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	<title>Learning in Progress</title>
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	<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown</link>
	<description>Just another COETAIL site</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:50:16 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Course 5 Final Project</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/04/29/course-5-final-project/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/04/29/course-5-final-project/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:50:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Course 5]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/?p=111</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Well, it has all come to an end.  As much as I am excited about completing all five courses, I am sad to see this program come to an end as well.  The COETAIL Program has been nothing but a positive experience for me.  I really don&#8217;t think I would be where I am now with trying new teaching tools, if it weren&#8217;t for this program.  This program taught me so many things, but on the top of the list is &#8220;taking risks,&#8221; whether it be a risk that could lead to a potential success or  failure.  I&#8217;ve had both throughout this course, and either way, I learned so much from both.  Often times learning so much more from the failures than successes. As for my Course 5 Project&#8230;. I felt all the goals I set out to achieve during this project, I met (in my mind).  They didn&#8217;t always go as smoothly as planned, but with some tweaking and help from my IT Coach, I was able to achieve what I set out to accomplish, and better yet, my students were able to as well. The NET Standards this project included were: 1.  Use digital tools to create personal [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Final Days of My Course 5 Project</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/04/19/final-days-of-my-course-5-project/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/04/19/final-days-of-my-course-5-project/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2013 03:56:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Course 5]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/?p=108</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My Realistic Fiction Unit is coming to an end.  The students and I have been working on creating stories with a beginning that catches the reader&#8217;s attention, a middle where the problem is introduced, and an ending that involves the solution to the problem.  From the start, things have been going pretty smoothly.  As a class we did a lot of planning on paper before jumping to the technology part of our project.  As I mentioned in previous posts, I still feel at the young age of 7 or 8, the students need to start with the skills of organizing a story and writing their ideas down on paper. To skip this step would be, in my eyes, a mistake, which could slow down the students&#8217; productivity in the long run. As I started to move towards the technology piece of my unit, I started to really see how important the &#8220;planning on paper&#8221; part was.  The step to creating our final realistic fiction story on our iPads couldn&#8217;t have gone any smoother.  The students were prepared and knew exactly what they wanted for their story.  This included knowing which characters and background photos they wanted to take or draw [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Finding the Balance</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/04/01/finding-the-balance/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/04/01/finding-the-balance/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Apr 2013 01:48:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Course 5]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/?p=107</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My Course 5 project is coming together slowly, but surely.  I am working on redefining a Realistic Fiction writing unit with my second grade students.  I have changed my mind twice now on how I would like the students to create their end project.  What I am finding is that I still need my students to plan and create some (not all) of their ideas using pencil and paper.  The planning is in preparation for my students  to create a Realistic Fiction story using the App Puppet Pals (originally it was going to be BookCreator).  The one thing I am worried about is that the end product will fall short of the redefinition mark.  I guess my question is, how much planning on paper is too much before the task becomes stuck in the substitution, augmentation or modification stage? When I look into the future, my hopes for my students at the end of this unit are: 1) To create a Realistic Fiction Story with a beginning, middle and end. 2) Story should contain a realistic problem and solution 3) Take photos for their backgrounds to their story using the iPad 4) Record themselves telling their story while moving their [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>My second graders are blogging???</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/03/22/my-second-graders-are-blogging/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/03/22/my-second-graders-are-blogging/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:17:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Course 5]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/?p=106</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As I start to write this post, I feel my fingers can&#8217;t type fast enough to balance the excitement I&#8217;m having over my second graders blogging.  Yes, it is all starting today and my students and I are very excited.  We are using KidBlog, a very teacher and kid-friendly way to blog.  We started by watching a fun video explaining what a blog is and how it works.  I used brainpopjr.com as my source for finding a video that was a good fit for my second graders. One reason I chose to do this with my class was because during parent meetings and conferences, I was often told by parents that their child doesn&#8217;t communicate with them about what they are doing in school.  They often get the response, &#8220;We didn&#8217;t do anything in school today.&#8221;  Well, we all know that&#8217;s not true.  I started to think about other ways to get this information across to parents, other than me sending home a weekly or monthly newsletter about our classroom activities.  Why not try blogging?  I use my COETAIL blog to inform others about what I am working on as a teacher, so why not turn it over to the [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Experimenting</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/03/05/experimenting/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/03/05/experimenting/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2013 02:44:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Course 5]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/?p=104</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After attending a fabulous iPad conference (Transforming Learning with the iPad) a couple of weekends ago, I couldn&#8217;t wait to get back to my classroom and try some of the new ideas I saw along the way.  I knew there was no way I could try all 10 ideas that I had written under my  &#8221;Must Try This&#8221; list, so I decided to started small and pick two that I felt were really doable at this time in the year.  Unfortunately, the two that I chose don&#8217;t go along with my Course 5 Project (at least at the moment they don&#8217;t), but I thought what the heck, the ideas are fresh in my mind so I am going to go for it. One idea I am &#8220;playing around&#8221; with is using Aurasma for my upcoming parent conferences.  We are just finishing a fluency unit and I will be discussing the students progress with the parents.  This can be a difficult area to describe to parents.  I have recorded students&#8217; reading before, which was helpful, but just not enough of what I was looking for.  One of the workshops at the iPad conference demonstrated how to incorporate Aurasma into your classroom&#8230;the ways [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Course 5 Project Check-in</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/02/20/course-5-project-check-in/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/02/20/course-5-project-check-in/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 2013 01:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Course 5]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/?p=101</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As much as I like to get things completed as soon as I can, my Course 5 project is on the back burner until I complete two units I am currently teaching. My original idea was to have my students complete a Green Screen Storytelling using their personal narratives, but unfortunately I am unable to do this using the iPads.  As we all know as teachers, things like this happen and you have to start over or try something different. So&#8230;after collaborating with my IT Coach, we came up with some new ideas that would get me to the goal of redefining an upcoming unit. Option 1:  Students would create eBooks.  I have a realistic fiction unit coming up and I was thinking of using the App Book Creator to create eBooks, which the students could then share to a variety of audiences within our school and with other classrooms around the world.  I was also hoping to find a classroom, via ePals, that was completing a similar project, and we could share our writing throughout the process and swap feedback about our stories.  The eBooks would contain a variety of media, which they couldn&#8217;t use or have in their [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2013/02/20/course-5-project-check-in/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Course 4 Final Project:  Undecided</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/12/03/course-4-final-project-undecided/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/12/03/course-4-final-project-undecided/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Dec 2012 02:37:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Course 4]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.asia/jbrown/?p=98</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As I start to think about my Course 5 Project, Redesigning a Unit, I am torn between two units: 1) Personal Narrative Writing Unit and 2) Social Studies Unit involving a mapping component.  The latter is a brand new unit that we are developing and creating this year, and the Personal Narrative Unit is one that I have taught the last 7 years. The Personal Narrative Unit involves the students focusing on a small moment in his/her life and creating a personal writing piece that describes this moment to his/her audience&#8230;giving them the feeling that they are &#8220;in the moment&#8221;.  I was thinking about redoing the Personal Narrative Unit and using the Green Screen Storytelling idea that Jason Ohler describes on his website and which he recently shared at a workshop I attended at my school.  I am really excited about trying this and I have been looking for a new way for the students to create personal narratives, but at this point in time what I have tried has fallen under replacing what they are doing with pencil and paper with something very similar on the computers&#8230;.using Word. The second unit I would like to redo, or actually more like create, [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/12/03/course-4-final-project-undecided/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Managing my 11 iPads</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/11/27/managing-my-11-ipads/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/11/27/managing-my-11-ipads/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Nov 2012 02:39:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Course 4]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.asia/jbrown/?p=94</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m lucky to have 11 iPads and 4 desktop computers in my classroom at the moment, and I have to be honest the use of my desktop computers has almost become obsolete due to the iPads.  Having only 11 iPads in the classroom my managing system is pretty simple at the moment. At this point in time, when I do think about managing them I think more about having some type of organizational system rather than managing my second graders&#8217; behavior. Let me explain. Having only 11 iPads leads to a lot of sharing and working with partners, so my second grade team developed a very simple way to keep track of who is using which iPad.  I  have each iPad labeled with a number and 2Br (the 2 meaning second grade and the Br meaning Brown, my last name).  I also have a green colored dot on each iPad.   All my iPads have these three labels and the other second grade classrooms have the same, but they have different colored dots on each of their iPads.  This is to help keep the iPads separated into class sets because there are times when you need a whole class set and you borrow from [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/11/27/managing-my-11-ipads/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Let&#8217;s AMP-up Student Motivation</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/11/21/lets-amp-up-student-motivation/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/11/21/lets-amp-up-student-motivation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Nov 2012 09:05:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.asia/jbrown/?p=93</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After watching Dan Pink&#8217;s video on &#8220;Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us&#8221; I recalled giving one of my first assignments to my students as a first year teacher.  I was excited and I was hoping the kids would be just as excited, but the response I received from many of them was &#8220;What do I get if&#8230;.?&#8221;  My students wanted to know how much they had to do to get an A or more like how little they had to do to get an A.  They also wanted to know if they did more what would they get in return.  I remember falling into some type of panic mode and blurting out different incentives to the students to satisfy their obsession with quantity of work rather than quality. Now this happened about 17 years ago, and  over the years I have seen a shift or should I say a change in the way students are approaching assignments.  Is this because the use of technology and the access to a variety of tools has changed as well ?  There&#8217;s no doubt that this is part of the reason.   I also feel another BIG reason is students&#8217; motivation is changing. [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Application instead of Apps</title>
		<link>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/11/20/application-instead-of-apps/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coetail.com/jbrown/2012/11/20/application-instead-of-apps/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Nov 2012 03:45:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jennifer Brown</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Course 4]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coetail.asia/jbrown/?p=91</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With the new addition of 11 iPads this year, the conversations I am having with my team seem to be structured around what Apps should we buy and what App would work best with a particular subject area.  Even though I have enjoyed these conversations, I wonder&#8230;.are we missing the point of having these 11 iPads at our fingertips?  The article &#8220;What Difference Might One S make?&#8221; identifies how concentrating on certain software tools for a few weeks at a time and then moving onto a new one after that isn&#8217;t the best approach.  Instead, the better approach would be to structure conversations around computer application&#8230;.how computers can be used to solve problems and accomplish goals, projects, etc. Personally, I know I haven&#8217;t been taking the latter approach.  Instead, I have been spending time looking for Apps specifically designed for projects I would like my students to accomplish.  If I can&#8217;t find the appropriate App, then I either keep looking or tweak the task to fit the App.  I would love to try to give the task or goal to my students and allow them to find a way to accomplish it by using technology.  I know this would include some guidance [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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