Integrating Technology in the First Grade Classroom

The integration of technology into the classroom helps to create a meaningful and exciting 21st century learning environment for the students. When teachers use technology in their teaching, they are providing students with an opportunity to connect with the world around them. In this classroom, the teachers become facilitators of learning and the students are invited to take on a more active role in their education.

Children in today's world are accustomed to a more fast paced and technological world. By providing them with an education that takes advantage of new technology, they are put into a learning environment that is most meaningful and relevant to their own lives. There are many great programs and resources that can be used in the classroom to enhance the educational experience for both teachers and students.


Some great programs and resources include:
- Edmodo
- Glogster
- Pixton
- Classpress (or another student-friendly blogging site)
- Activinspire
- Animoto
- PBS Teachers

When presented with activities such as these, students are more engaged and motivated in the school setting. With activities such as these that are more relevant to students, they are more willing to participate because they can relate new information in a way that is familiar and enjoyable to them (instead of simply following a text book or completing worksheets).

While the integration of technology encourages students to be more engaged and excited about their learning, it also encourages them to think at a higher level than they might normally. In many cases, the students are involved with using technology to apply their knowledge in a creative or new way. This encourages students to think in innovative ways in order to fully demonstrate their knowledge instead of simply filling out a sheet of paper. While this is more enjoyable for students, it also ultimately asks students to demonstrate a higher level of thinking and comprehension.

What ways can technology be used in the classroom?
As the teacher, technology can be used as a more effective and engaging way to present information and content to students. This can be done through the use of virtual field trips, webquests, Glogsters, Activinspire, a class wiki and videos.

This provides a change from simply giving students information in the form of a textbook or lecture. Students can use technology to produce final products (individually or in small groups) that demonstrate their learning. This may be in the form of videos, blogs, Glogsters, etc. The class can also create projects that bring together every students' progress into one final end result (making class videos, updating class blogs, creating class books, updating a class wiki. The use of this technology in the classroom can also be a great way to maintain communication with families and keep parents involved with that is happening in the classroom.

Integrating Technology With First Graders
For my first grade classroom, I created a social studies unit on citizenship that integrates technology throughout the various lesson plans. In order to do this, I used a variety of programs and activities that utilize technology.

Ways that technology was integrated within the unit:

Glogster:
I created a Glogster on Rights and Responsibilities. This allowed students to get the idea of "researching" information in a format that is simplified and easy to use for first graders.

Pixton Comic:
When introducing the concept of the qualities of a good citizen, I created a Qualities of a Good Citizen Comic that showed examples of a student being a good citizen in their community. The students were then able to create their own comic square depicting themselves being a good citizen. This was not only an interesting way to present new information, but a great new way for students to express their thoughts.

Animoto:
During an introduction to leadership, students created an Animoto video in order to compile (and compare) their favorite superheroes to our "real-life" heroes (police officers, doctors, teachers, firefighters, etc). This is a fun and different way to brainstorm and collect information to make connections.

Virtual Field Trip:
In order to learn about leaders in the community, the students had the opportunity to take a virtual field trip to identify and visit leaders in our homes, schools, classrooms and community.

Blogs:
Students had the opportunity to Blog about their experiences twice in this unit. In one activity, students worked in small groups to act as leaders and solve a hypothetical problem they might encounter in their classroom. Once they reached a

reasonable solution to the problem, they blogged about it to others. In another activity, students engaged in a simple volunteer project around their school and used a simple blog to tell others about what they were doing. This is a great way to get students to write about something that is meaningful to them and learn the importance of communicating their ideas to others.

E-Book:
I created an E-Book for students about School rules, and what would happen if we did not have rules in our classroom. The E-Book incorporates audio to support students who need extra help with reading.

All of these ideas are great ways to use technology to get kids more involved with their learning. I will continue to use ideas such as these when planning instruction for the classroom. While first graders may need a little support when learning how to use the technology, the benefits for both teachers and students make it worthwhile.

PBS Teachers in the First Grade Classroom

PBS Teachers is a great resource for teachers to use in and out of the classroom. This site is an appropriate, reliable

and easy to use option for classroom teachers. It provides countless resources to use with students including lesson plans, videos and interactive games.

The very top of the PBS Teachers homepage provides a breakdown of grade levels (PreK, K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12) in order to help narrow the search of resources that will be most helpful to your specific grade level needs. By grade, the site further divides your search by subject. The subjects included are:

- The Arts
- Health and Fitness
- Math

- Reading & Language Arts
- Science & Technology
- Social Studies

Clicking on any one of these subject areas will bring you to a wealth of great resources that can be used in your classroom. To get even more specific within your grade and subject area, you can even select to filter these search results by topic.

Not only does PBS teachers provide teachers with great classroom resources, but it also provides opportunities to talk to other teachers and and continue learning through professional development opportunities.

PBS Teachers homepage includes:

Featured Classroom Resources
This section on the homepage provides teachers with top stories and resources that may be helpful. This includes videos, lesson ideas and helpful articles.

Teacher Discussions
PBS teachers allows members of the sites to post on specific topics (almost like a small blog entry) that can be viewed and shared with members of the sites. Members can post back and forth on the discussion posts in order to keep up on certain concepts or ideas for the classroom. This is a great and easy way to allow teachers to collaborate and communicate ideas with each other.

Professional Development
PBS teachers provides great opportunities for professional development. These are continuing education courses on specific subjects, strategies and technologies that help teachers to stay current and updated on their information.

In addition to these great resources, the homepage also offers PBS kids in the classroom (which provides information on education PBS shows for kids that may be used in the classroom), PBS teacher blogs, Webinar Archive, PBS News and Activity Packs.

In the first grade classroom...
One way that I will use PBS Teachers in my first grade classroom is for planning instruction related to my social studies unit on Citizenship. This site makes it easy by allowing me to select K-2 social studies and specifying the topic Civics:
Community and Citizenship. I was able to find many resources that will prove

extremely helpful. It is easy to mark and save the most useful resources by clicking on "Save Resource." This makes it extremely convenient and easy to come back to in the future. I will be able to use Neighborhood Helpers when talking to my students about important jobs in our community. My students can also use this activity to build a neighborhood in order to practice identifying the main components of a functioning community. This will be a fun way for my students to use technology when practicing the required social studies content.

PBS Teachers is a great resource that makes it easy for teachers to collaborate and find fun activities to use in the classroom.

Good Citizen Comic

Listen to the comic below to see how Eddie was a good citizen. Then think of ways you can be a good citizen in your own community. Use the second comic box to write a sentence and draw a picture of how you can be a good citizen too.

Formative Assessment in First Grade

What is Formative Assessment? 

Formative Assessment is a vital part of successful teaching, and should be practiced continually throughout the learning process. This type of assessment is key in helping students to achieve their highest potential in the classroom.

Formative assessment is different from a summative assessment- some form of a test at the end of a unit or lesson; an assessment that is given a grade to determine how well the student learned the material after the content has been completely taught. Instead of occurring at the end of all instruction, formative assessment takes place during teaching, and continues throughout the entire learning process. Traditionally, these assessments aren't given a grade; they are instead used by teachers so they are more aware of how to approach future instruction with students on the subject.

Benefits of Formative Assessments

• Gives the teacher insight on student needs, and provides the opportunity to adapt their teaching in order to best meet the unique needs of the students
• Allows the chance for reteaching throughout the learning process 
• Gives the teacher a concept of where every student stands with their current knowledge (and of what each student still needs to know during the unit or lesson)
• Allows the teacher (and students) to determine a set goal for learning and decide how to best reach that goal
• Helps the teacher to know what level of instruction to begin with the next time the material is presented to the students
• Gives teacher the opportunity to make necessary changes and differentiate instruction appropriately for the students to be successful
•  Provides students with multiple opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge as they learn new things 
• Provides the teacher with insight on how to appropriately group students for cooperative learning activities
• Allows the teacher to adjust instruction in order to effectively provide for different student needs

By utilizing formative assessments in your teaching, you are enhancing both instruction and student learning. These assessments aren't solely for the use of the educator or the student. They provide vital information and feedback to everyone involved in the learning process and greatly improve the atmosphere of the classroom and the overall student achievement.

Types of Formative Assessment

Formative assessment does not (and should not) take the same form every time. It is beneficial to both the teacher and the students to use a variety of types of assessments throughout teaching and learning. There are many ways that formative assessment can be implemented in order to give the teacher the most information possible, and to give students the greatest number of opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge.

•  Use individual, partner, small group and whole group activities in order to assess students (this will provide and overall concept of how the class is doing, as well as an individual look at student progress)
• Students can discuss and share their thinking with others in the class in order to form a deeper understanding of concepts taught (such as a think-pair-share)
• Students should summarize main ideas within the unit or lesson, and reflect upon learning (in order to best make sense of what they know)
• Use writing assignments in order to cover specific questions or topics (allow students to use pictures along with words)
• Provide vocabulary and main concepts on a topic both before and after the teaching and learning occurs (to determine how much learning has taken place, and how much still needs to be improved on)
• Conference with students on an individual basis to discuss progress and establish future goals for learning
• Have students use lists, charts or diagrams to organize the information that they know
• Use cooperative learning activities so that students have the opportunity to work with other students and build an even further understanding of concepts

In the first grade classroom...

Formative assessment should be used in every grade level to enhance the teaching and learning that takes place in the classroom. Even in first grade, formative assessment can be used in many different ways to benefit the teacher and students. At an age where so much rapid growth and change can occur, formative assessment can be key in keeping up with the ever-changing abilities of students. In first grade classrooms many students are beginning to have a stronger concept of literacy and are rapidly growing into readers. Individualized formative assessments (such as a reading conference between the student and the teacher) should be used in order to determine the individual reading abilities of each student. If the teacher regularly holds reading conferences with students, they will be able to keep up with the unique needs of every learner, and set goals for reading throughout the year. This will make the teacher more aware of which types of materials to use with their students for lessons and assignments.

Although first grade students are young, it is still extremely important to utilize cooperative learning and small group assignments within the classroom.  If the teacher uses information gathered from other formative assessments to properly group students into cooperative learning groups, students will not only learn how to work with others early on, but they will be able to support each others learning.
In the first grade classroom, you can also have students reflect on their learning by writing a small summary of what they have learned or somehow relating the information to themselves. This accomplishes several important goals at once- gives the teacher an idea of what information has been learned, teaches the student to summarize and reflect on their own learning, and helps to develop early writing skills.

Formative assessment is a valuable tool in the classroom. It is an ongoing process that will help to guide the learning process and future instruction.