Digital Storytelling: Help Us Write Our Happily Ever Afters!
My students need three google Chromebook laptop/tablets, three headphones, and three computer mice to have my students practice digital storytelling from every "Once Upon a Time" to every "Happily Ever After."
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
I am a Kindergarten teacher who has 26 students who yearn to learn each and every school day. My classroom is a haven for general education students, IEP students, foster care students, homeless students, and English Language Learners.
I like to think of my students as sponges who absorb the world around them and all of the learning offered to them.
Students enter Kindergarten as blank slates and leave as readers and writers. I teach 26 enthusiastic, driven, genuine, and happy kindergartners. They love going to school and come to school ready, willing, and able to learn.
I teach kindergarten in a high poverty area in a lovely neighborhood in the Bronx. The parents pass on to their children the high value of a good schooling experience. Our school has created a wonderful atmosphere where students are encouraged and guided to become independent learners, thinkers, readers, writers, scientists, historians, and most of all, individuals.
My Project
As a teacher, you dedicate yourself to being a life-long learner. This September, I attended the Google Summit for Education for an entire weekend. In the district where I received professional development, the Connecticut Schools had a 1 to 1 policy, meaning each child had access to a Google Chromebook. In my school, we only receive a teacher laptop and teacher iPad. I attended this professional development and learned endless ways to incorporate Google Classroom, technology, and educational apps to engage students, further collaboration, enhance communication, and gather formative data to help each and every child grow in the classroom. One of the biggest notions I left with was utilizing endless apps and software available to help students become digital storytellers.
I left professional development so excited to incorporate all that I learned into my classroom, but I do not have the technological resources to do so.
I will utilize these Google Chromebooks daily to engage students, challenge students, further discussion, give differentiated assignments, and gather information on student strengths and needs. I learned how you can utilize “Sock Puppets,” “Flip Grid,” “Voki,” “Story Bird,” “Puppet Pals,” and “Toontastic” to help students practice their story telling skills. Students can dig deeper in what it means to be a reader—to simultaneously decode and comprehend. Students can retell stories or even write their own as the possibilities are truly endless. Who knows what journey where the next “Once Upon a Time” to “Happily Ever After” will take them! Bringing technology into the classroom is essential since this is the new format in which the next generation is learning to learn and grow. The possibilities are endless for reading, writing, math, science, music, art, and of course STEM. Please help us reach our fullest potential to create life-long learners and storytellers.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. P and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
