Opening the unused cart of new Mac laptops

This week I got permission from my main placement to both teach the math lesson AND "crack" open the dusty yet brand new mac laptops for the students to use. Since I use a mac myself, I was very comfortable in getting them out and setting them up for each of the 25 students. I was not even the least bot fearful to lead a lesson where 25 second graders were playing on laptops for the first time! It was an awesome experience! I was even able to teach the students how to use the laptops AND the lesson specifically. The kids loved me right away because I provided them with a much more engaging spelling lesson than they are used to. Plus, the students were actually learning. One student said to me "I am addicted. I am going to do this at home now too." Awesome!

So here is what I did: I observed a intermediate teacher work on this website called SpellingCity with his students and I decided this would be great for my second graders. The website allows a teacher, for free, to enter in and save all of his/her weekly spelling words. Students go to the site, from school or at home, search the teacher's name and find the appropriate spelling list for that week. Then, students are presented with numerous interactive games where students can practice their spelling words. Some of the games include a word search, crossword with vocabulary, match it sentences, hang mouse, and audio word match. There were three additional aspects of this type of "practice" lesson that I really appreciated. First, the games game immediate feedback about whether or not the students were choosing the right word or spelling it correctly. Often times in classrooms there are many areas where elementary students do not get feedback about how they are doing so they do not know if they need to change something they are doing. I really enjoyed this aspect. Second, I felt as though this lesson was differentiated. Students were allowed to select their own games to play; some games were much challenging than others. Students who I knew needed a greater challenge ended up on the more difficult games and vice versa. Lastly, I felt that a interactive lesson like this, one with instant verbal and visual directions, questions and feedback was more accessible to the ELL students in the class. These students were enjoying the lesson as much as the rest of the class and were actually helping explain how to play some games to other students in the class.

I loved this lesson involving technology and I am excited to use these computers on a more regular basis!