technology can be useful, it also leads to sedentary lifestyles that harm our children. Creating a balance is key, and I appreciate that she acknowledges that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to student engagement. Technology is great, but it is only one piece of a much larger whole.
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