Stephanie Feeman Education 776 Blog

Hello Everyone! photo courtesy of S. Feeman My name is Stephanie Feeman and I am a third grade teacher in a rural, yet incredibly diverse, elementary school in Southern Illinois. This is my final class at Dominican University to receive my Masters in Education and I am so incredibly excited to learn this semester. I earn my undergraduate degree from Southern Illinois University with a specialization in English and Middle School. I currently teach third grade and coach Jr. High Girls' Basketball, Go Trojan! Professionally, I am the general education teacher in a 3rd grade co-teaching classroom. We believe in teaching our students in a way that best suites their learning styles. Last year, we transformed our classroom into a flexible seating classroom and have seen great success with it.  My first profile picture is from my Instagram page. I really enjoy traveling and try to document my travels and adventures on my Instagram page. The picture at the top shows me hiking Ca...

How has the process been? To be completely honest, this whole process has been a little overwhelming. I have truly enjoyed having the opportunity to go through this process, but I never could've imagined how much actual time and work it takes to get one of these plans off the ground. I was appreciative for the different steps and outlines. As I recently found about my learning style, I learn best when things are outlined for me with very clear steps to follow. That made this huge project a little bit less intimidating. I learned a lot about the process of getting a new technology system going in a public school. It was also really interesting to see what kinds of ideas other teachers around the state had that they thought would benefit their school.  Have there been challenges? Time has been a major challenge. As I said above, I never thought it would take as long as it did to find information about this particular project. I al...

How has the process been? Overall, this process has been challenging yet rewarding. I feel like this is something that will help me in my career and could possibly lead to a successful implementation  of new technology in the classroom. It has been challenging, but by taking it step by step I do not feel to overwhelmed. Have there been challenges? Are you still excited about your topic and believe in its potential? I am still incredibly excited about my topic. I think that I am more excited then I was when I started. After doing research this project seems more doable then before. I have read testimonials during this experience of how beneficial Chromebooks are in the classroom and I know how successful they could be in my classroom if this proposal follows through! What has been the most positive aspect of this part of the journey? The most positive aspect of this journey is taking the time to figure out the details of large projects like this. They organization of this jo...

Getting Started with Snapchat in Your Classroom Okay, so I read the title of this article and was like "No way, no how!" My students are third graders so I don't often have problems with them being on their phones, but I also coach Jr. High Girls' Basketball and it is like pulling teeth to get these girls off of their phones. They are always on Snapchat sending weird pictures and silly things to their friends, and their friends are usually in the same room. I use Snapchat as well and I do exactly the same thing. When I think of Snapchat, the last place I think of it is in the classroom. I use it as a mindless way to de-stress after a long day of work. However, then I read the article, and the same juices that start to flow when I get lesson ideas in my mind began to flow again. There are so many ways that Snapchat can actually be used effectively in the classroom. This was something that I never would've believed, had I not read how successful it has been show...

photo courtesy of learninginhand.com As I look back on the last eight weeks of this class, I feel like I can totally rearrange the way I teach in my classroom. Before this class, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on how to use technology in the classroom and what kind of resources I had available to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much was out there that I didn't know about. This class allowed me to explore different resources I had never heard of, resources I had heard of but didn't have time to explore, and old resources that had been reborn.  Technology is incredibly important in a 21st Century Classroom. Students in classrooms today have grown up with technology as a 6th sense. Traditional classroom strategies have become outdated and unnecessary. I took this class because I felt that I could learn something about how to use technology in my classroom differently. I had some resources that I used in the classroom that were effective, but the internet is so big...

Photo courtesy of Internet Identity Workshop I think it is also interesting to see what others can see when searching for me. I was watching a movie once where a character asked another, "Did you Google yourself?" I never knew this, but apparently it is a new trend to search yourself online and see what your web presence is like. I fell into the social hole, and "googled myself." As you have found out over these last few weeks, I am a pretty private person and don't like to have a lot of my information out in the open for all to see and judge. I am also a teacher and coach, and I know all of my students and basketball players are able to google search me and find out certain things. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my web presence is pretty minimal. I know that as educators in the 21st century we should have a web presence that reflects our classroom and makes it easy for community members to get in touch or get to know me. I am working on my pr...

This week I created a tutorial on how to use nearpod. This is a new web tool 2.0 that I came across recently. My dad actually introduced it to me months ago but I hadn't found the time to explore it until taking Education 776. This is actually one of the best resources I have found on the internet to use in the classroom. Nearpod is an interactive lesson that is done all online. Students using 1-1 devices participate in the lesson and explore from their seats as you explore from the board. The website allows you to create your own lesson or use one of the thousand different lessons in the Nearpod library. While I was getting to know this tool, I was amazed by how many different FREE lessons are available to use in the classroom. The library allows you to search by grade level, standard, subject, or type of activity. As a really busy teacher, I love that they give me ready to use lessons instead of just the option to create my own lesson. Lessons are interactive and encoura...