Ms. O'Connor's class

Educational Technology Research Media used by kids 0-8 I explored the article from the Common sense census: Media used by kids age zero to eight.  This article tracked the use of media in kids from birth to eight years old in the United States. The data collected covers the frequency, the context, content, parents attitude, and parent experiences. I found a few of the key findings very interesting. The first key finding from this article was that on average, children (0-8) use about two and a half hours of screen time a day. When breaking that screen time down, majority of children (73%) were spending most of their time watching tv or videos. 16% of children were spending their screen time on games. Very little time was being spent reading (3%), doing homework (1%), and video chatting (1%). When looking at the data by age, children under two averaged about 49 minutes a day, children ages 2-4 averaged 2 and a half hours a day, and children 5-8 averaged about 3 hours and 5 minutes a ...

 Active Learning What is active learning? Active learning is an interactive way to teach your students. When students are active in their learning they are engaged and interested in the topic that is being taught. I know when I was a student (still am) but having a teacher just reading from a powerpoint makes learning hard. A lot of students do better and are actually interested in learning when it is fun. Not all students learn the same way. Some students may like being taught by learning from a powerpoint, but for other students that doesn't work. Being flexible with your teaching is important because as a teacher I want to support my students, whatever way that is, for them to learn.  For this assignment I explored the QR code mystery example . I thought this was a great idea and such a fun activity. For black history month, the teacher printed out famous quotes from African Americans and left out a mystery word from each quote. The teacher also put QR codes around the room...

Digital Mapping Image source: The regulatory review This week I got to take a look at my digital map. A digital map is looking over your internet connections or applications and reviewing how much you use them and for what. You can use the internet for both personal reasons and professional reasons. There are two terms that are being used on the map, these are visitor and resident. According to David White and his article , these two terms describe how you are using the internet and how much. A visitor is when the user is going online for something and not having any interaction or leaving any social trace behind. A resident is when someone is using the internet to connect and communicate with other people.  My Digital map When I first thought about my digital map I thought that it was going to be mainly personal and fall under resident. Majority of the apps that I have on my phone are for social media. Once I'm home from work, done with coaching, and have done any homework I ...

 Creativity Seesaw Image source: Seesaw When I was reading the 9 topics in The Hottest Topics in Ed Tech in 2021  and I read over creativity, I immediately thought about Seesaw . Seesaw is a platform that promotes student learning through engagement by using creativity. Students can complete an assignment by using one of the many tools. Students can use pictures, videos, voice recordings, text boxes, drawing tools, etc. The teacher can create their own activities or pick from the activity library of thousands of already made activities. The instructions for each activity are right on the screen and the teacher can also record the directions using the voice recording. Seesaw can also be used for communication with students or families. Seesaw can be accessible by using an iPad, smart phone, or a computer. I thought about seesaw when reading about the creativity part of the article because it allows students to demonstrate they know material by using different tools to respond. ...

  Gif source: Giphy When I started reading through this weeks assignment and read that I would have to look at frameworks and evaluate myself I quickly began to feel overwhelmed. While taking many classes I have found that I had to find a way to adapt the content or evaluations that I was learning to apply it to an early childhood classroom for my assignment. I had found that early childhood rarely was on any rubric, which meant I would have to stretch and accommodate myself to complete an assignment. At first, I thought that's what this was going to be like. I told myself that it would be fine because teaching preschool special education is all about being accommodating and flexible, so I can do it here too. However, I found this not true for these frameworks. Instead I found that I could have used more than one.  What is TPack? The framework that I thought best fit my blended 3 year old classroom was the  Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge ( TPack) . TPack ...

Teaching Image Source: Personal Photo      My name is Cait O'Connor. I am a preschool special education teacher in Chicago Public Schools. I am going into my third year of teaching. I teach in a 3 year old blended classroom. I have a wonderful team that I work with everyday. My co-teacher, my special education classroom assistant (SECA) and I work extremely well together, which makes all the difference in the world.  I graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 2019 and shortly after student teaching I started my ESL endorsement. Now I am currently finishing up my Masters. The first 2 years of my teaching career has not gone like how I pictured it. I would have never expected to have to teach through a pandemic. Before Covid-19, I student taught from August of 2019- early December of 2019, and I got hired 3 days after I finished student teaching. I started teaching right after Christmas break. This means I only had about 2 1/2 months of a normal school y...